Part of the reason for all of this deceit is that leaders themselves are deceived.

The word-faith movement, which is where the ''Toronto Blessing'' came from, teaches that words spoken with enough faith have creative power. They believe that a person can literally speak anything into existence, if he has 'enough faith' - even something he doesn't want to happen!

They say if you speak with faith, God is obligated to grant what was spoken. They call it ''the law of faith.'' Their faith is in faith.

Having accepted this false premise, the movement's leaders believe that if they can awaken enough 'faith' within people, the faith will produce fantastic miracles and lead to fulfillment of the Latter Rain doctrine. So they run with fear from any facts that could injure their ''faith'' in the movement, and cross the line into dishonesty in their desire to inspire ''faith'' in others.

One young man drove his dead 6 wk old baby 350 miles to the Pensacola church, believing they could raise the child from the dead. Brownsville Assembly of God's Vann Lane explained that God did not resurrect this child, ''but,'' he said, ''God is going to do it in the future.''  (38) 

On what scriptural foundation was this promise made? There is a point where ''faith'' becomes presumption. We have no right to declare what God is going to do unless it is clearly defined in His word.

In their desire to create the kind of faith that they think will bring about miracles, leaders are misrepresenting God and leaving a trail of the crushed, exploited, and disillusioned behind them.

The word-faith mindset is really a terrible trap- if what a person is trying to have 'faith' in is not God's will, God cannot use circumstances to bring them to their senses, because adverse circumstances only serve to convince them they haven't believed it 'hard enough' - and the worse things get, the harder they work to develop more faith in the wrong idea.