Let me begin by saying that I believe that there needs to be both governmental responses and individual responses when leadership falls, and they are different.  The governmental responses are within the scope of a few people per event.  We all have a role to make an appropriate individual response.

What is our role?  It is not, most of the time,  the identification and broadcast of sin in others.

Let me say that some of the easiest things for prophetic people to see are sins (in others, of course).  Here is a news flash.  When people are in sin, they know it (most of the time).  Much of the time when people are vulnerable, struggling to overcome their weaknesses, ripe for a fall, they know it.  Rarely do they need someone to tell them their condition.  What they do need is for someone to tell them how to get through their present state, to overcome and move forward into God’s plans and purposes for them.  They need to know that God is with them, and for them, and loves them.

If you think you are prophetic because you can see hidden sin I am here to tell you to grow up.  Seeing sin doesn’t make you a prophet.  It may mean that you are prophetically gifted, but it doesn’t make you a prophet. 

 As for letting people know about someone else’s sin, what is the model?  What is the motivation?  The sinner knows they are in sin, you know they are in sin, and of course, God knows. Does anyone else have a need to know about the sin?  If others need to know, are you the one who is called to act?

Biblically the prophets went to people to confront the sins of the people, of the nation.  They went to the leaders to confront the leader’s sin.

A good example is Nathan, who went to David after he sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba.  We don’t know when Nathan knew what was going on, or potentially what was going to go on.  We only know that when he went to David it doesn’t appear that he went to the people first.  There were no meetings in the streets calling David a murderer or adulterer that we know of.  There were great consequences for David’s sin, yet God always called David a man after His own heart.

David for his part suffered an enormous price for his sin yet he did survive.  For my part, I hope I am never a person who is found to attack or sin against someone that God calls a “man after His own heart.”

I don’t believe our contemporary prophets/apostles went to Lakeland because they were blinded to sin or weakness or because they needed to have some platform to promote any agenda.  They went to Lakeland to lend support (prayer, unity, leadership) because they did know there was vulnerability and because that is their apostolic role. Their role is very distinct from our individual role.

Like our present day prophets/apostles/national leaders, Nathan the prophet went directly to the King. 

There is nothing in the scriptures that leads us to conclude that Nathan “went public”, stirring up the people against David, like we often see today in these situations.

The role of prophetic people is not uncovering other leader’s weaknesses, vulnerabilities and sin in some cases, for the purpose of inspiring many thousands of people to join them in isolating, disdaining and discrediting a brother in Christ. 

 

This is not a mandate for hiding sin.  I believe in leaders making governmental responses to leaders, and for the rest of us to make godly individual responses.

 

I am not nearly so concerned about the events surrounding “Lakeland”.  I am concerned with how we, the members of the Body of Christ, individually respond.  I believe that how we respond to events like this one measure the condition of the church.

Here is my challenge to you.  Have you voiced your opinion about these current events?  Have you “warned” others about going to Lakeland, about Todd Bentley’s weaknesses or sins? His tattoos or appearance?  His marital struggles or other things that don’t look like you would like a man of God to look?  Have you asked or asserted that what happened in Lakeland couldn’t be God?  (In spite of the signs, wonders, miracles, etc..)

Can you imagine what it is like to wake up every day with thousands of carnal prayers and defaming words being spoken over you?  Twenty-four hour per day warfare, not from the wiccans, not from the New Age, but from the Church.  Maybe the question we should ask is not how did the leaders and work in Lakeland fall, but how did they endure so long in the face of what was coming against them?

What if more leaders had rallied people to intercede and support all the team at Lakeland, without division? Instead of focusing on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of men, what if we would have focused on the awesomeness of God, what He was doing, and upheld our brothers and sisters in Christ - many of whom we know now suffer?  What role was played by those in the Church who heard these inciting reports?  ( I know that many, many people did rally in prayer and intercession, speaking life to what was happening in Lakeland. I also know that many went the opposing path.)

Proverbs 18:21 tells us: “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit–you choose.[1]“

We sap the strength and the peace of our fellow laborers, and then we act like their fall has nothing to do with us.  Perhaps the sin we need to ferret out is our own.

This lesson applies to us in many places of course.  In our homes, our church, where we work, the schools our children attend. Our words can kill or give life. Fruit or poison, all day we will make choices.

Choose life.

Patricia Mapes

Patricia Mapes

Executive Director, Nexus Connection.org