"Christian" support for Trump?

Hearing from Infowars today that a pastor claims to have heard from a Congressman that there are plans to get rid of Trump, not by impeachment, he's just going to be suddenly taken out.  The pastor turns out to be Rodney Howard Browne, well known charismatic "revival" leader who in the 90s became famous for the "laughing revival."  Infowars showed a clip of him exhorting the "body of Christ" to continuous prayer for Trump.

A few weeks ago or so some pastors assembled in the White House to lay hands on Trump and pray for him.  Charismatic pastors like Rodney Howard Browne.   Why is this?  Why are the charismatics the ones doing this and not others? 

This is disturbing to me.  Trump needs all the prayer he can get so shouldn't I just be glad he's getting so many pastors interested in doing that?  But the charismatics are NOT representative of Christianity.  In my opinion the Strange Fire Conference I've linked in the right margin finally showed that the charismatic movement is following a false idea of the "gifts of the Spirit."  I'm not going to say they aren't Christians, although there are some of them I do doubt are Christians, such as Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn who has prayed at the graves of Aimee Semple MacPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman, to receive the kind of charismatic power they had.  This is akin to witchcraft,   How can it serve Trump or his supporters or the nation to have the prayers of occultists?  Browne's call to the Body of Christ is pretty standard but I don't know enough about him to know how far to trust him.

I certainly think we should all be praying for Trump, and just judging from the way the headlines every day are calculated to present something negative about him I have no reason to doubt that there's a plan to bring him down.  The headlines are already part of such a plan. 

I wish we'd hear from more trustworthy Christian leaders calling for prayer for Trump.     

Yearning for a True Holy Spirit Revival

Here's the link to the talks at the STRANGE FIRE CONFERENCE

When Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" on July 8, 1741 to a congregation in Enfield, Connecticut, many were powerfully affected even to having visions of Hell over which they were being dangled, and this is said to have been the beginning of the Great Awakening that profoundly changed American life just before the Revolution.

Lately I've been thinking some of us could do with the experience of being dangled over the pit of Hell, and I'm including myself, most particularly myself. Speaking of "awakening," most of the Church needs to be awakened these days to a reality of our faith that few of us appreciate. This is apparent just in the condition of the world around us, the nations around us and the Church itself with its growing apostasies in all directions, plus our worldliness that can be seen in divorce statistics and such woeful things as addictions to pornography, about which I just heard an interview on Christian radio.

  I hope those who do have a powerful faith are exercising it in prayer on behalf of the rest of us. Or maybe I should say I hope there is such a thing as some who have such a powerful faith.

Well, I can report that I've been praying more myself, and I'm thankful that I'm able to do it. I've also been reading a lot of Andrew Murray (Absolute Surrender, The Spirit of Christ, Experiencing the Holy Spirit), hoping his exhortations and guidance to living in the power of the Holy Spirit might bring about the awakening I know I need personally if I'm going to be of use to anybody else.

Most genuine revivals begin with a powerful sense of personal sinfulness, which is what Edwards' famous sermon brought about in that Connecticut congregation, and that's what I'm hoping my own reading and prayer will do for me too. I pray for revival for the entire Church but I'd be very happy if God would revive me personally for starters.

 One thing I can report is that I'm heartily sick of myself, my so easily falling into sin, the flesh, self, worldliness, and the more I read and pray the more I feel that, which is painful of course, but has to be a good thing. There was a time when I couldn't read much of Murray, I'd just end up feeling "I can't possibly do that," (such as "absolute surrender" to God) even that I couldn't have the faith that what's impossible for me is possible with God, which he avidly preaches. But this time I'm believing it and hoping it will bear fruit.

Yes I know there is good reason not to pray or hope for revival in our time just because the Church IS in such bad shape. A W Tozer many years ago said revival could be a disaster with the Church in such a worldly condition. Leonard Ravenhill focused more on how the condition of the Church prevented us from having revival. If you go all the way back to Spurgeon you can find him preaching on how much the Church needs revival but that he'd rather have no revival at all than have a revival trumped up in the flesh or a revival aflame with "wildfire."  

Wildfire, or Strange Fire, is unfortunately what we've been getting through the Charismatics for some time now.   I've often avoided praying for revival because of all the counterfeit "revivals" we've seen over the last few decades, from the "Toronto Blessing" to "Brownsville" to the Todd Bentley demonic horror in Lakeland. So I hope instead for a new Protestant Reformation, and we certainly do need that, but at the same time I yearn for the TRUE power of God to come down and transform us as a doctrinal reformation may not do. Or would do much too slowly in our desperate times.

So now I'm again praying and hoping for a real revival, but it MUST start with me, I must personally be revived as we all must who hope for revival. The Strange Fire Conference got me moving in this direction, maybe by a circuitous route. I was convinced by it that the gifts of the Spirit that inaugurated the Church at Pentecost had ceased, and the best evidence of this to my mind is that the phenomena that are being called "the gifts" are nothing like the gifts in the New Testament Church, and most of them are outright counterfeits.  But at the same time the position of Cessationism can go too far in the direction of denying the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit among His people in all times. Those who join the Charismatic movement often do so because of the yearning for the felt presence of God to power our lives and power His work through the Church. It's a legitimate desire when too much of the Church depends only on correct doctrine and DOES feel "dead" as the Charismatics always complain about it.

HOWEVER, the Charismatic movement has NOT succeeded in bringing the true power of God into the Church, but sure has brought a lot of counterfeits of Holy Spirit power instead. The true power of God would dangle us over the pit of Hell until we realize our desperate need of Christ and then come to cling to Him with a new recognition of what this Christian life is really all about. Instead, the counterfeits bring us bogus "prophecies" and bogus "tongues" and bogus "healings" and bogus "apostles" and bogus "revivals."   AND along with all the bad doctrine and the counterfeit supernatural phenomena interestingly often comes a great tendency for Church leaders and members to fall into some of the grossest kinds of sin. Such as Todd Bentley did, such as others that could be named in relation to the Prophecy movement have done. Such as I myself have done too. It's scary and depressing how sin is always right there breathing down my neck. I'm plagued by it unless I pray constantly against it. 

Go hear African pastor Conrad Mbewe who preached at the Strange Fire Conference about the condition of Africa if you want to get an appreciation for the connection of false doctrine with sin. There the biggest churches preach what he says is really a version of African witchcraft mingled with Christian terminology, thanks to the preaching of the false Word-Faith gospel, and where sexual sin has become common among the PASTORS of such churches, who even take advantage of women in their congregations. Take notice: SIN is the fruit of these counterfeit "miracles" they all seek. We all too easily fall into THE FLESH, even if we are true Christians but maybe some of us should ask if we are truly Christians and I'm including myself.

But some of us ARE walking in the flesh even if we are true Christians, when we don't live in the TRUE power of God.

So this is why I'm seeking personal revival, and it's why I'm still hoping for revival for the Church at large too. We need the Holy Spirit of God to come down and dangle us all over the pit of Hell as TRUE doctrine is preached to us and the counterfeits are exposed.

Strange Fire Side Trip: Interview with Michael Brown

So I did hear Michael Brown interviewed on Pilgrim Radio today.   The program will be repeated tonight at 9:30 PM Pacific Standard Time.

This constant refrain about how John MacArthur tarred all charismatics with the same brush when it's really only a few rotten apples that are the problem just doesn't deal with the issues the Strange Fire Conference sought to raise. 

It isn't about people, it's about DOCTRINE, BASIC doctrine, the doctrine that makes a Charismatic a Charismatic, the doctrine of the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit.  The rotten apples are a huge problem but their rottenness is really the natural fruit of the basic bad doctrine. 

Brown also thinks that the fact that some very respected teachers have believed in the gifts, such as A W Tozer and Oswald Chambers, is some kind of answer to the Conference.  But it doesn't have anything to do with who believes in it.  It's about DOCTRINE.  The Conference people have many times acknowledged that there are true Christians among them, but that they are simply mistaken.   It's about DOCTRINE. 

Brown thinks the gifts continue because scripture doesn't say they didn't;  MacArthur thinks the gifts stopped because he finds that implied in scripture. 

But there's also the question of exactly what is meant by the gifts of the Spirit.   Brown thinks the phenomena that are called the gifts of the Spirit today really are the gifts of the Spirit even though they are nothing like the gifts of the Spirit as described in the New Testament.  MacArthur and Company point out that if they aren't the same then they aren't the gifts of the Spirit.  

And if they aren't the gifts of the Spirit then they are either produced by the flesh or by demons.  Which is what one would expect if the gifts DID cease:  you wouldn't be getting the gifts but some kind of counterfeit.

And if they are produced by the flesh or demons then they are leading millions of Christians astray one way or another.

This IS a big deal.

Strange Fire: Sorting Out the Issues Part 4: Lists and Assessments, Visions, Tongues, Healings

Thought I'd try to list the main problems with Charismatica as I've come to see them, as brought out by the Strange Fire Conference :

• Dishonoring / insulting the Holy Spirit by imputing either fleshly or demonic phenomena to Him;
• Profaning worship, which is what "strange fire" means (see Leviticus 10:1) by various antics designed to conjure up counterfeit phenomena that have nothing to do with worship as defined by the Bible;
• Misleading people by a false gospel into a false salvation, all over the world;
• Defrauding people by promises of prosperity or miraculous healing in the name of Christ, all over the world;
• By mistaking counterfeits for the gifts of the Spirit, either encouraging the development of psychic powers ("soul power" which has demonic implications), or outright demonic possession or at least oppression of people who either wrongly think they are Christians or ARE Christians (I'm not sure MacArthur is right that a Christian can't be demonized).  

These are obviously not minor or secondary issues, but so far, with the rare exception of the Pentecostal pastor I quote a couple posts back, Charismatics continue to accuse the Strange Fire Conference of unfairly criticizing fellow Christians about trivial matters, dividing the true body of Christ, and even being the heretics themselves.  But if these things I've listed are true,  Christians need to recognize that fact and leave the movement.

THE HONOR OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
In Part 2 of the interview at Challies' blog, MacArthur defines his main objective this way:

Rather than initiating another conference, I am more interested in sparking a movement committed to reclaiming the honor of the Holy Spirit. And I would be glad to stand with these men in that effort, for the glory of Christ and the good of His church.

Here are some more topics touched on in the MacArthur interview as he answers questions and objections posed to him:

VISIONS LEADING MUSLIMS TO CHRIST?

Do I believe that people in the Muslim world are actually seeing Jesus Christ? No, I do not. Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:8 that he was “the last of all” to see the risen Christ. So, I believe that precludes anyone outside of those listed in 1 Corinthians 15 of being able to claim legitimate visions of the resurrected Savior.

(The apostle John, of course, was one of those included in 1 Corinthians 15.  Accordingly, I don’t believe the book of Revelation sets a precedent for believers to expect genuine visions of Jesus to occur throughout church history.)

Furthermore, it is important to note that these individuals are still unbelievers when they reportedly have these experiences. Consequently, these experiences (whatever they are reported to be) cannot constitute examples of the charismatic gifts having continued, since spiritual gifts are only given to believers (1 Cor. 12:7)—and these people do not come to saving faith until later.

Finally, the New Testament clearly states that the way in which the gospel is spread in this age is through preaching. As Paul explains in Romans 10:14–15, unbelievers will not hear the gospel unless missionaries go to them proclaiming the good news of salvation.

He refers us to this blog  concerning the claims of Muslims being brought to salvation through visions, and to this one.

These blogs discuss the gullibility of Christians in believing uncritically whatever is reported of such miraculous events and show how the claims of visions fail by the Biblical standard, which says people come to faith through the preaching of the gospel, which leaves out visions.  They also discuss the validity of other charismatic claims, and the second blog has a link to another article at the first blog that discusses the claims to Muslim salvations through visions even more thoroughly.

I'm reminded of the book that may have been the first of this trend of Muslims coming to salvation through visions of Christ, I Dared to Call Him Father, written in 1978 by Bilquis Sheikh, which recounts her visions and dreams, including at least one of Jesus Himself, by which she came to the gospel completely on her own.  She even baptized herself in her own bathtub with nobody else present.

Then recently Ravi Zacharias on the radio mentioned a friend of his who when he was dying had a vision of Jesus coming into his bedroom and holding his hand, and Ravi raised no question about it, even said how Jesus knew that's just what his friend needed at that moment.

If these visions are not from God, what is their source?  Visions of Jesus can't be "Soul Power," something our own human powers could accomplish, nor even the "miraculous" powers Nee says were originally given to Adam.  What does that leave?  Well, it leaves Satan and his demons, right?  What else? 

SO:  If it's from Satan and his demons, that ought to be recognized as no mere secondary matter, right?  Not something to celebrate as Christians so often do.  How alarmed should we be about this?  Pretty alarmed, wouldn't you say? 

TONGUES

I've already brought up tongues in another context but MacArthur also discusses it:

In terms of potential dangers, I do believe that modern tongues is an unsafe spiritual practice. True worship takes place in spirit and truth (John 4:24), meaning it involves both the emotions and the mind. By contrast, a worship practice that empties the mind or consists of vain repetitions (Matt. 6:7) has more in common with pagan religion than true worship. The fact that modern glossolalia parallels pagan religious rites should serve as a major warning of the dangers inherent in this unbiblical practice...

A lot of the interpretative issues in Acts and 1 Corinthians 12–14 become clear by simply applying the basic rules of hermeneutics. For example, one of the most fundamental principles of Bible interpretation is that Scripture interprets Scripture, and that the clearer passage ought to be used to interpret the less clear passage. Regarding tongues, Acts 2 is explicit that the gift of tongues produced real human languages. When we allow the clearer passage of Acts 2 to govern our interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12–14, we can make a strong case that the tongues of 1 Corinthians were also real human languages. That simple observation undermines the modern charismatic practice of vocalizing irrational speech...

Phil Johnson also wrote a post today on the GTY blog specifically on tongues.

OK, then:  Either the practice of charismatic "tongues" is "Soul Power" which I've discussed here before, a misuse of a natural human ability that was given to Adam but distorted by the Fall and therefore not to be exercised but suppressed; 

OR those who speak these "tongues" are at least partially demon-possessed.  That is, the devil somehow has access to the tongue.  This is no minor matter.     

Seems to me this implication will eventually need to be discussed by those in the thick of these issues.

MIRACULOUS HEALINGS
Claims to healings were mentioned at the above-linked blogs, and were discussed at the Strange Fire Conference, but didn't come up in John MacArthur's interview.

The problem with the claims to miraculous healings you hear all the time in Christian circles is that there's NEVER any evidence given for them.  You're supposed to just believe the reports, but the reports may be many times removed from the event and the event may look nothing like the report you heard if you can ever get any kind of real information about it.  And besides, once you've become aware of the great number of claims that are either self deceptions or frauds, nobody's reports should be taken at face value.  Somebody is very very convinced that a family member was suddenly and miraculously healed of bursitis when the elders prayed for her, and that COULD be true of course, since they were praying according to the Biblical instruction, but still it makes you want to know details that you'll never find out from people who simply take such things without questioning them.  It's as if faith can only exist for such Christians if there ISN'T evidence.

Some charismatics seem to equate the idea of faith more with things like having faith in miraculous healings than faith in the word of God as such or faith in Christ as our Savior.  If you can't hold onto a prayer for a miraculous healing then you might as well regard yourself as lacking in faith, period.  Some see miraculous healings as practically essential for winning people to Christ, at least as the best possible kind of witness.  I'd say that's a pretty puny idea of faith but that doesn't win me any points with those of that opinion.  Nor does answering that it's the same as walking by sight rather than by faith.  No, holding on to a prayer for a miraculous healing forever and ever if necessary is some Christians' idea of true faith. 

You may hear of people who finally give in to medical solutions to serious physical problems after many years of praying for a miraculous healing, but who then feel almost like they committed a sin by doing that.  I know of one person who scheduled surgery only to get the strong sense that she was finally to be healed miraculously which led her to cancel the surgery.  Months went by and she was not healed, so she rescheduled the surgery.  But that hasn't changed her mind about expecting a miraculous healing.  Those of this persuasion may also believe the gospel promises to take care of us financially, which is a version of the Prosperity gospel, or health-and-wealth gospel.  They can get very impatient with Christians who are suffering financially, because of their supposed lack of faith.  (Didn't Jesus say "the poor you'll always have with you?"  Well, that's explained as people who lack faith I guess, they will always be with us).   This version of the gospel usually means the person watches TBN.   I don't know if TBN promotes this or not but I remember being startled to hear from a regular TBN viewer the very carnal interpretation of "the abundant life" Jesus promises us, as if it means having all the comforts of this life, rather than the spiritual life and power in Christ.   

How many of the claimed miraculous healings are INDISPUTABLY of God?  I personally don't know of a single one.  The evidence always comes out against the claims or isn't forthcoming at all.

How many of the claimed visions of Jesus Christ are of God?  Well, none of them are, if MacArthur's biblical evidence is correct.

And I don't know of a single proven instance of a charismatic tongue being an actual language.  And again, if MacArthur's biblical reasoning is correct, they are all not from God.

While I've heard of some supposed predictions by "prophets" coming true, I haven't actually seen any of these claims proved either.

And again, none of these miraculous claims are anything like those reported in the New Testament anyway.  The "prophecies" are more like psychic readings, and nobody claims infallibility for them as the Bible requires;  the "healings" are never provable and are usually limited to minor things like bursitis anyway;  the "tongues" are not a known language.  And so on. 

=====================
When I think back on my own experience as a fairly new Christian in the charismatic movement, what stands out for me is not any particular failed claim to the miraculous but the undermining of my fledgling discernment, the confusion I experienced with the nagging anxiety that some of the phenomena I'd been witnessing were just not right somehow, that the rationalizations weren't holding up, while I was being told it was all of God and I shouldn't question it.

This is what I consider to be the biggest offense of the Charismatic movement from my own personal point of view.   Of course God ordained my experience and He has His reasons for it all, but it seems to me the Charismatic movement is just about as big an Antichrist cultic snare as the Roman Catholic Church and as dangerous, preventing genuine salvations in many cases, perhaps even being a source of demon possession.

The first clear problem I saw was when my little charismatic group prayed for the Pope and that was an eye-opener, the first step onto solid ground outside the charmed circle.  Then I prayed for light on various "prophecies" and some other rather strange goings-on that had been bothering me, which I then began to see by the light of the Bible, and that pushed me over the edge and out of the movement.  Still, despite being MOSTLY freed from it I've never felt I was COMPLETELY freed from it.

So for me the anxiety and uncertainty I've gone through trying to understand all this over my entire Christian life is a big enough reason to describe the movement as dangerous.  It takes a huge toll on the Christian life.  It makes me think of Daniel 7:25, about the Devil wearing out the saints.   Being unable to resolve some of the questions leaves one in an uncomfortable state of inner conflict. 

I know many have taken up sides on these things and don't experience the sort of conflict I've experienced, but I've got to say it seems to me they should because the conflict concerns what the Bible says;  it's not a personal matter.

Strange Fire: Sorting Out the Issues, Part 1: John MacArthur Answers His Critics

(sorry, don't know how these got out of order.  If I'm up to it I'll switch them around later)

In a two-part interview by a Reformed blogger who invited him to answer various criticisms of the Strange Fire Conference, John MacArthur Answers His Critics, Part 1 and Part 2 , John MacArthur says he considers this a "vital issue" that needed a strong statement as a "trumpet blast," a wake-up call to a complacent and ambivalent Church.

Because the honor of the Holy Spirit is at stake, we were convinced that we could not remain silent...

The charismatic quest for extrabiblical revelation, subjective impressions, ecstatic experiences, and so on, represents a massive danger to the church. Error is still error, even if there are true believers who embrace and espouse it...

The reality is that the gospel being proclaimed and believed by the majority of charismatics around the world is not the biblical gospel...

[It] breaks my heart to think that hundreds of millions of souls are being caught up into a movement where they are being seduced by false forms of the gospel.

   In Part 2 he continues:

Now someone might ask, “But isn’t this a secondary issue?” I would respond by asking, “Is the true understanding of the dignity of the Holy Spirit a secondary issue?” That’s a frightening notion, since the worship of the true God in the true way is our highest priority. And this issue has dramatic implications both for how we view God and for how we worship Him...

[Most objections don't]... take into account both the severity and the ubiquity of the charismatic error on the global level. Errant pneumatology is not ancillary to the charismatic movement. It is the very thing that defines it. And when an entire movement is defined by a heterodox theology that threatens the purity of the church by tolerating and even promoting false forms of the gospel, it must be boldly confronted...

These are strong statements, but for the most part the Continuationists or Charismatics have been reacting against the very idea of criticizing "another branch of the Church" and denigrating the Conference as focusing on secondary issues to no good purpose, rather than addressing the actual arguments presented at the Conference.

Personal communications on it I've received from Continuationists have ranged from a disgusted objection to "such a trivial concern," calling it "just another doctrinal conference that divides Christians when we need so desperately to be unified against the evils we are facing," which unfortunately included a refusal to listen to any of it; to a lengthy denunciation of the Conference full of Bible quotes condemning the presenters as heretics, also without having heard any of it. 

To these Charismatics there is no point in addressing the issues, it doesn't even occur to them.  They believe they already know the issues, and criticism of the Charismatic movement is not something to discuss but something to denounce, period.  So far the trumpet blast hasn't gotten through to them.

Well, IS it a "massive danger to the church" or just a trivial secondary matter it would be better to let lie for the sake of unity, or even a heresy itself to challenge it?  ARE people being "seduced by false forms of the gospel" through the Charismatic movement?

As I've already said in other posts, I think the Conference made its case, that it is a great danger, which justifies holding such a Conference, and justifies further attempts to get it across to Christians who have been taking it for granted. 

However, it's important that the critics get it right, and what MacArthur calls a "quest for extrabiblical revelation, subjective impressions and ecstatic experiences" misrepresents what the Charismatics believe they are doing.  As I say in my previous post, Charismatics do believe they base their belief in the continuation of the "gifts of the Spirit" on the Bible so that it is not a matter of personal seeking of revelations or impressions or experiences but of being open to what the Holy Spirit brings to their spirit.  Getting this right is crucial if the debate is going to make any headway.
 

Strange Fire: Sorting Out the Issues, Part 3: The Source of the Charismatic "GIfts"

Having said that I think it's important to characterize the Charismatics' beliefs in their own terms, as the Holy Spirit's speaking through the human spirit, if the Strange Fire Conference is right that is not at all what is going on.  However, I'm still not sure it's right to characterize the actuality as promoting extrabiblical revelations, seeking subjective impressions and ecstatic experiences as John MacArthur put it. 

I think this glosses over the fact that these things are usually experienced as just happening to the person without being asked for, and because that is the way they occur and because the recipient believes he or she is a saved Christian the question of their source just doesn't come up.  Or if it does it is immediately squelched by the constant refrain that it is dangerous to doubt the Holy Spirit.  That this attitude amounts to a mental bondage as tyrannical as that of any cult or dictatorship also doesn't occur.

In any case, if you insist on characterizing these phenomena in terms of subjective mental states you are going to miss the whole point, and miss an opportunity to make Charismatics aware of the problem you want to get across to them.

THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL IS A HUGE OFFSHOOT BUT IT'S NOT THE ROOT

I'm glad to see the Pentecostal pastor I quoted in the previous post agreeing with John MacArthur about the Prosperity Gospel, and that's a big start, but he remains a Continuationist nevertheless, in opposition to MacArthur, while the Strange Fire Conference ultimately aims at the root of the whole thing, at the very idea that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit continue today.

And that gets us into the fundamental Pentecostal and Charismatic claims of miraculous healings from God, of genuine visions from God, of genuine prophecies from God, of a genuine gift of tongues from God. of a Baptism in the Holy Spirit that is separate from being born again, and so on. 

[Just heard on Pilgrim Radio an interview with Phil Johnson of the Conference, and tomorrow at the same time there will be an interview with Michael Brown for the Charismatic side, on the program His People. The program airs in Pacific Standard Time at 2:30 AM, 12:30 PM and 9:30 PM and can be heard online.]

MIRACULOUS GIFTS OR "LEARNED BEHAVIOR" OR "INTUITIONS"

On the radio show I just mentioned, Phil Johnson just described the phenomena claimed by Charismatics to be from the Holy Spirit to be in fact "learned behavior," and I've got to disagree with that quite sharply. 

I don't know if possibly some of it is, but I can guarantee you I never "learned" to "speak in tongues," it just happened to me one day while I was praying out loud during the few years I was in a charismatic church and a charismatic organization as well.  A whole stream of unfamiliar sounds came out of my mouth absolutely unbidden.  I don't remember what I was praying about but I wasn't even thinking about the gift of tongues, let alone asking for it, though I think I had asked for it from time to time before that.  At first I was elated -- Wow, it's true and I got the gift.  It turned out to be easy to just walk around letting my mouth produce those foreign sounds.  There was a definite pattern to them with repeating "words."  Sometimes they seemed to come out with an unidentifiable foreign accent too, even more oddly many different accents.  I even sang them.  It began to hit me as very odd that the tunes I was singing them to were nursery rhymes like Hickory Dickory Dock and Three Blind Mice and the tune Reuben Reuben.  This did bother me, I didn't know what to make of it, but I wasn't producing those sounds myself in any sense, they were being automatically produced as I simply opened my mouth and allowed them to come out.   I couldn't have imitated them consciously if I'd tried, though by now I can imitate many of them.  Years later I read that at least one other person quit the charismatic movement when he found his own "gift of tongues" coming out to the tune of a nursery rhyme.   Smart man.  I dragged on with mine for a few more years, very ambivalent about it but unable to get rid of it; and occasionally I discover it's still there though I try to suppress it.

So to MacArthur and Johnson and Company I have to say No No No, you are not going to get anywhere characterizing these productions of the mind and mouth that Charismatics experience as mere learned behavior or intuitions of any ordinary sort.   I'm not going to say there aren't any frauds but I know for a fact that these things can be produced apart from any normal mental process.   Michael Brown said on one of his shows that he "prays in tongues."  Well, from my experience it's quite possible to carry on for a long time producing these alien sounds and I suppose someone, taking his cue from a misread Bible verse or two, could assume they are "prayer."  My supposition is that they are about as far from prayer or worship as you can get, but the automatic nature of them may be enough to persuade a Charismatic believer otherwise. 

And if Cessationists don't recognize this they aren't going to persuade any Charismatics.

SOUL POWER OR DEMONIC?
 
For this sort of phenomenon those are really the only two options.  Eventually I want to do a more thorough discussion of "soul power,"  which comes from a Continuationist corner of the Church although today's Charismatics haven't given it any thought that I know of.  The Strange Fire people are not likely to accept much of it either, although in many ways it supports their criticisms of the Charismatic movement.  

The idea is that there are "miraculous" powers that were given to Adam but lost at the fall, or at least "buried in the flesh" as Watchman Nee puts it, that can be revived under certain circumstances (such as repetitive singing of choruses).  He thinks they are probably discovered by people through promptings by the evil spirits.  They include such "parapsychological" or "paranormal" phenomena as psychic powers, clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis and that sort of thing.  Psychic powers can imitate prophecy.  Nee says healings of a certain sort are even possible through these powers, a sort of mind-over-matter thing such as Christian Science preaches and some Hindus and others practice.

This kind of thing would explain the kind of phenomena that are being exercised in the Charismatic movement, the "prophecies" and the "healings" and probably also the tongues speaking.  Some at Strange Fire did mention "psychic" phenomena as a possible explanation.  Nee also discussed the so-called "holy laughter" that was a major element in the supposed "revival" called the Toronto Blessing, that he'd witnessed in China before 1933 when he wrote the book describing these things.  How this automatic laughter relates to soul power isn't clear but Nee recognized it as a counterfeit phenomenon that did not come from God.   Nee, and Jessie Penn Lewis whose work he built on, accepted the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit but he also recognized a very large number of counterfeits of those gifts that were being expressed at the same time, something we don't hear recognized by today's charismatics who seem uncritically to accept anything that calls itself prophetic or miraculous. 

In his interview about his critics, John MacArthur goes on to such subjects as visions and tongues, which also need to be discussed as something other than ordinary human phenomena. That will be the next post.

Strange Fire: Sorting Out the Issues Part 2: A Pentecostal Pastor Agrees with much of the Strange Fire Conference

In Part 2 of his interview to answer his critics, John MacArthur gives a link to a blog by a Pentecostal minister   who agrees in general with the Strange Fire Conference (this is a great article).  As MacArthur says, this is the sort of response he was hoping to get:

THE DANGER OF THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL IS ABOUT WHAT THE AVERAGE BELIEVER BELIEVES (not about how many Prosperity preachers there are):

I’m around average Pentecostals in my congregation and campus ministry. I’m not constantly around denominational leaders or scholars. And among most congregants the likes of Osteen, Meyer, Copeland, and Shuttlesworth are incredibly popular.

I’ve heard demands for MacArthur to evaluate us by looking at French Arrington or Stanley Horton. To be completely honest, my congregants have no clue who those men are (apart from perhaps a vague familiarity established by sermon references). My congregants do know who Kenneth Hagin is, or who T.D. Jakes is. I don’t think MacArthur’s concern is primarily with the Pentecostals who hold Horton in high esteem. It’s with the congregants who hold Jakes and Copeland in high esteem, and given that priority, MacArthur’s approach makes more sense.

MacArthur wasn’t looking to spark a debate in peer-reviewed literature. He was looking to engage at the popular level, and he has been wildly successful at this. It’s the popular level where the false teachers and excesses are often a problem, and it makes sense to aim there.

It should also be noted that TBN is exported to other countries. They broadcast all over the world. They broadcast to Christians who don’t have the benefit of owning their own Bibles. The incredible damage of Prosperity teaching in world missions must be carefully observed.

INCREDIBLE DAMAGE OF PROSPERITY TEACHING IN WORLD MISSIONS.  Nobody else on the Continuationist side has said such a thing that I know of.  And he concludes with this:

We Pentecostals and Charismatics needed to be offended, I’m afraid it may be the only thing that will make us think critically and Biblically about ourselves as a movement. And for this offense I want to thank John MacArthur and the participants in the Strange Fire Conference. The most hurtful thing about that conference is not the broad generalizations, sweeping condemnations, or lack of distinctions. For me as a Pentecostal the most hurtful thing about the Strange Fire Conference is my knowledge that far too many of the criticisms are true.

Right.  We can all read the books by the pastors and theologians but it's our friends in the congregations we hear from most, and although I'm no longer part of the charismatic movement I do still have friends who are.   Some are into the Prosperity Gospel or at least into the related idea that miraculous healings are promised to us if we ask for them.  They can quote the Bible on this. 

I may say more about this later but it seemed important for now to let this Pentecostal pastor be heard.

Reframing the Cessationist/Continuationist Debate: Let's get the arguments on both sides of this straight.

I've listened to just a few minutes of Michael Brown's radio show for today, Do You Have a Kundalini Spirit? and I'm already frustrated with the way they are characterizing the Strange Fire Conference arguments.  He's got a Reformed Cessationist on as guest, John B. Carpenter, who wrote an article on the Conference in the Christian Post yesterday, Recovering From Strange and Friendly Fire. They just got through characterizing the Cessationist position pretty much as Carpenter characterizes it in his article:

The argument for cessationism is simple: the "revelatory gifts" of the New Testament were for the purpose of revealing scripture and since that is now done, we don't need those gifts. So they've ceased.

Yes, that's a simple enough statement of the Cessationist position, but how that position was defended at the Conference is not how it was characterized on the radio program.  Both on the program and in Carpenter's article, the appeal is made to 1 Corinthians 13 as supposedly saying that the gifts will cease "when the perfect comes" understood to mean "when the canon is established," which is NOT any argument that I heard at the Conference, or if it was it went in one ear and out the other.  I'd heard that sort of argument for years and it never convinced me that the gifts have ceased and I'm not at all surprised it doesn't convince anyone else.  But that was NOT the argument that DID convince me that I heard at the Conference and it makes me wonder if this long after the Conference neither Brown nor Carpenter has actually HEARD the arguments made there.

They also say that since there is no direct explicit statement in the Bible to support the claim that the gifts have ceased that the claim to base it on the Bible completely fails.  This is another old and dead argument. 

In fact Michael Brown said he's writing a chapter for his book, Authentic Fire, which he's writing in answer to the Conference, titled "Sola Scriptura and Therefore Not a Cessationist."  And I've got to say that really finally does get us to the central issues in this debate because Charismatics / Continuationists DO believe they get their doctrine of the ongoing supernatural gifts from the Bible, and that probably should have been emphasized more at the Conference, and to my mind it is now the main point Cessationists need to address.  That is, how can you think people could be asking for the Holy Spirit, as Charismatics do, or "for everything You have for me," and get a counterfeit, when scripture promises that God will not give you a stone when you ask for bread?  This IS central to this argument.

But again, the Conference DID convince me on BIBLICAL grounds that the gifts have ceased, and NOT on the grounds as described by Brown and Carpenter.

The main argument was that throughout scripture, and in certain very specific statements in the New Testament, the supernatural or miraculous gifts that were PERFORMED BY PARTICULAR PERSONS were given to authenticate that person as God's messenger or his message as from God.   That was the purpose of the miracles done by Moses and by Elijah and by Jesus Christ.  Scripture IS very clear about that.

And THAT is what you have to answer, Charismatics, that plus the supporting facts:

• that the charismatic gifts are not at all like the apostolic gifts,
• that various Christian theologians down the centuries argued that the gifts had ceased,

Again, that is what needs to be answered, not all the tired old arguments that were not defended at the Conference.   

But I'd add that the acceptance of the gifts for today is a NEW thing, hardly older than a century, which does not speak much in its favor.  It can be rationalized away, but not very effectively after the historical facts are understood.

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Update:  Thought I was going to go back and hear more of that radio show but this debate has gone on in new directions since then. 

Getting Free of the Deceptions of Charismatica

After watching and rewatching the Strange Fire Conference it's been growing on me how amazing and deplorable it is that so many Christians can't discern the falseness of Charismatic phenomena, and I'm certainly including myself in that judgment.   After much prayer I had come to reject most of the phenomena I'd encountered in my Charismatic phase, and left the whole movement after a couple of years of involvement, but I still had some doubts and reservations I shouldn't have had. 

When John MacArthur at the Conference simply flatly denounced the movement as insulting to God and the Holy Spirit and in essence apologized to the Lord for anyone's ever mistaking the bizarre phenomena as coming from Him, it hit me how right he was and how we should ALL recognize that.  And why don't we?  Are we deceived Christians or are we Christians at all?  Even that is often not clear.  How many of us may even be demon-oppressed (or possessed) because of our involvement?

I had felt hopeless about ever settling the questions I had for years, a couple of decades really, having given up on being able to determine for sure whether there was anything of God in the movement or not. 

Some of us originally got involved in the movement because of personal experiences of our own that we attributed to God.  And some of the experiences may truly HAVE been of God.  Having had such experiences we are drawn to the movement because it majors on personal experience.  I know of people who feel they found the "truth" in a charismatic church, found a real relationship with God.  They love the enthusiasm, the emotion, whereas their previous experience of church had been "dead" and boring.

My very first experience of a church service, being taken there by a friend after coming to belief through reading, was in a Foursquare charismatic church.  I actually didn't like many things about it because my reading had led me to a reverence and adoration of God rather than the emotional enthusiasms I saw in the church, but I had no reliable way of judging at that time, being a new Christian and then for some period being around only charismatics.  I'd also become involved in occultic practices during my reading period, and that was no doubt exerting a strong influence on me too despite efforts to reject it.  Later, in another town, the first church I attended by my own choice was a Presbyterian church, and it took me a while to realize that it was a "liberal" church, that is, it wasn't true to the Bible.  So I left there and went to another Foursquare church.  Then I joined a charismatic "parachurch" organization.  All that lasted for a couple of years until I finally made my way to a Reformed church which was new in town at that time.  The preaching there was excellent, but I still had my reservations about the charismatic phenomena.  And even now, despite the effect of the Strange Fire Conference, I may still be deceived in some ways I have yet to discover.

I am writing all this with a view to getting across something about the hold these things have on people.  I have no doubt any more that the movement is satanic in its essence, yet I met many there I consider to be true Christians, and now I'm pondering how hard it is to get free of it.  It must be somewhat similar to a Catholic's bondage to the RCC, or a Mormon's bondage to their "church."

TORONTO "BLESSING" OR CURSE?
I was still involved in the Charismatic movement when the "Toronto Blessing" broke out and my first take on it was that it had to be a counterfeit.  Nevertheless, being surrounded by charismatics who were constantly warning against imputing satanic influence to a work of God I was kept in a state of suspended judgment about it.  That constant refrain about attributing God's work to Satan has a powerful effect, it's one of the devil's most effective strategies.  Few of us have enough of a grasp of the Bible to cut through that worry with certainty, and even praying for light as I did (and receiving a great deal of light in answer) didn't fully release me from my doubts.

Until the Strange Fire Conference I hadn't thought about the Toronto Blessing for years, but in the last few days I decided to learn something about it.  All I remembered was that it was known as the "laughing revival."  I watched a film about it at You Tube that presents it in a very positive light.  Very little of the more controversial phenomena the revival is known for was shown, very little of the laughter, very little of the jerking.  Instead it focused mostly on people's claims to have been emotionally healed of past "hurts," to have had bad marriages repaired, and a few claimed physical healings as well.   Much of this "healing" went on during the periods when they were out cold on the floor.

How difficult it is to find fault with such nice normal people as were interviewed for this film, nice people who had such nice experiences, who testify to having had their lives changed by this "revival," and to "loving Jesus more" as well as loving people more.

After I saw it I had to sit and think and pray for a while to get my head straight about it.  The main thing that became evident to me was that all the focus was on psychological or fleshly results, people "getting their lives back," now having happy marriages or happier lives; and they were all thanking God for this.  But this is a far cry from the teachings of Jesus, who tells us to LOSE our lives, not gain them, who tells us to take up our cross (consider ourselves dead to this world), die to ourselves daily and so on.    None of that was in evidence, nor a single word about sin and how we are sinners in need of salvation, nor anything of the gospel itself of salvation through Christ's death in our place,  In short there was nothing Christian about this "revival" at all from what was shown in that film.

"HOLY" LAUGHTER?
 This topic takes me back to the idea of "soul power" which I've posted on a few times.  I've always liked the "holiness" writers like Watchman Nee, which is probably one major reason I haven't been able to completely free myself from the spell of charismatica, since he and others in the Holiness camp accept the charismatic idea of the continuation of the spiritual gifts.  Now that I believe he was deceived about that it helps.

However, since he does accept the gifts for today you might think more charismatics would refer to his writings for support, but I haven't found that to be the case.  If they did they'd have to notice that he denounced "holy laughter" all the way back in 1933 when it was occurring in churches in China.  Unlike other supernatural phenomena he considered to be possibly authentic, requiring discernment to tell the authentic from the counterfeit, "holy laughter" he considered to be nothing but counterfeit [pp. 71-4, Latent Power of the Soul], so if charismatics had taken him seriously during the Toronto Blessing they'd have to have rejected that particular manifestation for sure.

And really, again it seems to me that we all ought to see such laughter as counterfeit, just the tone of it is a violation of the Biblical revelation of the character of God, so again I'm amazed at us that we hesitate on such a point as this.  The devil's manipulations are powerful, the fear of offending God by rejecting such phenomena for instance, when in reality we offend Him by accepting such things.

Nee also writes, in Latent Power of the Soul, that the devil can counterfeit all kinds of things that we'd never suspect to be counterfeits, such as "false repentance, false salvation, false regeneration, false revival, false joy ..." [p. 41]

We need all the help we can get from something like the Strange Fire Conference, to set us free from these things.

Here's a link to a page of articles exposing the errors of the Toronto Blessing:
Testimonies and Analyses of the Toronto Blessing

Interesting: I've read quite a few of those articles by now and what's particularly interesting to me is that while many of them identify the revival as the work of evil spirits they don't give up their belief in the charismatic gifts for today. This is a pretty common position these days, to see such things as merely excesses or deviations, but it seems to me now that they are the natural logical extension of belief in the gifts, or any false belief in supernatural occurrences, which gives ground to evil spirits.

Some of the Evidence for the Cessation of the Gifts of the Spirit, and the Devilish Nature of Today's Counterfeits of the Gifts

The Strange Fire Conference definitely did convince me that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit that were so evident in the early church stopped completely after the apostolic era.  I had read arguments along these lines before but none of it was convincing to me as is the evidence that was given at the Conference. 

THE BIBLICAL EVIDENCE:
The main evidence given for this was Biblical, and most of it was given at the Conference by pastor Tom Pennington: [A Case For Cessationism]    the Biblical fact is that ALL the miracle-working powers possessed by individuals throughout the Old Testament were clearly given by God to authenticate either His messenger or the message brought by him.  There were only two periods in Old Testament history when miracles were common, and each was only 65 years in duration:  the period of Moses and the period of Elijah and Elisha.  There were isolated instances in between but those two periods were when miracles were most prolific, and in between there were very long periods when no miracles were done at all.  There were over 700 years from the last Old Testament miracle in Hezekiah's time until Christ, during which no miracles were reported.

The third and last period of miraculous working was during the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the spread of the gospel.  There are various clues in the text that the miracles were given as God's authentication of His messenger, authenticating Christ as Messiah and the gospel message as God's.   Somehow we manage to overlook the implication of such clues as the fact that Jesus told John that if he doubted Him, at least he should believe the works He did, the works being His credentials from God [John 10:37, 38]; and He told Philip the same thing [14:11].  We also fail to grasp the implication of the fact that the Lord Jesus gave His disciples miraculous powers when He sent them out to preach the gospel, but the gospel WAS the message they were to preach:  He did not tell them to preach that miraculous powers are available to all believers as today's Charismatics teach.  Clearly He gave them those powers to authenticate the message they were to preach.  

R. C. Sproul answered the typical Charismatic claim that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, in the form originally given at Pentecost where they all spoke in tongues, is an experience all believers in all times should expect to receive, showing that the instances of separate Spirit baptism in the New Testament occurred at the entry of specific groups of believers into the Church:  the Jews, the Gentiles, the Samaritans, and the "God fearers."  I'd have to listen again to the talk to be able to argue this case myself, but I found it convincing:  each separate group represented a specific extension of the gospel into the world and God gave a special authentication at the entry of each into the Church in the repetition of the events of Pentecost, Pentecost being THE sign of the inauguration of the gospel.  That initiation was never to be repeated except in those special instances, but those special instances were in reality the gospel being given to other parts of the Foundation of the Church and not representative of all believers since then.  Once the Foundation was established and ratified, believers since then are not to expect to receive the sign of Pentecost.

OTHER EVIDENCE:
There is secondary evidence as well, including the fact that apparently the miraculous powers were waning by the time Paul's ministry was drawing to a close, and that after the apostolic age they had ceased.  Charismatics try to rationalize this away on the basis of an assumed spiritual deadness in the post-apostolic churches, but that is nothing but assumption.  In fact it's just circular reasoning:  the "deadness" is proved by the cessation of the gifts.  Some of the early Church fathers as well as other Christian leaders down the centuries, declared the cessation of the gifts.  Pennington in his earlier talk quoted Calvin on that subject.

The fact that the "gifts" as practiced today are really nothing like the gifts practiced in the Apostolic era, is another piece of secondary evidence.  Today's "prophecy" is not required to be 100% accurate as biblical prophecy was required to be, although they claim it's based on the New Testament, and besides that a great many of the "prophecies" are either useless or just plain silly (I wrote about Jill Austin's "prophecies" here some time ago).   As for the gift of healing the evidence is just about nil for the thousands of claims, although in principle there is no reason God can't heal miraculously today and no doubt does from time to time;  and I'll get to the "gift of tongues" next:

TONGUES:
Tongues speaking ought to be discredited by the mere fact that Mormons and some practitioners of pagan religions may speak in tongues, plus the fact that they are not known languages but are used entirely differently than they were used in the early church.  By the way, I supposedly HAVE the gift of tongues.  I received it while praying out loud in my bedroom during the period I was involved in the Charismatic movement.  But from the very beginning it didn't FEEL right to me, and over the years I've struggled with understanding it, have prayed the Lord would take it away but I still have it and sometimes just blurt it out.  It may be what Nee calls "soul power" in which case simply working to deny it and suppress it may be the best I can do.

What was the original gift of tongues FOR?  To demonstrate God's plan to spread the gospel to all people groups of the world, that the Messiah was not simply the Messiah of the Jews but the Savior of the entire world understood to have been promised as far back as Adam and Eve.  Again, once God's new work was authenticated there was no further need of the authenticating signs.  To continue to expect them is to completely miss the point of what God was doing.

The conclusion from all this and more is that miracles were never in themselves to be part of the gospel message but were given to establish the gospel message as coming from God.   All the emphasis on miracles is a distraction from the gospel.  Not that God doesn't sometimes still give miracles for specific purposes, but that they were never intended to be normative in the life of the Church.

SOUL POWER:
There is probably more than the above evidence that I'm forgetting but I'd like to add what I wrote about in the previous post from Watchman Nee's warnings about "soul power" being mistaken for the work of the Holy Spirit. 

This isn't evidence but I find it a compelling way of understanding some of the Charismatic phenomena that is clearly not just human imagination but has a supernatural element to it, without always having to invoke demons as their author (although probably demons are behind the expression of these things in one way or another anyway.)  It's the fact that the Charismatic phenomena occur through unusual channels and are NOT something normal human abilities could produce that misleads people into thinking they are from God, figuring that Well, we're Christians so where else could such things come from?  Cessationists who think only in terms of ordinary human powers or some sort of trickery completely miss the point that the phenomena just "happen" to people and can be quite astonishing.

Nee took most of his thinking on this subject from Jessie Penn-Lewis who was involved in the Welsh revival of the early twentieth century, specifically her book, Soul and Spirit.  The writings of both of them are rather quaint as they make much of the early twentieth century "scientific" studies of parapsychology in their discussion.

And they both affirm the continuation of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit.  After the Strange Fire Conference I'm now convinced that both of them were deceived about that.  They are at great pains to distinguish genuine manifestations of the God-given gifts from the counterfeits that both were acutely aware of.  Whatever miraculous events were genuinely given from God that either of them witnessed would have been done through God's sovereign will and not as a continuation of the gifts, but unfortunately many of those may also have been counterfeits. 

Penn-Lewis wrote extensively about the activity of evil spirits in connection with the revival.  It is most likely that the confusion of God's gifts with counterfeits gave place to the devil to do his work, and there is every reason to think that the devil is working among Charismatics today who have fallen into the same mistake.

Lord, set us free from the devil's deceptions.

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October 30:
Now they're saying, well, Michael Brown is, that the Biblical arguments for the cessation of the spiritual gifts prove nothing. 

He also dismissed the fact that Kundalini yoga brings about the same jerkings that were so evident on videos of the Brownsville "revival."  He said if they're the result of preaching Jesus then it means nothing.  However, ALL we see on the videos is that sort of phenomena, we do not see Jesus being preached.  It is clear that those who made the video think the strange body movements are of major importance and the preaching of Jesus not so important. 

And Michael Brown doesn't seem to know that he can't just SAY Brownsville was all about preaching Jesus if there is no evidence for it, which there isn't.  But there IS evidence for all those jerkings and falling down.  Also the whole atmosphere of the "revival" on those videos is giddy rather than appropriate to a true Christian revival.

Soul Power Counterfeits the Holy Spirit: Predicting the Future

It was while listening to Friday's radio show by Dr. Michael Brown, Dr. Brown Answers Your E-Questions that I decided to post again on the subject of Soul Power, even perhaps at some length, because I believe it may explain a great deal of what is experienced in Charismatic circles as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, although in reality it may be nothing but heightened natural human powers.

On that radio show Dr. Brown goes into some detail about the Charismatic claim that New Testament prophecy is different from Old Testament prophecy in that the prophet is not required to be 100% accurate.  He also tries to answer the accusation that it is new extrabiblical revelation, and I have to say I agree with him about that:  that is, most of the "prophecy" in question is focused on strictly personal individual concerns, which is an entirely different thing from the Old Testament prophecies which were given to God's People for revelation of the ways of God, which are instructions for the edification of all of us in all times and places.

But this amounts to a denial that anything like biblical prophecy is being exercised at all.  As someone at the Strange Fire Conference quipped, this denial, along with the denial that healings on the level of the New Testament are occurring today, and the denial that today's "gift of tongues" is  the same as the New Testament gift of tongues, makes closet Cessationists of Charismatics. 

There is truth in that observation.  The claimed gifts are really not like the supernatural gifts that were exercised by the Apostles and many believers in that era.

Brown gave two examples of what he means by "New Testament" style prophecy that is not like Old Testament prophecy: 

When he was teaching part time but had been privately told he would soon replace a full-time teacher on the staff, someone in his class received this knowledge in his mind and spoke it out loud.  It was true, Brown knew it was true, and he considered it to be a prophetic speaking.

Another example was given of a woman missionary to China who was told by a Charismatic prophet that he "saw" her working in Palestine although such an idea had never occurred to her.  Over some time other similar words of "prophecy" were brought to her and finally it was also confirmed in her own understanding as God's will for her, and she did eventually go as a missionary to Palestine.

If we just accept these as true reports, and I have no reason to doubt them, the question I'd have is whether either of them describes prophecy in the biblical sense at all.  And I'd answer, No.

Consider something about these two examples:  Don't they strike you as peculiarly empty and useless?  Even if true what good is there in either case of such a prediction being given?  Did either Brown or the missionary need to know about it, did it serve any purpose in their lives?  Wouldn't Brown have taken over the other teacher's job in any case, and the missionary have gone to Palestine in any case, and what good purpose did it serve for either of them to have it revealed in advance?  Isn't it obvious the answer is None?

Well, what is it then?   Is it demonic?  Not necessarily.

My guess is that it's what Watchman Nee identified as "soul power."  There can be demonic influence involved but it's nevertheless a human power, which he explains as built into human nature at the Creation but suppressed as a result of the Fall.  Although such powers are suppressed in us, it is possible to release them to expression through various disciplines such as are practiced in many of the world's religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism.  Nee discusses the ability to foretell the future as one of these "supernatural" but fallen human powers on pages 22 and 24 of his little book, The Latent Power of the Soul. 

He also mentions healings as one of the powers, and sees Christian Science as the practice of controlling the mind in order to bring about certain kinds of healings.  He regards such phenomena as often successful, which may or may not be borne out in reality, but his idea of how it works is interesting and compelling it seems to me.  It explains for one things the strenuous disciplines, the ascetic practices, the breathings and meditations, that many go through in Eastern religions to acquire the ability to control the mind and body.  Books written by many practitioners of Hinduism, such as Paramahansa Yogananda, often describe strange phenomena and powers that its adepts are capable of, from telepathy to telekinesis to clairvoyance and so on.  I've tended to think of these abilities as demonically inspired, but now I think this explanation is better. 

The simple repetition of a mantra or even a prayer such as the Jesus Prayer practiced by Russian mystics, can release such abilities in a person.  But such practices and disciplines aren't the only means of releasing the latent soul powers, as many Christians today have come to experience some of them from a sort of contagion, especially in a highly emotionally charged atmosphere as can occur in some "revivals."   The jerkings and shakings and falling down may include demonic involvement, or they could merely be the effect on the human frame of a heightened "religious" frame of mind that can trigger the release of the powers in question.  Again I'd recommend watching the video presentation by Andrew Strom about false spirits in the Church, which I've posted at the upper right of this blog.  It is abundantly clear that the same jerkings that occurred in the Brownsville "revival" are part of Hindu Kundalini practices as well.  How gullible we are, and so eager to embrace anything out of the ordinary that seems supernatural.

Could genuinely born-again Christians experience these things and mistake them for the Holy Spirit?  Contrary to John MacArthur who seems to believe that being born again should protect us from all such counterfeits, I don't know for sure but I'd hesitate to say they couldn't.  In any case these are NOT the biblical Gifts of the Spirit, they ARE counterfeit.  And Nee (who himself had a psychic power he at first attributed to God but then learned to renounce as contrary to Christian life) teaches that rather than allowing their expression we should die to them and deny them expression because as powers of the human soul they interfere with the genuine workings of God through the Holy Spirit.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" can apply to this subject.  If we don't know we are being deceived by a counterfeit we can fall into all kinds of error and miss the Holy Spirit altogether.

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Just want to add here that Nee sees human nature as made up of three parts, body, soul and spirit, which is found in one place in the Bible, though others such as John MacArthur believe in only two parts, body and soul.

So the Charismatics are Missing the Points made at Strange Fire, even the "good guys."

Dr. Michael Brown, who wrote a widely circulated plea against the Strange Fire Conference before it began*, has been following up with specific answers to the Conference on his radio show, and one I just partly listened to was on October 24th titled "Thou Shalt or Thou Shalt Not Prosper" in which he either misunderstands or intentionally mangles the arguments against the Prosperity Gospel by characterizing them as being against prosperity itself.  

He goes on and on about how prosperity is a blessing from the Lord, quoting scripture, quoting a rabbi and so on, in what is such a blatant Straw Man argument you'd think he himself would have to see through it.  The first thing that popped into my mind as an objection was that far from embracing poverty the so-called Protestant Work Ethic made many wealthy through the practice of Biblical principles of frugality and hard work, and was arguably the reason for the unprecedented national prosperity of the United States. 

Brown tries to relegate the *true* offenses of the Prosperity Gospel to a fringe minority of preachers of what he calls a "carnal" doctrine (although he even calls these supposedly minority fleecers of the flock "brothers"), denying the statistic given in the Conference that some 90% of Charismatics around the world follow this health-and-wealth "gospel."  And of course he implicitly denies that every single one of those who preach this "gospel" is a charlatan and a denier of the true Christ, as was amply demonstrated at the Conference.

Later:  Need to clarify here that the statistic refers to rank and file BELIEVERS who FOLLOW the Prosperity Gospel, based on a specific report I've again failed to note down.  The percentage of preachers and even Word-Faith congregations is something else, but nevertheless there can't be a single one that is not guilty of promoting a false gospel as long as they hold up health and wealth as central expectations of living for Christ.

I want to emphasize that:  Michael Brown seems to think the problem with the prosperity teachers is mainly their "fund raising tactics," of which he gave an example on the program, but he doesn't so far seem to have objected at all to the doctrine itself that is taught by them, which IS that health and wealth are to be EXPECTED by a follower of Christ, as if they are promised as part of the gospel.  And he certainly hasn't noticed what Justin Peters pointed out in a "breakout" session at the Conference, that what they teach has nothing in common with Christianity at all, but has its roots in a nineteenth century metaphysical movement which has more in common with New Age doctrines.

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Another recent radio show by Michael Brown was Dividing Over Truth or Just Divisive, the first hour being an interview with Phil Johnson of John MacArthur's ministry on some issues in the Strange Fire Conference, and the second hour an interview of two "Continuationist Calvinists." 

The main thing I want to say about this is that Johnson says the gospel is not evident in Charismatic presentations and Brown insists that the gospel is central, that people are being saved by Charismatics all over the world and so on.  The Brownsville "revival" was a case in point as Brown insisted that the true gospel was preached there, that people repented and so on, but as Johnson pointed out, there is no way for anyone to know that from the public presentations that are available to us.  The You Tube videos of the "revival," which I posted at this blog some time ago, clearly emphasize the odd manifestations, the jerking and falling down, as if they were the whole point of the revival.  And yet Charismatics will say that those things are considered to be lamentable excesses that may attend any true revival, which was Jonathan Edwards' argument about the Great Awakening.  The problem is that in practice they are not treated as fringe excesses but as the main point, they are not relegated to a dark corner of the auditorium but brought up on stage and put on display as some kind of proof of the moving of the Holy Spirit.  And a clear presentation of the gospel of salvation is not anywhere to be found, at least in any of the videos I've seen.

So Johnson said he'd like to see some proof that the gospel is preached by certain Charismatic leaders and Brown agreed to produce the evidence.  I look forward to it.

There is also a problem with the indignation about all the Charismatics working to further the gospel around the world being treated by the Strange Fire speakers as not even Christians, because the fact is that there is a lack of evidence for the claim that they ARE furthering the true gospel.  They may sacrifice themselves for their work, they may do much practical good and so on, but that doesn't prove that it is the true gospel they are preaching and serving, despite Brown's strenuous assertions that that is the case.  There is simply no evidence.  Exactly WHAT gospel ARE they preaching?  HOW are they preaching it?  IS it the true gospel and is it central to their work?  You can assert and assert that it is, and even believe it yourself, but since experience has often shown that in reality a diluted gospel or some other gospel altogether is being promoted through Charismatic work, evidence is needed.  I hope there IS evidence, I hope Brown will produce it.

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Then there is this article Michael Brown wrote for a Charismatic publication, Let's Not Bite and Devour One Another, in which he tacitly accuses the Strange Fire Conference of an unloving attitude, which I for one found nowhere in the Conference, and doesn't address a single issue raised at the  Conference. 

Again a comment about the Prosperity Gospel catches my attention:

It’s the same with the prosperity gospel. Some people take it to mean “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8), which is obviously biblical and true. Others take it to mean that Jesus died to make us rich and that the test of our spirituality is the abundance of our possessions. This is a dangerous and deadly deception (Luke 12:15; 1 Tim. 6:6-10).

 But this is a disingenuous argument here.  There is nothing called the "prosperity gospel" that is based on 2 Cor. 9:8 which simply teaches God's provision for giving, and clearly the Conference was not addressing anything of the sort.  How that passage is interpreted could be subject for discussion, but it's just misleading to try to associate the Prosperity Gospel with it at all.  Perhaps Brown simply didn't listen to enough of the Conference, I guess that's possible.  He should listen to both of Justin Peters' "Breakout" sessions.

I know rich Christian businessmen who are absolutely committed to Jesus, living godly lives and believing God has given them wealth to help spread the gospel worldwide. And I don’t see them as being attached to their money at all, although they pray for prosperity in accordance with many biblical texts. I know other people who are carnal and worldly minded as they pursue prosperity with the help of some manipulating preachers. (Click here for my 1990 chapter on “The Prosperity Trap.”)

The first category of wealthy givers are known to all Christians, they are not in any sense motivated by their specifically Charismatic beliefs as the second category are.  Again, the Prosperity Gospel is the teaching that ALL Christians should expect health and wealth as part of their gospel heritage.  THAT is what the Strange Fire Conference was addressing that is not getting addressed here.  My impression is that Brown probably agrees with that teaching.

Brown is right that there is a major communication disconnect here but it's a different disconnect than he has in mind.

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One last radio show for now:  Authentic Fire and Strange Fire, in which a couple of Charismatic missionaries are supposed to disprove the view that the Charismatic Movement does not produce social benefits;  in which it becomes only too clear that the biblical word "power" has one and only one meaning to Charismatics, that is, the gifts of the Spirit and similar phenomena;  in which a caller who is a Continuationist but claims to have been through MacArthur's Masters Seminary obviously didn't hear how Cessationism was defended from the Bible at the Conference;  in which a Cessationist caller is unfortunately thrown off his point by a strange analogy Brown seems to think makes sense.  Among other things.  There's a lot to respond to in this one, not sure I'll try to do that.

DO CHARISMATIC MISSIONARIES FURTHER THE GOSPEL?
At least a word about the missionaries.   They were at the Brownsville revival and became missionaries as a result.  They are establishing an orphanage, rescuing babies, providing refuge for women who would abort, and many similar things.  Would John MacArthur take back his opinion that the Charismatic Movement produces "essentially zero social benefit" on hearing these things, or would he simply want to find out whether their motivation was specifically Charismatic or Christian, which was a distinction he raised more than once.  If a person goes into the Charismatic Movement as a Christian already, or just to a Charismatic "revival" as a Christian, with an already established  Christian mindset, then is any fruit they may produce Charismatic or Christian? 

Brown keeps telling us that Brownsville was characterized by the gospel of Christ;  the problem is that the publicly available evidence of the "revival" shows absolutely nothing characteristically Christian at all.  What was it about that "revival" that inspired these women to be missionaries?  When asked about the effect of the revival they affirm its importance in their decision but their description is so vague as to leave us without an answer:  one was "blown away by the power of the Holy Spirit."  To anyone who has seen the videos of the revival that most likely has to refer to the physical manifestations, the jerking and falling down and so on.  The Strange Fire Conference shows that these are not of the Holy Spirit but are the same kind of manifestations that occur in Hindu contexts, which can be seen in the videos I've linked at the top right of this blog.

It sounds like they are doing much practical good as missionaries, and although the impetus may have come from the revival the actual motivation to do good may simply be from their Christian background, to which they've tacked on their Charismatic experience.  At least this is still a question.  And another question is:  are they representing the true gospel in their work?  That's a major question, and after hearing this show there is simply no way to know.  Again, over and over it is asserted that the true Biblical gospel is preached, is intrinsic to Charismatic doctrine and experience, but again, there is no clear evidence that this is so.  If there is Michael Brown needs to produce it.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF CHARISMATICS ARE PROSPERITY GOSPEL FOLLOWERS
I may or may not comment on more of this show later, but I do want to note that Brown again misconstrues the statistic that was given at the Conference, that some 90% of the five hundred million Charismatics worldwide are Word-of-Faith followers.  Brown gave the misleading answer to that statistic that  "TV preachers don't represent most of charismatics worldwide."  But that is not what was claimed.  It's not about what "TV preachers" represent, but what 90% of ordinary Charismatic believers DO, and what they do is believe and follow the Prosperity Gospel teachings.

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* (November 3 addition)
In his pre-Conference plea to John MacArthur, Michael Brown wrote this:

As I write these words, the Holy Spirit is moving mightily around the earth, saving lost sinners, bringing rebels to repentance, healing sick bodies, setting captives free and, above all, glorifying the name of Jesus. According to pastor John MacArthur, however, this is actually “a farce and a scam.”

In his new book Strange Fire, he claims that this work of the Spirit actually represents “the explosive growth of a false church, as dangerous as any cult or heresy that has ever assaulted Christianity,” and he calls for a “collective war” against these alleged “pervasive abuses on the Spirit of God.”

One thing I've discovered from reading some objections to the Strange Fire Conference by various "Continuationists" or Charismatics, is that they take their own theology so for granted that it doesn't occur to them that they need to explain it to those who see things differently.    So, for instance, I find the word "power" as in the power of the Holy Spirit, or even the "power of the gospel" is always taken as referring to miraculous powers, as if it just doesn't occur to them that the Holy Spirit's powers are expressed in many hidden ways, even in salvation and changed hearts.

In this statement by Michael Brown he doesn't see any need to try to prove that through the work of Charismatics "the Holy Spirit is moving mightily around the earth, saving lost sinners, bringing rebels to repentance, healing sick bodies, setting captives free, and, above all, glorifying the name of Jesus."

But of course this is precisely what is brought into question by the Strange Fire Conference.  Exactly HOW is the Holy Spirit "moving around the earth" if in fact 90% of Christians world-wide are followers of the Word-Faith teaching?   ARE sinners being saved?  Where is the evidence?  What does Brown have in mind?  Where's the evidence for the repentance?  Can he quote anyone preaching repentance or credible testimonies to the same?  Perhaps he can here or there, but why doesn't it occur to him that he needs to do this?   And of course physical healings are notoriously unevidenced in Charismatic circles, to the point that fraud is often the only explanation.  And how could the Name of Jesus be glorified if these things are what Brown has in mind?  It couldn't.

Some ponderings in the immediate aftermath of the Strange Fire Conference

Well, the "dialogue" has heated up between the Cessationists represented by the Strange Fire Conference and the Continuationists or Charismatics who were the subject of the Conference's denunciations.

MacArthur and other Conference speakers were careful to say there are true Christians in the Charismatic Movement, and also that by their blaspheming or insulting of the Holy Spirit he (MacArthur) didn't mean THE blasphemy of the Holy Spirit that Jesus said will not be forgiven, which he characterized as a stubborn hatred of Jesus Christ that he does not impute to the Charismatics;  but some of the Charismatics aren't in a mood to be so generous to him, some classing HIM within the general apostasy we are witnessing today, accusing HIM of being the false teacher. 

The Conference grounded all its objections on the Bible, very effectively in my opinion, yet some of the Charismatics come back accusing MacArthur and company of being unbiblical.  Did they hear the arguments at all?  They don't address them at all, choosing instead to highlight perhaps a conclusion someone drew without the evidence that backed it up.  The Conference speakers concluded for instance that the Charismatic Movement is simply not Christian,  meaning the movement itself, its doctrines, not all its members, having clearly said many times that there are Christians within the movement;  but Charismatics insist that they condemned them ALL.  Were they listening at all?   It's easy to miss important points if you're perhaps disposed to pick up certain affronts to your beliefs and tune out the rest.  Just a thought.

Besides insisting on certain miracles, many of the Charismatics simply miss the point that nobody at the Conference said the Holy Spirit has completely stopped working, but that He works through Providences rather than miracles, and many of the Charismatics confuse the two in their objections to the Conference.  I many times pray for Biblical light on a particular subject and sometimes it comes to mind immediately.  That's not a miracle, that's a Providence.  Once years ago with Jehovah's Witnesses at the door I quickly prayed that God would show me what to say to them:  "I will not give My glory to another" from Isaiah came immediately to mind, which gave me a terrific starting point for talking to them.  Now THAT is Biblical, it HAD to be the Holy Spirit, but it was not a miracle, it was a providence.

Although I say I'm now a convinced Cessationist there still are some gray areas that concern me.  I am completely convinced that the GIFTS of the Spirit to individuals have ceased, that no one can rightly claim to BE a prophet or a healer these days;  but the Cessationists apparently have more in mind than that, that ALL miracles ceased after the apostolic age.  [Later:  Been listening to Pennington's talk again and he does say that God has done miracles since the apostolic age.  I did have the impression from others that they don't agree with that].  I've been praying about it and the answers do seem to keep coming back that they DID cease.  I ask about a particular phenomenon and something from scripture will come to mind that suggests it doesn't hold up to that standard.   I'm still not sure about some miracles many I know claim to have witnessed, including among family members; but many personal experiences and "communications" such as I have experienced over the years have not been holding up.

Yet surely the Lord can and does occasionally still do miraculous healings and even other miracles.  I think of brother Andrew back in the 50s who reported that God healed his war-shattered ankle at the moment he submitted to God's call to take Bibles into Communist and other nations hostile to Christianity.  I think of Corrie Ten Boom in the Nazi concentration camp whose bottle of medicine never ran out although she kept dispensing it to other women in her barracks.

But I'm not sure the Cessationists DO mean to exclude ALL such claims.  I've listened again to some of the talks and will keep listening but so far no clear light on this question.

In holding up some of my own past experiences to scrutiny over the last few days I've tried to be very strict with myself, "Do not spare, Lord, I want to know if I have been deceived."  There is something very convincing about such experiences, such as a sense of receiving a communication about some situation one is going through, a sense of being guided in a certain direction perhaps.   There is more I need to examine and I don't want to get into detail at this point, but as I say above the general result so far has been that they probably were not from the Lord.  I say probably because some of them were VERY convincing and in no clear way contradicted anything Biblical either.  SOME were shown to me in the Bible itself and those I'm not doubting.

Of course most Charismatics will claim to be grounded in the Bible, and wouldn't object to anything Steve Lawson said about Sola Scriptura, until he got into the Biblical interpretations of the Puritans and others who agreed that the gifts ceased at the end of the apostolic age. 

BASED ON THE BIBLE. 

I haven't yet heard Tom Pennington's talk again but want to soon, but still remember it as giving a very thorough BIBLICAL basis for the cessation of the gifts.

A Few Things I Learned from the Strange Fire Conference

Finally, after many years of uncertainty, now after hearing the Strange Fire Conference over the last three days I can say I am a convinced Cessationist, that is, I am finally convinced that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit that were given to the apostles of Christ and many believers of the apostolic era as well, are no longer in operation among Christians.  The speakers at the Conference all gave convincing Biblical, historical and other evidence for this position, and what a relief after so many years to finally have a settled view of this.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the talk by Tom Pennington on Day 2 was particularly eye-opening for me, as he thoroughly covered the Biblical examples of God's use of supernatural powers and miracles to authenticate His chosen spokesmen and His work, showing that there is no reason for us to have the same gifts as were needed to authenticate the mission of Christ and the founding of the Church as God's work.  But I also have to say that ALL the talks worked together building one upon another to consolidate and confirm that understanding.  I'm VERY grateful to John MacArthur and his team for putting on this Conference and I hope it will be as much of a blessing to many others as it has been for me.  From what I've heard, they had a very good audience following the streamed video from around the world.

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The Conference is on You Tube now;  it's a bit hard to find all the sessions in order but it can be done.  You Tube also stops a lot on my computer so I may do better when they are able to get them posted on Grace's streaming video page again:  http://www.tmstrangefire.org/ 

Also, the Sunday (October 20)  service at Grace Community is going to be streamed at 10:30 AM PDT and MacArthur's message will continue the theme of the Conference.  They expect a great number of the Conference attendees to be present along with the regular congregation.

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I just want to note a few things that I learned from the Conference:

90% of Charismatics around the world are Word-of-Faith or Prosperity Gospel believers, that is, those who follow the charlatans who promise health and wealth while fleecing the flock and living outrageously extravagant lives at the flock's expense, many of whom are extremely poor.

There is a music group called Jesus Culture that is apparently very popular with young people across all the denominations, whose hypnotic repeated phrases can serve as an enticement to Charismatic doctrine.  They come out of Bethel Church in Redding, California, one of the wildest Charismatic churches these days, where the kind of phenomena seen in the "Toronto Blessing" and the "Brownsville Revival" are experienced.   Video of both these phenomena and performances of Jesus Culture were shown at the Conference.

Pastor Conrad Mbewe of Zambia presented a sad picture of the biggest churches in Africa these days, which are charismatic churches, where the pastors are no longer preaching the word of God but behaving more like witch doctors and committing sexual sins with members of their churches, one pastor having fathered ten children by as many women in his church, and nobody condemns these practices.  We often hear that great revivals are ongoing in Africa, apparently based on these very large congregations, but Pastor Mbewe made it unfortunately all too clear that if this is revival it certainly isn't CHRISTIAN revival but something pagan to the core.

Over and over it was demonstrated at this Conference that absolutely nothing good has come out of the Charismatic Movement, that the supernatural powers claimed always turn out to be bogus and that there is a very high incidence of immorality among the leaders.  This ought to be apparent to those of us who have had experience of the movement, as so very very little of it is ever really convincing, it's mostly all rhetoric.

I think it was Steve Lawson who presented the information about the Puritans along with many others of the greats of the church through history as having specifically denounced the sort of claims to supernatural powers that are claimed by today's Charismatics, and specifically declared that the supernatural gifts had ceased.  This I want to hear again.

I was also interested to hear John MacArthur denounce the Jesus Freaks of the 60s and 70s for changing the style of the churches.  This included the change to casual dress and new music styles, both bringing the hippy culture into our standard Christian experience and laying the foundation for many of the excesses the Conference was exposing.  I'm so used to hearing that the Jesus Freaks were an authentic revival, that stuffy and hidebound churches had missed this move of God that saved thousands (which did happen), that I simply hadn't given any thought to the cultural impact they had on the Church, which was NOT for the better.  The general trend to trivializing and demeaning God and worship can be traced back to them.

Well, all that is off the top of my head and I may add to it later.   I was educated, exhilarated and uplifted by everything about this Conference, it was extremely well done in every way I can think of, from the program to the music to the best streaming arrangement I've ever seen.

However, after the Conference I found myself in a discussion with a very pro-Charismatic friend who hadn't seen the Conference and didn't seem to think he needed to see it, but threw all the usual Charismatic arguments at me, even accusing me of the usual spiritual failures Charismatics generally accuse nonCharismatics of.  I suppose that's to be expected and I also expect that the internet is going to be hopping with arguments about the Conference for some time to come.