The ‘Toronto Blessing’ (now called ‘Catch the Fire Toronto’) began in January 1994 and its fallout has been continuously poisoning the church for a dozen years now, even having invaded once solid evangelical organizations. The Toronto Blessing had roots in the earlier Latter Rain movement and was denounced by the Assemblies of God in 1949. Nevertheless, it still gets very favorable press in Charismatic circles and publications, most notably Charisma Magazine.
At the same time, those with sound biblical discernment skills can easily see it for what it is – heretical poison. Recently, Chris Rosebrough devoted a Pirate Christian Radio segment to the movement, using a teaching by Alan Morrison from 1994. You can listen to it here, or you can watch the YouTube here. The presentation discusses the roots of the movement, it’s main personalities, and its purposes.
This post summaries the purposes of Toronto Blessing, both Satan’s and God’s, as presented in Alan Morrison’s presentation:
Satan’s Purposes:
1. Destroy the authority of scripture.
· Making it subordinate to personal revelation(s).
· Making it subordinate to human personal/subjective experience(s).
· Twisting it (scripture) to justify unbiblical ideas. (Psalm 23-he makes me lie down) Decide what you want to believe and find a ‘proof’ text.
2. Stop Christians using their minds. Like the New Age movement.
- Through the suppression of discernment
- By eradicating the centrality of doctrine in the Christian life. (Relationship with Jesus is more important than doctrine.)
3. Destroy the work of Biblical evangelism.
- By stopping the mouths of preachers of God’s word.
- By removing the heart from out of the gospel (Christ died for our sins).
4. Intimidate Christians into surrendering to Satan.
- Death to those who resist the ‘new’ move of the Spirit. (Benny Hinn, William Branham, Paul Crouch)
5. Seduce Christians into believing there is some ‘higher’ form of salvation that they should seek. Faith is not enough – there’s MORE!.
6. Make believers confuse pietism (experience of divine presence, etc.) with true spirituality.
7. To bring an occult initiation into the heart of the church. Initiation into all the forces of the New Age.
8. Prepare Christians for the coming great deception (Benjamin Crème and The New Age)
God’s Purposes:
1. Drive his true people to run to him alone for comfort and salvation – to become serious students of the Word.
2. Sift the churches – separating the true church from false churches, denominations and movements.
I highly recommend watching the YouTube, which is rather long, to get a real appreciation for the seriousness of the poison that has invaded the church. Chris Rosebrough’s audio doesn’t really do the presentation justice.
I also pray that current Charismatics would either listen to or watch the presentation. It very well could be a giant wake up call for those deceived into thinking Toronto was a genuine move of the Holy Spirit when it was not.
The Battle Cry 
It is false fire indeed, Dan.
Here is one of the wolves in this movement. Anyone who has read the history of the Toronto blessing with any kind of discernment from the real Holy Spirit knows its roots and its consequences. The movement continues with new names but the same heresies. This is one of the “anointed” leaders of the movement. Few knew of Todd Bentley until 2008. Many saw the Lakeland Revival (Florida) to be a continuation of the Toronto blessing. Bentley was the main show at Lakeland. He can do no wrong according to his followers.
Todd Bentley’s Website:
http://www.freshfireusa.com/
Under “events” there I found:
“Todd Bentley will be at Glory Awakening Canada July 19-24
“Partnering in Revival with….
“Fresh Oil and Fire ministries
with Pastors Peter and Cathryn Nash
“The River International Church
with Pastors Joe and Bella Garcia
“Watch LIVE nightly at 7pm EST on http://www.freshfireusa.com”
This guy is booked until December when he will be taking a trip to the Holy Land.
I don’t plan on watching any of this “revival” as it will probably look exactly like the YouTube video above.
Maybe Todd won’t think his current wife is good enough after this revival and treat her just like the wife he had in 2008. After the “famed” Lakeland revival, Mr. Bentley divorced his wife to marry one of his “ministry interns.” Maybe he will divorce his relatively new wife and find someone more “holy” after each revival. If this happens, will he again be reprimanded (?) and find himself very soon back in the healing saddle in front of thousands, or will he fade into the background to “allow” some new “evangelist” to take his place?
I am saddened as I read the “statement of faith” on this man’s website. Much of it looks like a very good statement but then there is the reality (and the unmentioned false teaching) that goes along with it.
The best counterfeit is the closest thing to the original. The statement of faith may may look OK, but the reality is completely the opposite; it is twisted and false teaching.
Alan Morrison’s presentation is right on.
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I remember Lakeland and T.B. I also remember some professing believers who questioned my questioning it..
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Ouch! Good that you questioned it. Bad that they questioned you.
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Thanks, Dan! This is important. Real people are being deceived and injured and need us to be informed and helpful.
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There’s a second part by Alan Morrison and I’ll post that link also. There is other video at YouTube that exposes Toronto and its roots. I knew a lot about it, but not the Kenneth Hagin / Kenneth Hagin / Benny Hinn / Rodney Howard Browne. Some believe Tononto, and some follow on events, were true revival. Much of that is because of some of the music that elicited a lot of spiritual feelings. I have some of the music and still like certain songs.
Many proponents of Toronto believe it was some kind of spontaneous event, but it was not. Vineyard churches severed ties with the Toronto Church in 1996. Some of the harshest criticism of T.B. Has been from other Pentecostals. I find that interesting, although in my opinion there is much that is wrong with Pentecostalism, beginning with Azuza street. I used to be Pentecostal, but reading the Bible changed that. Just reading the Bible again for myself.
I had read the Bible as an advanced English project as a senior in High School, but set aside for almost ten years. Reading it again really opened my spiritual eyes.
Have a great day!
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thank you, brother, for this post and comments! you have a good day too.
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I said I would post the link to the follow on presentation to the one spoken of in this post. It was given at the same church in 1995. You an find the You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83fg4eBLUfM
I have also found another source of good material concerning Toronto called Take Heed Ministries / http://www.takeheed.info/ sponsored by Cecil Andrews. There you can find a two part series at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTEEURiKzqw. If the links don’t work, search You Tube for “Toronto: Antics and Heretics”.
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