Bill Johnson explains why Bethel is praying for 2-year-old’s resurrection
Bill Johnson, senior pastor of Bethel Church, addressed critics who’ve accused him and his church of interfering with the sovereignty of God by praying for the resurrection of his worship leader’s daughter who was pronounced dead on Saturday.
Johnson explained that he and his church family believe God has called them to follow the precedent that Jesus set forth by commanding His followers to raise the dead.
“Saturday, just a few days ago, we had a great tragedy, one of the key individuals in our world, their 2-year-old little girl died, quite unexpectedly, just out of nowhere. So we’ve been praying for the miracle of God.
Mom and dad, Andrew and Kelly, have asked us to pray for resurrection. We’ve joined with them,” Johnson said in a video clip posted on Wednesday.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, Kalley Heiligenthal, a worship leader with Bethel Music asked all of their supporters to pray for her 2-year-old daughter, Olive, after she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead by doctors over the weekend.
“We’re asking for prayer. We believe in a Jesus who died and conclusively defeated every grave, holding the keys to resurrection power,” Heiligenthal wrote.
“We are asking for bold, unified prayers from the global church to stand with us in belief that He will raise this little girl back to life,” she said, adding, “Her time here is not done, and it is our time to believe boldly, and with confidence wield what King Jesus paid for. It’s time for her to come to life.”
Heiligenthal’s pastor linked arms with the “Ever Be” singer and her family because, he said, Scripture proves time and time again that resurrection of the dead is possible.
Even though Olive is at the morgue they are still praying for a miracle from afar, he added.
“We have a biblical precedent, Jesus raised the dead! Not only that, He introduced Himself as the resurrection and the life. In fact, in John 11 verse 40, He says, ‘If you believe you will see the glory of God,’” Johnson said.
“So seeing what Jesus has accomplished, what He did in His lifetime, and then when you add to that He commanded His followers, His disciples, in Matthew Chapter 10, verse 8, ‘to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to cast out devils, to cleanse the lepers.’ None of those are things that we can actually do. Yet He commanded us because somehow, in our Yes, He gives us the ability to carry out His mission. Being commissioned means we’ve said yes to His mission,” the Redding, California-based church leader continued.
Johnson said he and his church members are committed to living with a conviction and a devotion to what Jesus taught them to do. While in this period of believing for a miracle and hosting worship services to pray for Olive to “wake up,” some have criticized the church and its leadership for giving the family “false hope” or interfering with God’s will, but the minister says he believed this death was not God’s timing.
“Some have asked, ‘isn’t this interrupting the sovereignty of God?’
And my response is, ‘First of all, we don’t ever want to violate the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign. He chooses what He wants and we cooperate with Him. There’s no question.’ But then my question is, why did Jesus raise the dead? Did He violate the sovereignty of God? Did the Father will one thing, and Jesus will another? Of course not!” Johnson emphasized.
He added: “The reason Jesus raised the dead is because not everyone dies in God’s timing. Jesus could tell, and He would interrupt that funeral, He would interrupt that process that some would just call the sovereignty of God. And He’d raise the little girl, he’d raise the adult person from the dead.”
Johnson maintained that Jesus set a precedent for the church to follow and that is what they are doing at a time when they are unsure of how to proceed other than believing for a miracle.
“There’s no manual that tells us to fast this many days, pray this many hours. We don’t have any of that. What we do have is a biblical precedent, Jesus’ lifestyle and Jesus’ commands,” he said, adding, “Someone asked, ‘How long do you pray, when do you quit praying?’ I don’t have a good answer. We’re kind of in the middle of that journey right now.”
Blog Editor’s comment
Sure Bill, lets pray, but where is the precedent beyond reading through the gospels, and did the Lord lead you to pray for Olive, or was it just a good idea??
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Many popular fellow worship leaders and groups from around the world posted prayers and encouragement for the family.
“Dear praying friends … let’s go … pray without ceasing for sweet Olive to be filled with the breath of God and rise back to life,” said Darlene Zschech on Instagram.
Hillsong’s Brooke Ligertwood wrote a comment to Heiligenthal’s declaration of faith amid the tragedy, saying, “THIS. IS. WORSHIP. In awe.”
Kari Jobe added, “Praying Kalley, warring. In JESUS NAME.”
Blog Editor’s comment
Sure Darlene, Brooke, Kari, right….. keep warring in Jesus Name…
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The family is now on their fifth day of believing for a resurrection miracle for Olive. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family.
Comment:
Which is it guys? A resurrection gift for the family or a go-fund me account?
“Along with the overwhelming shock and devastation of losing their daughter are the unforeseeable expenses the Heiligenthal family will incur, medical and otherwise,” the page reads.
The following article by Holly Pivec is the follow up to the church folk at Bethel pleading for God to resurrect this poor little girl.
The story out of Bethel Church in Redding, California, this past week — following the sudden death of two-year-old Olive Heiligenthal — is tragic. The hearts of people across the nation have gone out to her parents in compassion — not just because they lost a child, but also because of the false hope they’ve clung to that their little girl would come back to life.
Many news sources have already reported on this story. But I want to point out what has been missed. In their coverage of the fiasco, reporters have noted that the parents’ church, Bethel Church, has rallied around the parents’ prayers for a resurrection — calling for people across the globe to join them in those prayers. But what Bethel Church has been engaged in, since Olive Heiligenthal died on Saturday, is not prayer. They’ve actually been making “declarations.” There’s a big difference.
Prayer vs. Declarations
In the New Apostolic Reformation — the global movement that Bethel Church is part of — equivocation is common. By equivocation, I mean that leaders in the movement often call two different things by the same name. The result is ambiguity that allows them to promote non-biblical teachings while cloaking those teachings in biblical terminology.
Case in point: Consider Bethel Church’s use of the word “prayer.” Historically, prayer has been understood by Christians as making petitions or requests of God to do such-and-such a thing. That’s how prayer is taught in the Bible. And that’s the understanding most people will have of the word prayer when they read articles stating that Bethel Church is “praying for a resurrection.”
But when Bethel Church uses the word “prayer,” they often mean something very different.
They’re generally not requesting or asking God to do such-and-such a thing, such as asking Him to resurrect Olive Heiligenthal. Rather, they’re often referring to the making of “prayer declarations,” or just “declarations,” for short.
So, what is a declaration?
A declaration is making verbal affirmations that allegedly release God’s power to create a desired reality. In much the way God spoke and brought the world into existence, believers today – who are created in the image of God – also have the power to bring things into existence through their spoken words, according to Bethel teachings. Declarations are seen to be more effective than traditional prayer because they don’t ask God to do something He has already authorized believers to do themselves.
These teachings about declarations can be found in Bethel “apostle” Bill Johnson’s books, including When Heaven Invades Earth. Yet they’re not supported by Scripture. Rather, they’re in line with the teachings of Word of Faith movement leaders such as Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland.
Yet the uninitiated missed the fact that what Bethel has been calling for is not actually prayer as it is normally understood. Instead they’ve been calling for declarations.
Here’s the call the church issued on their Facebook page, December 15.
Our God is the God of miracles, and nothing is impossible for Him! We are asking you, our global church family, to join with us in prayer and in declaring life and resurrection over @kalleyheili and @apheiligenthal’s daughter, Olive Alayne! (emphasis mine)
The phrase “declaring life and resurrection over … Olive” was lost on the media as well as many mainstream Christians.
Yet Bethel’s call for declarations wasn’t lost on the insiders, i.e., those who hold to Bethel teachings. This can be seen in the nearly 3,000 comments posted on the church’s Facebook page, in response to the call. Notice the many Bethel followers who used the words “declare” or “declaring,” such as this comment posted by a Rick Davis: “Praying, and declaring resurrection Life for Olive … Little Olive, arise, in Jesus’s name!” And here is a similar comment from Susie Mehlig: “Father in Jesus name we decree and declare Spirit of life come back into Olive!” (emphasis mine).
And this video shows Olive Heiligenthal’s parents, Kalley and Andrew, on stage at Bethel Church leading congregants in the singing of a declaration: “Olive, come out of that grave. Come out of that grave, in Jesus’ name.”
Even the hashtag that has gone viral, #wakeupolive, reflects the language of declaration, not petitionary prayer.
Equivocation of ‘Prayer’ to Downplay Bethel’s Failure
Bill Johnson has employed this equivocation in an apparent attempt to downplay the church’s failure to resurrect Olive Heiligenthal. Notice, in his official statement to the media, he suggests that the only things Bethel Church has been doing at their meetings this past week is taking part in “singing and prayer.” Here’s what Johnson said:
“Since that night, and at the continued request of the Heiligenthal family, Bethel Church has hosted prayer and worship gatherings which consist of singing and prayer (this is the first-ever public gathering of prayer for resurrection that Bethel has hosted).”
Prayer and worship gatherings. He makes it sound as if the church has been engaged in merely an old-fashioned prayer meeting. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Yet why would Johnson downplay the main activity — making declarations — taking place at the Bethel Church meetings this week? Could it be because, despite the thousands of declarations that have been made on Olive Heiligenthal’s behalf for five days, her lifeless body still lies at the morgue? This is certainly tragic — but even more so because so many of Johnson’s followers have doubled down and refused to admit what’s obvious to everyone else — they have a broken theology.
And here’s the kicker. The failure of the church’s declarations suggests something bigger than failure to raise one little girl.
It suggests that Bethel Church’s entire paradigm — of bringing heaven (or God’s physical Kingdom) to earth through spoken declarations — is based on false hope.
About the Author
Holly Pivec is the co-author of A New Apostolic Reformation?: A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement and God’s Super-Apostles: Encountering the Worldwide Prophets and Apostles Movement. She has a master’s degree in Christian apologetics from Biola University
When the Lord raised in the dead when he was alive it was to show the Jewish people of those days and also the Romans back then,that he was indeed God , because the Pharisees and Sadducees were doing their best to convince them he was not. Satan did not want anyone to believe Yeshua was God back then, and more so now.
Whilst we do believe our Lord can perform any miracle for his Glory ,not our own Glory or needs, he is also sovereign in what he chooses to do and when.
That is very hard for any of us to understand and also deal with at times of extreme stress,suffering and hardship and we can so testify to that.
If we had a 2 yr old and they died and went to heaven, as much as we would grieve their loss, and suffer so in our heart, we could not begrudge them a chance to be in heaven, and we wouldn’t want God to bring them back to Earth.
Saddest thing we see happening is christians fear death just as much as the world these days, and when someone gets a terminal illness they are busy praying for healing, for God to keep the person alive, instead of allowing the ultimate healing to happen ,which is the person dies, and goes to live with the Lord forevermore.
This little 2 yr Olive is with the Lord in heaven. She will never know what its like to grow up, and be tempted to sin , and as we grow older the temptations grow too.
She will never have to deal with satan and demons anymore. She will never have to be lead astray by the apostasy of the church her parents are in.
She will never have to deal with all that’s going on in our world right now, or know what it will be like to endure all that satan and the illuminati plan to do to bring in the NWO.
She is in the best place she can possibly be, and a place where she will never cry, get sick, be bullied, hurt in any way physically, spiritually or emotionally.
That is the greatest gift Our Lord can give this little girl. and the parents want to bring her back, because they don’t want to bear the loss and the grief. No she doesn’t get to live a full life on Earth, but she does get to live an even fuller life in heaven for all eternity.
How do they know her time on Earth was not done. The only way they would know that, is if God himself told them that. Just because we don’t want to lose people we love to death, doesn’t mean when they die it wasn’t Gods timing ,or their time on Earth was not done.We remember when Andrew Evans first wife was dying of cancer. Paradise AOG and so many christians world over were praying for a miracle of healing. People were even prophesying she would be healed.
She died and if she went to heaven she received the ultimate healing.
Thing is no one that prophesied publicly via social media she was going to be healed, ever publicly repented of their false prophecies.People are treading on very dangerous ground when they prophesy someone is going to be healed physically of a terminal disease, and then the person dies, or when they prophesy a person is going to be raised from the dead, and it never happens.
We know of one such case of people that lead us up the garden path with many false prophecies over a period of 4 yrs,when we were at our most vulnerable after the SRA first surfaced. We were a total mess during that time, and satan used this couple to nearly totally destroy ours and our daughters life and relationship with God. .The damage they did to all of us and our daughter God is still dealing with today. At this time they had told a single mum whose baby daughter had died, that God was going to use them to resurrect her dead daughter who had been in the grave for at least a yr or so.
God never used them to do that, because they were false prophets,and we have no idea as we lost contact with this mum, the damage that was done to not only her, but her relationship with God,because of these false prophecies that God was going to bring her dead daughter back to life.
So wonder if they have stopped praying now for her to be resurrected, seeming she died back on Dec 14th. A Go fund me page hey to get 100 grand. Wondering why they need that much money seeming this family were workers in the church ,and had a profession as a christian singer making albums. A funeral doesn’t cost 100 grand and apparently they need money for the families living expenses. So do we Lance so do we, as do many other poor christians likes us, but we don’t set up a God Fund me page, cause we got our trust in God to come through for us.Nor do we a church doing that for us either. Wonder whether Bethel church would be setting the God Fund Me page up if s the mum wasn’t part of the worship team and a known singer and the family were just part of the flock and not well known in christian circles.The church is becoming just like the celeb world in that regard. The well known and pastoral team get well looked after by the flock , and the Mr and Mrs nobodies miss out, cause no one in the church gives a stuff about their plight.
Honestly the church has been in this place of stretching and seeing what’s possible & seeing what’s coming & it hasn’t manifested because the breakthrough hasn’t come but it’s almost here & these people who have such faith will walk in miracles because Jesus said we would do the “ greater works” he was actually saying we would do greater miracles then he himself did because he was going to the father. The big thing that happened when Jesus went to the father was the promised Holy Spirit came to live in god’s covenant people. Even though Pentecost came for the early & latter rain. Now there was an entire latter rain movement & yet not many people were raised from the dead- were are the greater works? Did they come with the latter rain movement?? No one has ever done greater works than Jesus & Jesus never lies so I just don’t believe we’ve seen the greater works or the latter rain. I think the latter rain & the greater works will come when the rich church arises and the end time harvest happens before the final “falling away” that Paul spoke of happens. People have been disappointed to step out & not see miracles but after the visitation of the latter rain the miracles & greater works will happen at bethel church & other spirit filled bodies through out the world.
As for declaring things instead of prayer as some understanding- the lord declared that people do things. He ordered Lazereth to come forth when he was dead 4 days. If it’s actually the Holy Spirit then Declaration isn’t not wrong.
As for the disappointments- the answer in scripture is to love everyone & forgive ourselves & others. No one is trying to mess up. They are acting in faith & love in trying to raise people from the dead. When Job lost everything his friends felt so bad for his situation that they actually blamed him. That’s actually what’s happening here. The response has been critical & a critical spirit is actually a fruit of carnality. God is trying to grow up his body & growth can be disappointing & even painful but we need to keep loving & forgiving and asking the Lord to visit His people so the rest of the people on this planet can have a witness of god’s glory that He is the only god and the only way to heaven. Paul preached that god would provoke the Jews by jealousy of our miracles and god’s glory upon us. God is up to something very big in our life time. It’s been nearly 2,000 years since his resurrection. We just passed the 70 years mark of Israel becoming a nation!! According to scripture the rich church will now arise & the third temple will be built. All this stretching & pain is for a great breakthrough for god’s people to accomplish everything in the final generations. Don’t be critical. Have faith- no one has failed in anything god can’t redeem. We’re all going home soon.
Hi Majorie,
I love your generosity of spirit, but its about being honest.
Instead of walking in humility and actually have the leading and guidances of the Holy Spirit, Bill Johnson like a 5 year wants to imitate ‘Daddy’ by thunking he can raise up Olive like it’s something we can just make happen.
So what happens? Nothing…. like we are at all surprised?
Bill Johnson has stepped on his own land mine.
When Peter asked Jesus if he could come out to him on the water, Jesus gave instruction to come out, because Peter wasn’t gonna stand out there on the water on his own.
You make reference to the rich church. The only church I know in the scripture that is rich and has need of nothing is Laodecian, and what does Jesus say of it. I will spit you out of my mouth!
I’m sorry, but Bill Johnson has only himself to blame and has charismatic egg on his face..
The great falling away isn’t something that is going to happen. The great falling away has been something that has been happening for quite awhile now. It’s a falling away from biblical truth to apostasy, of which Bethel church has done for yrs , as have many others. If the Blessed Holy Spirit was indeed behind the resurrection of this little girl, like he was with Lazarus, then the little girl would of been resurrected from the dead, simple as that. The fact she wasn’t, shows it was not Gods will ,nor did he lead the parents or the church, to seek him in this way. What this story has done because it’s hit every major news world wide, is again paint christianity in a very bad light and made a mockery of God. It hasn’t been a witness of his Glory at all.
As far as provoking the Jewish people to jealousy, it aint about God performing miracles for us, or his Glory being upon us that will provoke them. For the Torah is full of Gods greatest miracles for his chosen people. It’s about us having true salvation, and a true relationship with Yeshua as our Messiah, and the whole bible, instead of just half of it, as the Jewish people who have not accepted Yeshua as their Messiah yet just have.. That is what will provoke them to jealousy. This is a way better description of what that scripture means, then what is stated above.
https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/what-does-it-means-to-provoke-the-jews-to-jealousy/
Whilst God did say there would be signs ,wonders and miracles in the last days, he also reminded us of the counterfeit lying signs,wonders and miracles that satan would do, in order to deceive many. Bethel church has been deceived for yrs, and been a deceiver for yrs ,with such lying signs and wonders. One only has to think back to their angel feathers and gold dust days, and the rest.