Visions and Revelation Knowledge of Benny Hinn

In a typical visit to the Praise the Lord program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), pastor and faith-healer, Benny Hinn, related a series of strange occurrences to which he credited the Holy Spirit that aired on TBN February 11, 1992.

Hinn is such a popular guest on the Praise the Lord program that TBN has had to stop announcing his visits in advance because the studio cannot contain all the people who come out to the tapings. (An explanation for such a phenomenon can be found in 2 Timothy 4:3-4.)

On the show, host Paul Crouch set the course by asking Benny to relate some of his supernatural experiences. "Late at night, two or three in the morning… many times I would feel someone almost wake me up… I would literally see forms of angels appear in my bedroom… I saw them in different shapes… I actually saw little ones about the size of little boys," Hinn said in a hushed tone.

"One afternoon," he continued, "I saw a man in my bedroom… he was wrapped in fire… He was standing about this high off the floor [motions about one foot up with hand]. His feet never touch the floor, he was wrapped in fire. I screamed, Paul, screamed loud, visibly screamed."

"I don’t blame you!" whispered Paul. Hinn continued to explain in graphic detail how the man on fire tried to beat the flames away. The whole time Benny was terrified. When Benny asked God why, an audible voice came back saying, "Preach the Gospel!"

Later that same night, Benny had a visitor come into his bedroom and while Benny fell deep into a trance, the being (described as blonde-haired, wearing a thick belt and holding a chain in his hand) grabbed Benny by the arm and said, "come with me." "He never said anything else, but ‘come with me,’" Hinn said. Then the angel opened a massive door with the chain attached to the heavens that revealed a multitude of people moving toward a deep valley, pushing each other forward. Those in the front of the line were being shoved into a valley of liquid fire.

"And the angel said to me, ‘if you don’t preach God will count you responsible,’" Hinn said, adding that, "when the Holy Spirit shows up supernatural things happen."

Other highlights of the program included Benny defending blowing on people in his services. [Hinn practices this twist for slaying people in the spirit – a questionable custom used by faith healers usually with the laying on of hands.] "But Jesus put mud on that fellow’s eyes once… He spit on a guy’s tongue once," Hinn said in his defense.

"[Jesus] breathed upon them and said receive thee the Holy Spirit," Crouch added. "But you know they’ll always be somebody who has to criticize."

What they don’t seem to understand, however, is that Jesus is God and the giver of the Holy Spirit. He is also our Creator who made us from the clay of the earth, and so demonstrated that fact by making the clay with His spit. How can Benny attribute such power to himself? To do so is nothing short of blasphemy!

Hinn also explained why he has to have "catchers" stand behind the people who fall at his services. "The reason we have catchers is not for those who fall," said Hinn, "it’s for those who don’t fall… You see some think they have to fall to get it so they fall and they can hurt themselves."

"If they’re doing it in the flesh," said Crouch. "Some people just keel themselves over, don’t they?"

[No doubt this conversation was for the benefit of those who’ve read in the newspapers how Benny was sued for the death of a woman in one of his services when someone fell on her "under the power." Her injury resulted in death.]

The next segment of the show was dedicated to denouncing the news media for exposing televangelists. Crouch referred to Prime Time as "Slime Time," calling their expose "persecution." He directed threats against reporter Diane Sawyer.

"It isn’t just the world," said Hinn. "It’s also these Pharisees on the side who are helping the world."

"I call them heretic hunters," Crouch seethed. "Those that kill you some day will think they have done a service!"

Hinn’s wife, Suzanne, then came onto the set. She related an unsubstantiated story about Pastor Tommy Reid who, while preaching in the Philippines, was bothered by a heckler in the audience who was saying this was not of the Lord. When a sick man was healed in the service, the heckler became stricken with the same disease the man was healed of.

"Some of these people better watch out," warned Suzanne, "because the fear of God is gonna come down on the body of Christ and some of these people are going to come down with the same things they’ve been talking about."

This kind of fear, however, is not the kind of fear of the Lord that the Bible speaks of. The kind of fear the Hinns and Crouches are trying to lay upon Christians is that God will strike dead anyone who questions them and their odd practices. This dishonors God and misrepresents His nature. This false teaching is, however, expedient to those who are bringing leaven into the church. That’s in sharp contrast to the biblical promise that "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7).

The program was topped off with a defense of the Catholic doctrine of "Transubstantiation" – the belief that the communion wafer and wine become the literal flesh, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Hinn related a story of how he was visiting a Catholic convent and a nun invited him to visit her chapel where she had a tabernacle holding the communion elements (Eucharist). She knelt down and began to pray and Hinn, reluctant at first, joined her only to find that the anointing he was so familiar with was present in the room.

Hinn said that God told him that it’s a matter of faith, not doctrine. God said, "To her I’m in the elements, to you I’m in the room, but to Me I’m still here."

"In other words," Hinn said, "according to your faith be it done unto you… You know what I think? I don’t think He cares!"

"He’s in both!" Crouch said. "He’s in everything… But see the heretic hunters get in there and we argue over the doctrine of transubstantiation and all over this garbage… The letter kills!"

"It’s faith that matters," Hinn pontificated. "I think what He did is… He took his flesh in a sense, and turned it into bread which is the most common food… So He made his body become bread," surmised Crouch.

"But, Paul, when we take this bread we are eating the body of Jesus," Benny reiterated. "Yes," whispered Crouch.

This off-the-cuff theology denies the very core of the Reformation and tramples the blood of the reformers who died denying this false doctrine.

The irony is that Crouch, who boasts that he is a direct descendant of the reformer, Huldreich Zwingli, would today brand Zwingli a "heresy hunter" if he were alive today. Zwingli emphasized the biblical teaching that the Lord’s supper was memorial in its character, and denied the bodily presence of Christ in the elements.