The Book - The Man Who Loved The Truth.
THE CHARISMATICS
I know these are strong words. They need to be because thousands of gullible people are being drawn into this religion. The big attraction is the promise of miraculous healing on a par with that which which Jesus performed during his first century ministry.
The writer of this book spent five, very active, years as a charismatic believer and as such I am ready to take the lid off some startling facts regarding these people. The first fact that I must reveal is that in this five year period, and I was very much involved, I saw no proof of any miraculous healing whatsoever. Absolutely none!
Not only that, my wife and I, on numerous occasions were prayed for with the laying on of hands. We both had medical conditions that needed healing. Were we
healed - NO. There was one occasion when we both collapsed on the floor. This phenomenal they called; being slain in the spirit. A very weird experience with no like
examples in the scriptures. I do not accept that this was the Holy Spirit - more like a demon. God would not put anyone on the floor and not heal them - God does not play silly games.
We attended many large gatherings with, well advertised, miraculous claims by prominent charismatic healers in attendance. We joined in the organised lines of standing people alongside those we knew personally. Most of them finished up on the floor, some seemed to be unconscious. No doubt the supernatural at work. Certainly not the Spirit of Truth. None of those I knew were healed. In fact I don't think anyone was. The whole thing is a charade.
A very good case in point was the young man in a wheel chair. I saw him at one particular venue three times. That is over three years. This particular meeting was held in the basement of a public library. There was no lift so four strong men had to lift him in his chair down the stairs and back up again after the meeting. I watched this performance every year for three years . Now, no one can say that this young invalid was lacking in faith because he kept shouting out,all on his own, Hallelujah!
If anyone had the power to do what Jesus did, today, they would be in the hospitals where they are needed. There were no hospitals in the time of Jesus. That's why all the sick were wandering about and crawling about. It was certainly a God send to that nation when Jesus started his ministry. He probably healed thousands of people. He made a massive impact in history that had never been done before nor has it ever been done since. This was God's purpose at this time, to start a new covenant with a new people. And so the church age of Christianity began.
Returning again to the subject of the charismatic movement, one of the strangest things about them is that they have no written statement of belief. They don't study Bible doctrine at all. God's written commands, prophecies and warnings mean nothing to them. They believe that God is dealing with them direct, so why bother reading his word. Hence they make the scriptures obsolete. This is not acceptable to God.
Refusing to obey his written guide is a disastrous leap into error. And God will not answer people who try to contact him in error. Just digest these words in the book of Isaiah: " When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer up many prayers, I will not listen...Take your evil deeds out of my sight Stop doing wrong, learn to do right." ( Ish I:15-17 ) Learn to do right. God's Word teaches us how to do right. It is all part of the truth. Jesus said in a prayer to his Father "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." See John 17 V 17. Sanctify means to make holy, and our Lord was praying to his Father about his disciples. It is God's purpose to have his faithful and chosen ones sanctified through the truth in his Word the Bible. To ignore this is an affront to him and a silent declaration that we don't care what his plans are.
To insult God in this way is not the way to salvation.
Some years ago, a friend of mine, in this movement, said to me; " I don't need the Bible - I have a hot line to God. He tells me every day what to do." In what way does he tell you, is it through dreams, visions or what? I said. Sometimes it's dreams and visions, he said. But mostly he just puts the thoughts into my mind. I went to great lengths to explain that the Bible reveals that the devil is deceiving the whole world by putting the wrong thoughts into people's minds, and that he could well be a demonic target. I do not believe that God would allow Satan to deceive me, he replied. What! I retorted - do you really think that God is going to do you any favours when you are deliberately ignoring his Word? I got no reply to that one.
This direct line to God is common practice among these people. They have, what they call quiet times when they sit praying with paper and pencil handy waiting for instructions and answers. Some of the stuff that I've seen written is childish fantasy.
They cannot seem to understand that without Bible guidance there is no way of knowing what they are tuning in to. They are dealing with the supernatural. The invisible realm. Now, if they are not complying with God's standards, and they are definitely not, then God will not answer their prayers. But, this is a point to be clear about; whatever prayers that God will not answer, the demons will answer. Also, they are experts in giving, along with mind deception, feelings of ecstasy, tingling sensations. Elevated feelings. Anything within their power to keep one from the truth.
Remember the words of Paul - " Satan appears as an angel of light to deceive. Don't let him deceive you.
The general attitude of the charismatics towards the Bible can be summed up in the words of a young woman I met at one of their meetings; " you will be alright; she said,"providing you don't take the Bible too seriously." I was shattered. Another time I was talking about Bible prophecy and the Lord's return, to one of the group leaders. He suddenly became irritated and blurted out; " we are not interested in the future - we are interested in the here and now. "
Of course he was being honest; they are not one bit concerned about the future, or God's future plans. They are completely focused on what they think they can get God to do for them now. A modern version of Aladdin and the lamp.
In their obsession with the supernatural they have created for themselves an atmosphere of confusion. They claim not to be tied to a set routine at their meetings so that the Holy Spirit can move about freely amongst the congregation. This can cause problems. For instance, someone can be delivering a talk, suddenly to be interrupted by someone else who has just received a message from the Lord.The speaker would have to stop, of course, although there are no rules to say he has to. If he decided to be awkward he could just go on talking. I heard of an incident in a nearby congregation where a person got up with a message from the Lord of praise for their activities. This was followed immediately by someone else with a message of condemnation. The first message contradicted by the second message - both supposedly from the same source. I believe there was a long awkward silence for no one had an answer to this.
An amusing incident happened at one of the meetings I attended. A young brother stood up and declared that the Lord had just told him that someone in the room had got a painful leg and that the Lord wanted to heal him. So will the person with the painful leg come to the front for hands to be laid on and prayers to be said? No one came forward. No one had a painful leg. After an awkward silence someone said they had an aching shoulder. So they decided to pray for that instead.
Are we to conclude that God made a mistake? This is all so much nonsense!
These people thrive on the most outrageous testimonies imaginable. Experiences like visions,dreams, out of the body visit to heaven etc are very welcome. The more whoppers you can tell the better. If you got up in a meeting and said an angel picked you up and carried you to the moon and back, you wouldn't be challenged - you would be applauded.
There is a special section in the charismatic movement for business men. I can't remember the exact name that they call themselves. However, they meet about once a week over a meal in a hotel. The members can take guests along and it doesn't matter what their denomination is. After the meal they call for individual Christian testimonies. And as stated before applaud the most sensational stories and experiences. But they have a very strict rule that everyone attending must adhere to — an almost unbelievable rule for people who claim to be Christian. This is the rule - Bibles are not permitted.
Staggering! I must say this; People who conform to any rule of this nature have no hope of salvation. The devil has twisted their minds beyond repair.
But why are they so afraid of God's Word? Because they are afraid of the truth. You see the truth can cause disruption. The truth will challenge error. They don't want anything to spoil their programme of weird and wonderful fairy tales.
They have so little knowledge of the scriptures that they fail to realise they are insulting God. Unity in error is their motto. The same motto over the doorway of hell.
Another thing the charismatics place high on their agenda is the speaking in tongues. They believe that speaking in tongues proves that one is filled with the Holy Spirit. We must assume, then, that those who don't speak in tongues, are not filled with the Holy Spirit. That being the case it is a poor recommendation for the congregation that I belonged to, for out of an approx' 300 there were only two who could do it.
Incidentally, in the five years I spent with these people, attending many large gatherings, and hearing a lot of these tongue speakers, I never once heard any Pentecostal tongues. You see the miraculous tongues given to the disciples at Pentecost were a proper foreign language. ( Acts 2:1-13 )
If you have never read this passage - please do so now.
The tongue speaking the charismatics have adopted are just a series of gibberish sounds. Many Bible scholars believe that the practice of speaking in tongues along with prophecy and special knowledge passed away in the first century A D with the completion of the Bible Canon and the book of Revelation. ( 1 Co 13:8-10 )
The logic behind this reasoning will be explained later on.
Because of this obsession to speak in tongues, a very serious incident occurred one Sunday evening at a meeting with about thirty in attendance. One of the elders, with the laying on of hands, was praying for a brother, asking the Holy Spirit to enter him so that he could speak in tongues. As I stated earlier, if God ignores a request the devil is ready to oblige. So what happened? Just as the brother was making a few inarticulate sounds he was suddenly thrown to the floor by unseen hands yelling - " Rubbish - load a rubbish He was writhing about like an angry snake, all the time screaming. It was panic stations. Four or five brothers were on their knees trying to control him and begging Jesus to come to his aid. The rest of us were told to sing hymns as loudly as possible to drown the noise.
After what seemed ages, he calmed down. He was in a daze with no idea of what had happened. I don't know what they told him. But this was a classic example of being filled with a demon. This they would never admit. However, everyone was greatly alarmed and frightened - and we were all sworn to secrecy.
Now, Christianity is not a secret society. Jesus taught no one to keep secrets. On the contrary the Bible teaches to expose error in all it's forms. The Apostle Paul put it this way: " Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ( Eph 5:11 )
Also: " The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. ( 2 Co 10:3-5 )
A most revealing demonstration of Bible ignorance is shown in the following story. One day my wife and I were out shopping, when we were suddenly confronted by a young charismatic woman that we knew. Her face was flushed with excitement because she had just returned from a charismatic conference. " It was just like Pentecost," she blurted out. " They were falling about all over the place!" I hope the Lord will forgive me for my lack of commitment in not telling her the truth about Pentecost, for there was no falling about at all. ( Acts 2:1-13 )
The most amazing thing is that Pentecost should be the one Bible account that these people ought to be one hundred per cent familiar with, simply because it is the most outstanding exhibition of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the whole of God's Word. And, it is well known that the charismatics pay much more lip service to the Holy Spirit than they do to God or Jesus Christ.
This falling about is very common place at all charismatic meetings, and to them a sign of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. One particular church called the Airport Vineyard church in Toronto Canada, became the object of a vast pilgrimage in recent years. Why was this? It was due to the extreme workings of the supernatural upon people. To use their term, people were falling down by the score, laughing hysterically, crying, barking like dogs, roaring like lions, and clucking like chickens. They believed that the Holy Spirit was putting on a party for them. There is absolutely no evidence of anything like this happening in the Bible. The devil and his demons are having a field day with these people.
Not long ago on television there was a demonstration of the power of, what they claimed to be, the Holy Spirit. The main performer got about a dozen men and women to stand in front of him on the stage. They stood about five feet away facing him. Suddenly, with his mouth, he blew at them and they all fell down. Then he turned to people standing up in the front row, waved his hand towards them and they also went down.
Whether this was demon-ism or just plain fakery, I do not know. All I do know is that the Creator of Heaven and Earth would not stoop so low as to play daft games.
Before I finish this chapter I want to write a few lines about a doctrine called "Name it and claim it'.' This is the essence of the charismatics whole outlook. Boldness in prayer God will supply. Be positive don't pray in a humble, apologetic manner. Name it and claim it - it is your right. Motor cars, houses, boats, jobs, wealth, health, whatever your heart desires, God will give us.That is what he is there for. I shudder now when I think of it. And they have the audacity to quote a scripture in support. This is it: " And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the son will bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. ( John 14:13-14 )
Now in these two verses he twice says " In my name-In my name." Why in my name? Why does Jesus not simply say I will give you whatever you want- just rub the lamp. It is because in my name means according to my standards. So what are Jesus standards ? His standards are the very things he has been teaching his followers. Teachings they are well familiar with. For instance: " Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ( Mat 6:19-21 )
And what about these words: " If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come follow me. ( Mat 19:21 )
These are the standards of God and Jesus Christ.
A true disciple of Jesus Christ makes his goal the coming kingdom with all its blessings and eternal life. To be wanting worldly possessions and rewards now can become a snare and should be avoided.
Jesus gives some excellent advice about what not to worry about. Please read ( Mat 6:25-34 )
And here is the parable of the rich fool.
" The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. Then he said, this is what I'll do. I will tear down my Barnes and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?
This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God. ( Lk 12:13-21 )
Godliness with contentment is great gain...if we have food and clothing we will be content.