The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama
City, California, By John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape,
GC 90-52, titled "Charismatic Chaos" Part 1. A copy of the tape can be
obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.
I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the
original tape was made. Please note that at times sentence structure may
appear to vary from accepted English conventions. This is due primarily to
the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in
placing the correct punctuation in the article.
It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this transcription
of the sermon, "Charismatic Chaos" Part 1, to strengthen and encourage the
true Church of Jesus Christ.
Scriptures quoted in this message are from the New American Standard Bible.
Charismatic Chaos - Part 1
by
John MacArthur
We are going to embark upon a study of the Charismatic movement, the
contemporary Charismatic movement that surrounds us in the Evangelical
Church. Back in 1977, to be exact, I preached a series on the movement, or
maybe a little even before that year. But a book came from it which I spent
1977 writing. That book was entitled, "The Charismatics." And now we are
about a dozen or more years beyond that publication, and I felt that it is
time for an update. And from this series will come another book entitled,
"Charismatic Chaos." I believe that book will be released sometime after the
first of next year.
So many Christians are confused by the theology and the experiences of
Charismatic people. And they have become so visible because of Christian
television, radio, books, magazines, and because their ministries are so
aggressive that we all are inundated by them through direct mail. Television
and the media has spread this movement, it has created for them a tremendous
platform. In fact, it is probably not far from the truth to say that most
people would assume that Evangelical Christianity is what the Charismatic
movement represents, because it is such an exposed movement.
But we must deal with it in line with 1 Thessalonians 5:21, and that is to
examine it carefully, to determine what is true and what is not. Now as we
embark upon this examination, I want you to know at the very outset, that I
love my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and I have no intent to convey
anything other than love for them. I think in the movement there are many
who are not genuinely saved, and I am equally concerned about their
salvation. My purpose is not to debate them, pitting our theology against
theirs, but to call them to the test of Scripture, to drop what Amos called
the "plumb line," to see if they are straight with the Word of God.
I have to say at the very outset that a rather powerful intimidation factor
works against those who wish to deal with this movement Biblically. To É37 É3 ècritique Charismatic doctrine or practice is commonly viewed as inherently
unloving, inherently unkind, inherently divisive, and even blasphemous. I
have personally been accused of blaspheming the Holy Spirit by calling this
movement to the test of Scripture. Anybody who wants to answer the movement;
to confront the movement; to measure it by Scripture; can be intimidated.
Because it is very hard, then, to find a platform to speak about the
movement. It runs almost rampant like wildfire.
Charismatic extremist can promote almost any idea they chose on television,
or on radio, or in their books. And those who attempt to examine those in
the light of Scripture are muzzled. I have been waiting for many years on
one of these Charismatic Talk Shows to hear the host say, "That's not true;
that is not true. That is not in the Word of God, we will not accept that.
You cannot verify that by Scripture." That never happens, no matter what is
said. It can be the most bizarre thing imaginable; it can be the most
whimsical, the most self-generated interpretation of Scripture or experience,
and no one ever stops and says, "Hold it! That's error; that's heresy;
that's not true!"
The number one book on the Christian Book Selling List right now, this month,
the latest one, is a misrepresentation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
It is number one because so many Christians across America are buying it. It
is not a time to speak against this movement unless you want some flak and so
I am getting ready for it, I guess. But I am duty bound to assess everything
according to the Word of God.
Our radio program, "Grace to You," is heard on a network of 200 stations,
being broadcast about 600 different times a day, and there are satellites
that take it to even more stations. Nearly all of the stations that we are
on and all of the broadcasting mediums that we use would share our doctrinal
perspective; they would share our doctrinal commitment to the sufficiency of
Scripture. Yet, most of them "back out" at broadcasting any series on
passages that confront Charismatic error. Most of them would agree not only
on the sufficiency of Scripture, but they would probably even agree on our
theology with regard to the Holy Spirit, Signs, Wonders, Miracles, and
Tongues, but they simply do not want to offend.
Here is a typical letter, and I am quoting, written to us,
"Please reconsider your policy of dealing with the Charismatic
movement and other controversial topics on your radio broadcasts.
Though we share your convictions on these issues, many of our
listeners do not. These people are dear brothers and sisters in
Christ and we do not feel that it is helpful to the cause of
Christ to attack what they believe. We are committed to keeping
peace among brethren and unity in the Body of Christ. Thank you
for being sensitive to these concerns."
"It is not helpful to the cause of Christ to attack error anymore," that's
what it says. "It is not helpful to these dear brothers and sisters in
Christ to attack what they believe, even though it is wrong." It is more
helpful, under this philosophy, "to let them remain in error." "We are
committed to keeping peace, even if peace means error, and finding unity even
if unity means heresy. Thank you for being sensitive to our desire to
maintain heresy if it must be maintained for the sake of unity!" É3n É3 è
Apparently, these people, while being "Dear Brothers and Sisters," are not
dear enough to deserve to be taught the truth. Does real Christian love
leave them in a spiritually debilitating error, thus out of God's will and
out of the place of blessing, misrepresenting God's sacred truth? Is that
love that calls us to do that? But this is the kind of thinking that
pervades the Church. In effect, it has given Charismatic extremists the
freedom to propound fantastic views while imposing a code of silence on all
who object.
The legacy of such an attitude is not unity, and the legacy of such an
attitude is not peace, believe me; it is confusion, it is turmoil, and it is
chaos. How so? Churches, Mission Agencies, Schools, and other Christian
organizations that have tried to maintain unity by not confronting
Charismatic influence, and thus allowing it to come in never to be dealt
with, ultimately will all have to sacrifice their Non-Charismatic position or
split the organization. It does not bring unity, it brings the exact
opposite. Because, inevitably, you have the "haves," the Charismatics who
feel that they have reached a higher level, and the "have nots." And you
have pitted two theologies against each other. One gives in or it splits.
It is not unkind to analyze Christians' doctrinal difference in the light of
Scripture. That is not unkind; that is kind. We have a mandate from God to
do this, even if it involves rebuking certain people by name because they are
so well known. The Apostle Paul writing in Philippians 4 says, "I urge
Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord." And then he
says, "True comrade, help those women." He identifies two cantankerous,
troublemaking, disagreeable women in the congregation who were to be publicly
rebuked for all times, for their names have occupied a place in the permanent
record.
In 1 Timothy 1:20, Paul identifies Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom he had
delivered over to Satan, that they may be taught not to blaspheme. In 2
Timothy 2:17, he identified Hymenaeus and Philetus, who gone astray from the
truth and made up some kind of Spiritual resurrection, upsetting the faith of
some. In 3 John, that little epistle, he identifies another man, by the name
of Diotrephes, "who loves to be first among them, and does not accept what we
say."
When it comes down to the integrity of the Church, and when it comes down to
what is right and what is true, the Scripture will even name people publicly
and for the record, to be eternally embedded in the pages of Scripture, who
stand in the way of the movement of truth. Real love and real unity, and
real peace, are bound up with truth. Love apart from truth is hypocritical
sentimentality. And that kind of thing is frankly at an epidemic level. A
kind of sentimentality that does not want to confront truth. But remembering
again the words of Ephesians 4:15, "we are to speak the truth in love." That
is how the body "grows up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even
Christ."
Criticizing the Charismatic movement by Scriptural comparison should be
welcomed since truth that pleases God is the only concern that is valid.
Now, my purpose is not to mock; my purpose is simply to correct. In my first
book I was accused of using bizarre examples; that was not true. But some
accused me of using bizarre examples of the Charismatic movement. As I have É3Ñ É3 èaccumulated data over the past number of years since that first book, and in
going through that data more recently, I find that what we have now is even
more bizarre, and yet still commonplace. More visible now, more common now
with no end in sight.
When I was driving through the city of Dallas on Friday, I noticed a number
of huge billboards on all sides of the city as I was trekking back and forth
in meetings. And they were advertising the name of a man, Robert Tilton.
Robert Tilton preaches every Sunday in Dallas, and he will mail you a miracle
coin which by the way, is actually worthless; but it is a miracle coin. He
has mailed them to hundreds of thousands of people promising them a financial
miracle if they will send him, quote, "A check for the best possible gift you
can give." And then there is a reminder in this mailing, quote, "Only you
and God know what your best gift is." A little intimidation there, and if
you will send for him the best gift you can give, you will get a miracle coin
that guarantees you a miracle. A Secular paper calls Tilton's Television
program, quote, "The fastest growing empire in religious television." The
things that he promises and says are absolutely bizarre, and yet the bizarre
has become the commonplace.
An associate of mine attended a Charismatic Businessmen's meeting in Chicago,
where a Catholic Priest testified that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had given
him the gift of tongues while he was saying his rosary. Then the Charismatic
pastor, leading the meeting, rose and said, and I quote, "What an amazing
testimony that is. Aren't you glad that God isn't bound by any ideas by
what's doctrinally acceptable? Some people would try to dismiss this
brother's testimony just because it doesn't jibe with their doctrinal system,
but how you get filled with the Holy Ghost doesn't matter, as long as you
know that you have got the Baptism. Even if you got it from Mary while
saying your rosary, it has to be legitimate." The audience, by the way,
numbering in the hundreds, broke into wild affirmation and applause.
It is too easy to say that any critique of this movement is unfair and
unkind. It is too easy to say that and silence the Non-Charismatic, and
leave people in confusion, and let the movement spread unchecked even more
and more and more and then become exempt from Biblical criticism. Beloved, I
want to tell you that it is all over the globe. All over the globe.
Everywhere I go in the world I find that they have been making massive
inroads.
I was talking to a man in our church this morning who had for a number of
years worshiped here and then had returned to his native Scotland, living
just out of Edinburgh. And I said, "Have you found a church?" And he said,
"Well, yes we have." And I said, "Is it one of the Scottish Baptist Churches
(knowing that most of the Scottish Presbyterian Churches are long gone
liberal, with of course some exceptions)? He said, "No, it is not a Baptist
Church. For the most part, most of the Baptist Churches have moved into the
Charismatic Movement. Scotland.
It is a major problem in Eastern Europe and will continue to be one. It is a
problem in Australia. It is a problem is Asia. It is a problem of massive
proportions in Latin America. It is everywhere, confusing millions of
people. The Russian Church now is waiting patiently for the finishing of
this book, and they want the manuscript even before the American Publisher
publishes it because they desperately need it translated into the Russian É3▄ É3 èLanguage and distributed immediately in the Soviet Union because of the
rampant confusion about these matters.
Fantastic encounters with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are claimed as
commonplace; personal messages from God are routine; healings of all kinds
are claimed; miracles occur, everything from puppies being raised from the
dead; wash machines being healed; empty gas tanks and teeth are filled not
with the same thing); people are slain in the Holy Spirit; people go to
Heaven and go to Hell--comeback. There are some today who even say that the
Church can't do effective evangelism without such phenomena, without such
signs and wonders and miracles. The gospel, they say, is weak without signs
and wonders and this is the emphasis, by the way, of what they call the Third
Wave.
Charismatics say, "If you are not in the movement, then you have no right to
evaluate the movement." Howard Ervin (sp.), a Baptist pastor wrote some
years ago, quote,
"The attempt to interpret the Charismatics manifestations of the
Holy Spirit, without a Charismatic experience is as fatuous as the
application of the Christian ethic apart from a regenerate
dynamic. Understanding of spiritual truth is predicated upon
spiritual experience. The Holy Spirit does not reveal spiritual
secrets to the uncommitted."
There is the ploy they use, "Well, we would expect you to be against it since
you haven't had the experience." That is Gnosticism. That is believing that
you have been elevated to a higher level of comprehension which the
uninitiated have no understanding. Rodman Williams, who has written a number
of books and who was once the president of a local Charismatic school, and I
quote said, "Any vital information concerning the Gifts of the Spirit, the
Pneumatic Charismata, predisposes a participation in them. Without such a
participation, whatever is said about the Gifts may only result in confusion
and error." If you haven't had it, you have no right to talk about it. One
pastor said to me, "You talk exactly like one who never had the experience.
You are speaking out of ignorance." I wonder if they feel that way talking
about Heaven, Hell, murder, adultery, homosexuality, and numerous other
subjects. Do we have to have that experience too?
My experience and your experience is not the test or proof of Biblical truth,
it is the reverse--Biblical truth must validate or invalidate any experience.
Doctrinally, it is almost impossible to define the Charismatic movement. It
almost resists theology. It resists categorization because it has such a
wide and growing spectrum of viewpoints. If they don't rightly divide the
Word of God they are not going to come to a proper Systematic Theology. If
they determine what is true because of their own experiences then there is no
limit to the theology; it will take whatever form experience takes. And so
what you have is a very amorphous kind of volatile changing systems of
beliefs that ebbs and flows and rises and falls and refuses to find any
structure.
The Charismatic movement is achieving, by the way, what the liberal
Ecumenical movement tried for years to achieve, and that is a unity that is
indifferent to doctrinal truth. And so I say there is intimidation as we
approach this study because we are not supposed to have the right to do this, É3 É3 èsince we haven't had the experience. We are not suppose to do it because it
isn't loving and it isn't gracious and it doesn't make for unity. And so, I
just want you to know that I acknowledge the effort to intimidate, and I
reject that. I do not believe, furthermore, that I have to have some kind of
experiences in order to understand what the Bible says about them. I haven't
walked on water, but I can understand what it says when it says that Jesus
did.
Doctrinally, we must have structure, we must have sound doctrine. We cannot
fall prey to a system that resists any doctrinal categorization. But see,
once you allow experience to be the test of truth, then you can't limit
doctrine to the pages of Scripture.
Now, just a brief history. Historically, the Charismatic movement is the
child of the Pentecostal movement. That began about 1900 and it went along
for about 60 years and the Pentecostal Churches were primarily the Assemblies
of God, the Four Square Church, and then there were some other smaller
groups, the United Pentecostal group and so forth. But they were basically
off to themselves. People used to call them the "Holy Rollers." They were a
kind of a unique group that did not mainstream at all in Evangelical
Christianity because of their strange beliefs.
In 1960 a remarkable thing happened. In 1960, not far from here, in Saint
Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, Rector Dennis Bennett
supposedly got the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. And what happened was
Pentecostalism jumped out of its own box and landed in Episcopalianism, and
for the first time it transcended its denominational definitions. Since that
time it has moved through the major denominations like a flood. It went
beyond historical Pentecostal denominations and has continued to do that.
That second movement is called the Charismatic Movement. They borrowed that
concept of Charismatic because it is associated with the Gifts of the Holy
Spirit given to the believer.
But the Charismatic Movement can't be defined doctrinally. Why? Because it
Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, anybody and everybody. So it resists, and
has resisted any kind of doctrinal definition that is too rigid. What they
all hold in common is an experience which they will call the Baptism of the
Holy Spirit. And they wrongly define the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a
post salvation experience that adds something to your Christian life that you
previously didn't have, and is usually is accompanied by signs and wonders,
most particularly speaking in tongues. And we are going to talk much more
about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Tongues at a later time. But once
you have had that experience, you have sort of jumped into this new level of
spiritual awareness, and you have reached the level of the Charismatic.
Without this experience, a Christian is second class. So, you have the
"spiritual haves" and the "spiritual have nots." I remember being sent a
tape of a "talk radio program" by Walter Martin, when he was still alive, and
he was interviewing Rodman Williams at the time; and for some reason they got
to talking about me because I had written a book on the Charismatics (and
both of them were certainly favorable to the Charismatic movement) and they
were discussing what I had said in the book and how that I really didn't
understand the movement. And Rodman Williams, on the tape said, "Well I'll
tell you one thing, I don't know who this man is but God will never bless his É3J É3 èlife or his ministry." And there was a moment of silence, to which Walter
Martin simply replied, because he knew me and he knew the ministry, "I think
you have gone too far in saying that!"
But the bottom line is, that's what they have to say because if you haven't
reached that second level, then you are not participating in the fullness of
the Spirit of God. That's very intimidating to some Christians. No miracles
in your life, no spectacular revelations, Jesus never comes and talks to you,
no signs, no wonders: What's wrong with you?
I am convinced that these experiences are real in the sense that maybe they
have some emotional reaction or maybe there is something that they are
feeling at the time, but that they do not follow a Biblical pattern, they are
not authored by God, and they do not lift someone to a higher level. Now
what that means then, is that since they are not really true in terms of
moving people into genuine spirituality, since they do not increase your
understanding of the Word or your true knowledge of God they lead then to the
need to exaggerate, dramatize, or even invent experiences just to keep up
with everybody's expectations and just to be spiritual.
One nationally known television Charismatic Evangelist was recently
discovered using a hidden receiver in his ear, you remember that, a man named
Poppoff (sp.) through which his wife was broadcasting information supposedly
being revealed to him by the Holy Spirit as he stood in front of the
audience. Another healer was using the same "phony plants" in the crowd, in
every city, and rehealing the same bunch from city to city to city. Terrible
sex scandals abound in the ostentatiously spirit filled Charismatic leaders
circles. Sexual scandals seem epidemic and catastrophic. Admittedly, that
can happen in any group but you would think it would happen less, not more,
in those that have reached the higher level of spirituality, wouldn't you?
Such scandals reveal the fact that pursuing signs and pursuing wonders,
chasing spectacular experiences and speaking in tongues and reaching some
plane of esoteric mystical feelings has led some leaders not only to be
fraudulent, to be fake, but to miss the path to true spirituality, and
consequently to be on the path to moral disaster. You see, false standards
of spirituality don't restrain the flesh. Fundamental teachings of the
Charismatic movement create an emphasis on the external and they foster bogus
claims and false prophets and other forms of what I guess we could call
spiritual humbug.
Now, some of these people are sincere, but in the pursuit of experiences and
emotions, and miracles, and signs and wonders, they begin to imagine all
kinds of things and to falsify all kinds of things. And I also believe that
Satan invades with his deceptions. Well, that just gives you a little
feeling of what we are going to be dealing with. I want to ask one question
tonight and briefly answer it, that will take us into the flow of this
subject.
The first and foremost thing for us to consider is this question, "Is
experience a valid test of truth?" I know you know the answer to that, but I
want to help frame it up so you can understand it fully. Is experience a
valid test of truth?
A woman wrote to me seething with anger; this is what she said in her letter, É3ü É3 è
"You resort to Greek translations and fancy words to explain away
what the Holy Spirit is doing in the Church today. Let me give
you a piece of advice that might just save you from the wrath of
the Almighty God. Put away your Bible and your books and stop
studying. Ask the Holy Ghost to come upon you and give you the
gift of tongues. You have no right to question something you've
never experienced."
Such an attitude prevails in the movement, the tendency to gauge truth by
personal experience. Now what about experience is there such a thing as a
true spiritual experience? Sure. A true spiritual experience will be the
result, listen carefully, will be the result of the quickening of truth in
the Christian's mind. And I will sum it up that way and I don't know of any
better way to say it. A true spiritual experience will be the result of the
quickening of truth in the Christian's mind. In other words, the Spirit all
of a sudden gives dramatic life to a truth. It does not occur in a mystical
vacuum.
In an authentic spiritual experience there are emotions and feelings and
senses, and I want you to know that I believe that and I understand that. I
have some absolutely exhilarating spiritual experiences. And I have some
very difficult experiences, very sad and heart wrenching experiences. And I
am not talking about an emotional experience or an earthly experience, some
kind of worldly thing. I am talking about a spiritual experience. I have
them and I hope you have them. God has given us our emotions so that we can
respond to His truth. But I do not have an experience that is godly, that
leads me to truth in a vacuum. I have an experience in response to truth.
Let me show you what I mean. Here is one kind of spiritual experience:
strong feelings of remorse over sin. Have you had that experience? You go
along in life on a fairly even keel, you go along fairly happy and content
and satisfied and you've got the ability to balance your sorrow with your
joy, and sort of keep your head above water. But there are times in your
life when you have felt strong remorse over your sin. That is an experience
that was generated by the truth of the Word of God quickened to your heart by
the Holy Spirit. Right? That was the case in Luke 18:13 where the man who
was a publican, was in the corner of the Temple beating on his breast crying,
"God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" Why? Having been exposed to the truth
about his sin, his spirit was quickened and he had an experience of
conviction. He had an experience of remorse. He had a tearful experience of
repentance.
Another kind of spiritual experience you might have would be an almost
inexplicable sense of trust in God in the midst of a traumatic situation. An
almost inexplicable sense of trust in God, peace, calm, in the midst of a
traumatic situation. I remember taking off in an airplane from LAX and when
we were barely off the ground, maybe 100 feet, an engine blew up. Now that
is what I call a traumatic situation. We had to go in a circle, dump fuel
over the ocean and come back and land again, and then get out and get another
plane. But in the process, it was amazing the reality of the moment, the
whole plane is shaking and everybody has heard the noise, everybody knows
something dramatic has occurred, and to all of a sudden be literally
overwhelmed. The first question that came into my mind was, "Lord, are you
sure that this is the right plane? This is me, I am on this one, you know? É3╕ É3 èThat's my first response, and then I said, "No, no, the Lord knows, He's got
an OAG guide, He knows the airline schedule.
In the middle of that kind of trauma, I was overcome with a mighty sense of
trust in the sovereignty of God, and a perfect peace that came over me; and I
began to anticipate the realities of Heaven. Maybe, maybe that is a common
experience at some point in time, in the life of any faithful true believer.
In Acts 16, it was that kind of experience that the Apostle Paul had with
Silas. They were put in stocks, that means their limbs were stretched to the
limit, and locked in at a stretched point. There legs were pulled as far
apart as they could go, like a wishbone and then stuck in the stocks and
locked there, so that the muscle pain would be indescribable, unimaginable.
Their arms the same way, and there they were locked awaiting their execution,
and it says they were praying and singing hymns of praise to God. That's a
spiritual experience where the Spirit of God has quickened to their hearts
the great reality that their God is near, their God loves them, God is in
control of everything, and that confidence gives them a song to sing in the
night. That's an experience.
Maybe, maybe there are times when you have had an overpowering peace in the
midst of trouble, that made your spirit totally calm like that. Certainly
Paul had it. He said, "I have learned that in whatsoever state I am to be
content." And he said, "If you just learn to go to the Lord with everything,
He will give you perfect peace. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by
prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God. And the
peace of God," right? "Will grant to you His peace."
Even in the face of death there is an overwhelming joy and peace that can
come over us. Stephen is there under the bloody stones as they crush out his
life, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. Don't blame them for this."
Quietly he reposes in rests. And then there is that other kind of spiritual
experience, that Paul had in Romans 9:1-3, where he said, "I have such a deep
and profound longing and sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart for the
salvation of Israel, that I could almost wished myself accursed, if it could
mean their redemption." Have you had that experience? Have you ever wept
over the lost?
I remember one time as a little boy, the first time it ever hit me. I was
sitting in a campfire and I became overwhelmed after hearing a message about
lost people. I think I was about 12, and I couldn't control the tears, and I
just began to weep over the lostness of people. That was a spiritual
experience, as the Spirit of God quickened to my heart something true from
His Word--the lostness of man, the sovereignty of God in the midst of my
trouble, the great peace that He gives, confidence in His care, repentance
and remorse over my sin, all of those kinds of things.
On the other hand, Have you ever rejoiced to the point where you could almost
not contain your joy because somebody you loved so much had come to Christ?
That's a spiritual experience. Have you ever just contemplated the glory of
God, and found yourself singing hymns to him in praise because you were so
exhilarated? Have you ever gone into a ministry and knowing that the Spirit
of God was on you and you were going to go and preach His truth, and felt
that you couldn't wait to get there, and when you got there you thought you
might tear the pulpit to pieces because of the joy, the exhilaration of what
you are about to do? É3∩ É3 è
I don't want anybody to think for a moment that I don't have a spiritual
experience. People sometimes think I'm sort of cold and calculating, but I
am very emotional about those things. Spiritual experience by definition is
an internal feeling. It is an internal feeling that involves strong emotion
in response to God's truth, amplified by the Spirit and applied to me
personally. That's a true spiritual experience.
Now what is a false spiritual experience? That's the experience that
supposedly leads me to the truth. This must be true because look what I
experienced. That's backwards! The Charismatic movement errors because it
tends to build its teaching on experiences, as John Wimber (sp.) said, "We
are cataloging all of our experiences so we can develop a theology." They do
not understand that authentic experience happens in response to truth and
anything that doesn't square up with the revealed truth of the Word of God is
not authentic, not of God. Too many of their experiences are detached from
truth and they lead to false conclusions.
I spent a couple of hours with a prominent, well known, Charismatic pastor
last Sunday afternoon. I asked him a number of questions, and every time I
asked him a question he answered me with an experience. Visions, dreams,
prophecies, words of knowledge, private messages from God, are the real
authority in that movement. And Scripture, when used at all, is typically
employed for proof texts or twisted to fit some novel opinion. And many
Scriptures, beloved, are literally mauled.
Kenneth Copeland was teaching on Mark 10, The Rich Young Ruler, and of course
Kenneth Copeland teaches that Jesus wants everybody rich. Jesus wants
everybody healthy, wealthy, prosperous--big house, big car, big wardrobe, big
bank account. It's hard to teach that from the Rich Young Ruler because
Jesus said to him, "Sell all you have, give to the poor, come and follow Me."
It doesn't fit too well in that text. So how's he going to handle it? Well,
he twisted the text to make it seem to say that God wants His people wealthy.
Jesus' words in verse 21 are very clear, Mark 10, "One thing you lack: go and
sell all possess, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in
heaven; and come, follow Me." "Turn in your worldly treasure for heavenly
treasure." Here's Copeland's comment and I quote, "This is the biggest
financial deal that young man had ever been offered, but he walked away from
it because he didn't know God's system of finance." What? What he is trying
to imply there is that if he had given away everything God would have made
him richer. It doesn't say that.
The claims these people make just go on and on. I don't know if you read
about Percy Colette (sp.) a Charismatic Medical Missionary, claims that in
1982 he was transported to Heaven for five and a half days. A newsletter
describes the story,
While Christianity abounds with accounts of glimpses of the other
dimension from those who have had out of body experiences, Dr.
Colette's is unlike these. Obviously, he was caught up in the
third heaven even as Paul was, the difference being, Paul was not
allowed to utter the things he saw and heard, while Dr. Colette
was. Colette offers video tapes detailing his sojourn in Heaven
and his accounts are peculiar indeed. Quote, "Everything God
created on the earth is in Heaven, Horses, cats, dogs. Everything É3& É3 è that He created on earth is in Heaven, in the way of animals, only
these are perfect. For example, the dogs don't bark."
Further, he says, "You don't need plumbing. You can go to the
Banqueting House and eat all you want and no plumbing is needed."
Colette then describes the "Pity Department." The "Pity
Department" is place the souls of aborted babies go and also some
severely retarded babies and it here that these little souls are
trained for a period of time before they go before the Throne of
God.
Then he claims he saw the "Record Room," an immense area where all
to idle words spoken by Christians are being retained until after
Christians give an account of them or are judged, at which time
these will be emptied into the "Sea of Forgetfulness."' Colette
then describes the "Garment Room," where angels are sewing our
robes, and Mansions under construction. And he found the "Holy
Ghost Elevator" and many other astonishing sights.
He adds one more detail, "While I was traveling back to earth, I
saw two girls, one brunette and one a redhead. We stopped to talk
to them, that is their 'soul bodies' on the way back. We had
asked them what had happen to them? And they indicated that they
had gotten killed in a car accident on the California Highway and
their physical bodies were in a funeral home. They said their
mother was weeping over them, so would I please tell her they were
ok?" Dr. Colette feels that he has conclusive proof to verify
that tale. "About a year later I went to that area where the
mother lived and was giving this testimony, a mother jumped up in
the congregation and said that's a description of my daughters! I
told her she shouldn't fret, that her daughters are in that
wonderful place, we saw them on the way to Heaven." She said,
"She would never cry again."
After Dr. Colette lectured on Heaven to his third straight
standing room audience in Montgomery, Alabama, he offered to take
questions from the floor. The first question was something I
admit I had never contemplated. The question was, "I'm a Cowboy,
will there be Rodeos in Heaven?" Dr. Colette was ready with an
answer, "There are horses in Heaven, beautiful horses, they are
all praising God, there is no foolishness in Heaven. I am not
saying that a Rodeo is foolish, but there is no Will Rodgers style
acting up there."
Just the silliness of these kinds of things that find their way into print.
By the way excursions to Heaven and back have become almost chic in that
movement, the ultimate experience for those who want something unusual, and
many say that they have made the trip. On April 11, 1977, a Charismatic
television network in Los Angeles, carried an interview with Dr. Richard Ebee
(sp.) who claimed to have died gone to Heaven and come back again. According
to Dr. Ebee he fell off a balcony, struck his head and was supposedly dead.
He reported,
"He experienced Paradise. His formerly weak eyes needed no
glasses, now he could see for a hundred miles. His body took a É3] É3 è wonderful quality, he could move anywhere at will, he was visible
yet transparent. Dr. Ebee said he found some flowers, broke them
off and noticed they had no water in their stems because Jesus is
the Living Water. The aroma of Heaven was especially overwhelming
with the sweet savor of sacrifices, Ebee said. He discussed the
fact that the human brain has twelve cranial nerves and then added
that those twelve nerves represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
Furthermore, he said that the number one nerve in God's cranium is
the sense of smell. Ebee said he learned that the whole purpose
of sacrifice was to send a sweet aroma up to Heaven to satisfy
God's main cranial nerve."
In regard, by the way, in regard to that kind of silliness, in regard to the
twelve cranial nerves representing the twelve tribes of Israel, it would be
just about as reasonable to say, "That because you have ten toes, the bottom
half of your body has the image of the Beast mentioned in Daniel, chapter 2
and chapter 7." By the way, I checked with a medical doctor on the twelve
cranial nerves, and found that actually there are twelve pairs, which makes
twenty four, so perhaps it would be better to say that they correspond to the
twenty four elders.
And I know that it is hard to resist chuckling at these things because they
are so foolish. The reason we chuckle is because we know that it is so far
fetched, so strange. But you see, Charismatics have no way to judge and they
have no way to stop those kinds of things. They can't stop that because the
system validates experience, and the truth rises from the experience. And so
they spend their time trying to get the Bible to fit their experience.
Dudley Danielson, in the "National Courier," a Charismatic newspaper, ran an
ad. This is the ad,
"A Genuine Photograph of the Lord! Yes, I believe I have one
recorded on film. In mid-summer I awoke at 3:30 am to a strong
voice thought impression, 'Go and photograph my sunrise.' Beside
the river I set up my camera; waited for the sun, and that predawn
I felt so very close to God, perfect peace. On one negative is
the perfect shape of a figure, arms raised in blessing, as
reflected in the water, exactly opposite every other shadow. I
believe God gave me an image of Himself to share."
The item is signed Dudley Danielson, Photographer, and you can get a picture
of God for only $9.95. Doesn't seem to bother Dudley that the Bible says,
"No man has seen God at any time." Nor does it appear to matter to him that
the Bible says that, "God is spirit," and "No man can see me and live." It's
no different than people who think they see Jesus on a Pizza Billboard. Such
extreme examples are not uncommon. In the November 1990 issue of Charisma
Magazine, which is the most popular magazine in the movement, there is a
claim made by a lady named Aline Baxley (sp.), an ex-alcoholic and drug
addict, who says she has been to Hell and God brought her back to tell her
story.
Experience after experience is reported in the Charismatic press, television,
radio. A subtle but sinister pattern is developing. Instead of responding
to a proper interpretation of God's Holy Word, Christianity is collecting
preposterous tales producing a pseudo-Christian mysticism that's more like É3ö É3 èHinduism and the New Age, than it is Biblical Christianity. And that's why I
quoted the woman who wrote me and said, "Put away your Bible, your books and
stop studying." Feelings are more important than the eternal Word of God.
Intuition surpasses interpretation. This is a tragic thing.
Now in a quick conclusion. When we turn to the Scripture, does the Scripture
validate experience as the proper source for truth? Look at 2 Peter, and
I'll just give you a couple of Scriptures because we have covered these. In
2 Peter 1:16, Peter says, "We did not follow cunningly devised tales when we
made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God
the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory,
'This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased.'--and we ourselves heard
this utterance made from Heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain."
Stop at that point.
Peter says, "Look, I going to write in this Second Epistle about the Second
Coming of Christ. I am going to write about His coming glory, His coming
majesty, and I want you to know that I am not talking about something that I
don't know about, because this is not some tale that God passed down. I was
an eyewitness along with the other Apostles of His Second Coming Power and
Glory." When did you see it? "On the mountain." What mountain? " The
Mount of" what? "Transfiguration."
Matthew 17, Jesus took the disciples into a mountain and He was transfigured
before them, and they saw the Shekinah Glory of God. We saw it! We were
there! And the voice out of heaven, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am
well-pleased." That is an amazing experience, an amazing experience. Peter
said, "I had an experience, I saw the glorified Christ in His Second Coming
Majesty. I saw the Shekinah Glory shining through Him, I heard the voice of
God saying, 'This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.'" You
could make a career today just going around telling that experience. But look
what he says, verse 19, "But we have a more sure word of prophecy." We have
the even surer prophetic word, is the proper translation.
What is more sure than experience? The Word! Peter's point is precisely the
issue that many Charismatics fail to understand. The pilgrimage from
experience to experience, more and more spectacular is not only frustrating,
it is counter productive spiritually. Peter says, "I had an experience, a
real one. But I have a more sure word than my own senses. I can't even
trust my own senses in a real experience of seeing the glory of Christ. And
so he says, "We have a more sure word and you do well to pay attention to
that as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning
star arises in your hearts." Until Christ comes in His day, you better stick
with the Word because, verse 20 says, "It didn't come by any private
interpretation. It isn't somebody's experience. It isn't somebody's
emotion. It isn't what somebody feels. "No, no prophecy was ever made by an
act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."
If you want human experience articulated, you can have it. Peter says, I'll
take the more sure word, the Word of God, not of human origin, not of human
interpretation, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. I'll take
God's Word over your word or even mine. Peter was no Charismatic, no
Charismatic.
É3╦ É3 èPsalm 19, another Scripture that must be dealt with. In Psalm 19:7-9, the
Psalmist writes, "The law of the lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the
testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the
Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the
judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether." You have six
titles for Scripture; it is called the "Law of the Lord;" the "Testimony of
the Lord;" the "Precepts of the Lord;" the "Commandment of the Lord;" the
"Fear of the Lord;" and the "Judgments of the Lord." Two of those in each of
those three verses. Psalm 19:7-9.
Now, you'll notice this, he is talking then about the Scripture. He sees it
as law. It is God's Law for man's conduct. He sees it as testimony. It's
God's personal testimony to who He is. He sees it as precepts, principles
for life. He sees it as commandment; it is binding. He sees it as fear;
that is instruction on worship. He sees it as judgment, or verdicts from the
divine bench on the destiny of man. Scripture is all of that, but notice
what the Scripture is in terms of its character. It is perfect, sure, right,
pure, clean, true. You can trust it. All six of those characteristics. It
is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true. And it will restore the soul,
make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, endure forever,
and produce comprehensive righteousness.
That's why Jesus said, "If they don't believe the Word of God that came
through the prophets, they won't believe even though someone," what? "Is
raised from the dead." He was and they didn't believe. Miracles don't make
people believe. Signs and wonders don't make people believe, they never did.
If a man does not believe the Word, he is not going to believe some
experience.
Look at John, chapter 14, and see what Jesus said about whether experience is
the issue. John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the
life; no man comes to the Father, but through Me. If you had known Me, you
would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.
Philip said to Him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.'" Do
a miracle! Show us God! Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you,
and you haven't come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the
Father." What are you saying, "Show us the Father for?" In other words, I
have told you all you need to know. You don't need a sign and a wonder. You
don't need some mystical and ecstatic vision of God. I've told you all you
need to know! I've demonstrated it in my life and my teaching.
Paul was no Charismatic either, believe me. Paul was no Charismatic. He
made divine truth the beginning and the ending of his ministry. It was the
preaching of the truth revealed to him by the Spirit of God. Acts 17:2,
"According to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned
with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ
had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am
proclaiming to you is the Christ.'" He was explaining the Scripture, he was
delineating the Scripture. He had an experience. He went to Heaven! But
God said, "You are not allowed to," what? "You're not allowed to talk about
it!" "I don't want anybody basing anything on your interpretation, on your
experience." Paul never built his ministry on his visions, his experiences.
He built it on what he knew was the revealed truth of God, and he called into
question any experience that violated Scripture. É3 É3 è
The end of his ministry in the 28th chapter of Acts, we find him at his
lodging, and people were there in large numbers; and he was explaining to
them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God, and trying to persuade
them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from
morning until evening. He was in the Scripture trying to prove the truth
from the pages of the Word of God.
Charismatics, like Jews of Paul's day have zeal without knowledge.
Enthusiasm without enlightenment. They are often approaching truth without
their minds, without thinking. Some even claim that God deliberately gives
people unintelligible tongues in order to bypass and thus humble the proud
human intellect. Beloved this is a serious and tragic error. Clark Pinock
(sp.) once said, "We cannot allow these people to draw their theology out of
their experience. Whenever the existential cart is put before the historical
horse theology becomes a synthesis of human superstition and putting LSD into
the communion is fair play."
Anything to induce an experience. Christianity is in serious danger,
victimized by the experiential spirit of the day, the legacy of mysticism.
It must be tested by the Word of God. We are going to do our best to do
that. At least you know from the start that experience is not the valid test
for truth--the Word is. And your experience flows out of the ministry of the
Spirit through the Word to your life.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for letting us cover these things tonight
and there is so much that could have been said. We thank you Lord that we
can take a stand where your Word does in love. We ask you to help us to do
that faithfully as we go through these things, remembering that not all we
say is true of all the folks in the Charismatic movement, but these are the
general trends. We thank you for those in that movement who are doing their
best to adhere to the truth, to search your Scriptures, and we pray that you
will lead them to a full understanding of your truth. Help us to be loving
even as we pass these things on and yet to confront error so we might be
The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama
City, California, By John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape,
GC 90-53, titled "Charismatic Chaos" Part 2. A copy of the tape can be
obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.
Scriptures quoted in this message are from the New American Standard Bible.
Charismatic Chaos - Part 2
by
John MacArthur
I want to just preface the message tonight, really a study of an issue rather
than a text, which is a little unfamiliar to us as normally we are in certain
texts of Scripture. But I want to preface it with just a couple of comments. É39 É3 èFirst of all, I want to say that I am very much aware of the fact that not
everyone who is associated with the Charismatic movement is engaged in the
kind of extreme error that we will be from time to time referring to. There
are people who are more moderate. There are people within the Charismatic
movement who themselves are very, very concerned about the heresies and the
aberrations that exists within that movement. And so the movement runs quite
a wide gamut and there are people at all different points.
However, there are some salient features and elements in the movement that we
are endeavoring to deal with and illustrate to you. But again, I ask you to
keep in mind that not everyone in the movement would affirm all these things.
There are various and sundry different kinds of viewpoints. To reinforce
that, there are, according to current statistics, 382 million members of
Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches worldwide, or 1 out of every 5
Christians. So when we talk about a widespread movement, indeed it is the
case. They gain about 19 million members per year and they donate about 34
billion dollars to Christian causes. It is a formidable group. The movement
now includes 11,000 Pentecostal and 3,000 Independent Charismatic
denominations covering 7,000 languages, and two-thirds of all Charismatics
live in the Third World. It is a worldwide movement. And thus it demands
our attention.
Now tonight as we come to the second in our series on Charismatic Chaos, the
issue at hand is, "Does God still give revelation?" That's our subject for
tonight: Does God still give revelation?
If someone were to write an anthem for the Charismatic movement it would have
to be titled, "God told me! God told me!" you hear that over and over
again. Strange prophecies abound in the Charismatic movement; in fact, it is
well nigh impossible to turn on a Charismatic television station or a radio
station without being exposed, almost on a daily basis to some new "Words
from the Lord." I was watching one today and sure enough, "The Lord said,
the Lord said, the Lord said," was repeated again and again.
This week I listened to a very fascinating tape by a man by the name of James
Ryle. In his tape he tells about the fact that God gives him revelation
through dreams, and that God revealed to him in this incredible dream, which
I listened to him explain,
"Pictures of guitars, blue guitars, iridescent blue guitars." And
then in the dream God showed him amplifiers, and then God told him
that, "The guitars and the amplifiers belong to the Beatles." And
God told him that, "The Church will win the world to salvation
when it goes into the world and sings anointed music like the
Beatles." The tape is filled with statements, "The Lord said, the
Lord said, the Lord said, the Lord said." And here are some
quotes, "The Lord said, 'I called those four lads from Liverpool
to myself. There was a call from God on their lives. They were
gifted by my hand and it was I who anointed them (speaking of the
Beatles). The purpose was to usher in the Charismatic Renewal
with musical revival around the world.'"
Then the Lord said, "The four lads from Liverpool went AWOL and
did not serve in my army. They served their own purposes and gave
the gift to the other side." And then the Lord said, "I lifted É3p É3 è the anointing and for twenty years I've held it in my hand and I
am about to release it again." And then the Lord said, "It
doesn't belong to the world, it belongs to the Church." And then
the Lord said, "I will release an anointing in music that will
take the world by storm like the Beatles when they first came.
New, anointed music that will capture men's hearts." And then the
Lord said, "The same kind of reaction that the Beatles extracted
will come, only this time the girls will not scream, Ringo, John,
George, or Paul, they will scream, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."
Did the Lord say that? Did the Lord say any of that? He says he did.
Surely the most famous of all the Lord's speaking to Charismatics is the
famous, "Oral Roberts Death Threat Prophecy" a preposterous and fabricated
supposed "Word from the Lord." Roberts told his nationwide audience in 1987
that God had threatened to call him home if he couldn't raise 8 million
dollars by his creditor's deadline. Whether or how that threat might have
been carried out the world will never know because Roberts received a last
minute reprieve in the form of a large check from a Florida dog track owner,
as you remember. Two years later when Roberts was forced to close his
massive, multi-million dollar City of Faith Medical Center anyway, in spite
of the 8 million dollars, he asked God, "Why?" And Oral Roberts said God
spoke to him and God said,
"I had you build the City of Faith large enough to capture the
imagination of the entire world, about the merging of My healing
streams of Prayer and Medicine. I did not want this revelation
localized in Tulsa, however, and the time has come when I want
this concept of merging My healing streams to be known to all
people and to go into all future generations." So said God.
Roberts said, "It is clearly in my spirit, as I have ever heard
Him, the Lord gave me an impression, 'You and your partners have
merged prayer and medicine for the entire world, for the Church
World and for all generations.' And then He said, 'It is done.'
And then I asked, 'Is that why after eight years you are having us
close the hospital and after eleven years the medical school?'
And God said, 'Yes, the mission has been accomplished in the same
way that after three years of public ministry, my Son said on the
cross, Father, it is finished!'"
Putting yourself in company with Jesus Christ is a bold move. That kind of
arrogance almost makes us catch our breath. I recently had the opportunity
to stand on the dandelion patch that now surrounds the City of Faith Medical
Center in Tulsa. A sixty floor building next to a thirty floor building. An
absolutely unbelievable edifice rising out of the midst of nothing, in the
outskirts of this city. A monument to a man's folly and certainly no
testimony to the character and the quality and the power of God, for it
stands empty and unfinished, wasted.
The arrogance that causes people to think that God talks to them and puts
themselves on a plane with even Jesus Christ and His work is amazing. But
Oral Roberts is not the only Charismatic who thinks he's receiving private
revelation from God. Most Charismatics, at one time or another, feel that
God speaks to them in some specific way. Either through an audible voice,
some kind of internal impression, a dream (and that's kind of a new one), a
vision, or a prophesy. É3º É3 è
Linda Fell (sp.), founder of Rapha Ranch (sp.), sells a tape, a song she was
given by the Holy Spirit as she was being healed of cancer. An editor for a
Christian publisher once told me that he receives submissions every week from
Charismatics who claim God inspired them to write their book, article, song
or poem. My editor friend noted that these manuscripts are often poorly
written, filled with bad grammar, marred by factual and logical errors, or
full of poems that mutilate the language or attempt to rhyme but just miss.
And these are supposed to be authored by the Holy Spirit? Lest you think
that cranks and obscure eccentrics or naive Charismatic believers are the
only ones who would make such claims, you need to know that's not the case.
Even Jack Heyford (sp.), who is very near to us, and would be known even
among Charismatics is a man of honor and integrity and a man who believes the
Scripture, recently told the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America that God
had revealed to him that a new era is coming. He related a vision, in which
he had seen Jesus seated on His throne at the right hand of the Father. And
in his vision, Jesus began to lean forward and rise from His seat, and as the
anointing caught in the folds of His garment and it began to splash out and
fall over the Church, and then Jesus said, "I'm beginning to rise now in
preparation for My Second Coming, those who will rise with me will share in
this double portion of anointing." This is a private revelation that Jesus'
Second Coming is near.
Larry Lee, popular Charismatic preacher, wrote, "Recently, I was in Chicago
preparing to preach and the Lord's Spirit came upon me." He spoke, "I am
going to tell you now the name of the strong man over this nation. The
spiritual strong man that you are facing, the demonic strong man that has
your nation under his control. It is the strong man of greed."
Now, the question is, "Did God talk to this man about the Beatles? Did God
talk to Oral Roberts about the City of Faith? Did God write a song for Linda
Feld? Did Jack Heyford actually see Christ rise from His seat and get ready
for His Second Coming? Was Larry Lee's prophecy really a word from the Lord?
Are we to believe that that is revelation?" One television evangelist claims
that he had a seven hour conversation with Jesus Christ. Seven hours. And
during that time they talked about the problems on earth and discussed
decisions which he, the evangelist, was facing. And Jesus was trying to help
him work out some of these decisions. Significantly, this man also has said
he had some direct encounters with Satan, who has tried to choke the preacher
in his bed. Unfortunately, the man doesn't see the connection between the
two events. It seems to me that Jesus appearing to him was nothing different
than the manifestation of a demonic spirit who took the name of Jesus Christ
and was very likely the same spirit that wanted to choke him. Certainly,
there is no way to tell the difference in that kind of mystical experience.
Spirits who claim to be Jesus Christ abound in my limited experience. I have
even heard them take His name myself, and say they are Jesus Christ when it
is apparent that they are not. Anyone who seeks direct communication with
God or Christ is in serious danger of demonic impersonators of deity.
And there is another, even more basic issue than that, and that is, "Are
Christians still receiving, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, direct
revelation from God? Are we still getting it? Is God still talking?" Most
Charismatics would say a loud and resounding yes. É3▐ É3 è
One of their leaders, a theologian, by the name of Jay Rodman Williams,
former president of one of their schools, wrote this, "The Bible truly has
become a fellow witness to God's present activity." That's an amazing
statement. When you say that the Bible is a fellow witness to God's present
activity you mean that it is not alone, there is somebody else there
witnessing as well. He goes on,
If someone today perhaps has a vision of God, of Christ, it is
good to know that it has happened before. If one has a revelation
from God, to know that for the early Christians, revelation also
occurred in the community. If one speaks a "Thus says the Lord,"
and dares to address the fellowship in the first person, even
going beyond the words of Scripture, that this was happening long
ago. How strange and remarkable it is. If one speaks in the
fellowship of the Spirit, the Word of Truth, it is neither his
thoughts and reflections nor simply some exposition of Scripture,
for the Spirit transcends personal observations, however
interesting or profound they may be. The Spirit, as the Living
God, moves through and beyond the records of past witness however
valuable such records are as a model for what happens today.
Now what he is saying is that the Bible is simply a model of what is going on
all the time. It is one of many witnesses. There have been witnesses in the
past; there are witnesses in the present and they just stand along side the
Bible. The Bible is one of many. He is alleging that the Bible is not the
final source of God's revelation, but simply a witness, like a lot of other
witnesses and there is plenty of additional revelation that God is giving
today. He is saying that Christians not only can, but should add to the
Bible, and that such additions are normal and conventional. The Bible is
just a model for what the Holy Spirit continues to do today. This obviously
is a frightening view: relativistic, mystical, subjective. It tells us that
God continues to speak and there's all kinds of things that He has been
saying and continues to say that we need to place along side the Scripture,
and here we are and we don't have a record of that. That's inherent in the
Charismatic movement; the belief that there is continuing, ongoing
revelation, and God is continuing to speak (which of course is a denial of
the singular authority of Scripture).
Edward Gross in his book, "Miracles, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare," sees the
deadliness of this trend in the Church. He writes,
The age of models has come. A model takes the place of a law.
Models are human perceptions of truth, they are tentative and thus
subject to change as new data becomes available. These models are
open and constantly tested. No scientist dares claim any longer
that one model is the way to explain all known phenomena for fear
that some newly discovered data will prove that scientist to be a
precipitant old fool. The world of science has progressed from
the old approach, Closed Systems to a new approach, Open Systems.
And there are all kinds of new models. If the Bible is a Closed
System of truth, with no new revelation being given through
inspired Prophets or Apostles, then the model approach is an
erroneous and dangerous tool in hermeneutics. There should be no
confusion in this area, the orthodox teaching of Christianity has É3 É3 è always affirmed that God's special saving revelation to mankind is
restricted to the teaching of Scriptures. That is the issue. If
the Bible is complete, then it represents a Closed System of
truth. If it entails a fixed and absolute standard of truth, then
the teaching of Scripture must be ascertained and dogmatically
asserted. If God is still granting new revelation, then the truth
of God is still being progressively revealed; and if this were the
case, our duty would to be to faithfully listen to today's
Prophets as they unraveled God's truth and new and clearer
representations than we find in Scripture.
Well, he says, "I don't believe that." "I don't believe that the Bible is an
opened system, but a closed one." Scripture is a closed system of truth,
completely sufficient and not to be added to. Revelation 22:18-19, the last
chapter in the Bible says, "If you add to it, God will add to you the plagues
that are written in it." And yet we have all these supposed revelations.
What are they? Imagination? Fabrication? Demonization? But not divine
revelation. Now in understanding this issue we need to face some questions.
Question number one, "What does inspiration mean? When we say that the Bible
is inspired, what do we mean? What are we talking about?" Our word inspired
comes from a Latin root that means to "breath in, to inspire."
Unfortunately, that doesn't convey the true meaning of the Greek term used in
Scripture. Actually the concept of "breathing in" is not found in 2 Timothy
3:16, where it says, "All Scripture is inspired by God." It's not the word
for breathing in. That translation has unfortunately mislead some folks, and
they have assumed that men wrote a lot of words and God breathed into them
some kind of power; some kind of divine life--that's not it. When it says,
"All Scripture is inspired," the word "inspire" is theopneustos (GR.). It is
actually a word that said "God-breathed." It is God breathing it out, not
God breathing into it. Literally the verse says, "All Scripture is God-
breathed." It is the breath of God, not the words of men into which God
puffed some divine life. It is God's breath. It is God speaking.
Inspiration does not mean that the Bible has somehow been blown on by God and
given some supernatural quality. It means that the words of the Bible are
the words of God Himself, out of his own mouth. Every word of Scripture
breathed out by God. That's why at the Burning Bush God said to Moses, "Go
and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say" (Exodus
4:12). And Jeremiah, the weeping prophet of Judah, received this charge from
God, chapter 1, "Whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Behold I have
put my words in your mouth." And God said to Ezekiel in chapter 3, "Son of
man, go get thee unto the house of Israel. All My words that I shall speak
unto thee, receive in thine heart and hear with thine ears and go and speak
them."
And so then, we have in the Bible the words out of the mouth of God. 2 Peter
1:21, that very important text says, "No prophecy," that is, "No revelation
was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke
from God." The word "moved" means "carried along." They were carried along
by the Holy Spirit. Theologian Thomas Thomas, recalls that as a boy he would
play in the little streams that ran down the mountainside near his home.
We boys like to play what we call "boats." Our boat would be a
little stick, which was placed in the water, and then we would run É3L É3 è along beside it and follow it as it was washed downstream. When
the water would run rapidly over some rocks the little stick would
move rapidly as well. In other words, that little stick which
served as my boyhood boat was carried along, borne along, under
the complete control and direction of the water. It moved as the
water moved it. So it is with reference to the writers of
Scripture. They were carried along, borne along, under the
control and direction of the Holy Spirit of God. They wrote as
the Spirit directed them to write. They were borne along by Him
so that what they wrote was exactly that which the Holy Spirit
intended should be there, and what they wrote was in a very real
sense, not their words; it was the very Word of God.
That's what we mean by inspiration, that the Bible is the very Word of God.
Now, a second question faces us now that we know what inspiration means.
"What is the contemporary approach to Scripture? What's going on today that
threatens this?" Moving outside the Charismatic movement, just a very quick
lesson, but you need to understand it. Modern theologians want to allow for
continued inspiration. In liberal theology or neo-orthodox theology, which
is liberal in the sense that it denies the inspiration of Scripture: they
want to deny. They start from the denial point. Liberal theology, as I told
you this morning, and neo-orthodox theology came out of "The Enlightenment,"
when man began to worship his own mind, believing that he was the ultimate
judge of all truth, being enamored with his intellectual capability. Man
said, "I go to the Bible, I find all kinds of things that are not reasonable,
rational, logical. All the supernatural and miraculous things that I can't
comprehend, I eliminate." So he starts eliminating all of that. So
immediately he, of course, denies the inspiration of Scripture. It isn't the
Word of God, it's the word of men; it has to be changed because there is some
foolishness in here.
So, modern theology then reduces the Bible to just the best efforts of men.
Well, once it is reduced to the best efforts of men then you can have
continuing revelation. Right? Because men can continue to make those kinds
of efforts. So modern theology wants to allow for continued inspiration.
Continued, updated, Word from the Lord in some sort of mystical, personal
way. It is the best of men writing about their religious experiences, and
perhaps even prompted somehow by God to write down their own thoughts and
ideas. At least one of these modern writers, Dewey Beagle by name, believes
that some of the classic anthems of the Church are inspired in the same way
as Scripture. So this is how he would understand inspiration and he is very
popular. He has written, "Some of the great hymns are practically on a par
with the Psalms. And one can be sure that if Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley,
Augustus Toplaley (sp.) and Reginald Heber (sp.) had lived in the time of
David and Solomon and been no more inspired than they were in their own days,
some of their hymns and praise to God would have found their way into the
Hebrew Bible."
In other words, the kind of inspiration they're talking about is just the
kind of sort of emotional, intellectual, stimulation that makes you write
down some good thoughts about God, but it is a human effort. Beagle refers
in particular, for example, to George Matheson (sp.), a blind Scottish pastor
who wrote, "Oh love That Will Not Let Me Go," and he says, "It's that kind of
inspiration that characterizes the Bible writers." He says, É3â É3 è
What distinguishes the Bible is its record of special revelation,
not a distinctive kind of inspiration. It is just that the Bible
has a unique revelation; that's what makes it distinct, but the
inspiration that brought that revelation, revelation being the
content, inspiration being the process, the process of inspiration
which brought that content is being repeated over and over again
with new content. So you have the Bible and then you have this,
and then you have this, and then you have this, and then you have
this, and it all comes through the same kind of inspiration. The
same kind of inspiration that, for example, is characteristic of
one who writes good music.
Beagle believes that the Canon of Scripture has never been closed. He has
written that, "The revelation and inspiration of God's Spirit continues, for
this reason there is no basis in considering all of the Biblical writers and
editors as qualitatively different from post canonical interpreters." It's
all the same. You just keep having revelation, you just keep having
revelation. That's neo-orthodoxy. That's liberalism. And that is, in
effect, precisely what the Charismatic movement believes. That is why,
beloved, you can have neo-orthodoxy and Charismaticism coexisting in an
institution, because they basically believe in an open canon. They basically
believe in ongoing revelation. They may define it a little differently, but
they believe that there's still inspiration and revelation coming.
That heretical view frightens any true Biblical scholar, any true believer in
Scripture, because it destroys the distinctiveness of the Bible. If God is
still inspiring revelation, we have got real problems. If the Canon of
Scripture is still opened, and God is still giving prophecies, and psalms,
and words of wisdom, and words of knowledge, then we ought to be seeking to
compile all that stuff, and we ought to be most interested in studying the
more recent revelations because they're the ones that speak most directly to
our times. By the way, some of the Charismatics can see the problem here.
Their most popular magazine is a magazine called "Charisma." An article in
Charisma recently said this,
To meditate on our personal prophecies, we should record them if
at all possible. If someone approaches us saying, he or she has a
word from God, we should ask the person to wait a moment until we
can get an audio recorder or else ask the person to write it down.
If the word comes from someone on the platform during a meeting
that is not being recorded, we must try to write down as much as
is possible, getting at least the main points.
"This is Scripture, we have to write it down!" My friend that's heresy.
That is outright heresy that the Bible is still being written. The Canon of
Scripture is not opened. God's Word, Old Testament and New Testament, is one
unique miracle. It came together over a period of 1500 years. More than 40
men of God, Prophets and Apostles wrote God's word. Every jot and every
tittle without error in perfect harmony, and when it was done it was done.
No hymn is worthy to be compared to Scripture. No modern mystical experience
can be spoken of in the same breath as Scripture.
And that leads to a third query, "Is revelation progressive?" These people
who say that it is progressive, are they right? Going back to J. Rodman É3║ É3 èWilliams, a Charismatic theologian, he argues for ongoing revelation,
In the Spirit, the present fellowship is as much the arena of
God's vital presence as anything in the Biblical account. Indeed,
in light of what we may learn from this past witness and take to
heart, we may expect new things to occur in our day and in days to
come. In prophecy God speaks; it is as simple, and profound, and
startling as that. What happens in the fellowship is that the
Word may suddenly be spoken by anyone present and so variously a
"Thus says the Lord," breaks forth in the fellowship. It is
usually in the first person, such as, "I am with you to bless
you," or has the directness of an, "I, Thou" encounter. It comes
not in a heavenly language but in the native tongue of the person
speaking and with his accustomed inflections, cadences and
manners. Indeed, the speech may be coarse and ungrammatical, it
may be a mixture of King James and modern, it may falter as well
as flow. Such really doesn't matter for, in prophecy, God uses
what He finds and through frail human instruments the Spirit
speaks the Word of the Lord.
Now that is as clear as you can ever hear it, that God is still giving
revelation. Bad grammar, but revelation.
[He continues]
All of this, to repeat, is quite surprising and startling. Most
of us, of course, were familiar with prophetic utterances recorded
in the Bible, and willing to accept it as the Word of God.
Isaiah's or Jeremiah's "Thus says the Lord" we were accustomed to,
but to hear a Tom or a Mary today in the 20th Century speak the
same way! Many of us, also had convinced ourselves that prophecy
ended with the New Testament until suddenly, through the dramatic
thrust of the Holy Spirit, prophecy comes alive again. Now we
wonder how we could have misread the New Testament for so long.
"Now we wonder how we could have misread the New Testament for so long." In
other words he is saying, "The New Testament should have told us that
prophecy would continue." In a later issue of "Logos" magazine, when he was
taken to task for such foolish and heretical views, he tried to clarify his
view, and this is what he said,
I do not intend, in any way, to place contemporary experience on the same
level of authority as the Bible. Rather, do I vigorously affirm the
decisive authority of Scripture. Hence, God does not speak just as
authoritatively today as He spoke to the Biblical authors, but He does
continue to speak. Thus He moves through and beyond the records of past
witness, [that's the Bible], for He is the living God who still speaks
and acts among His people.
Double talk! Nonsense! Pointless! What do you mean? He says, "I don't
want to put this on the level of Scripture authority. God isn't speaking as
authoritatively today as He spoke in the Biblical time, but He is still
speaking." Well, what's the difference? This doesn't matter? This isn't
authoritative? This is erroneous? That is double talk. Are some of God's
words less authoritative than others, or less true, or less accurate, or less
important? The view of the Charismatics is not distinguishable as I said É3± É3 èfrom the neo-orthodox, who have an incessant kind of free flowing revelation.
The Charismatics says it comes from a prophecy, a word of wisdom, a word of
knowledge, and the neo-orthodox says it's whatever you feel, it's whatever
happens inside of you becomes the Word of God to you. But both of them
destroy the central doctrine of "Sola Scriptura."
Once a congregation or a person sees Scripture as less than the final,
complete, infallible authority for faith and life, it has thrown open the
door to absolute chaos. Absolute chaos. Can you imagine being in a church,
where when people stand up and say they, "Have a word from the Lord," and
you're supposed to believe it every time? Anybody could claim anything, and
they do. They do, and pass it off as divine truth. And corrupt Charismatic
leaders, the ones that are corrupt, and the ones that are self-aggrandizing
and do it for their own gain, do it all the time.
Perhaps the most brazen example of that is a widely publicized prophecy
delivered by Kenneth Copeland. He claims that Jesus gave him a message
during a three-day victory campaign held in Dallas, Texas. Judge for
yourselves whether this could be a message from the Christ of Scripture. I
am quoting Kenneth Copeland; this is what he said,
It's time for these things to happen, saith the Lord [this is his
prophecy]. It's time for spiritual activity to increase. Oh yes,
demonic activity will increase along at the same time, but don't
let that disturb you. Don't be disturbed when people accuse you
of thinking you're God. Don't be disturbed when people accuse you
of a fanatical way of life. Don't be disturbed when people put
you down and speak harshly and roughly of you; they spoke that way
of me, should they not speak that way of you? (And again he's
quoting Jesus) The more you get to be like me, the more they are
going to think that way of you. They crucified me for claiming
that I was God, but I didn't claim I was God. I just claimed I
walked with Him and that He was in me. Alleluia, that's what your
doing.
You mean to tell me that Jesus gave him a revelation that said He didn't
claim to be God? Copeland's prophecy is clearly false. The real Jesus, the
Jesus of the New Testament did claim He was God. Using the covenant name of
God He told the Jewish leaders, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham
was, I Am." Is Copeland genuinely a prophet, or is he one whom Peter spoke
of when he wrote, "False prophets also arose among the people just as there
will be false prophets among you."
Now, not all of these bizarre prophecies and visions are as clearly in
conflict with Scripture. Some are merely frivolous, silly. Like the guy
with the blue guitars and the Beatles. Larry Lee wrote this,
Several years ago one of my dear friends said, "Larry, when I was
praying for you the other day I had a vision. I saw you with
great big Mickey Mouse ears. Everything else about you looked
normal except for those elephant sized ears. When I asked the
Lord to tell me what the vision meant, the Spirit of the Lord
spoke back to me and said, 'Larry Lee has developed his hearing;
he has developed his spiritual ears.'"
É3( É3 èCharismatics have abandoned the uniqueness of Scripture as the only Word of
God and the result is a mystical trivial, silly, and foolish heretical free-
for-all. Longing for something new; longing for something sensational. A
longing for some emotional experience has replaced settled confidence and
diligent study of God's Word, and this invites Satan's deceptive
counterfeits. Melvin Hodges is a Charismatic pastor who has admitted his
strong reservations about these new revelations. He's an honest fellow.
Melvin Hodges is very worried about all of these even though he's a
Charismatic. Let me quote what he says, just to show you that some of them
are concerned.
Today some people tend to magnify the gifts of Prophecy and
Revelation out of their proper proportion. Instances have
occurred in which a church has allowed itself to be governed by
gifts of inspiration. Deacons have been appointed and pastors
removed or installed by prophecy. Chaos has resulted. The cause
is obvious; prophecy was never intended to usurp the place of
ministries of government or of a gift or a word of wisdom. Paul
teaches us that the Body is not made up of one member but of many,
and if prophecy usurps the role of wisdom or the word of
knowledge, the whole Body is dominated by one ministry, that is
prophecy. In other words, the whole Body becomes ruled by the
prophetic member. The idea that the voice of prophecy is
infallible has confused many people. Some have felt it is a sin
to question what they consider to be the voice of the Spirit.
However, in the ministry of all gifts there is cooperation between
the divine and the human.
What's he saying? Absolutely nothing! But he understands there's a problem,
but he hasn't got clue one how to deal with it. He didn't say anything. He
didn't say a word about anything. He didn't give you any criteria to judge
anything. All he's saying is that we got to cooperate, we can't have too
many prophecies, but he has nothing to say about how do you know it's true or
not true. He wants a way to resolve the confusion, but there isn't any!
Now, not all Charismatics would agree that the problem of abuse is one of
overemphasis. Some think people just aren't well trained enough. One group
has started a School of the Prophets. I'm quoting from their literature,
Perhaps you feel that you have been called to be an oracle of the
Lord; and have had difficulty explaining your experiences or
finding someone that you could relate to and learn from. The
School of the Prophets is designed to help bring grounding and
clarity to the myriad of dreams and visions that are the hallmark
of a prophet and seer ministry, and to assist in the restoration
of the prophetic ministry within the Body of Christ. There are
many that have become disillusioned and disenchanted with the
prophetic ministry because of abuses and ignorant usage of the
gifting. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." For if
you have had the bitter experience of the counterfeit, know that
there is a reality to discover. Abuses and misrepresentations
occur simply because of the abomination of ignorance. Come and be
trained at the School of the Prophets, so that you will be
properly prepared to fulfill the destiny that God has chosen for
you. É3_ É3 è
So their suggestion is, you just got to have good training. Take some good
courses and you will be an accurate prophet. Is the distinction, by the way,
between true and false a matter of technique? Is a true prophet a true
prophet because he has gone to school to learn how to do it? Was there a
school to train the Biblical writers? Listen, false prophecy is no Picadillo
(that means a trivial thing, trifling fault). This is a major issue. In
fact, if you were a prophet in the Old Testament and you missed one, you got
killed. They executed you. In spite of this, some Charismatics believe
anybody with any claim to have a Word from the Lord should be believed,
should be heard, and don't even need a "Call" from God. "Charisma" magazine
carried an ad teaching people how to listen to God's voice and talk with Him
24 hours a day. It said they could really be good at it! They were teaching
how to get it and how to pass it on.
It's a lark! No accountability. And of course it points Christians away
from the Scripture which is trustworthy and teaches them to seek truth
through the Word. Nothing in the Charismatic movement is as destructive as a
failure to adhere to Scripture alone. It opens the movement to everything;
worse of all--demonic lies, seduction from spirits, pumping demon doctrine
through hypocritical liars (1 Tim 4). Once you have gone beyond the Word,
you are in chaos and confusion.
I want to conclude with just a brief statement about the close of the Canon
of Scripture, because I think it's important. Jude 3; you might want to look
at it. We'll bounce off of this for just a moment. Jude, chapter 3. It's a
crucial passage on the completeness of the Bible. Jude 3, verse 3, "Beloved
when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was
needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that we should earnestly
contend," now listen to this, "for the faith which was once for all delivered
unto the saints." Literally, the Greek text says, "The once for all
delivered to the saints, faith." In the Greek text the definite article
"the" preceding "faith" points to the one and only faith, there is no other.
The one and only true faith. Such passages as Galatians 1:23 refer to
preaching the faith. First Timothy 4:1, "Some will fall away from 'the'
faith." And so it is an objective use of the expression "the faith."
Greek scholar, Henry Alford is right when he says, "faith here is objective,
it means the sum of that which Christians believe. It is not subjective
faith; that is, believing in a verbal sense. It is a sum of what we believe,
the Christian faith." "The Faith," he says, "is once for all delivered."
"Once for all" is hapax (Greek), it refers to something done once and no
more. Done once and no more. It has lasting results; it never needs
repetition. The faith was once for all delivered. Delivered. The Christian
faith then is complete. It is unchangeable, which is to say, that it does
not need to be fixed; it does not need to be edited; it does not need
additions or deletions. Every doctrine and every revelation that has arisen
since is a false doctrine or a false revelation. All claims to additional
revelation are false claims and must be rejected.
The word "delivered" is important as well. In the Greek it is an Aorist
Passive Participle which in this context indicates an act completed in the
past with no continuing element. An act completed in the past with no
continuing element. Once in the past, once for all, never to be repeated,
the faith was delivered. And so through the Scriptures, God has given us a É3û É3 èbody of truth that is final and complete. Our Christian faith rests on
historical and objective revelation. That rules out all prophecies, all
seers, all forms of new revelation until God speaks again in the end times.
Now you can see the pattern of this even in looking at Scripture. The Old
Testament was written. The final books, Ezra and Nehemiah, they're not the
final ones in your Bible chronologically, but they were the final ones
written. There was a rearrangement of the order of the books. But after the
time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Old Testament was completed, there was no
more revelation. Four hundred years of silence. No prophet spoke God's
revelation. For four hundred years, no prophet spoke. Why? God was making
a point, the revelation is complete, it is done. And no prophet existed for
four hundred years. And God was punctuating the completion of the Old
Testament Canon with silence and sending a message to us that said,
"Revelation doesn't go on all the time, it has an ending point."
The silence was finally broken and a prophet came. He was related to the
Messiah and his name was John the Baptist, and God began to speak the New
Testament revelation. And when the New Testament revelation was
done--revelation was done. The last book was Revelation, penned by John in
96 AD, and it was over. By the Second Century, the complete Canon (the word
canon means standard, rule, faith and practice), the complete New Testament
exactly as we have it today was popularly recognized. Church councils in the
fourth century made it official, the Canon was complete. And from then on
God has been silent as to revelation. Just as the close of the Old Testament
was followed by silence, the close of the New Testament has been followed by
the utter absence of new revelation in any form. Since the Book of
Revelation was written there has been no new written or verbal revelation
from God. Scripture is the test of everything, it is the Christian's only
standard.
Spurious books have been offered. The Roman Catholic Church includes the
Apocrypha. The Roman Catholic Church accepts it as Scripture but it is not.
If you study it you will find, as I did when I studied it in seminary, there
are errors of history, errors of geography, and gross errors in theology.
Jerome, who lived from 345AD to 419AD was a spokesman for excluding the
Apocrypha books. Some of the early Church fathers, most notably, Augustine,
did accept them, though not necessarily on a par with the Hebrew Old
Testament. Finally, in the 16th Century the Reformers affirmed "Sola
Scriptura," the truth the Bible alone is authoritative, denied the Apocrypha
any place among the inspired writings. It never had had any and it shouldn't
of have. The Roman Church reacted against the Reformers in the Council of
Trent from 1545 to 1563, stating that all of the Apocrypha was canonical.
And Protestants and Catholics have maintained the disparity to this day. If
you have a Catholic Bible you'll find the Apocrypha is in the middle. Those
are spurious, uninspired books.
How did Christians know the inspired books from the ones that weren't
inspired? There were three tests. One was Apostolic Authorship. It was
written by an Apostle or a close associated of an Apostle. For example, Mark
was not an Apostle but the companion of Peter who was. Luke was not an
Apostle but worked closely with Paul who was. A second test by the early
Church was content. Was the content consistent with Apostolic Doctrine? Was
it absolutely accurate doctrinally? This was very important because the
heretics were writing the false books, but in all of the false books there É3═ É3 èwas false teaching because why would a heretic write a book about truth?
He'd want to get a heresy in. Heretics tried to worm their way into the
Church. Their doctrinal errors were easily spotted because they contradicted
the Apostle's teachings. A third test was the response of the Churches: if
God's people accepted it, used it for worship, made it a part of their lives.
If Christians were universally being taught and blessed by the Book that was
another stamp of approval.
By 404 AD, the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible was complete. It was the
earliest known translation of all 66 books of the Bible, and they were the
very same 66 in 404 AD that we have in our Bible today. God spoke once for
all, delivered it and preserved it through the ages and you have it exactly
the way he delivered it. True churches always believed the Bible is
complete. The Charismatic movement doesn't believe that. Now, they want to
deny that they are adding to Scripture, but their views on prophetic
add to Scripture. Unwittingly, they undermine the uniqueness and the
authority of the Word of God. You see, Christians can't play fast and loose
with inspiration and revelation, or they will never be able to distinguish
the voice of God, from the voice of man, from the voice of Satan.
The Holy Spirit is working mightily, I believe, in the Church today, but not
in the way that most Charismatics think. The Holy Spirit's role is to
empower the Church to preach the Word; to empower the Church to teach the
Word; to empower the Church to write about the Word, that it might be
understood. The Holy Spirit is empowering the Church to worship according to
truth, to witness to the truth and proclaim it, to grow by the study of the
Word, and to serve as the Word calls and commands. He does lead us into
God's truth and He directs us into God's will for our lives through the Word,
not through new revelation. "God told me," is a dangerous and heretical
model for anyone to take, because it opens to chaos, confusion, mysticism,
subjectivism, demons and deception.
"All Scripture, given by inspiration of God is profitable." It is completely
profitable. It is so profitable that the man of God is made perfect by it
thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Right? And the Scripture is
sufficient; we need nothing more than this. And once you introduce any more
than this the chaos is irretrievable. That's the tragedy of the Charismatic
movement and that is why it is in chaos. That is why there are some people
in the movement who are tearing their hair out because they can't control
what's going on. But once you allow for additional revelation its gone,
there's no control. This Word is all that God wanted us to have "Once for
all delivered."
Let's bow in prayer. Father, we thank you for the affirmation again tonight
as we think through these things. That your Word is sufficient. That we
have a faith once for all delivered to the saints. It had a beginning and an
end. You spoke and then you were silent, and now you work to implement and
apply and proclaim this already revealed truth. We pray for people caught in
the confusion of new revelations, the chaos. Who thus are turned away from
the single authority of Scripture and the responsibility to diligently study
it and find themselves running after and pursuing mystical experiences that
mean nothing. That is nothing holy and righteous but things confusing and
even demonic. Deliver folks from that Father. Take them into the green
pastures of your Word where their souls are fed with all the nourishment they É3 É3 ècould ever need. We thank you for this treasure. Nothing is to be compared
with it. We acknowledge the great gift that it is, and desire to live by it.
The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama
City, California, By John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape,
GC 90-54, titled "Charismatic Chaos" Part 3. A copy of the tape can be
obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.
Scriptures quoted in this message are from the New American Standard Bible.
Charismatic Chaos - Part 3
by
John MacArthur
In our study of this most fascinating and important subject of the
Charismatic movement in our contemporary time, we come tonight to message
number three in our series; and we are going to be building on the prior
message dealing with "Does God still give Revelation?" as we talk about "Are
there still Prophecies from God?", another very important component of
understanding and assessing the Charismatic movement.
Certainly, in my mind, the most disturbing aspect of the Charismatic movement
and their thirst for supernatural experience and supernatural encounter is
their claim that God is still revealing Himself verbally to them. As we saw
in our last study, they claim that God is speaking to them: that is a
constant claim. In fact, there probably is nothing more commonly expressed
among Charismatics than that, "The Lord told me!" Or, "Jesus told me!"
They believe that the Lord is still telling them specific things in specific
terms. God is still breathing out revelation.
It has been a curiosity to me and should be to us, I think, that if God is
still giving revelation, the only ones that He gives it to are Charismatics!
Nobody else seems to be getting revelation with the exception of the founders
of various cults. But apart from the cults and the Charismatics I don't see
people within the framework, the broad framework of Christianity, claiming
revelation.
Now, I want to be very clear that when I talk about the fact that God is no
longer giving revelation, I don't want to be misunderstood. I do believe
that the Holy Spirit does lead Christians. Romans 8:14 says that, "As many
as are led by the Spirit, they are the children of God." I believe the Holy
Spirit guides us. I believe He empowers us to witness, to speak, to write,
to act with Spiritual Power and impact. I believe the Holy Spirit impresses
His will on our minds leading us to praise, leading us to obedience, leading
us to righteousness, leading us to spiritual service. We as believers can be
confident of his moving on our minds to lead us to truth. However, He does
not speak to us in audible words. He does not place inaudible, but specific
words in our minds. He is not breathing out any more revelation.
É3; É3 èWe noted the importance of understanding that in our last study, and if you
weren't here you'll want to get the tape. You remember that Jude said that,
"Scripture was once for all delivered to the Saints." And when it was
"delivered" it was done. He was not only speaking of past Scripture when he
wrote that, he was speaking of present Scripture which he himself was even
writing, and he was speaking of future Scripture yet to be written by Apos
tles and their associates to complete the New Testament. He identifies the
composite of God's revelation and says, "It was once for all delivered to the
Saints," in God's plan.
And after all the Scripture was complete and "once for all delivered to the
Saints" the Early Church said, "The Canon is closed." Now that word "canon"
needs definition. We mentioned last time that it comes from a word "kanon"
(Greek) which is a reed. That reed was used as a measuring stick, and so the
word "kanon" in the Greek came to mean a rod, or a bar, or a measuring rule,
or standard, or limit. We would call it a measuring rod, or a measuring
stick, a ruler, a yardstick; something by which other things are measured.
In the more spiritual sense it became a standard by which you measure truth.
The Scripture metaphorically then became the standard of all truth; the
standard of all spiritual ideas, concepts, and theology. And so the Canon of
Scripture, that is Scripture completed, and the rule was "once for all
delivered to the Saints."
Just to give you a little deeper insight into that, the Old Testament Canon
was closed about 425 B.C., 425 years before Christ. The last prophecy was
written by Malachi, [and] placed into the Canon. There was no question which
books were inspired by God. No question. It was clear to the people of God
what they were. In fact, under the leadership of the scribe Ezra, there was
some work to pull all of that together, and the consensus of the people of
God was very clear on what the 39 inspired books were. How did they know?
Two simple ways. One, the writer, well known to be a spokesman for God,
claimed to be speaking and writing the inspired Word of God. First
principle, the writer, well known as a spokesman for God claimed to be
speaking and writing the inspired Word of God. Second principle, there were
no errors of history, geography, or theology at all in the book. And if the
writer was familiar to them, claimed the inspiration of God, and wrote
without error, they knew they had inspired revelation.
Now there were many attempts made by Satan to infiltrate the Old Testament
Canon with uninspired books. At least 14 of them have been accumulated and
together they are called the Apocrypha. You find them in a Roman Catholic
Bible. They are not a part of our Bible. They are not inspired books. They
are books: 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the rest of Esther, the Wisdom of
Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes), Baruch, the
Song of the Three Holy Children, the History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon,
the Prayer of Manasses, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. All spurious. We call them
Pseudepigrapha--false writing. They were clearly fakes. How do we know they
were fakes? They were written long after the canon was completed and they
lacked the prophetic quality and authorship to stamp them as inspired
Scripture. None of their writers claimed divine inspiration and some openly
disclaimed it. And Apocrypha books contained errors of facts, errors of
ethics, errors of doctrine. For example, some of the Apocrypha books
advocate suicide. Some of them advocate assassination and some of them teach
praying for dead people. Therein lies one of the reasons you find them in a É3r É3 èCatholic Bible. The Old Testament Canon was unquestioned; it is still
unquestioned because it is so evident what was inspired.
The New Testament writers then came together to write the remaining 27 books
of Scripture. And they had similar tests to determine a book's canonicity.
One, was the book authored by an Apostle or someone closely associated with
an Apostle? They knew who the Apostles were and they knew who their close
associates were. The key question about the book's inspiration was tied to
Apostolic authorship or one closely associated. For example, the Gospel of
Mark was written by Mark, and Mark was not an Apostle but a close associate
of Peter, who was. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were written by
Luke who was not an Apostle but a very close associate of Paul, who was. The
Apostles were known to the people, their associates were known to the people,
and when Apostles wrote and claimed inspiration the people were secure in the
veracity of their writings.
Another test applied by the Early Church was the test of content. Did the
writings square with what the Apostles taught? In those early years of the
Church, heretics such as the Gnostics tried to slip in phony books, but none
of them ever made it. If it didn't square with Apostolic doctrine--it didn't
pass. And the doctrinal aberrations were very easy to spot.
A third test was this, "Is the book regularly read and used in the churches?"
In other words, did the people of God readily accept it? Read it during
worship and make its teachings a part of their daily living?
A final test was determined that would sort of pull it all together, and that
was the book recognized and used by succeeding generations after the Early
Church?
All of those tests applied leave us with the 27 books that we have in our New
Testament. They all were written by authors who were either Apostles or
closely associated with Apostles. Their content is in complete and total
agreement and harmony with all the teaching of the Apostles, and with all
other books of the New Testament and Old Testament. All 27 of them were read
in the churches and used by the Church and by succeeding generations even
until now. There was also a formidable group of fakes that came in the New
Testament period, books like the, "Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of
Peter, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Shepherd of Hermas." And then there were
false books called, "the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel of Bartholomew, the
Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip." They all failed to make it in
because they couldn't pass the test of authenticity.
The false books then of the Old Testament and New Testament, what we call, as
I said, Pseudepigrapha, were attempts to pollute the Biblical text with
spurious revelation. Now, listen to me. That attempt didn't end in those
days; it is still going on and before we are done tonight we are going to see
that in clear terms. People and groups have continued to claim their works
and their writings are inspired by God, and are true, and authoritative and
binding. And whenever they do that, it leads to aberrant doctrine.
Revelation 22:18 warns about this, it says, "I warn everyone who hears the
words of the prophecy of this book; if anyone adds anything to them, God will
add to him the plagues described in this book."
Now, someone will scoff and say, "Well, that's only a warning that applies to É3⌐ É3 èthe Book of Revelation and not the entire Bible." Before you congratulate
yourself, by the way, too loudly on such reasoning, realize this, Revelation
is the last book ever written, all the way as late as 96 A.D. It is the last
book penned; it is therefore the last book in the Bible. Therefore, if you
add anything to the Book of Revelation, you are adding it to the Bible and
you put yourself in danger of the curse of Revelation 22:18.
Now, someone will immediately say, "Now, wait a minute. If that's true then
why don't these people who add to the Bible go up in smoke? Go up in flames
or have some personal holocaust that takes their life." Well, one thing is
clear, God does keep His word. He doesn't keep it by your timetable or mine
but by His own; and He may be withholding the force of that curse until
"Judgment Day." Christ has put His stamp of authority on the Scripture. The
Church has clearly discovered the Canon of God's Word under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, and has abandoned every spurious attempt to pollute it with
false writing. To add anything to Scripture or to downplay the singular,
unique, inspiration of Scripture, then is to not only go against the Word of
God and the warning of Scripture and the teaching of Christ and the Apostles,
but it is to bring yourself into the very dangerous place where you are
susceptible to the curse of God. And, of course, what happens when you
introduce something as true is [that] you open up a spiritual free-for-all,
unintentionally perhaps.
The Charismatic movement today has initiated that free-for-all as serious as
any error in that movement is the error of claiming revelation from God. It
is reckless; it is indiscriminate. Now, within that revelation claim, there
is a specific category that I want to deal with tonight and that's the matter
of prophecies.
Yesterday, I was watching television, and I have been watching Channel 40
frequently lately, in order to glean some illustrations of this. And a
preacher from Texas, by the name of Larry Lee came on and told about a
prophecy that he had had, that he [then] gave to a certain individual.
Verbatim, God gave it to him; verbatim he gave it to this certain individual.
This is common. This was not any big prophecy with far reaching implications
or application; this was a personal prophecy for one guy, and he repeated
that prophecy from God that was given to that man as expressing the very will
of God, in the very words of God. This is routine for them.
There has arisen recently a very interesting group that is sort of leading
the prophetic parade, if we can call it that, and they come from Kansas City.
They have gathered the name, "The Kansas City Prophets." They are the
subject of much writing today. They are self-proclaimed prophets in Kansas
City and they serve as a good example of how far prophetic abuses can go.
They are very popular. I was shocked, absolutely shocked, to find out within
the last week, that one of their leaders is speaking in Westminster Church,
the Church of G. Campbell Morgan and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in the city of
London. That is the level to which they have ascended, these Kansas City
Prophets.
Invited to speak as guests in a Kansas City church, these self-styled
prophets each prophesied that, "The Lord had told them that the Church was to
disband. That the Church's leaders had no right to challenge the prophecy
and that if the Church failed to heed the prophecy, 'Ichabod, the Glory Has
Departed,' would be written above the door." Now, imagine a man coming into É3α É3 èthe pulpit of this Church, telling you he had a "Word from the Lord" that
you're to disband, and if you don't disband according to the "Word from the
Lord," Ichabod would be written over your Church.
The Prophets had allegedly received a message from God saying that all the
Christians in Kansas City were to be under the authority of the Prophets'
home church. So that all the Christians of Kansas City were to leave their
churches and go to the Church known as the Kansas City Fellowship. Similar
prophecies were delivered in and around Kansas City and other churches and
incredibly, one church at least, actually responded by dropping its ties with
the Assemblies of God and aligning with the Kansas City Fellowship. Now
that's a novel approach to "Church Growth!" But it has more in common with
the methodology of cults than it does with the work of the Holy Spirit.
Interestingly, the Kansas City Prophets admit that they have prophesied
falsely on occasion--they admit it. They specialize, they say, in predictive
prophecy. They foretold, for example, that a nationwide revival would sweep
across England in June of 1990, one year ago. Hundreds of thousands were
going to turn to Christ and the movement would then spread to the entire
European Continent. Like many of their predictions, the revival never
materialized. One of their prophets concocted a novel explanation of why so
many of their prophecies go unfulfilled, and I am quoting, here's what he
said:
I figure, if I hit two-thirds of it, I'm doing pretty good. God
told me that, "If I release the 100% Rema (sp.) right now, the
accountability would be awesome, and you'd have so much 'Ananias
and Sapphira' going on that the people wouldn't grow, they'd be
too scared." But He said, "If it was 'on target' it would kill
instead of scaring the people to repentance."
Now, I don't even know what that means. But apparently what he meant was,
God told him I have to be wrong once and a while or people would be too
frightened of what I say. Kansas City Fellowship Pastor, Mike Bickel (sp.)
adds, "Now, the 'two-thirds,' you know when Bob first said it, I said, 'two-
thirds?'" He said, "Well, that's better than its ever been up to now, you
know. That's the highest level it's ever been." In other words, these so-
called prophets claim they have a "Word from the Lord" but the odds are one
in three at best that it will be false! No wonder their prophecies have
thrown so many churches into hopeless confusion. And what a blasphemy
against the God who is supposed to be the author of these.
Oddly enough, despite their poor track record, the Kansas City Prophets have
garnered an international following. They have aligned with John Wimbers'
(sp.) Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and they now speak worldwide about the
modern day prophetic ministry. In a forward to a book endorsing the Kansas
City Prophets, written by Dr. John White, he writes:
Battles about prophets have plagued the Church from time to
time. Early last century it was the Irvingite Controversy in
London with the leading prophet having to confess after years
that he had been deceived. Many of us have found that hearing
from God is no easy thing. In fact, the Church has had so many
bad experiences with prophets that we now react too rapidly and
fearfully. We could be in danger of discarding a live baby in É3 É3 è our horror over dirty bath water.
My question is, "Who says there's a baby in the dirty bath water?" White,
for example, fiercely defends the Kansas City Prophets, although he
acknowledges that they have, "made mistakes." He seems to believe that
criticism of them is inherently Satanic. Quoting White he says:
Satan fears those words that come fresh from God's lips.
Because Satan so dreads the fresh word, he will arouse
controversy wherever it comes forth miraculously through the
lips of a real prophet, or from the lips of an Evangelist,
aflame with the Spirit.
Now, do you see what a trap that is? Because if you hear a prophecy and you
reject it--Ah! Ha! That's satanic! So you're trapped. Curiously, White
believes that controversy about the Kansas City Prophets is strong evidence
of their genuineness. In a section titled (mistitled really), "Beware of
False Prophets," White quotes Jesus' warning about false prophets in Matthew
7:15, Matthew 24:11, and Mark 13:22. Then White writes this, listen to this:
We are warned that it is to happen. Most scholars feel the
words of Jesus apply particularly to the last days. They may be
approaching us now. How are we to discern the false from the
true? For one thing, true prophets will be unpopular.
Listen to me, let me say this as plainly as I possibly can, that is the worst
imaginable starting point for a discussion of how to discern false prophets!
Whether they're unpopular or not doesn't mean anything. Jim Jones was
unpopular, except with a few deceived souls. Certainly, those who speak
truth are often unpopular, but notoriety and unpopularity is not a test of
authenticity. Saddam Hussein is unpopular! And Jesus and John the Baptist
went through periods of their ministry when they were enormously popular.
That doesn't prove anything. The only test of a true prophet is the accuracy
of his prophecies.
Deuteronomy 18:21-22 says, "How shall we know the word which the Lord has not
spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not
come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.
The prophet has spoken it presumptuously." Simple, Deuteronomy 18:21-22, "If
it isn't true it isn't from God!" And what was the penalty under the Law for
such a prophecy? Verse 20 adds, "But the prophet who shall speak a word
presumptuously in My name which I have commanded him to speak. . .that
prophet shall die." There weren't in those days a lot of false prophets
running around loose. Astonishingly, in a five page discussion, of how to
discern false prophets, White never once, in five pages, never once speaks of
accuracy or truthfulness as a test of their integrity. In fact, he
explicitly states that he believes that those are not valid tests of a
prophet's credentials!
He believes that lying prophecies do not necessarily disqualify a person from
speaking for God. He concludes his section on discerning false prophets with
this statement, "Prophets are, of course, human beings. As such, they can
make mistakes and lie. They need not cease to be prophets for their mistakes
and failings." That statement not only betrays an appalling ignorance of
Scripture, but it betrays a very strong desire to legitimize prophecy at any É3N É3 ècost. Biblically a prophet spoke the mind of God. Every prophetic message
contained a "Thus saith the Lord," if not explicitly, implicitly. A prophecy
in the Biblical sense is not the prophets opinion, it's not the prophets
speculation, it is the Word of God and it could never be wrong--never! It is
not a mere impression on the prophet's mind. It is not a guess. It is not a
divination. It has nothing whatever to do with sooth saying; it is a Word
from the Lord. And the Lord never made a mistake. And since the prophet
speaks a Word from the Lord, he was held to the highest level of
accountability and judged with the utmost severity if he prophesied falsely.
It stands to reason that since a prophet is a mouthpiece for God's own words,
every authentic prophecy would be true, reliable, and inerrant. Otherwise,
God's a liar, for we must downgrade the meaning of prophecy and embrace some
secondary level of inspiration where you sort of give your opinion. We would
have to devise some kind of theory in which God somehow enables contemporary
prophets to deliver a message that maybe true or maybe false; it's sort of
"up for grabs." Beloved, the ecclesiastical landscape is literally filled
with Charismatics who are saying, "God talked to them and God gave them
prophecies," and they are pushing those prophecies at the Church. That is
serious, that is disastrous, and the results of it are all around us.
Last Sunday, in connection with talking about discernment, I quoted from Bill
Haman (sp.), who wrote an article in the magazine called Charisma, which is
one of the chief magazines of the movement. And in that article he shared
his belief about prophecies and I need to repeat that because you need to
hear it in this context. Haman believes:
"All personal prophecies are conditional, whether or not any
conditions are made explicit." That is, he says, "Prophecies
can be canceled, altered, revised, reversed, or diminished. For
prophecy of this kind to come to pass requires the proper
participation and cooperation of the one who receives the
prophetic word."
So in Haman's scheme, the fact that prophecy goes unfulfilled is no proof it
was false to begin with! If circumstances change or if the prophet himself
lacks faith, God may change the prophecy in any way or even cancel it. So
everything is "up for grabs." First, he may be right, he may be wrong. If
he's right, and he doesn't follow through with the right amount of faith, or
circumstances change, even though it once was right, it now is wrong. It
should come to pass, it might not come to pass, if it does come to pass it's
ok, if it doesn't come to pass it's ok. Just, endless, useless double talk!
Obviously, Haman would deny that he puts modern prophecy on the same level as
Scripture, but in practice it is absolutely impossible to discern any
distinction.
Now how do you determine if a prophecy is true? Here's what Haman says,
listen to this:
I have sometimes heard people say, "I didn't witness with that
prophecy," but after questioning them, I discovered that what
they really meant was that the prophecy didn't fit their
theology, personal desires, or goals, or their emotions reacted
negatively to it. They failed to understand that we don't bear
witness with the soul, the mind, the emotions, or will. Our É3à É3 è reasoning is in the mind, not the spirit. So our traditions,
beliefs and strong opinions are not true witnesses to prophetic
truth. The spirit reaction originates deep within our being.
Many Christians describe the physical location of its
corresponding sensation as the upper abdominal area.
What is he saying? He is saying, "Ignore your beliefs. Ignore your
theology. Ignore your reason. Ignore your logic. Ignore your common sense,
and wait for a feeling in your upper abdominal area, so you will know whether
a prophecy is true!" Foolish! Nonsense! That kind of thinking, however,
permeates the Charismatic movement. In the end, many prophecies are judged
on nothing more than some kind of feeling in the gut. That is precisely why
error and confusion run rampant in the Charismatic movement. You cannot have
an approach to theological data like that without having Satan move in and
confuse everybody. The fact remains throughout the history of the Church, no
genuine revival, no orthodox movement has ever been led by people whose
primary authority was based on private revelations from God. None in the
history of the Church. Many groups have claimed to receive new revelation,
but all of them have been fanatical, heretical, cultic, and fraudulent. Both
Charismatics and Non-Charismatics need to consider whether there is a
parallel between these groups and the modern Charismatic movement. It moves
more, and more, and more into heresy and aberration, because it is not
controlled by the Word of God.
Several major heresies will illustrate this for you, and I will give you a
little history flow here. Let's take an old one from the second century,
Montanism. Montanism. Montanus was a second century heretic from Phrygia,
who believed he was a prophet sent by God to reform Christianity with new
revelation. He believed he was inspired by the Holy Spirit in all his
teaching and he wrote the very Word of God, and spoke the very Word of God.
Two "so called" prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, were instrumental in
the spread of Montanism. And I warn you at this point, that in most cults
there has been a dominating influence by a woman, which, of course, steps
outside the provision of Scripture, indicating clearly to us that women are
not to teach in the Church, but are to learn in submission. And so, there is
a reversal of that kind of role, usually in cultic activity. It was true in
Montanism back in the second century.
Of these women, Eusebius, one of the early fathers wrote, "Montanus also
stirred up two women and filled them with the bastard spirit, so that they
uttered demented, absurd, and irresponsible sayings." Some historians have
taken that to mean that these women spoke in tongues. Hippolytus, another
early writer, wrote about the Montanists and said this, and, of course, these
have been translated into English. He said of the Montanist:
They have been deceived by two females, Priscilla and Maximilla,
by name, whom they hold to be prophetesses, asserting that into
them the Paraclete Spirit entered. They magnify these females
above the Apostles and every gift of grace, so that some of them
go so far as to say that "In them there is something more than
Christ." They introduce novelties in the form of fasts and
feasts, abstinences, and diets of radishes, giving these females
as their authority.
Montanism spread rapidly throughout the early church and reached Rome by the É3╝ É3 èsecond half of the second century. Eusebius described its birth and early
growth with these words:
Montanus, they say, first exposed himself to the assaults of the
adversary through his unbounded lust for leadership. He was one
of the recent converts and he became possessed of a spirit and
suddenly began to rave in a kind of a ecstatic trance and to
babble jargon, prophesying in a manner contrary to the custom of
the Church, which had been handed down by tradition from the
earliest times. Some of them had heard his bastard utterances;
rebuked him as one possessed of a devil, remembering the Lord's
warning to guard vigilantly against the coming of false
prophets. But others were carried away and not a little elated,
thinking themselves possessed of the Holy Spirit and of the gift
of prophecy.
There you are in the second century. Satan already attempting to counterfeit
and confuse in the Church with supposed new revelation. Tertullian, one of
the leading Church Fathers converted to Montanism in the later years of his
life and wrote this description of a Montanist church service. Here is his
description:
We have among us now a sister who has been granted gifts of
revelations, which she experiences in church during the Sunday
services through ecstatic vision in the spirit. And after the
people have been dismissed at the end of the service, it is her
custom to relate to us what she has seen. "Among other things,"
says she, "There was shown to me a soul in bodily form and it
appeared like a spirit, but it was no more something void of
qualities, but rather a thing which could be grasped. Soft and
translucent and of ethereal color in a form at all points human."
And I ask, "Does that sound familiar?" Tertullian sounds like he might have
been describing a 20th century Charismatic church, and somebody having a
vision of something. Montanus and his followers claimed to receive
revelation from God and they claimed that it supplemented the Bible. They
believed the Holy Spirit spoke through the mouth of Montanus and Priscilla
and Maximilla. Montanus believed he was living in the last days immediately
before the Return of Christ. He taught that the Kingdom would be set up in
his own village, and that the Kingdom would be in Pepuza, and he would have a
prominent role in it. Those and other false prophecies were among the chief
reasons the rest of the Church considered his movement heretical. He opposed
formalism in the Church. He wanted everything to be free flowing, no
structure, no form, let it all happen. And he boldly intimidated Christians
by claiming his followers were more spiritual than those who had only the
dead letter of the Scripture. Sound familiar?
In most respects you might say Montanus held to an orthodox theology,
Trinity, Deity of Christ, etc., but the movement was schismatic. They
believed themselves to be the True Church. The rest of the Church branded
Montanism as a serious heresy to be rejected. Augustine wrote against the
movement and at the Council of Constantinople the movement was decreed the
equivalent of outright paganism.
It's sad to say, but much of the contemporary Charismatic movement could be É3≤ É3 èbranded Neo-Montanism. One Charismatic leader, Larry Christianson, who has
written a very popular book on tongues, [which has been] around for many
years, claims, believe it or not, "The Montanist movement as part of the
Charismatic historical tradition." So even they want to be identified with
Montanus.
Let's move in history to another movement--Roman Catholicism. Roman
Catholicism. You might not understand the close parallel between the
Charismatic movement and the Catholic movement. You might be curious about
why there are so many Charismatic Catholics; that would tell you a little bit
about the affinity that they have for each other. The similarity between the
Charismatic view of revelation and the traditional teaching of the Roman
Catholic Church is worth a look.
A good place to start is with the Roman Catholic concept of tradition. Roman
Catholic scholar, Gabriel Moran, will help us with that. He gives three
classifications of revelation or tradition. Dogmatic Tradition--that is the
revealed truth made known by God in Scripture before the death of the last
Apostle. That would be Scripture. Dogmatic Tradition is often called by
Catholics--Primary Revelation.
Secondly, he says there is Disciplinary Tradition. Disciplinary Tradition.
What does he mean by that? He says, well there is a tradition including the
practices and liturgical rites of the Church, in Apostolic or Post-Apostolic
times that are not a part of divine revelation in Scripture. Disciplinary
Tradition is commonly called Secondary Tradition. Tradition then, said the
French Roman Catholic, George Tafard (sp.), "Was the overflow of the Word
outside sacred Scripture. It was neither separate from nor identical with
Holy Writ. Its contents were the other Scriptures through which the Word
made Himself known."
You ask yourself the question, "Why do they believe in the perpetual
virginity of Mary? Why do they believe in the Immaculate Conception? Where
do they find that? Where do they get Purgatory? Where do they get lighting
candles for the dead? Where do they get that? It does not come out of
Scripture," you say. Yes. But it comes out of their Secondary Tradition,
which is the equivalent of Scripture in terms of its authority. It was
decided by the Pope or the Church or the Council.
Another Roman Catholic with a view similar to what Charismatics are saying
today is Caspar Schatsguire (sp.), who died in 1527. He taught, "That an
intimate revelation from the Holy Spirit is an everyday possibility. Once
known beyond doubt," he said, "It is as binding as the teaching that came
from Christ's own mouth." And there is the third level of revelation.
Dogmatic Tradition and Scripture, Disciplinary Tradition in the ceremonies
and the development of Catholic tradition, and then there is that Personal
Revelation that comes through some revelation from the Holy Spirit that comes
to an individual.
Now all of that raises the question, "Where does the Bible end?" Because of
their interpretation of the word "tradition," Roman Catholic Doctrinal
teaching is utterly opened ended. Church councils and Popes can still bring
in new doctrines, and individuals can have new revelations from the Holy
Spirit. So there is always the possibility of adding something that is equal
in authority to the Scripture. The Council of Trent, meeting from 1545 to É3* É3 è1563, was convened to solidify Catholic opposition to the Protestant
Reformation. And here is what that Council said:
"The Holy, Ecumenical and General Synod of Trent, having this
aim always before its eyes, that errors may be removed and the
purity of the gospel be preserved in the Church, which was
before promised through the Prophets in the Holy Scripture, and
which Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first published by
His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached through His
Apostles to every creature as a source of all saving truth and
of discipline of conduct. And perceiving that this truth and
this discipline are contained in written books and in unwritten
traditions, which were received by the Apostles from the lips of
Christ Himself, or by the same Apostles at the dictation of the
Holy Spirit, and were handed on and have come down to us
following the example of the orthodox fathers, this Synod
receives and venerates," listen to this, "with equal pious
affection and reverence, all the books, both of the New and Old
Testaments together with the said traditions as having been
given from either the lips of Christ or by the dictation of the
Holy Spirit and preserved in unbroken succession in the Catholic
Church."
They have all kinds of revelation. According to that, God has been giving
revelation through the Roman Catholic Church since the New Testament era on.
From the unwritten traditions handed down, it's a short step to the concept
of the infallibility of the Pope, who is the successor (supposedly) to Peter.
And the Roman Catholic theology teaches that when the Pope speaks
"ex cathedra" (that means out of the seat of authority) he does it with
Since the Roman Catholic Church then, allows for additional revelation
they're very comfortable in the Charismatic realm, in terms of this
particular issue. They too, like the Charismatics, go beyond the Scriptures.
Their doctrines of Penance, Purgatory, Papal Infallibility, Prayers for the
Dead, the whole Sacramental System, doesn't come out of the Bible at all--at
all.
My concern is, the Charismatic movement is building a tradition. An
unbiblical, extrabiblical, tradition that stands alongside Scripture as
equal. They are doing exactly what historic Catholicism did. When you ask,
for example, a Charismatic person, "How important is it to be 'Slain in the
Spirit?'" There are some who would say it's absolutely essential to be
"Slain in the Spirit." When you ask one of them, "Where in the Bible is
slaying in the spirit discussed?" You probably will get an answer that's
something like this, "I'm not sure but its got to be there somewhere!" Press
the issue, "Find it for me! It isn't there." "That doesn't matter, Jesus
told them to do it!" That's the tradition.
Moving into another category, let's talk about Neo-Orthodoxy. Moving away
from Montanism and Catholicism and looking at liberal theology in the form of
Neo-Orthodoxy. It's a term, it's a title for a theology that denies the
inerrancy of Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture. Neo-Orthodox theology
says the Scripture not the objective Word of God, but it's the subjective
Word of God. In other words, it would go something like this, "The Bible, as É3a É3 èthe words sit on the page, was not written by God. But when you read these
words written by man God can make them alive to you and they become inspired
to you." That's Neo-Orthodoxy. It is not the Word of God, but it becomes the
Word of God in you as God kind of warms it up and makes it apply to you.
Sitting on the shelf it is not the objective Word of God, but some of its
truths will pop out at you and they become to you the Word of God.
J. K. S. Reed puts it this way, "God marches up and down through the Bible
Magisterially, making His Word come to life at any point throughout its
length and breadth. So too it is rightly said that the Bible becomes the
Word of God. The Bible becomes the Word of God by stated and steady
appointment." In other words, God just zaps you with it and it becomes the
Word of God, because of its effect on you.
Emile Brunner (sp.) says, "The Spirit of God is imprisoned within the covers
of the written word, and He is released in your experience." Mystical! So
Neo-Orthodoxy says, "The Bible is not all there is. God is still giving
revelation." C. H. Dodd, one of the most popular Neo-Orthodox writers says,
"If the Bible is indeed the Word of God, it is so, not as the last word."
Not as the last word. God has more to say. If it is the Word of God--its
not the last word. So the inspiration of the Bible depends on subjective
experience.
Now, what do you get then out of this? If you follow the path, God is still
talking, God is still speaking, and prophecies are still coming from the
Lord, you are following the tradition not of historic Christianity, not of
Reformation theology, you are following a tradition of Montanism,
Catholicism, and Neo-Orthodoxy. You're falling into the traps that have led
to those kinds of errors. This is not in line with historic theology.
And one last illustration--the Cults. The Book of Mormon says this, (this is
right out of the Book of Mormon):
Do you not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold!
I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I
have spoken are true. And how do you suppose that I know of
their surety? Behold! I say unto you, they are made known unto
me by the Holy Spirit of God. And this is the Spirit of
Revelation which is in me.
The Book of Mormon says this is the Holy Spirit's revelation. The Mormons
put two other books, written by Joseph Smith, on a par with Scripture, "The
Doctrine and Covenants" and the "Pearl of Great Price." From these "Further
Revelations" pour error, after error, after error concerning God, Christ, the
nature of man, theological chaos, [and] damning heresies. By the way, did
you know what the seventh Article of Faith is in the Mormon religion? Here's
the seventh Article of Faith, listen to it, "We believe in the gifts of
tongues, prophecy, revelations, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues."
They are very comfortable in that arena, because they believe in ecstatic
experiences and extended revelation.
Christian Science, which I always think is a ridiculous name because it isn't
Christian and it isn't scientific. It's like Grape Nuts; they're not grapes
or nuts. Christian Science is another cult. A cult that bases its teaching
on truths supposedly given by God in addition to Scripture. The Christian É3ÿ É3 èScience Journal, July 1975, states, "Because it is not a human philosophy,
but a divine revelation, the divinity based reason and logic of Christian
Science necessarily separates it from all other systems." It is divine
revelation. That same issue of the Christian Science Journal calls Mary
Baker Eddy "The Revelator of Truth for this Age." Another woman, by the way.
Mrs. Eddy wrote:
I should blush to write of "Science and Health with Keys to the
Scriptures," as I have, were it of human origin and were I,
apart from God, its author. But as I was only a scribe echoing
the harmonies of Heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super
modest in my estimate of the Christian Science Textbook.
She says, I can boast about it because God wrote it. God is its author. And
although the errors of Christian Science regarding God, Christ, and the
Scriptures are well documented in many books, Mrs. Eddy was convinced that
she was used by God to reveal His truth for her day. The truth was that she
was simply a dupe of Satan!
Perhaps the most visible cultists in our nation are called Jehovah's
Witnesses. Tireless in their efforts, they go from door to door spreading
their doctrine of salvation by works, negating the grace of God through
Christ--a damnable heresy. They claim Jesus was a created being, not God the
Son. And how did they come up with that? They got it from God! In
"Watchtower Magazine," it says, "The Watchtower is a magazine without equal
on earth. This is not giving any credit to the magazine publishers, but is
due to the great Author (capital A) of the Bible with its truths and
prophecies who now interprets its prophecies." Boy, God is sure giving a lot
of conflicting theology out.
And then there is the "Worldwide Church of God" founded by Herbert W.
Armstrong, "Plain Truth" magazine, "The World Tomorrow" television program.
And where did they get their start? Mrs. Armstrong had a vision, and the
angel laid out the whole system for Mrs. Armstrong. She told her husband and
a new cult was born. And then there is Sun Myung Moon, self-styled Messiah
from Korea, [who] says he is the divine messenger from God, and God gave him
ultimate truth. "Not from Scripture, not from literature, not from man's
brain," he says.
Virtually every cult, every false teaching ever spawned is built on the
premise that its leader or leaders have access to new revelation. And it
even goes into the New Age stuff all the way from Edgar Casey to L. Ron
Hubbard (sp.) and Scientology, who claim direct revelation of some kind from
God. You see, Charismatic acceptance of modern prophecies represents a turn
down a perilous road away from historic Christianity. The marker may read
"Something More," but the road of new revelation is a path of something less.
Some Charismatics, by the way, are troubled with the problem. Stephen Strang
(sp.) writing in "Charisma" magazine says:
When it comes to something such as personal prophecy, we believe
that extremism is more deadly than when dealing with less
volatile issues. That is because there is an element of control
involved when one individual is able to speak for God to a group
of individuals. It isn't always easy to tell when a person is É3╧ É3 è really speaking for God or speaking carnally, or maybe even
speaking for the enemy.
What an amazing mess that is. You don't even know who they are speaking for.
We believe there are some who purport to prophesy that actually get their
unusual ability to know the future, not from the Holy Spirit, but from the
Spirit of Divination. That's false by the way, because no spirit, no demon
spirit knows the future, they only know the past. And there are some
Charismatics who are so eager to know God's will, or to get a word from God
to be singled out in service where the special gift may be manifest, that
they are susceptible to spirits that are not from God. In other words, they
want to "show off" so they are vulnerable. Strang (sp.) has identified the
central problem, but he offers no solution, How do we know if a true prophet
is speaking? How do we know if a message comes from an evil spirit or
divination? How do we know if it comes out of somebody's imagination? What
he is saying is, "We don't know!"
Now if we don't draw the line at Scripture, we are hopelessly caught. Once
you go beyond Scripture everything is out of control. Out of control. This
is a major issue. The Charismatics have never given sufficient attention to
it [or] supplied sufficient answer.
In closing, turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. 2 Timothy, chapter 3, a familiar
text, I only read it to pull all these "loose ends" in a sense, together.
The question I pose at the end is this, "Who needs new revelation? Who needs
it? Why? Why would God give it? What would be the purpose?" If, listen to
me carefully, the indwelling resident Spirit can lead you into the "Will of
God" then you don't need some more revelation to do it. That's why the
Spirit is there. Right? "As many that are lead by the Spirit are the
children of God." He's there to lead you. You don't need some revelation to
do it--He's there to do that.
Now, secondly, you say that, "Maybe God's giving more revelation because we
need it for our spiritual lives." 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is
inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be (perfect),
adequate, (complete), equipped for every good work." Listen, beloved, you
don't need new revelation for direction in your life; the Spirit is there to
lead you. You don't need new revelation for the virtue of your life; the
Scripture is able to make you perfect. What's the point of allowing this
confusion? Only this, that Satan uses it to pollute the clear stream of
revelation laid out in the Word, and to confound and confuse the otherwise
discernible leading of the Spirit of God in your life. Be warned of the
prophecies that claim to be from God.
Father, we thank you for the time in the Word tonight. What a very vital
subject. We pray that you will give us discernment, that we might examine
all things; find what is good and cling to it; find what is evil and shun it.
The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama
City, California, By John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape,
GC 90-55, titled "Charismatic Chaos" Part 4. A copy of the tape can be É3 É3 èobtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.
Scriptures quoted in this message are from the New American Standard Bible.
Charismatic Chaos - Part 4
by
John MacArthur
Tonight, we have the great privilege, I think, of looking at a subject that
is important to all of us. I am not going to be dealing with a specific
text, although we will cover a number of texts before we are through tonight.
But I want to carry on our special study of "Charismatic Chaos," looking and
evaluating the Charismatic movement from the Word of God, by focusing on the
issue of interpreting the Bible. One of the things that allows for the
Charismatic movement to continue, to move ahead, is that it is engaged in
misinterpretation of Scripture. I know that is a strong thing to say, but it
is true. The movement continues at really an amazing pace, not only in
America but around the world. And as it moves and catapults itself along it
does so at the expense of Scripture.
There is, in my judgment, very little understanding, in the Charismatic
movement, of proper Bible interpretation. Much of what exists in the
Charismatic movement could be eliminated with just some very simple straight
forward basic understanding of how to properly interpret the Bible. It falls
technically under the title "Hermeneutics." Hermenutics is a theologians
word to explain the science of Bible interpretation. And Hermenutics is a
crucial building block in discerning theology. In fact, the absence of
Hermeneutics or misunderstanding of it feeds the Charismatic movement.
Pentecostals and Charismatics tend to base much of their teaching on poor
principles of Bible interpretation.
One of their own, a Pentecostal by the name of Gordon Fee, has written this,
Pentecostals, in spite of some of their excesses, are frequently
praised for recapturing for the Church her joyful radiance,
missionary enthusiasm, and life in the Spirit. But they are at
the same time noted for bad Hermenutics. First, their attitude
towards Scripture regularly has included a general disregard for
scientific exegesis and carefully thought out Hermenutics. In
fact, Hermenutics has simply not been a Pentecostal thing.
Scripture is the Word of God and is to be obeyed. In place of
scientific Hermenutics there developed a kind of pragmatic
Hermenutics. Obey what should be taken literally--spiritualize,
allegorize, or devotionalize the rest. Secondly, it is probably
fair and important to note that in general, the Pentecostal's
experience has preceded their Hermenutics. In a sense, the
Pentecostal tends to exegete his experience.
This is not, as I said, the appraisal of someone hostile to the movement, but
the appraisal of one who is himself a Pentecostal. His assessment is "right
on." You only have to watch the typical Charismatic television program to
see exactly what he is talking about. É3= É3 è
You might have watched, along with some of us, in horror sometime back if you
happened to be watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network, they were
interviewing a guest on one of their "Talk Shows," and he was explaining the
Biblical basis of his ministry of "Possibility Thinking." This is a quote,
"My ministry is based entirely on my life verse, Matthew 19:26, 'With God all
things are possible.' God gave me that verse (Matthew 19:26) because I was
born in 1926." Obviously, intrigued by that method of obtaining a life
verse, the host grabbed a Bible and began thumbing through it excitedly. "I
was born in 1934," he said. "My life verse must be Matthew 19:34! What does
it say?" Then he discovered that Matthew 19 has only 30 verses! Undeterred,
he flipped to Luke, and read Luke 19:34, and they said, "The Lord hath need
of Him." Thrilled, he exclaimed, "The Lord has need of me, the Lord has need
of me!" What a wonderful life verse. I never had a life verse before, but
now the Lord has given me one. Thank You, 0h Jesus, Hallelujah. And the
studio audience began to applaud.
At that moment, however, the "Talk Show" host's wife who had also turned to
Luke 19, said, "Wait a minute, you can't use this. This verse is talking
about a donkey!" That incident, while being absolutely ludicrous and
bizarre, gives you some idea of the "willy-nilly way" that some Charismatics
approach Scripture. Some of them, looking for a word from the Lord, play a
sort of Bible roulette. They spin the Bible at random, looking for something
that might seem applicable to whatever trial or need they are facing and they
find a verse and say, "Well, the Lord gave me that verse." And then the Lord
supposedly gave them the interpretation of it. These are silly and foolish
ways to approach the study of the Bible.
Perhaps you have heard the familiar story of the man who wanted guidance
about a major decision. He decided to close his eyes, not knowing where to
look, wanted God to answer him. In the dilemma, he open his Bible, put his
finger down to get guidance from whatever verse his finger happened to land
on. His first try brought him to Matthew 27:5, "Judas went out and hanged
himself." Thinking that verse was really not much help, he decided to try
again. This time his finger landed on Luke 10:37, "Go thou and do likewise."
Still undeterred and not ready to give up he tried it a third time and his
finger landed on John 13:27, "What thou doesn't, do quickly." Now I
certainly don't want to vouch for the authenticity of that particular
account, but it does make an important point.
Looking for meaning in Scripture through some mystical process is the way to
get an ill gotten theology. Looking for meaning in Scripture beyond the
Historical, Grammatical, Logical understanding of the context is unwise and
dangerous. It is possible, of course, to substantiate almost any idea or any
teaching from Scripture if you take it out of its context and twist it
around. I remember hearing about the preacher who didn't think women should
have their hair up on their head, because a woman's hair should be down. And
so he preached against what used to be called "Bobbed Hair"--women having
their hair up on their heads. His text was "Top Knot Come Down," taken from
Matthew 24 where it says, "Let those on the housetop not come down." So if
you just pullout, if you just pull out exactly what you want you can probably
get it. We laugh at that because it sounds so bizarre, but that is precisely
the process that many are using to substantiate their experiences or to
invent their theology.
É3t É3 èNow, the task of hermenutics is to realize first of all that there is a God
given meaning in Scripture apart from you or me or anybody else. Scripture
means something, [even] if it means nothing to me. Understood? It means
something if it means nothing to you. It means something if it means nothing
to anybody. It means something in itself and that meaning is determined by
God the author, not by one who is going through some kind of mystical
experience. The interpreter's task, then, is to discern that meaning; to
discover the meaning of the text in its proper setting; to draw the meaning
out of the Scripture, rather than to read one's meaning into it. The
importance of careful Biblical interpretation can hardly be overstated. We
spend three or four years at the Master's Seminary trying to teach men how to
do this, because it is the heart and soul of effective ministry. In fact, I
would go so far as to say, misinterpreting the Bible is ultimately no better
than disbelieving it.
You say, "What do you mean by that?" Well, what good does it do to believe
that the Bible is God's final and complete word if you misinterpret it?
Either way, you miss the truth. Right? It is equally serious, along with
disbelieving the Bible, to misinterpret it. Interpreting Scripture to make
it say what it was never intended it to say is a sure road to division,
error, to heresy, and to apostasy. In spite of all of the dangers of
misinterpreting the Scripture, today we have these casual people who approach
the Scriptures whimsically, without any understanding of the science of
interpretation and make it say whatever they would like it to say. Perhaps
you have been in one of those Bible studies where you go around the room and
everybody tells you what they think the verse means. Or, worse than that,
"Well to me, this verse means so and so." In the end what you get is a
pooling of ignorance, unless somebody knows what it means apart from them.
The truth is that it doesn't matter what a verse means to me; it doesn't
matter what it means to you; it doesn't matter what it means to anybody else;
it doesn't matter if it means anything to anybody else. All that matters is,
"What does it mean? What did God intend to say?"
Every verse has intrinsic meaning apart from any of us and the task of Bible
study is to discern the true meaning of Scripture. That's why I can come to
you week after week, month after month, year after year, and explain to you
the meaning of the Word of God apart from any personal experience I'm having.
That's irrelevant. The task of the interpreter is to discern the meaning of
Scripture. In 2 Timothy 2:15, it says "Be diligent, or study to present
yourself approved to God as a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed,"
because he's handling accurately the Word of Truth. If you don't handle it
accurately, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And if you are going to
handle it accurately you have to be diligent; you have to work hard at it.
Clearly, handling Scripture involves both of those things--hard work and
diligence. It must be interpreted accurately, and those who fail to do that
have reason to be ashamed.
Now there is so much to say about this that I can't give you a whole course
in hermenutics. I teach some of that in the seminary as well as other
professors, and I'm not intending to give you a seminary course. But, let me
just suggest three errors that need to be avoided, that are not always
avoided in contemporary interpretation. And they are very simple.
1. Do Not Make a Point at the Price of a Proper Interpretation. É3½ É3 è
It's like the preacher who said, "I have a good sermon if I could just find a
verse to go with it." Do not prescribe your theology and then try to make
the Bible fit it. You might have a good thought, a good idea. It even might
be that the principle that you have in mind is true, but do not allow
yourself to make the point at the price of a proper interpretation.
I remember reading years ago a good illustration of this found in the Jewish
Talmud. One rabbi was trying to convince his people that the primary issue
in life is concern for other human beings. That's good; a good point. We
ought to be concerned about other human beings. But he wanted to illustrate
it so he took them to the Tower of Babel, and he told them that the stones of
the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, the building of that through the carrying
of those stones illustrated his point. He said that the builders of the
Tower were frustrated because they put material things first and people last.
Now, where is that in Genesis? "Well," he said, "As the Tower grew taller,
it took a hod carrier (a stone carrier) many hours to carry a load of stone
up. The higher it got the longer the walk." And he said, "If a man fell off
the tower on the way down nobody cared because you only lost a man--not the
bricks. But if he fell off on the way up, they mourned because the bricks
were lost. And that," said the Rabbi, "Is why God confused their language,
because they failed to give priority to human beings over bricks!"
Now, none of that can be found in Genesis 11. None of that can be found in
the Bible. In fact, it totally skews the meaning of Genesis 11. It is true
people are more important than bricks, but that is not the point of the Tower
of Babel. Genesis 11 says absolutely nothing about the importance of people
or bricks. The point is, God is more important than idols, and God will
judge idolatry.
I remember being at a Bible Conference in Wisconsin one time. And I got into
this Bible Conference with another well known preacher, and we were preaching
every night. And one day we were eating lunch and I said, "What are you
going to preach on tonight?" He said, "I am going to preach on the Rapture
of the Church." I said, "Really, the Rapture of the Church. Great!" What's
your text?" He said, "John 11." I said, "What?" He said, "John 11." "I
said, "John 11? The Rapture of the Church isn't even in John 11." He said,
"You wait and see tonight." I said, "Fine, fine." That night he preached on
the Rapture from John 11. That's the resurrection of Lazarus. He
allegorized it; Lazarus was the Church, Martha was the Old Testament saints,
and Mary was the tribulation saints. And he got this thing going. And the
people were just sitting their going, "Deep, deep!" You know they were just
thinking this is the profoundest thing. They couldn't find it anywhere.
They thought he was going deeper than they had capability to go. And
afterwards, he said to me, "Had you ever seen that in John 11?" To which I
replied, as kindly as I could, "No one has ever seen that in John 11!" And
he took it as a compliment! The next night he got up and said, "John
MacArthur told me, 'That no one but me had ever seen that in John 11.'"
Now, I don't want to argue with the Rapture of the Church, but I will argue
that the Rapture of the Church is not in John 11. And if you are going to
make John 11 say something that is true, then you are just as likely to make
John 11 say something that what? Isn't true. That is not the way you
approach Scripture. God has not hidden His truth from us but His meaning is É3Γ É3 ènot always instantly clear; it demands hard work. That's why in 1 Timothy
5:17 it says, "Those elders that labor in the Word and doctrine are worthy of
double honor." Because it's hard work. That's why God has given teachers to
the Church; so that we can work hard in understanding God's Word correctly,
instructing people in the Scriptures through persistent conscientious labor
in the Word.
Now, today we have, frankly, a lack of respect for the work of gifted
theologians, a lack of respect for the hard work of gifted expositors who
have spent years studying and interpreting Scripture. In fact, that lack of
respect tends to be somewhat Charismatically characteristic. They tend to
sort of look at all of us that way. I think I read to you the letter from
the lady who said, "Your problem is, you're too much into the Bible. Throw
away your Bible and stop studying." You see Charismatics place more emphasis
on letting people in the congregation say whatever they think Jesus is
telling them the verse means, than to listen to what one writer calls, "Airy
Fairy Theologians." There is a vast difference, by the way, between the
whimsical "kitchen table" interpretations of laymen, and the teaching of
skilled men who work very hard to rightly divide the Word.
I heard a radio interview with a Charismatic woman pastor. She was asked how
she got her sermons up. She replied, "I don't get them up--I get them down.
God delivers them to me." That's an all too familiar thing. I can promise
you that God has never delivered one to me. I haven't "gotten them down," I
had to "get them up." Some people even believe its unspiritual to study.
After all, some say, taking another verse out of context, "Didn't Jesus say,
'For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.'"
So you just go into the pulpit and whatever comes into your mind you say?
And that is why they invent their theology even as they speak. Because they
have no idea what's going to be said until they hear it. We should be
greatly concerned about this ad-lib approach. You never, ever make a point,
true or false, at the price of a proper interpretation. Otherwise, you are
the final authority and not the Word of God.
2. Don't Spiritualize or Allegorize the Text.
Some people think the Bible is a fable to teach whatever you want to get
across. A myriad of illustrations of this, but I remember back when Jerry
Mitchell was on our staff and a young couple came into him for
counseling--marriage counseling. He began to talk with them and after about
30 minutes, he said, "You'd been married only 6 months and you are already on
the edge of a divorce? Why did you ever get married? You're miles apart."
"Oh," said the husband, "it was a sermon that the pastor preached in our
church." "What was the sermon?" "Well, he preached on the walls of
Jericho." "Jericho? What does that have to do with marriage?" "Well, God's
people claimed the city, marched around it seven times and the walls fell
down." And he said, "If a young man believed God had given him a certain
girl, he could claim her, march around her seven times, and the walls of her
heart would fall down." "That's what I did and we got married." "That can't
be true," he said. "Your kidding, aren't you?" I remember him saying that.
"You got to be kidding!" "No, it's true. And there were many other couples
who got married because of the same sermon." Some people believe their
marriages were made in heaven; that one was made in an allegory, and a bad
one at that.
É3
É3 èThat's the kind of interpretation that has gone on since the early days of
the Church [and] continues today, especially in the Charismatic movement. I
remember listening to a series on the Book of Nehemiah. The whole purpose of
the Book of Nehemiah, by this Charismatic preacher was to teach Charismatic
doctrine. Jerusalem walls were in ruin and that was representative of the
broken down walls of human personality. Nehemiah was the Holy Spirit. The
King's pool was the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. And the mortar between the
bricks was tongues. And what Nehemiah is teaching, is the Holy Spirit wants
to come, rebuild your broken walls through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and
Speaking in Tongues.
I had an opportunity to talk to that preacher about that and we had an
interesting conversation. I tried to show him that, that was nothing but the
invention of his own imagination--read from the New Testament back into the
Old but never the intention of Nehemiah. To which he agreed. That kind of
preaching is a form of "Hucksterism." And as I said, you may come up with a
truth that you teach, but if you spiritualize the text to do it, then you
legitimize spiritualization of any text, which leaves you with any fanciful
conclusion.
For the correct approach, you probably need to go to Jesus and remember when
He was walking on the road to Emmaus, He said, (Luke did), "That beginning
with Moses and with all the Prophets he explained to them the things
concerning Himself in the Scriptures." The word explain is hermeneuo (Greek)
from which we get hermenutics. He carefully interpreted the Old Testament.
He used hermenutics. He is the model of a teacher; He used sound
interpretative methods.
So when we teach the Word of God; when we come to the conclusions that we
come to, we want to be certain that we don't make severe errors:
1. By making points at the price of proper interpretations.
2. By somehow concocting or spiritualizing something that isn't there.
3. By superficial study. Superficial study is equally disastrous. Well, I
have said enough about that not to have to say more.
Now, if that's the case, if we are to avoid doing that, how do we then
interpret the Scripture? Let me give you five sound principles, all right?
If you work through these you'll be on the way to rightly dividing the Word.
1. The Literal Principle
Principle number one we'll call the literal principle: the literal one. When
we go to the Bible, this is so basic, we assume that God is talking to us in
normal speech. Okay? Normal language. Normal, common, everyday
communication. If fact, the theologians use to call it "Usus Loquendi" in
the Latin, meaning, "The words of Scripture are to be interpreted the same
way words are understood in ordinary daily use." If it says "horse," it
means "horse." If it says, "He went somewhere, he went somewhere." If it
says, "house," it means "house." If it says, "man," it means "man." And not
everything is to be extrapolated off into some mystical spiritualization,
allegorization, or whatever. It is literal. We understand Scripture, then,
in the literal sense of language. É3P
É3 è
Now, there are figures of speech, there are simile, metaphor, hyperbole,
onomatopoeia, whatever else, ellipsis, all of the figures of speech will be
there. There may even be sarcasm, there may even be exaggeration as a
device. There may be symbolism, such as the symbolism in the prophetic
literature, which is obviously symbolic--clearly symbolic. But it is in the
normal language of speech. We use symbols in our language. We say, "That
man is as straight pine tree." Or, "That man is as strong as an ox." Well,
we're using a symbol to make a literal point or statement. So then when we
interpret the Bible, we are not hunting for some extrapolated mystical
experience. Now, the Rabbis really got into this. They started to look for
this long centuries ago, in fact, they use to say that (some of them said)
Abraham had 318 servants. Nothing in the Bible says that, but they said,
the secret meaning of the word Abraham is, in the Hebrew there is only three
consonants in Abraham's name--Br, Ra, Hm. All the rest are vowels or
breathing points. So, if you take the "Br, Ra, Hm," in his name, they had
numerical equivalents in the Hebrew language, and add them up and you get
318! So the secret meaning is that he had 318 servants.
And they were into all that kind of stuff. And it even got more bizarre than
that. There is occasionally, of course, figurative language in Scripture, as
I said. But they are quite evident to us in the normal course of
understanding language. Scripture was not written to puzzle people. It was
not written to confuse them--it was written to make things clear to them.
Even Parables are nothing more than illustrations. They are not
riddles--they're illustrations, and in most cases Jesus explained their
meanings. And in all cases He said that the meaning would be revealed to
those who belong to Him by the Holy Spirit. So we can't abandon literal
interpretation in favor of mystical, allegorical, metaphorical kinds of
interpretation that discard all hope of achieving accuracy and coherence and
throw us into some imaginary field.
I would venture to say that most Charismatic preaching is imagination run
wild, proof-texted. They have, at least the popular part of it; I don't know
whether "most" is a fair thing to say. But the popular part of it that I
hear has much imagination and very little hermenutics. When you do not take
the time to discern the literal meaning you are not serving Scripture by
trying to understand it; then you are making Scripture your slave by molding
it into whatever you want it to say. So we start with the literal principle,
its literal language.
2. A Historical Principle
Now, when the Scripture was written, they understood what was said clearly.
Just like the Constitution: when it was written everybody understood what
they meant. Here we are a few hundred years later trying to figure out what
they meant. Why? Because history is different. Time has passed. Culture
has changed. Circumstances have changed, and even language has changed.
Modes of expression have changed. And so we are trying to get in touch with
an old document and reconstruct what it must have meant to them when it was
written. The same is true of the Bible, only it is much older than the
Constitution. Any ancient document demands interpretation. And so what do
we have to do to interpret it? We have to reset it into its historical
context.
É3ç
É3 èI am always amazed when I hear someone say, "John 3, 'You must be born of the
water and the spirit,' means you must be born physically and you must be born
spiritually." Have you heard that? And when a woman has a baby, there's
water. We say, "The water breaks and the baby's born--that's born of the
water. And spiritually, you are born of the Spirit." The problem is that in
the Jewish context that wouldn't have been said, because the Jews didn't say
"The water breaks." So what you've done is take an American colloquialism
and read it into an ancient book that would mean absolutely nothing to those
people. The question is, when He said, "You must be born of the water and
the spirit"--what water would they think about? Right? What water was in
the historical setting? The only water they would think about, in their
Jewish context, particularly Nicodemus, would be that of Ezekiel who said,
"The day is coming when God is going to wash you with clean water and put His
spirit within you." And he would have put it into that context, the context
of the New Covenant, not some colloquial American expression for human
birth.
We must then understand the need for the historical principle. When Jesus
walks in, for example, to the Temple courtyard, and said, "I am the light of
the world." Why did He said that? Did He just go around saying strange
things at strange moments? Just, "I'm the light of the world!" And somebody
would say, "What did He say that for?" Or, why would He say, "I am the water
of life, whoever drinks of this water, out of his belly will flow rivers of
living water!" What is He talking about? Why does he outburst with these
obtuse remarks? No, when He said, in John 8, "I am the light of the world,"
He was standing in the Temple courtyard and there was a huge candelabra that
had been lit for eight straight days, in the feast of lights. And it had
just gone out the day before and He walks into that very setting and says, in
effect, 'This thing has gone out but I'm the light of the world and I never
go out. And when He said, "I am the water of life," they were going through
the Hallels, and they were celebrating the water that came out of the rock in
the wilderness, and He said, "There was water then, but it was temporary. I
am the water, and you drink this water--you'll never thirst but you will be a
gushing well of water!"
Always the context gives the meaning. We've got to go back. What are the
historical features? What is the characteristics of the city in which the
believers lived who heard this? What was going on there? What were the
politics? Who was ruling? What was the social pressures? What were the
tensions, problems, and crisis that they were going through? What was the
culture of the day? What was life like? What were customs like? I spend a
great amount of my time researching all of that information so that when I
get into the pulpit, I can make something clear. And I am always amazed, in
fact, it happened a couple of times this morning, people came to me and said,
"You know that passage is so clear--its so clear, I wonder why I have never
seen it before?" The reason it was clear, the reason you understood it, is
because I fed you the context in which it had its significance. It seemed
simple and clear to you, a lot simpler than you know. It is simple to the
one who was there and heard it the first time, but it is more complex to me,
as I have to discern what they heard and how they heard it. That's part of
the process.
To answer the cultural, historical questions, you use Bible dictionaries and
books on history, and Bible handbooks, and commentaries, and books about
Bible customs and so forth and so on. É3╛
É3 è
3. Grammatical Principle
You go to a text of Scripture and you have to approach it grammatically.
This is called syntax. Lexigraphy is the study of words, syntax is the study
of the relationship of words. You have to learn about verbs and adverbs and
adjectives and you have to learn about infinitives and participles and you
have to learn about prepositions. You have to learn about conjugating verbs
and you have to learn about cases for nouns and substantives. Ablative and
genitive and all of that, accusative, nominative. You learn all of the
structure of language. You have to learn about antecedents, about
relationships. You have to learn about conditional and non-conditional
clauses. You know what makes this really difficult now in seminary? The
latest statistics that I've seen regarding our seminary, and we get the cream
of the crop, we get the finest young men coming out of the universities of
our nation, one out of four of the men coming into the Master's Seminary, one
out of four can pass the basic English exam! One out of four! They can all
talk English. They can all read English. They just don't understand the
structure of language. And because they don't understand the structure of
language, you can't teach them a foreign language until they do.
We have people today, who will never be able to understand the structure of
the foreign languages Hebrew and Greek because they don't even understand the
structure of English, trying to interpret the Bible! Now grammar is not
anybody's favorite subject. Sorry, those of you who teach English. Grammar
is just grammar! It just there and you have to learn it. But it is
essential in interpreting the Word of God. People say to me, "What is the
first thing you do when you prepare a message?" The first thing I do is
study the Biblical text in the original language and learn the grammar and
understand all of the word relationships: go over sentence structure and
grammar so I know exactly what is being said and what modifies what, and how
it all fits together.
In fact, more often than not, when I preach to you, the main idea that I am
trying to get across to you is contained in the main verb. And the
supporting ideas are contained in the participle that modifies the main verb.
Now, you can do this for yourselves by reading commentaries that will help
you in the process; by doing inductive Bible study. Breaking down into
diagraming sentences, remember that terrible thing you use to have to do,
that nobody does anymore? But, that's all a part of discerning grammatical
construction.
4. The Synthesis Principle
The Old Reformers used the expression "Scriptura Intra Pratatum" (sp.). What
that means is that Scripture is its own interpreter. And you use the
Synthesis Principle. What does that mean? That I always interpret a given
passage in the Bible in the light of the rest of the Bible. Right? I don't
come across a passage and say, "Wow! This is a new doctrine taught nowhere
else in the Bible." Wait a minute, if you think that passage is teaching a
doctrine taught nowhere else in the Bible and appears contradictory to other
things taught in the Bible--you've misinterpreted it. Right? Because
Scripture will be consistent with itself. Why? One perfect author wrote it
all. Who's that? God.
É3⌡
É3 èScripture will interpret Scripture. The Holy Spirit won't disagree with
Himself, and you can interpret the Word of God by the Word of God. That is a
very, very, essential thing. And then one more principle.
5. The Practical Principle
The final question you ask, you go through this whole process, starting out,
"All right what's the literal meaning here?" Then you move to, "What's the
historical background? The context? What are all the grammatical components
here? How does this synthesize with the rest of Scripture? You hear me do
that, don't you? I make a point and then I show you other verses where that
point exists, in order to see that this is the Scripture teaching and
elucidating on its own truth. And then the last question you ask is, "So
what? What does it mean to me? What does it have to do with me? How does
it apply to my life? But you never ask that question until you've gone
through all the other steps. That's right. Most people today read the Bible
and say all right, "What does this mean to me?" And they skip all the stuff
in the middle.
By the way, I would recommend to you a helpful little book, if you want a
good tool that's excellent for you. It's Dick Mayhue's book, "How to
Interpret the Bible." It's a paperback. It will be a tremendous tool for
you. I know that we have it in our book store. You can go in and buy them
all out tonight.
Now, in the process of this, [there is] one more thing that I need to say.
In these five principles of interpreting Scripture, there's another
component, and that's the principle of the Holy Spirit and illumination.
Even when I have taken it literally, and worked through the grammar, and
reconstructed the history, and when I have delved into all the terms and the
words and synthesize it with all of Scripture, all of that effort would come
up empty if it weren't for the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Because He alone knows the things that are coming from God, 1 Corinthians 2
says. And He is the one who teaches them to us. He is the anointing in 1
John 2:27, that teaches us all things.
You remember that verse, 1 John 2:27, John says, "The anointing which you
have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to
teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and
not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him." It's not
telling us we don't need teachers; it's not telling us we don't need those
who guide us, because He's given to the Church Apostles, Prophets,
Evangelists, Teaching Pastors, and even teachers to teach us. And He has
given some the gift of teaching and preaching, so that we can be taught. But
it is an assurance that we can know the difference between the heresy that is
being discussed in 1 John 2 and the truth regarding the Gospel of Christ,
because we possess the Spirit.
It doesn't guarantee that we are going to have the correct interpretation of
every verse in the Bible, even though we do nothing. It doesn't mean we
don't need human teachers. It just means regarding the Gospel, regarding the
basic truth of Christ, we can discern by the Holy Spirit leading--truth from
error.
Now, in closing, just a suggestion, four texts are commonly misinterpreted by É3, É3 èCharismatics. And I'll just apply what we have learned tonight to those four
very briefly, to help you understand how easily they could be rightly
understood.
The first one, I want you to turn to it, and we are not going to do all that
we could do because you can buy my commentary or get the tape on the passage
and go through it in detail. But, Matthew, chapter 12, is a good starting
point because they use this quite often to intimidate Christians. In
Matthew, chapter 12, you have the record of the blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit. And you remember that Jesus said, "Anything could be forgiven you,
anything said against the Son of Man, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven you." If we had the time we could read from verse 22
all the way on, but just go down to verse 31, Jesus says, "Therefore I say to
you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the
Spirit shall not be forgiven."
Now, what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Well, if you listen to two
very popular Charismatics, by the name of Charles and Francis Hunter, well
known husband and wife team, who have written numbers of books and speak on
the road all the time, this is what they say. They say, that anyone who
questions tongues, and this is pretty much what you hear from the Charismatic
movement, anyone who questions tongues or any other aspect of the Charismatic
movement is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They imply that any critic of the
charismatic movement are perilously close to being condemned by Christ for
such blasphemy. Is that what this is teaching? They use this verse to
support that. Does a challenge to Charismatic error equal blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit?
When someone denies that tongues are for today or that the Baptism of the
Spirit is a post-salvation experience, has that person committed the
unpardonable sin? Not according to this passage. In this text you remember
that a demon possessed man was born blind and dumb; [he was] brought to Jesus
and He healed him. The Pharisees heard it; they said, "Jesus casts out
demons by Satan." Remember that? "By Beelzebul," which was their name for
the "Lord of the Flies," the Philistine Satan, the Prince of Evil Spirits.
They were saying Jesus does what He does by the power of Satan.
Now, according to the principles of interpretation which we've just learned,
the first thing to do would be to look at the literal meaning of the passage.
The Pharisees were literally saying, "Jesus Christ got His power from Satan."
All right, we understand that. Let's move to the historical principle.
Jesus' ministry had been going on for two years, and during that time He had
been performing numerous miracles that proved to everyone, really it should
have proved to everyone, that He was God. He was the Messiah. The
conclusion should have been, "He is God!" Their conclusion was, "He
functions under the power of Satan!" They concluded the exact opposite.
Using the synthesis principle, we go a step further. We check other parts of
the Bible and we find that at His baptism Jesus received the Holy Spirit. And
after being baptized, the Spirit of God descended as a dove [and] came upon
Him. And then we learned that when Jesus went out and performed His
miracles, it was the Spirit working through Him. He had yielded Himself up
to the Holy Spirit. And so it was the Holy Spirit working in Him, casting
out demons by the Spirit's power. They were coming along and saying He did
it by Satan's power. É3c É3 è
Blasphemy, then against the Holy Spirit, was attributing the works of Christ,
done by the Spirit of God, to Satan. That's what blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
It was being exposed to the full revelation of Christ's deity, seeing His
miracles, hearing His teachings, and concluding He's satanic. For that, you
can't be forgiven! Why? Because if you have seen it all and heard it all
and you conclude that He's satanic--you can't get saved! Right? Because
you've concluded exactly the opposite about Christ! That's the blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit in Matthew 12. It doesn't say anything about
tongues. It doesn't say anything about the contemporary Charismatic
movement.
We know that all of us as sinners resist the Holy Spirit. All of us who are
convicted by the Holy Spirit and fight back at that conviction are resisting
and in one way or another blaspheming Him, but still we can be saved. The
only way you can blaspheme to the degree where you couldn't be saved is if
you had had all the revelation and you concluded the opposite of the truth!
You're unsavable! Because, in order to be saved, you have to acknowledge
Jesus as God. Right?
First of all, the sin against the Holy Spirit referred to there is a
historical event. And secondly, if there was some application to us, it
would simply be rejecting Christ when you have full knowledge.
Look at another one, Hebrews 13:8, this is a very brief one, but again its a
classic illustration of the way they work. Almost every Pentecostal Church
you'll go into (certainly in the past this was true) will have a verse in the
front of the Church, in the back of the Church, on a plaque somewhere--it'll
be Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and forever,"
Have you ever been into a Pentecostal Church and seen that? It is in most
all of them, or was. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and
forever."
Now, why is that important? This is what they say, "If Jesus baptized with
the evidence of speaking in tongues yesterday, then surely He is doing it
today and He'll be doing it tomorrow. And so they used that to say,
"Whatever Jesus did in the past, He's doing now, [and] He'll be doing in the
future. The silliness of that interpretation is that tongues never started
until Acts 2! So, though Jesus is the same yesterday, throughout all the
yesterday of His eternal existence, He didn't do that! You see how obvious
that is? Then you say, "Now, wait a minute. In the yesterday He did
miracles." No, no, no, not in the yesterday of His eternal existence.
Before the world began He wasn't doing miracles. And before the world began
He wasn't sending the Spirit in cloven tongues of fire.
You see what you have here is a statement about the eternal, immutable,
essence of Christ. That He is eternal, yesterday, today, and forever, and
unchanging in His essence. Not that He has always, is, and will always do
everything the same way.
Well, we don't have time to look at the other Scriptures. One favorite they
like is Mark 16, which says, "That these signs will follow those that
believe . . . they will cast out demons, speak with new tongues." They love
to emphasize that. They are not so hot on picking up snakes and drinking
deadly poison. And then it says, "It will not hurt them if they drink it and É3Ü É3 èthey will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." They say, "See, we
can heal the sick! And see, we can speak in tongues! And see, we can cast
out demons!" But they don't advocate picking up snakes and drinking deadly
poison! In fact how they handle that--I need to just tell you how they
handle that.
The Hunter's, for example, say,
Well, that only counts if you pick up the snake accidentally.
Is that what it says in Mark's Gospel, "If you happen to pick up
a snake accidentally?" Or, it only matters if you drink the
poison accidentally. In fact, they write, do you notice the
Bible says, "If we drink anything poisonous," it means
accidentally. It won't hurt us. Hallelujah, best insurance
policy we know of.
Now, the problem with their interpretation is its not literal. There is no
accidentally there. Furthermore, historically, He's talking about the
Apostolic age and those who responded to the ministry of the Apostles. They
even go so far as to make the silly remark, "And of course, we all know that
the biggest snake is Satan, and when he bites us, God delivers us from his
deadly poison," which just allegorizes the thing--spiritualizes it. They
play fast and loose.
The concern that I have is to share with you just the sense that there is an
awful lot of irresponsibility in dealing with these texts. And for you sake
and mine, we need not, listen carefully to me, we need not just to criticize
the movement. We need to be able to go beneath and to show where the
critical flaws lie.
One text in closing, and you know it very well, 2 Timothy 2:15. Just to
remind you, so you're armed if you get into any conversation with folks like
this. "Be diligent to present yourself approved of God as a workman who does
not need to be ashamed." And then the last phrase, "Handling accurately the
word of truth." Beloved, this is where we must lay down the law. We must
protect the integrity of Scripture by demanding a proper interpretation.
That phrase, "handling accurately," means "cutting it straight." Paul was a
tent maker and in order to make a tent he had to cut a lot of pieces of
material, either hide or woven hair. If he didn't cut the parts right, like
making a dress or a shirt, that the whole didn't fit together. Right? You
cut the parts right; you sew them together, it works. And he is saying, if
you don't cut the pieces right the whole theology doesn't fit together and
what you've got is people hacking up the pieces and putting together an
obtuse bizarre theology that does not make sense, is not coherent.
We must know how to rightly divide the word of truth. Because if we don't,
mishandling the Scriptures and not interpreting it properly just feeds
endless confusion. And that is why there is so much Charismatic chaos.
Father, thank you for our time tonight and looking over these things and
considering some of the basics of Bible interpretation. Make us faithful.
And Lord help us again to realize that many people in this movement love you
and are victimized. They are victimized by these foolish interpretations
that are given to them very authoritatively, by people who sound convincing.
We pray that your Spirit would give them great discernment. We know that É3╤ É3 èyour Spirit will grant them to discern if they are true believers, between
heresy about the gospel and the truth of the gospel. And we can only ask
that somehow your Spirit would lead them to true teachers who will teach them
the right interpretation of Scripture so they would not be confused and thus
miss the privilege and opportunity of spiritual growth and giving you glory
that you deserve. Lord thank you for giving us exposure to those who rightly
divided the Word so that we could follow in their stead. Make us faithful to
that Word which rightly understood, must be applied. And all for your glory
