Spiritual Deception: Soul Power 3

Probably the most common way going off track into signs-and-wonders "Christianity" doesn't get recognized:

These are phenomena that just come over a person. They are involuntary, they come out of nowhere, it seems supernatural. You were praying to God (you thought), you were worshipping God (you thought), you have dedicated your life to God, all you want to do is serve God, therefore it must be from God. Speaking in tongues comes this way, visions and dreams come this way, jerking and flailing and falling down "under the power" come this way, the "holy laughter" comes this way. Out of the blue, out of nowhere, unbidden.

Since scripture isn't crystal clear about these things a person can just go on assuming it's from God. You can argue all you like that the supernatural gifts stopped when the canon was closed, but you won't be persuasive with people who have experienced these things. You can't tell them there is no more prophecy because they've experienced prophecy -- and healings, and tongues and so on. And where could such things come from except God? Can't be Satan "because we're Christians." Can't have human origin because, well, because we don't think of human powers as ever reaching a level we'd call miraculous or supernatural -- Nee's teaching on the latent Adamic powers is not well known or accepted.

Calling it all "mysticism" may help categorize it at least but the way that term is used as a blanket pejorative has always bothered me. On this point maybe I'm the one who needs to change my mind, that's not clear yet, but the reason I've not wanted to think of mysticism as always a bad thing is that some very good Christians have both experienced something they call mysticism and defended it. A W Tozer defended it and even put out a book of quotes from various "mystics." This is because some of those called "mystics" seem to have a much more powerful appreciation of the character of God than the average Christian does, love of God, fear of God, an all-around deeper sold-out Christian life of genuine dying to self and service to others.

I remember reading of a striking vision Jonathan Edwards had, and a description of his wife's actually levitating. That struck me as very odd and as often happens I don't remember where I saw it, but would we accuse THEM of practicing mysticism? While the Catholic mystics are to be shunned, for good doctrinal reasons, nevertheless Teresa of Avila seemed when I first read her to be describing unusual phenomena that simply happened to her as a result of normal if protracted periods of prayer -- to God, not Mary -- not something she was seeking but something that just happened, and most of it seemed to come through passionate love of God and it had the effect of inspiring love of God in me the reader.

Also, those mystics were always advising their students not to take supernatural or unusual spiritual phenomena seriously, that most of it did not come from God, and that even if some of it was from God you shouldn't focus on God's gifts but on God Himself. Sounds like words of wisdom to me. John of the Cross wrote quite sternly against one nun who got carried away about how God had "spoken" to her. Yet John of the Cross's methods reminded me of what I'd read of Buddhist methods -- despite the fact that his famous poem about the Dark Night of the Soul* was all about yearning in love after God, panting after God as the psalm says, while Buddhists aren't seeking God and love would seem to be an emotion foreign to their practice. I read the Catholic mystics on my way to becoming a Christian and I did put them aside at that point with no intention of returning to them, but some of the phenomena they described I also found described among some good Protestants and it always seemed to be something that just came to a person, wasn't sought, but was given by God to those seeking Him for Himself and not for His gifts.

HOWEVER, Watchman Nee's Latent Power of the Soul does suggest another way of thinking about these things. It's not at all a familiar idea that the human soul possesses any powers that could reach expressions describable as supernatural or miraculous, so at first it's hard to entertain what Nee is saying even as a possibility, but it's coming to make more sense to me. Jessie Penn-Lewis also writes about the phenomena of the soul as opposed to the spirit and specifically attributes the powers of the coming Antichrist to soul power. The Biblical term in the Greek is "psyche," so these can be called "psychic" powers, though "soulish" is often the preferred English rendering. Both Nee and Penn Lewis wrote in the early part of the 20th century when it had become fashionable for "scientists" to study paranormal and psychic phenomena, so some of their descriptions sound out of date, but the same phenomena persist now of course, sometimes with terms from Eastern religions attached. Much of it is what now gets called "mysticism."

Nee's descriptions reminded me of the Russian Startsy or holy men who were (are?) known for their various "supernatural" powers. Seems to be rather a striking example of just what Nee is talking about, practicing methods that release not the spirit but the soul powers.

Many of them have a reputation amidst believers of being able to know the secrets of a person's heart without having ever previously met the visitor, and having the ability to discern God's plan for a person's life. This, as all of the elder's gifts, is believed to come from the Holy Spirit acting through the elder.

Nee himself said he had experienced knowing "the secrets of a person's heart" but had to learn that this was soul power that did NOT come from the Holy Spirit, that he must put this power under the cross or deny it so that the spirit, that is the dwelling place of God's own life, could operate in him instead. It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing. A popular book about the life of a Starets is Way of a Pilgrim in which the method prescribed for the holy life is the practice of the Jesus Prayer, which is used the way a mantra is, simply endlessly repeated, the very sort of thing that releases soul power according to Nee, and in the case of the "pilgrim" of the book that's exactly what happened, as he came to have heightened powers of various kinds.

Just another way of missing God completely. Spectacularly.

It is very likely that many or all of the "charismatic" gifts including speaking in tongues, are based on soul power. Also the phenomena of "revival" such as the "holy laughter" and the spasmodic bodily movements and the like. There is nothing of God in those environments but the odd manifestations are what deceive people into thinking God is present. Those of us who have experienced these things know they are real, know we aren't bringing them about intentionally, know that they aren't an illusion produced by the mind, and yet sometimes they don't feel like they have anything to do with God at all. My own "gift of tongues" has always felt wrong and I haven't had any way of epxlaining it. It also doesn't go away when I pray God will take it away. I try to suppress it but sometimes it's just "there" anyway. It came just as I describe above, out of the blue, not as something I produced myself in any way at all, just all these "words" came tumbling out of my mouth as I was praying out loud in my room one day. Sure does seem supernatural or miraculous. But it has NEVER felt like worship, always felt wrong, though I never knew how to deal with it. Now it seems to me that I should probably regard it as a soul power that I inadvertently facilitated by my participation in charismatic groups, so then I can practice denying it as Nee denied his ability to know what was in people's minds.

In this way Nee's book is very helpful, and it seems to me it could be more helpful in getting a handle on this sort of phenomena than the usual arguments are, even possibly persuading some people out of them who have been caught up in them.

Here's an example of a typical charismatic type "prophecy" or "word from the Lord" given by Jill Austin, who used to be well known among the Kansas City Prophets -- she died a few years ago. She says to a woman that she "saw" her apparently dead husband "dancing on the sapphire sea" with the Lord. You'd think this sort of thing would be so patently obviously nuts it couldn't be entertained at all just because it's so obviously unbiblical -- dead people don't return to talk to people in this life -- but again, it just "comes out of the blue" and is taken to come from God because supposedly where ELSE could it come from? This could be either soul power or just garden-variety witchcraft or mediumship in which demons impart enough knowledge about other people to seduce them.

It's not just the usual charismatic phenomena we have to account for these days either. There is now a growing movement of people who have become dangerously enamored of what is called "contemplative prayer" which makes of prayer a "practice" or a "meditation" or a sort of repetitive mantra along the lines of some Hindu practices. Just another way of releasing soul power or even inviting demonic power.

Another hindrance to recognizing and being able to deal effectively with the "supernatural" counterfeits of the Christian life may be the belief in much of the Church that there is no distinction between soul and spirit as Nee and Penn-Lewis teach there is, even saying that to teach such a distinction is heretical. Maybe I need to try to get more into this concept here.

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*Dark Night of the Soul: In John of the Cross's poem, the "dark night" is a state of the soul in prayer, in which all the faculities and powers of the soul and body, the senses for instance, mind and emotions as well, have become "quieted" or "dark" so that the spirit can go forth unimpeded, in love and yearning and adoration to God. It's not meant to describe just any kind of suffering, as most people misinterpret it who don't know anything about the poem but its title, but the suffering of being deprived of the usual faculties we depend on, dealing with impediments to the spiritual life and learning to deny self. I'm not advocating anything about his methods. Clearly they are a minefield of dangers and potential delusions, especially to anyone today who casually and naively decides to try "contemplative prayer." But of course the main problem with ANYTHING Catholic is that they preach a false gospel of salvation by works.

Spiritual Deception: Soul Power 2 --Hindrances to recognizing the problem

I was involved in a charismatic "parachurch" organization in the early 90s but some happenings and teachings, and the "tone" of it, started getting to me after a while. I couldn't discern clearly what was wrong, it just FELT wrong. Even back then I knew the Catholic Church was not Christian so when my group prayed for the Pope to be blessed I refused to join in and that was the beginning of the end. I was finally driven to pray for understanding and God showed me things I was accepting that I shouldn't have been accepting and I left.

Something similar may possibly be the case with others inside that movement. You can get into a position where you feel, even quite strongly, that there's something wrong with, say, the "Toronto Blessing," the Brownsville "revival," "holy laughter" and the like, can even think of Biblical objections to it, but you doubt your own impression because you're told it's of the Holy Spirit. Since you don't want to offend the Holy Spirit you just keep going along with such things though in a chronic state of unease. (Oh and try telling someone you're "confused" about this or that charismatic phenomenon, and see if you get back in a chirpy dismissive tone of voice "God is not the author of confusion!" Hoo boy, thanks.)

I did read critical studies of those things to see if they would convince me, but they always left some questions hanging in my mind, enough to prevent me from taking a definite stand one way or the other. Even after all this time I still have some questions left hanging in my mind, though I think my rereading of Nee's Latent Power of the Soul may yet give me a handle on some of it.

Side note on being at odds with your conscience: I was just reminded of a book I recently read, that I've been planning to post on when I can get to it, that shows that a person can go on in such a conflicted state of mind for years, possibly even indefinitely. This book is Fifty Years in the "Church" of Rome, written in the 19th century by Charles Chiniquy, an ex-Catholic priest. For years he was greatly disturbed by the corruptions he kept seeing in priests and bishops of the Church, also great evils in the confessional where people were more likely to be corrupted than encouraged to holiness. He read and loved the Bible and found many things there contradicted by Roman tradition. He worked for reform within the Church, denying that the problems were in the Church institution itself. He had strong prickings of conscience but because he was committed to his Church and believed its teachings he denied his conscience, told himself it was the devil trying to lead him away from the truth, and he went on in that uncomfortable state of mind until a series of events finally drove him out of the Church and he found true salvation in Christ -- after twenty-five years as a priest.

Richard Bennett is another ex-Catholic priest whose story is similar, also unable to bring himself to leave the Roman Church for many years despite seeing many ways its teachings contradict the Bible. He has the website Berean Beacon, and you can find many of his videos at You Tube as well.

I wonder how many are in the Roman Church in a similar state of mind, clinging loyally to their "Church" and constantly in conflict with their consciences. Or the charismatic movement. Or any of the other apostate or cultic "churches" that are springing up like weeds these days. Suppressing their conscience, perhaps even to the point that they hardly detect it any more.

Poor blind humanity. And that includes most of us Christians who have received light from God but let ourselves be blinded and act blind so much of the time nevertheless. We know so little of the realities we live in, the dangers that surround us. We have spiritual enemies in high places working constantly to keep us in the dark, to convince us that good is evil and evil is good, or at least keep us so busy with irrelevancies we are useless as God's servants. But although we know from the Bible the reality of such enemies, how many of us really take it seriously and apply ourselves with the appropriate fervency to protecting ourselves and each other?

God WILL give us light, but we can even ask for light wrongly, we can have a wrong idea of God that can lead us astray and so on. The perils are everywhere.

As Nee points out, we can sing too much, we can even PRAY wrongly, focusing on the wrong object as we pray, or even study the Bible wrongly -- YES, isn't that a depressing thought? Simply concentrating hard on a passage of scripture can release what Nee calls soul power that can bring an answer -- even a true answer -- but if it doesn't come from God it remains a mental exercise rather than a spiritual illumination. As Nee says [p. 71] if it's not from God it will not bear spiritual fruit.

Not only he himself may not derive life from it, he may also have no way to impart life to others while giving out his interpretation. All he can do is help the mind of people a little.

The Spirit, indwelling the human spirit upon salvation, IMPARTS LIFE, not just knowledge, not just experiences, but actual SAVING LIFE. If we use our soul powers without their being submitted to the Spirit we impart nothing of God's life. Much preaching is done in soul power rather than spiritual power, imparting only intellectual knowledge or human compassion and not spiritual life.

So often I've thought about my own blogging here: I know I'm doing this in the flesh, in my own natural abilities, I so much want to do it in the spirit but I don't know how, Lord help me.

And now I'm led to Nee's writings once again and hoping that God will help me with this.

What we want as Christians is to be able to release the LIFE that God gives us upon believing in Christ, so that LIFE can be LIFE to others as well. All our best thoughts, our true thoughts, do not impart LIFE. All our deepest emotions, of compassion and concern for others, do not impart LIFE if they come only from our own soul powers.

And, another depressing thought for you -- spiritual life iteself can be counterfeited BY the soul powers. We can think we have the "anointing" of the Spirit when it's nothing but a heightening of the natural powers left over from the Adamic life in us, OR even sometimes something coming from demonic activity. As Nee says in Latent Power of the Soul there is a false salvation counterfeited by the soul powers, a false regeneration, a false repentance and so on and so forth. Mere human powers can be dazzling and convincing.

False conversions, false prayer, false Bible reading, false visions, false dreams, false prophecies, false healings, false miracles, false anointing, false spiritual life . . .

The answer, again, is DYING TO SELF, mortification of sin, mortification of Self, crucifixion of everything of the Adamic life, submitting to the crosses that the Lord sends us daily -- how often we fight them but we need to submit to them because they are for our eternal good.

More to come.

Spiritual Deception: Soul Power. Dangers of seeking experiences or "gifts" in the wrong way

On his June 12th radio program Brannon Howse directed listeners to google "manifestations at Rick Joyner's Morningstar Ministries" which takes you to You Tube for a "church service" that is quite a spectacle of bizarre charismatic "worship." It has the flavor of some kind of pagan ceremony, or tribal celebration, with heavy drumbeat, people jumping up and down and at least one woman apparently emotionally unstrung up on the stage giving an incoherent "testimony" of some sort. Here's one and here's another video of Rick Joyner's "church."

I also watched part of an interview Sid Roth (It's Supernatural) did with Joyner at the beginning of 2011 about a dream he had had about America under God's judgment. In the interview he sounds like a sincere Christian who sees judgment coming to America, though you might wonder why a dream would be necessary to inform us that the nation is under judgment. He comes off as sincere in the other videos too -- it's the raucous carryings-on around him that he apparently accepts and promotes as the right way to "do church," as valid worship, that make it clear there's something deeply amiss spiritually. This is beyond anything I ever saw in charismania, into heavy spiritual darkness. But Rick Joyner stands up there talking in a pastorly sort of way, albeit in charismospeak, as if it's all quite normal.

Brannon Howse surprised me by referring to Watchman Nee's Latent Power of the Soul as a source of insight into such phenomena. I think he was quoting Jerry Vines. I was surprised because it's a book that I've found is often treated as beyond the pale of orthodoxy.

So I got out my copy and reread it. It's all about the powers of the soul that Adam supposedly possessed originally, that were lost -- or hidden rather than lost, according to Nee, buried in the flesh as it were -- at the Fall. The only way this could be known, or inferred, is from exhibitions of such powers now. There is no Biblical clue to them that I know of. Nee says they can be released now, and that's what many of the practices of the fallen religions are aimed at, and sometimes they occur spontaneously in Christian settings as well under certain conditions.

Hindus describe many powers that their practices are aimed to develop, practices such as meditations to control the mind, breath control exercises, postural exercises and so on. Walking on burning coals and lying on a bed of nails without pain are a couple of the Hindu versions of soul power. Not just Hinduism but Buddhism and Jainism as well promote such practices and powers. Look up "siddhis" for lists and discussions of various powers. I always thought of these things as demonically produced but according to Nee they are normally latent human powers that can be cultivated or released, though they are usually instigated demonically. Sometimes powers can be manifested that approach the miraculous, including healing of the body.

There are also involuntary movements of the body that are released in some of the practices, called "kriyas." Some of these things happen spontaneously even in Christian settings. I did a post about the Brownsville "revival" a while back in which at least two people were manifesting odd bodily movements that they couldn't control, jerking movements or flailing and thrashing movements -- and attributing them to being under the power of God. I posted the videos there or you can find them at You Tube.

In Christian settings what may bring them about is SEEKING manifestations of one sort or another, mistaking these things for gifts of the Holy Spirit or expressions of God's power. Anything that stirs up and concentrates emotions can also bring them about, such as repetitious singing.

What Christians need to know that most don't know is that these things have nothing whatever to do with God but come from the human soul usually under instigation by demon spirits. Intense emotion can release them. They are unusual, often involuntary and sometimes "miraculous" and that's why people assume they are from God. (To compound the problem, sometimes SOME manifestations MAY be from God, but let's not get hung up on this point yet).

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" says scripture. It would seem to apply here, because in churches where the "gifts of the Spirit" are avidly sought and supposedly practiced it is very easy for people to be exercising a power of their own soul or even a demonically imparted power and not something that comes from God and not know the difference. Clairvoyance is a power of the soul that can be mistaken for a gift of the spirit. Nee says he himself had the ability to know what was in other people's minds and at first he thought this was a good thing that served God until he came to realize that it was something God didn't want him to use and learned to deny it. (Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me).

There are soul powers that can mimic prophecy. These "prophets" in the charismatic movement are most likely experiencing this power of the soul and missing God completely.

According to Nee the soul powers can produce even a false salvation, a false repentance, a false regeneration, false revivals --such as Toronto and Brownsville -- but this book was written in 1933!) ...and "false joy."

False joy: Again, this book was written in 1933 and he talks about the "holy laugh." The "Toronto Blessing" of the 90s was all about Holy Laughter and at the time I had no idea there were ever such manifestations in churches before that. Nee describes a meeting -- this would have been in China in the 20s or 30s -- at which

...it was announced that everybody should seek for this holy laugh. All began to beat tables or chairs, jumping and leaping all around until not long afterwards this so-called holy laughing came...

Can this possibly be the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Can this be His work? No, this is plainily one of the works of the soul. [p. 71]

SEEKING it and doing things to work up an artificial state of mind or emotion seem to be the prerequisites.

How do people get this laugh? What procedure do they follow?or what condition must they fulfill? It is nothing but simply the asking to laugh... Are they seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Their lips may indeed utter such words as 'O God, fill me with Your Spirit.' Nevertheless, that is merely a procedure; the aim of asking to be filled with the Spirit is something else than to be so filled...their heart desire is elsewhere.

God must be the object of our seeking if we are not to be deceived, and there must be a willingness to do without any sort of experience if He so wills. If you seek an experience you may get it but it won't be from Him.

Nee reports [p. 74] that one young man

pleaded fervently with God, and vowed that he would npt get up from prayer that evening if God did not give [the holy laughter] to him.

Eventually he did get the laughter. Did he get God or anything from God or of God? That's the question, and the answer is Probably not.

As a side note, I've read of people who have made this vow not to get up until God grants this or that, and it's always struck me as questionable that God would honor such an attitude. Isn't this tempting God? Isn't it trying to force God to accede to YOUR will instead of submitting to His will? Charles Finney did this and it began his career as a very powerful evangelist in the middle 19th century. Is it possible he was operating on soul power instead of spiritual power? During and following that period a great many of today's cults got started. Christian Science, for instance, is completely a matter of cultivating and practicing soul power. Could there be a connection?

Seems to me today's churches are in need of knowledge about these things. There are many deceived into thinking they are following God when they are following only their own heightened powers and they are deceiving others who treat them as prophets and seers. This is dangerous, obviously. They may be listening to demons at times too, that can impart some kinds of knowledge, just as they do to mediums and witches, as well as dreams and visions.

There is a remedy, there is a preventative. What did Jesus preach? Taking up your cross, dying to self. Think of it as dying to soul power, dying to your own abilities -- any abilities, natural abilities, natural talents, asking God to keep you from depending on your natural abilities so that you can depend completely on Him instead. If you truly want God your attitude needs to be bearing the cross, crucifying or mortifying the flesh and the self.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

The knowledge that is lacked is knowledge of God, according to the context and at least one commentary I consulted (JF&B). This applies here as the knowledge pursued in seeking experiences and gifts is not knowledge of God. And in context, also, the lack of knowledge is sin, not mere helpless ignorance. True knowledge is not sought.

Hsa 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

So maybe they won't listen. But shouldn't these things be taught in the churches these days? It's a very serious and dangerous mistake to stir up soul powers and mistake them for the Holy Spirit. It's not necessarily easy to learn these things but sincerely wanting to is a first step.

More Harbinger criticism: the down side to fictionalizing reality

Other criticisms of The Harbinger have been coming to light. I don't have it in me right now to write a full analytical post on this, or series of posts as it might be, or even to go in search of others' answers to it yet, so I'm just going to give a brief sketch of this one off the top of my head:

This is by Joseph Chambers, Pentecostal pastor of Paw Creek Ministries: The Harbinger, A Fable Forbidden By the Holy Bible

He makes much of Paul's admonitions against believing "fables" and takes this admonition to apply to the Harbinger. He quotes from many commentaries but here's one I just looked up:

FABLE: From Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary on 1 Tim 1 (referred from 2 Tim 4:3) at Blue Letter Bible:

4. fables--legends about the origin and propagation of angels, such as the false teachers taught at Colosse ( Col 2:18-23 ).

The whole phrase is fables and genealogies, so here's the comment on genealogies as well:

genealogies--not merely such civil genealogies as were common among the Jews, whereby they traced their descent from the patriarchs, to which Paul would not object, and which he would not as here class with "fables," but Gnostic genealogies of spirits and aeons, as they called them, "Lists of Gnostic emanations" [ALFORD]. So TERTULLIAN [Against Valentinian, c. 3], and IRENAEUS [Preface]. The Judaizers here alluded to, while maintaining the perpetual obligation of the Mosaic law, joined with it a theosophic ascetic tendency, pretending to see in it mysteries deeper than others could see.

I gather that what is in Paul's mind here is along the lines of the fictitious Apocrypha, tales made up but presented as truth. This is the problem, that they were presented as the truth and believed as the truth, in the place of the true gospel revelation. He's not talking about fiction presented as fiction and understood to be fiction.

As I understand it, the way Jonathan Cahn came upon the harbingers in reality is nothing at all like the fictitious story he invented to present them to the public. There was no journalist, there was no "prophet" like the major character in the book, there were no mysterious meetings with such a person, there were no clay seals involved, there was no literary or media agent he told the story to. All these things are a literary device to get the story told in some kind of measured order so that the reader can ponder each harbinger as it is presented.

Pastor Chambers calls the prophet character the "false prophet" and says that since he is fictitious his prophecies are also fictitious. Well he IS fictitious but his message is not. The prophet in The Harbinger is not intended to represent any sort of reality and I don't know of anyone who has taken him for real. He's merely a vehicle for the message of the harbingers. In fact, he must have been fun to invent -- his frustrating habit of showing up when and where he pleases and refusing to tell the whole story until he puts the journalist through some agonies to investigate the facts, provide the only somewhat comic moments.

I suppose if he were to be likened to anything in reality he might be compared with an angel that can appear and disappear unexpectedly, but even that comparison is a stretch, and since no such comparison is made in the book there's no point in pursuing it. The prophet is a fictitious character, period.

BUT: The harbingers are real. That's ALL that's real in the book. And that's the important thing, that's the point of the story, the reality of the harbingers.

What all the critics seem to have in common is their failure to recognize the reality of the harbingers. Sometimes they seem to go out of their way to find ridiculous ways to ignore them. Chambers says there is no sycamore at Ground Zero, for instance. But in actual manifested literal material real reality, there IS a sycamore at Ground Zero -- or was. It appears he hasn't read the book or hasn't researched the facts connected with it. They are certainly real. There are pictures of them out there, pictures of the uprooted sycamore, of the spruce that replaced it, of the bronze sculpture of the sycamore roots, of the quarried cornerstone, reports of and videos of the speeches made by various American leaders and so on and so forth. I've posted some of them myself earlier on.

HOWEVER: Here's where the down side of making an important reality into a fiction should probably be acknowledged. If you listen to the interviews of Jonathan Cahn and the talk he gave at a Messianic conference back in 2005 (all at You Tube), which I posted a few times earlier, you aren't likely to get all caught up in the truth-versus-fiction confusion, but this apparently can happen with the book --for some people anyway.

The harbingers are the ONLY point of the story, they are Real Reality that carries a message I think must be recognized as obviously from God Himself once you appreciate them, but this probably comes through much more clearly in the talk and interviews than the book.

I don't think this excuses the critics from their responsibility to think through what obviously they've simply impulsively reacted to instead. You have to start from the reality of the harbingers to get the message. If you first grasp that much you are not likely to go off into the extremes of accusation of dire theological failure as the critics do.

AFTER you get that essential message, THEN you could reasonably go on and consider whether it helps or detracts from the message to create fictional characters, and whether the Prophet character might imply something a Christian would be better off not implying. That could be a reasonable position to take.

But again, the harbingers themselves ARE the story. If you don't get that you miss The Harbinger completely.

Harbinger critic DeYoung may be a false teacher to a very serious degree.

The pastor at Calvary Chapel of Appleton, Wisconsin has written
An Open Letter to the Berean Call
in response to T A McMahon's harsh review of Jonathan Cahn's book, The Harbinger.

Short of reproducing the entire article here I haven't been able to find a particular passage to highlight to get across the gist of the message. He covers a lot of ground. Unless I rethink this, all I can do is recommend that the whole thing be read at the link.

I do have something to say about one tangential point pastor Dwight made, however, about Jimmy DeYoung's theology. I've already been coming to the conclusion that he and David James and probably T A McMahon as well are at least flirting with a cultic point of view that may even be a heresy, in their insistence that the Old Testament not be applied to our own times. But beyond that, this article reveals that DeYoung has actually taught what could rightly be considered a very dangerous heresy, that those who take the Mark of the Beast can repent with impunity:

I would also like to know how Jimmy DeYoung can state in interviews and a local appearance that once a person receives the mark of the beast they can repent and become “unmarked”, because God would understand them wanting to feed their family. This was spoken by him at an event here in our area, and our women’s ministry head heard it. He has also said this on Brannon Howse’s radio program, specifically on September 28, 2011. This completely goes against the clear teaching of Scripture in Revelation 14:9-11, and in my opinion is ignoring the warning for such who do so in Revelation 22:19. He is falsely telling people that they can be saved after they take it, completely naive to what it means eternally to do so. How can this be? Can we agree that DeYoung’s unscriptural position on that is far more dangerous than anything Jonathan has written?

Well, you've got my agreement for what it's worth. This is scary stuff. The Lord is giving a test here -- Will you be faithful to Me or choose to save your own life when push comes to shove in this evil world? To save your own life, as Jesus taught, is to lose it. LOSE it. To choose any kind of comfort in this life over Him is an insult to Him and a sad failure of faith.

Christians down through the centuries have suffered and died rather than betray our Lord. John Bunyan in prison was in the position of abandoning his wife and children if he refused to obey the law [made by the Romanist king Charles II] against preaching outside the Anglican church, when recanting would have allowed him to be released from prison, but he committed his family to the Lord rather than betray Him.

Yet DeYoung would teach this bit of fleshly worldliness that God puts feeding one's family above faithfulness to Him?

Did the prophet Daniel stop his practice of praying to God when King Darius signed a decree that all must petition no-one but himself on pain of death?

For two millennia Christians have been challenged with the choice "Recant or die" -- get burned at the stake or suffer torture at the hands of the Inquisition, "Worship Caesar or die" -- get eaten by lions in the arena or burned as a human torch in Nero's gardens.

Take the Mark of the Beast or die is going to be the last challenge. It's a choice between Christ and Antichrist. Will you trust Him enough to die for Him?

Truly we live in a time of seriously compromised Christianity.

Beginning to suspect that The Harbinger could turn out in some contexts to be a divider of the sheep from the goats. Brannon Howse and others who have been accepting of DeYoung's teachings need to do some serious rethinking.

No, the Old Testament was NOT written only for Israel but also for us

On his latest radio show, Brannon Howse discusses a meeting called Evangelical Immigration Table, in which a motley collection of evangelicals and others gathered to promote the acceptance of illegal aliens. That's a sad development in itself, but what prompted me to blog on it was the fact that they justify this action by a couple of verses in Leviticus:

Lev 19:33-34 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. [But] the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] the LORD your God.

Their take on it is ridiculous. There is certainly no call to treat illegal aliens as if they were citizens, because they are not, and as Matthew Henry points out in his commentary, the condition was that they worship the God of Israel. Idolators are not to be welcomed. Our aliens are alien not only by culture but by opposition to American values in many respects.

But that's another discussion.

The main thing I want to mention is Brannon Howse's assertion that they are wrong to base their ideology on a passage in the Old Testament for the simple reason that what was written to Israel was meant only for Israel. "We are not Israel. Let's not take verses that apply to Israel and say they apply to everybody and they apply to America."

This strange principle is one I've been encountering recently in the discussions about The Harbinger, which the critics from the very pro-Israel school of thought denounce for supposedly equating America with Israel.

It's finally become clear to me that this is really a sort of cultic point of view, perhaps even a heresy. It flies in the face of very familiar basic Christian teaching I would have thought the entire church took for granted. Of course we apply the Old Testament to ourselves and to our own times, and there's nothing odd if it turns out to specifically apply to a nation such as America either. That's how we learn that God judges nations for violations of His Law and that America is under judgment. Nobody applies it literally where it refers to the specific context of ancient Israel, but there is always an important principle we can take from even the most culture-specific lesson. This passage for instance is a good teaching against xenophobia or cultural chauvinism, an attitude that can be found in all times and places. It has nothing to do with illegal aliens who are in violation of the law.

It seems that Brannon Howse has been taking his cue on this from his friend and frequent guest, Jimmy DeYoung. He might want to consider consulting some other sources.

In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul is talking about the experiences of the Israelites and using them as an example for the church. The message is summed up in verse 11:

1Cr 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

And another relevant New Testament verse is:

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Brannon's comments on the Evangelical Immigration Table are as usual illuminating, things we need to know, but this false idea about how we are to use the Old Testament mars the teaching.

Conversation with a critic of Jonathan Cahn

Somebody who used to be part of Jonathan Cahn's church contacted me to tell me why I shouldn't be defending his book over the critics like TA McMahon. It was mostly about Rabbi Cahn as a personality and leader of a church, which as far as I can see doesn't have anything to do with the merits of the book itself, so I'm not going to comment on any of that.

[Just to be clear, of course I take such attacks on personality with a huge grain of salt. Personality clashes happen in the church as much as outside it. I don't want to discuss all that but just one hint: I believe the very personality traits that are specifically related to a person's spiritual gifts can be a problem for some people whose minds don't operate in the same patterns. That's why we're admonished to be patient with one another and submit to one another and regard others as better than ourselves. It doesn't come naturally, it can only come through the Holy Spirit.]

In any case, after hearing him out I have the same opinion about the critics and the book I already had.

He hadn't read the book but was sure the critics are right who say Cahn misused scripture. He also seems to be convinced that the harbingers must be some kind of illusion. I told him he should read the book and he said he plans to so maybe that will change his mind.

Well, Rabbi Cahn did not misuse scripture and the claims that he did don't hold water. It's absurd to suggest that he could have thought that Isaiah consciously wrote to a future America, he certainly did not equate America's covenants with Israel's or suggest any kind of replacement of Israel by America. He certainly didn't say anything to link him with the Mormon heresy of The Covenant which Jimmy DeYoung and David James have been insinuating he did. Apparently the overarching objection that leads to such nonsensical accusations is the bizarre idea that we are not to apply the Old Testament to ourselves in our time -- "It was for Israel, period." This in itself is an aberrant idea even approaching heresy. None of this got discussed with the person I'm talking about here, but these are the main criticisms of Rabbi Cahn's supposed misuse of scripture as I understand it and they're all false.

As for the harbingers being some kind of illusion, I asked him to give me a scenario how that might be the case and he suggested that there could have been many trees downed by the falling towers so that if you focus only on a particular one you give a false impression of something uncanny that is really just selective attention. It's a reasonable suspicion if you don't know anything about the harbingers, but if you do -- certainly if you really think honestly and carefully about them -- you are going to have to admit that each of them DOES carry the uncanny implications the book claims for them. Just concerning the sycamore, its having been named after the sycamores of the Middle East which connects it with Isaiah 9:10, its placement in the graveyard of the church where George Washington and his government prayed for the nation, the same church that was the original owner of the land where the twin towers had been built and was now Ground Zero; the fact that a great public to-do was made over that sycamore, its roots being put on display as a memorial to 9/l1, then memorialized in bronze and placed beside the main sanctuary of that church which has a Wall Street address, then replaced by the same kind of tree Israel vowed in Isaiah 9:10 to replace their fallen sycamores -- there's no way this is some kind of illusory mental manipulation to make it merely appear to be significant. It simply IS significant.

He also wanted to dismiss the speeches by the politicians who quoted Isaiah 9:10 as the same sort of illusion, because lots of people could have quoted that same passage. Well, as a matter of fact, lots didn't, although lots did echo the attitude of defiance that the verse expresses. But if lots HAD quoted it that would only increase rather than decrease the indictment of America for that defiant attitude. And as I keep harping on in recent blogs on this subject, you can't treat their quoting this passage in terms of the leaders' conscious intentions and try to deny that the message was one of defiance, because merely quoting the passage straight, thinking of it as reassuring, shows that they themselves share the attitude of defiance in their heart of hearts. "We will rebuild" IS that attitude of defiance in the absence of a recognition of 9/11 as God's judgment on the nation. That's the attitude the majority of Americans had at the time, and the leaders had it too OR they would have preached the verse from an entirely different perspective: they would have preached it as pastor David Wilkerson preached it, as a clear indictment of the nation for refusing to acknowledge God's judgment in the attack of 9/11 or recognize it as a warning call to repentance of the nation's sins and rejection of God. Just as The Harbinger shows, for American leaders to quote that verse is for them to make that attitude of defiance official on behalf of the nation.

This person also said that we don't need the harbingers, the verse itself teaches us that the nation is in defiance of God, and as Christians we know it is anyway without a particular verse to tell us so. This is quite true up to a point, except that, as I recall, the majority of Christians and even pastors at the time of 9/11 denied that it was God's judgment flat out, often rather belligerently, and the messages from pulpits across the nation were about comforting the people, which is of course necessary and right in a time of disaster, but that was the ONLY message, no message of God's judgment on the nation, except by an extreme minority, who were denounced for it.

But be that as it may, you still have to explain why these uncannily literal signs or harbingers did in fact "manifest" in America as they in fact did. There is no humanly possible way they could have been engineered to occur, I don't see how they could be the product of any kind of illusion or magical thinking, and I can't think of any other explanation for them than that God Himself did it all.

One thing that the conversation at issue here did bring up for me is that I have had my own misgivings about the book quite apart from its central message, which to my mind is indisputable.

One problem is the hype I've mentioned more than once here. It still bothers me to see a Christian message I think of as coming from God packaged as some sort of science fiction extravaganza might be. If anything such a message should be understated so that its merits will shine all the brighter. Dramatizing it cheapens it or at least obscures it. Just the tone of "an ancient mystery" that holds the "secret to America's future" would ordinarily be enough of a hint to me that whatever the book is about needn't be taken seriously. It detracts from the seriousness of its message.

And although I've accepted the author's reasons for fictionalizing it -- and it is also good to be reminded that Pilgrim's Progress is also fiction -- I still have the same concern that fictionalizing it detracts from its importance and its truth.

There's no doubt that it's helped give it a wide audience, however.

McMahon did complain about its being fictionalized, but that's about as far as I'm in agreement with him about his criticism of the book.