Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr14/nolaugh.zip/NOLAUGH.TXT

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                            No Laughing Matter
                               Larry Thomas
                             October 10, 1994
                           Audiotape Transcript


     .....We're going to get into the little discussion tonight of
this new revival. How many of you have ever heard a little
something, either through television or magazines, books, or
something, about the revival that's supposedly going on? Let me see
your hands. Okay. And most of you are familiar that two of the most
common manifestations during this current "revival," and I put that
word in quotation marks, is Holy Laughter, well, laughter, and
being slain in the Spirit?
     We'll take a look at this revival historically, and from a
biblical perspective tonight, and see if these things are what
their proponents are saying they are.
     Is this really revival? When things like this happened before
in church history, and rarely has anything happened like this,
except in the last 100-150 years. There's no evidence of anything
like this happening at Pentecost, in the first century, the fourth
century, the ninth century, the fifteenth century. The first
evidence of anything like this occurred about 150 years ago, in the
revivals in Europe in 1850 and then around Azusa Street, and things
began to happen there.
     Most of the time, when this manifestation of laughing or
barking or growling, it's usually been considered by the orthodox,
Christian community to be demonic. Now, this is historically. How
many of you read Jessie Penn Louis's book, War On The Saints? It's
a good book. I wouldn't say it's the best book I ever read on
warfare and Pentecostal absurdities and obsessions, but it's a
pretty good book. I want to read a little quote here. This is
referring to the same kind of things we're hearing about today that
took place that took place in 1904, and what she has to say in her
book.
     "A strange element comes in, possibly only recognizable to
some with keen spiritual vision, or else plainly obvious to all.
Perhaps the speaker begins to pray quietly and calmly, with a pure
spirit, but suddenly the voice is raised. It sounds hollow. It has
a metallic tone. The tension of the meeting increases and
overwhelming, overmastering power falls upon it, and no one thinks
of resisting what appears to be such a manifestation of God. The
majority of those present may have no idea of the mixture which has
crept in. Some fall on the ground, unable to bear the strained
emotion or effect upon their minds, some are thrown down by some
supernatural power, others cry out in ecstasy. The speaker leaves
the platform, passes by a young man who becomes unconscious or
becomes conscious of a feeling of intoxication which does not leave
his senses for some time. Others laugh with the exuberance of
intoxicating joy. Some have had real spiritual help and blessing
through the Word of God being expounded err before this climax came
and during the pure outflow of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, they
accept these strange outworkings as from God, because in the first
stage of the meeting their needs have been truly met of Him and
they cannot discern between the two separate manifestations coming
through the same channel."
     What's being said is sometimes the service may start out good.
The Word of God is being preached, the truth, and people are being
blessed by it. Their needs are being met. God, by His Spirit, is
ministering to people. But there is those occasions, whether an
opening is given to demonic influences, or just manipulation by the
speaker, or whatever, the Spirit of the Lord kind of leaves the
service because He's not going to battle with the spirit of man,
and men begin to manipulate the service and people accept whatever
manifestations they see and feel and hear and observe around the
altar based on what they perceived and knew to be truth at the
beginning.
     You see, that's where spiritual discernment comes in, is
knowing that the manifestations of God's Spirit, just like the
teaching and preaching of the Word have to be from the Bible and
fit with biblical orthodoxy, the manifestations of the Spirit have
to do likewise. There has to be some connection between the two.
And what's happening today, and a personal one with me, in this
revival that's going on, very little proof is being preached. But
if there was some truth being preached, and people were really
having their needs met, really coming under conviction of the Holy
Spirit, that is soon swept out, so the manifestations and the
excitement can take place, because, you see, people don't come to
be convicted. People don't come to hear the Word of God, and have
their souls and their hearts set free, they come for the
experiences. They come for the altar service, where all these
things happen.
     Let me read from an article in Charisma Magazine this past
month. Richard Lovell, who is a professor and an evangelical
historian at Gordon Cromwell Seminary, talks about similar
manifestations that took place in the last couple of centuries. He
says, Jonathan Edwards said that the involuntary stuff is not
evidence of grace and really does you no good. But the involuntary
stuff doesn't necessarily invalidate the work of the Spirit,
either. Some critics said the jerks, the barking and all the slain
in the Spirit phenomena was just mass hysteria. The consensus in
opinion when this happened in Kentucky and the Cain Ridge Revival
in the 1850s was that this was demonic manifestations. Now, those
who were involved in the revival, those organizers and proponents,
said this is the latest move of God. But those who went and
observed and those who knew the Word of God, saw this as being
demonic manifestations. Historically, these kind of things have
been demonic in nature.
     When Jimmy Swaggart took his crusade to South America in 198_,
was it 1986, Kevin? Late '86 or early '87, huge stadium in
Argentina, 80,000 people filling the stadium every night, and
during the worship service, during the preaching, there were
literally hundreds of people in this congregation who would begin
to laugh hysterically and throw themselves down on the ground. They
would howl like dogs, they would bark like dogs, they would roar
like lions, they would make all kinds of wild sounds, and when
these things began to happen, the ushers went and physically
restrained them, took them out of the coliseum to a tent outside,
and they cast the devil out of them. But now, when you do that,
it's evidence that the Holy Ghost is doing something great in your
life.
     Now, which is true? Well, the best way to do it is, do you
recall anywhere in the Scriptures reading that, let's say the night
of Jesus' resurrection, when He came through the walls, the
disciples hiding in an upper room for fear of the Jews, and He
breathed on them and said "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Did you
remember reading where any of them were slain in the Spirit? Did
any of them begin to get on all fours and bark like dogs? Did they
laugh hysterically? What about at Pentecost, when the Spirit was
poured out for the first time? Do we see anything in there about
them laughing or barking or roaring like a lion? Do you find any
place in the epistles, any place in the book of Acts where people
who were come upon by the Holy Spirit, baptized by the Holy Ghost,
manifested these kind of things? No. The only spiritual reference
they are giving today for this manifestation is the upper room
experience. They'd say when they came down from the upper room,
some of the people in town turned to Peter and said "Peter, what's
the matter with your friends? It's only nine o'clock in the morning
and they're drunk." Because of that the leaders of this new revival
are saying the reason they thought they were drunk was because they
were staggering around and laughing hysterically.
     I don't remember laughter being one of the signs of the
outpouring of the Spirit. There were cloven tongues of fire, they
spoke in other tongues and other dialects, they were imbued with
power, they had "Boldness Peter," who denied the Lord three times,
now could stand publicly, knowing that his life was still in danger
from the Romans and the Jews, and he could stand boldly and preach
the Word of God to thousands of people. There's evidences of what
happened when the Spirit was poured out, but nowhere is there
evidence that they acted drunk. I think what the Scripture meant --
I mean, drunk like staggering around and hilariously laughing -- I
believe what the Scripture means when it says they thought they
were drunk is because they couldn't understand their speech. You
know, if you go, it's like when us Yankees moved down here 8 or 9
years ago and began to listen to some of you folks talk, I thought
you was all drunk. Couldn't understand a word you were saying,
until I developed an ear. That's what's happening there. They heard
these people speaking in unfamiliar words and unfamiliar languages,
and they thought at first, you know -- how many of you have ever
tried to talk to a drunk? Man, it's hard, 'cause they only have
half-thoughts, half-sentences, and they slur the words. You can't
understand them. You have to ask them to repeat it all the time and
listen close, and I think this is why they thought they were drunk.
They couldn't understand the words and the phrases that were coming
out of these people. It wasn't because they were drunk in the
Spirit, or drunk, acting silly, laughing hilariously. But that's
the only bit of Scripture they have to suggest that this is, in
fact, biblical.
     There's a similar thing going on outside the church, in the
world. Norman Cousins, who's a world-renown globalist, New Ager,
probably the guru of the Human Potential movement. One of his basic
therapies for getting people out of their depression and everything
else is laughter therapy. He gets them to laughing hysterically.
Now it may be just human, you know, there's a certain amount of
release, you know.
     How many of you like to laugh? I love it. It's my favourite
activity, next to eating. Laughter's good, and it makes you feel
good. There's an emotional release. There's nothing wrong with
laughter. But to say that it's a manifestation of the Holy Ghost,
to say it's an evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit in your
life, to say that if you're not laughing, as some have said, you're
not saved, is stupid. But that's what's being said.
     Did I mention last time what Straiter said? I don't remember.
Carl Straiter, Lakeland Church, I heard him say this on television.
That if you're not experiencing the power of God like this, rolling
around laughing and barking, you're not saved! He didn't say you're
missing out on something good. He said you're not saved!
     Anytime we take any manifestation and add it to being born
again by the blood of the Lamb, we've done a terrible injustice to
the Scripture. When we say you must speak in tongues to get into
heaven, we've broken God's commandment about adding to the
Scriptures. When we say you have to roll around and laugh to get
into heaven, or to be a part of what God's doing, to be a part of
the church, that's a lie. You see, these men are not only
deceivers, they're liars!
     You can't believe how fast this thing is spreading. It's
engulfed most of what we call the civilized world, you know, the
old countries and Europe and Central and South America and the
United States. It's spread faster than any other phenomenon ever.
I want to look at this, at how rapidly it's spread. I think I
mentioned this the other night. It's not a sovereign move of God
like we saw at Azusa Street, for God was moving on people in
California, He was also moving on people in south Alabama. He was
also moving on people in England. He was doing things in the far
east. And there was no communications. This revival is not like
that. It's being spread by audiotapes, and videotapes, and
messages. And there are pastors literally -- it's hard to get an
airline ticket into Toronto nowadays, 'cause the pastors are going
there to experience what is called the "Toronto Blessing," and I'll
share with you why they are calling it the "Toronto Blessing" in a
few minutes. They want to go, they see it, experience it, and then
they run back and try to introduce it to their church.
     It's not being spread silently. It's not the winds of God's
Spirit blowing across the land. It's men going and learning a
gimmick, a technique, a new marketing ploy, and taking it back and
introducing it to their people and telling them, manipulating,
intimidating their people, "if you're not willing to get in this
latest move of God, there's the door. That's how serious it's
getting.
     I want to compare this, look at the difference between this
and previous revivals. Previous revivals. The Welsh Revival, Azusa
Revival, was primarily unsaved people coming to know Christ. I
agree that the church has to be revived before there's really going
to be a lot of outward evangelism. But unsaved people, towns were
changed. In the past revivals, slavery was abolished, child labour
was outlawed, there were changes, not only within the church, but
within the community. But most of all, the best sign of revival
down through the ages has been a great multitude of people have
come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
     Now today they're saying "well, people are being saved in
these meetings." If ten thousand people are coming to the altars to
laugh and to do their other things, one out of ten thousand may
truly be getting saved, and that's what we said earlier; they were
responding to enough of the truth that got through them and their
hunger for God that they got saved in spite of what happened. But
today this revival, and there's not that much emphasis on soul-
winning. Souls are changed, lives are changed, people come to know
Christ once they come under conviction.
     I've listened to many, many tapes of this Rodney Howard-
Browne, and others who have followed him, and the preaching that he
does prior to the altar services which go on anywhere from three to
six hours. There's no conviction being, there's very little Word of
God being preached. But none that would bring sinners under
conviction. It's just enough of the Word, a brief little message to
prepare the people for the move of the Spirit. Someone did tell him
that, you know, the Spirit comes in response, after the Word is
preached, but if the Word is not preached sincerely and honestly
and truthfully, whatever spirit comes and manifests itself cannot
be the Holy Spirit. If the truth isn't preached, I guarantee you
the manifestations will not be the Holy Spirit of God.
     I was in Canada one time and we just about, I thought we'd
talk Benny Hinn into the ground outside the church, every bit of
his false doctrine with everybody, and one gentleman got up after
an hour of this and he said, "well, you may disagree with his
teaching, but you got to admit that the Spirit of God really works
in his service." And I wanted to say, "didn't you listen to what I
just said?" If the man gets up and preaches that he's messiah of
the earth today, which he does, that God's plan is for everybody to
be skinny, good-looking and rich, that Jesus was a demoniac, He
became demon-possessed on the cross and had to go into hell and be
born again of the Spirit Himself, He was just a man and not God,
when he preaches lies and heresies like that, do you believe for a
moment that the Spirit of God comes into the service and blesses
people and blows people over, and ministers to people. If that's
the Spirit of God, we have no chance.
     If the Spirit of God honours lies as well as truth, how will
we ever know what's true? But the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
Truth Who will lead us into all truth and He will not for one
instant condone the preaching of such heresy.
     But the same thing's happening today. Just a little bit of the
Word, you know. All heresy has to have a little bit of truth mixed
in. If you're going to poison rats in your barn, you don't just set
out a box of rat poison. You've got to mix it in something the rats
will eat. But it does its work just the same way. There's a little
bit of truth coming out, but a whole lot of heresy, a whole lot of
poison.
     The things that we're seeing today in this so-called revival,
these manifestations of laugher and barking and all these other
things, being slain in the Spirit; even when these things cropped
up in the past, they were the exception rather than the rule. It
didn't happen to everybody. They talk about, and Rodney Howard-
Browne likes to point out -- it's interesting to me, he likes to
point out historical things when they serve his purpose, but when
someone says "but wait a minute, most people thought that revival
was of the devil," and he says "well, you can't rely on history. If
it works for him, take it, but if it doesn't -- and he points out,
and I read in this article again, Howard-Browne cites the famous
1801 Cain Ridge Revival in Bourbon County, Kentucky as a
foreshadowing of what is being seen today. It says "anywhere from
10,000 to 25,000 ruffian frontier folk were said to have gathered
along a log meeting house for the unusual outpouring. Accounts
about the Cain Ridge declared participants laughed during dance,
even barked." Now, a little closer examination found out there were
two people out of that 25,000 who experienced something like this.
That laughed or barked or whatever. In fact, Sidney Alstrom in his
Religious History of the American People described it this way. He
said, about the laughter, he said "it was a loud, hearty laughter.
The subject," not subjects, the subject, the one he saw, the one
that was reported about. Out of 25,000 they were talking about one
person, "appeared rapturously solemn, and his laughter excited
solemnity and saints and sinners alike." It was indescribable. But
you see, that was the exception, rather than the rule. Now the
exception is, if you're not rolling around, hysterically laughing
or barking like a dog.
     Now, it's incredible. When we first began to follow this
thing, about three years ago, a lady friend of ours on our mailing
list wrote and said this Rodney Howard-Browne had come to First
Assembly of God in Fargo, North Dakota and said "what do you know
about him?" I said "nothing" at the time. She explained that he
came, he shared a couple of Scriptures about joy, he took 45
minutes worth of offering, in fact he took $40,000 out of that
church in two weeks, -- good money, if you can get it. We began to
watch him. And the only thing that was happening then was the
laughter. .....I don't claim to be a prophet, but I told my wife,
I said "you watch. The next thing, he'll have us all down on our
hands and knees barking like a dog." I was being facetious! Now
I've seen it on videotape, they're down on their hands and knees
barking like a dog. Where do they get that from the Scriptures?
Well, do you remember when the woman came to Jesus, and she was a
Gentile and she wanted Jesus to heal her daughter? And He said "but
I've come to the house of Israel first." She said, "yes, but even
the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table,"
and of course the Jews considered the Gentiles dogs. And so, you
know, that's what we're supposed to be doing; crawling around God's
table, eating the crumbs, and how do you get the Master's
attention? [barking sounds] Sounds like John's dog -- treed another
bobcat, or skunk or something. I mean, it's almost ridiculous!
     What the sad thing is, is literally millions of people are
falling for this! And they're telling their husbands and their
wives who see through this, "you're not saved." Families are split,
churches are split, towns are split, denominations are splitting.
Now a lot of it has to do -- not only does Rodney Howard-Browne.
He's just kind of the straw that's broke the camel's back -- but a
lot of these other false manifestations and false teachings -- I
gotta move on, or we'll never get out of here.
     There's no, or very little evidence, of repentance in this so-
called revival. Churches are said to be growing. One man who, an
Episcopalian priest went to one of, he was very sceptical and went
to two or three nights of the services at ...home church in
Florida. And then all of a sudden, one night this power hit him and
he laughed hysterically and he went back and he began to share this
new experience with his church, and his membership increased
radically. In fact, they almost doubled his church in just less
than a year. Which brings us to another problem in the church.
People will go where the excitement is.
     Take a little baby. A crawler. You put a half a dozen things
on the floor, something dangerous, a couple of toys, some good
food, baby crackers, whatever. Put some of those toys with horns
and whistles and make all kinds of noise and flash. Which one's the
baby going to go for? The one that makes the most noise. The one
that has the bright lights. You see, baby Christians are looking
around all the churches. Which one has the fireworks? Which one has
the horns and the whistles? And that's where they go. And they
they're told, "this is the only church that's got it. This is the
only church that has the truth." If you've [ever] picked up the
ABCs of extremist groups and cults, that's the first thing they
tell you. "Nobody's has the truth we've got. Well, they've got part
of it, but they don't have as much as we've got." And they put
these young Christians into bondage. I know a group like this.
They're not into laughter yet, but they're into that kind of
spiritual bondage, this little cult group in Pennsylvania, and
they're afraid. They've been told, if you leave this group, you
lose your salvation. If you walk out that door, you can never be
saved. And I know some dear people in that group. They didn't start
off that way. We used to preach there until he got out of control.
But they're in bondage to that man and his teaching. It won't
surprise me some day if we don't read that in New Castle,
Pennsylvania, we had another Waco, Texas.
     You see, that's what happens. This is dangerous stuff. People
aren't coming to Christ because of conviction of sins. They're not
repenting of their sins, they're coming for an experience. These
churches are growing through recruitment, not through repentance.
You enlist them, get them to sign up. Don't preach the gospel. Just
get them to sign up and come to your church and enjoy the laughter
and enjoy the fun. Have the party. Pour out some more of the new,
Holy Ghost wine. That's what Mr. Browne calls himself: the Holy
Ghost bartender.
     There's no repentance today. No preaching of repentance. So
far this revival has only affected Christians, and I have to use
that term rather loosely when I say that. It's only having any kind
of effect, positive or negative, on Christian people. Revivals of
the past reached out to the community, reached out to the lost and
touched them. This one's not doing it. There's got to be something
wrong. We know that when God starts a revival, He reaches out to
the unsaved. He convicts them and then He converts them. God's Holy
Spirit, when He comes in power, calls sinners to repentance, not
saints to come and take another drink. But this is what's missing
in this revival. It's spreading person to person, and not by a
sovereign move of God like we mentioned earlier.
     These manifestations; it's an interesting thing to me. If this
is the Spirit of God that's causing all these things to happen, why
is it that when you command these manifestations to stop, in the
name of Jesus, they stop instantly? Can the Holy Spirit contradict
Himself? If He's doing this, can we, by the power of the Spirit,
and in the name of Jesus, command these manifestations to stop?
It's happening!
     When things are breaking out -- my wife and I were in North
Carolina recently, and the man I was with, he's always been a
little bit on the edge, then he finally slipped over. And we were
sitting there in the worship service the first night of the
revival, and a couple of the ladies began to laugh hysterically.
And I thought maybe, they were pretty close together, I thought
maybe something funny had happened, you know. But it just kept
going on! It kept going on, and of course we've been aware of this
stuff spreading, and I turned to my wife and said, "Oh, Lord!
There's going to be a showdown here." 'Cause when they turn the
pulpit to me, these ladies are going to stop their cackling or
we're going to stop the revival! And so we just quietly joined
hands and asked God if this wasn't of Him, and we were pretty sure
it wasn't, from our study of the Scriptures, we asked God to stop
it. And it stopped immediately. And the only laugh we heard the
rest of that week was when I cracked a wise once in a while. There
was no holy laughter broke out. There was no silly manifestations.
Why is it, when you pray to God to stop the foolishness so the Word
can be preached, it stops? If it's the Spirit of God, I'd be
praying against the will of God. But we prayed, and it stopped!
     I've had -- and I want to touch a little bit on slaying in the
Spirit as an example here -- we've had people in our services and
this is, I know it's a hot issue, I know many of you have probably
experienced it, and I'm not saying anything about your walk with
the Lord, but I don't believe it's biblical. I believe it's real,
I just don't believe it's biblical. And we'll get into that in a
minute. And another church here in the area just personal non
grata, forever, the letter said, and, someone asked me about it.
They've said "have people ever fallen out when you prayed for
them?" I said yes. And they said, "well, how do you explain that?"
I said because I knew when they came down the aisle they were
fallers. You can spot them. It's interesting. My wife stands behind
people when we pray. She just kind of rests a hand on them, and I
hold her hands, so if they're going to fall they're going to take
two other people with them. And you know, they never fall? And I've
felt the power of God in the services. People's lives have been
changed, great miracles have happened in the services, but nobody
ever fell down as long as we hold on to them. Now if you let them
go and go pray for this person, then they fall into some good-
looking guy's arms.
     It's always amazing how they'll start falling and look to see
"who's the best looking catcher back here" and they'll fall this
way or that way. They say, "what happens when it happens in your
service?" I say I just go back over to them and kneel down and say
"would you please get up? You're embarrassing me." Right up they
come. If it's the power of God, He ought to keep them down, I
think. If it's the power of God, He would have taken me down too!
He's a big God. How many of you know that? Isn't it amazing how
such power can surge through one mortal man and knock a whole
congregation over, and yet that man's not affected by it? Give me
a break!
     You can stop these things. You can go into a church that's
known for having these kind of manifestations, whether it's
laughter or being slain in the Spirit, and just mention that you
think it's foolish, and it never happens. But when you go to a
church and you get ready to give the altar call and you say "would
you move these chairs back just a little bit?" Oh! The power of
God's going to fall. I'm going to fall. We're going to have church,
halleluia!
     I just hate it when I go into a church for revival and I see
a little stack of cloths up at the front, 'cause, you know, 'cause
the ladies are on the floor. You've got to cover their half-
nakedness.... Can you believe that people actually believe that God
would just knock 'em down and leave 'em there? It never happens
then. Isn't it amazing that God can move so sovereignly in these
services, and yet just one stupid little preacher from Missouri can
make one comment and just quenches the Spirit completely? Who's
more powerful, me or God?
     That's just what I'm saying. These manifestations are more
human spirit, they're more peer-pressure, they're more auto-
suggestion, maybe even mass hypnosis. I don't know all the
explanations. I know one of the explanations, it could be demonic.
I'm not ready to run the risk of saying that yet, but I've had
people come up to me who have been to both the laughing revivals
and Benny Hinn's slaying in the Spirit, everybody falling over
themselves in revivals, and they've come, and they've come out of
deep occultism and finally got truly saved and filled with the Holy
Ghost and gone to these services -- and one of these ladies went to
Benny Hinn in Southern California, got to the altar and finally got
his attention, and she said "Mr. Hinn, don't you know that the
spirit you're operating in is not the Spirit of God?" She said "I
know that spirit. I served him for twenty years." Benny turned
ashen white and walked away.
     I'm not ready to say it's demons. I think it's more human
manipulation. I think people go expecting it to happen. And when he
goes like this, they all fall down.
     I saw on videotape one time, everybody in the place was laying
on their backside. He finally turned around and realized that the
choir hadn't been blessed yet. And so he said "you all up in the
cheap seats need some of this," and he went like that and they all
fell down, except one old man with a hearing aid. And he looked
around at everybody, and when he looked this way, you could see on
the camera the hearing aid, and you knew why he didn't fall down,
he didn't hear the command. And he looked around and then he [falls
down]. Aw, c'mon!
     Do you believe the Holy Ghost is something you can roll up in
a ball and throw it across the room and knock people down? What
blasphemy! Do you think that the Holy Ghost wants us to imitate
animals? I don't know what we've got to laugh about. The world's
going to hell in a handbasket. Our loved ones, our families, our
kids, our neighbours, are on their way to an eternity in hell and
the church is sitting around laughing. This is no laughing matter.
     These manifestations. There's usually a mocking of the true
preaching of the Word of God. I've been working on a message. I
can't wait for the Lord to say "okay, you can preach it in this
church." It'll be a one-night revival, I can guarantee you! It's
about Ishmael and Isaac and some of the contrasts, and one of the
things that Ishmaels do. You know there are three kinds of people
in the world; there are unbelievers, believers, and make-believers.
Ishmaels are make-believers. They've got all the language. They
even understand the theology and everything else, and they can play
church better than anybody. But when God begins to move sovereignly
in His church, Ishmaels head for the back door. That's when revival
begins, when the Ishmaels leave.
     One of the traits that Ishmael did, he always marked Isaac. He
always made fun of him, he always laughed at him. That's what's
happening today. The preaching of the Word of God. Systematic
theology is being thrown out. Let me read what Rodney says. Rodney
is now the authority on all this stuff.
     This is from Charisma of last August: He disparages or
criticizes those who would try to apply a theological test to his
methods. The pastor read "Paul said check it out with the word. See
if what I am telling you is true." He said "Don't check it out with
the Word, you kids" he goes on to say "you can't understand what
God is doing in these meetings with the analytical mind. The only
way you're going to understand what God is doing is with your
heart." He said, check your mind at the door, don't use any
discernment, don't know the Word of God, just get in and go with
the flow. In fact, you hear him on videotapes, he lays hands on
people, and if they don't fall down or laugh immediately, he says
you just got to let go, quit thinking, clear your mind. You see,
when we clear our minds of all thoughts, that's when we open
ourselves up to demonic activity. That's when we allow ourselves to
be manipulated by another person. And what's one of the classic
definitions of witchcraft, brother John? Controlling the actions
and ideas of another person by manipulation. This is witchcraft,
folks. Again, I'm not going to go so far as to say the man's demon
possessed, or demons are doing the work for him, but he is
practicing witchcraft when he begins to manipulate people by
threats and intimidation and manipulation. And that's exactly
what's happening. He said you can't apply a theological test to
what God's doing. That scares me! Mocking the Word of God. I
mentioned last night, some of my critics call me Word-bound. You
know, get away from the Word, just let the Holy Ghost show you
what's going on.
     John, I appreciate what he said last night. I believe in the
supernatural manifestation of the Holy Ghost. I believe in divine
healing. I thank God for the gifts that still operate in the church
today, just like they did two thousand years ago. I'm Pentecostal
from the soles of my feet to the just as bald top of my head. I
believe in these things. But I also believe that the parameters of
the Spirit's operation in the church were set in this Book. He's
not doing something new today. He's not blessing this generation
with a new manifestation that He didn't bless every subsequent
generation with, every previous generation. He's the same
yesterday, today and forever.
     How come this never happened until the 1800s? It says God's no
respecter of persons. Apparently He was! He didn't pour out this
blessing to the first eighteen centuries in the church! He saved it
for this last couple of centuries. That ought to tell us something!
Enjoy the presence, and when you get those Holy Ghost goose bumps.
Enjoy those mountain-top experiences. But life is more than
mountaintops.


Transcribed by Bob Hunter
Internet Address: [e-mail]