As I watched the YouTube clips of Todd Bentley's hijinks I was reminded of pineapple trees. As a young boy growing up in Hawaii I used to love to sneak into the neighbors' yard and pick beautiful, ripe pineapples from the low-hanging branches of the trees.
Wait a minute, you say, there's something wrong with your claim: pineapples don't grow on trees!
Ah, but what if I were to take you to a man's back yard and show you a pineapple tree? Would that change your belief? Would you suddenly say, "Oh, well I guess pineapples do grow on trees!" OR would you (I hope) say, "Something unnatural is going on here--pineapples don't grow on trees naturally."
What if I then sought to convince you by showing you an orchard of pineapple trees? How many pineapple trees would it take to convince you that the nature of pineapples had changed?
I would hope the answer is obvious to you: NO number of "pineapple trees" is sufficient, because pineapples don't spontaneously change their essential nature. Pineapples don't grow on trees, and a pineapple orchard is just a sham on a larger scale. In fact, if you examine those "pineapple trees" closely, you would spot the duct tape pretty quickly.
So with the Holy Spirit. The Bible clearly describes the fruit of the Spirit; and Scripture does not include loss of control, gibberish and noise, chaos, violence, or human self-aggrandizement in the catalog. In fact, those characteristics are present in other descriptions--those of the demon-possessed.
So many, so tragically many Christians today are drunk on a cocktail of equal parts Biblical illiteracy, gullibility, and 100-proof tolerance that they can't recognize a fraud as obvious as the Lakeland "pineapple trees". What's worse is that those aren't pineapples taped to that tree; pineapples aren't deadly.
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
- Matthew 7:15-23 (NASB)
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
- Matthew 7:15-23 (NASB)
