My response to J. Lee Grady’s article - Why I Am Not Bashing Brownsville  Lee, you are not a bad guy for asking the questions. Your problem is you are asking the wrong question and that is because you begin with a false assumption. Everyone, even you, seem to admit that Brownsville produced some evil fruit. Even in this article you point to the fact that the leadership burdened the people with additional debt that ultimately could not be sustained. That is evil fruit. You downplay the ungodly and unholy manifestations which were present by referring to them as “swooning at the altar”. Affectations like the appearance of drunkenness, loss of control, laughing like lunatics, twitching and jerking like epileptics, and roaring like lions, can hardly be dismissed as swooning at the altar. All of these things are evil fruit. All of the claims of good fruit from Brownsville, including your own are based on subjective human experience and on unverified anecdotal stories. From these experiences you want to claim that the ‘revival’ was a mixture of good and evil. You have also stated that revival always produces this mixture. But that is not what the Bible teaches Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Mat 7:17-18 How could Brownsville, if it was truly a God sent revival, produce such evil fruit? Was Jesus lying when he said a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit? Was he lying when he said an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit? The question you should be asking is this: Given what we now know, was Brownsville a true move of God to begin with? I say there is massive evidence that this so called revival was nothing of the sort but rather a deception complete with lying signs and wonders. I understand that the most difficult part of asking that question is the inherent admission of the possibility that you could have been deceived. But, if a man really wants the truth that is where he must start. I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jer 17:10  If we go to God seeking to justify our own beliefs, he will allow those beliefs to be reinforced in our thinking. He will give to every man according to that mans own ways.  In Ezekiel 14, God says that if a man comes to Him with idols in his heart, He will answer that man according to his idols.  So this is what we do. We have an experience. We do not examine that experience in the clear light of the word of God. No man ever wants to admit that he might have been wrong particularly when it comes to a deeply personal experience that he attributes to God. So we enthrone that experience as an idol in our heart. And God answers us just as he said he would. He gives us what we want to hear. He answers us according to our idols. I was involved in deception for many years. While I was a part of it I was sure I was right. Through no merit of my own God opened my eyes to the truth, He brought me out even though I didn’t deserve it. It took a long time but I finally was able to admit that while I thought I was serving God, I was actually advancing a false gospel that was leading many down the broad path to destruction. Through that admission and repentance, God was able to remove the beam of deception from my eye. I pray that everyone who was a part of Brownsville would consider this and seek the truth from God rather than their own justification. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! Mat 6:23     Steve Lumbley