I’ve been going through the Old Testament for my Bible reading these days. Last night I was in the book of I Kings, in the passage where King Solomon dedicates the temple of the Lord.
That’s when I came across a couple of verses that seemed especially familiar:
When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.
— I Kings 8:10-11
I realized that the reason why these verses rang a bell is because I’d heard this passage used many times as scriptural support for the practice of “falling out under the power” – you know, what happens when a preacher “under the anointing” lays hands on someone?
As I’ve said before, since leaving Charismania, I’ve thought a lot about that whole “falling out under the power” experience. It’s something I’m not sure I’ll ever fully come to understand. I know that something was happening to make my knees buckle and force me to the floor when Pastor Smith (not his real name) or one of his visiting ministers placed his hands on my forehead. I’m still just sort of mystified as to what that something was.
Was it the literal power and presence of God Almighty Himself?
Pastor Smith would have had us believe that that’s precisely what it was – that because Pastor Smith “proclaimed the Word” and had an “anointing,” he had the ability to dispense God to his audience. He frequently referred to himself as “a conduit” of this power.
And he used I Kings 8:10-11 as scriptural support for this practice.
But here’s the thing that struck me as I read in I Kings last night: in that passage, it is clear that when the presence of the Lord filled the temple, it was so strong and so powerful the priests themselves were rendered unable to stand.
The priests themselves were unable to maintain control of their actions.
Let’s look a little closer at what this tells us.
Something important to keep in mind is that the priests would have been highly motivated to maintain control of themselves. No matter what your views on God’s unchangeable nature, it is a biblical fact that He appears to have interacted differently with people in the Old Testament than He interacts with us today. In the Old Testament, people could be killed on the spot for failing to follow God’s guidelines – even if they did so accidentally. We don’t see a whole lot of unexplained deaths these days in church. But in Old Testament times, different guidelines seem to have applied. In Old Testament times, people related to God through the “old covenant.”
Since that was the case, I’m thinking that the priests doing their duty in I Kings would have been highly motivated to pay attention and be sure they followed every last letter of the law. I think they would have done all in their human power to remain standing, at full attention.
That tells us that the authentic “presence and power of the Lord” is something so strong, something so unspeakably glorious, that no one, not even the most highly motivated individual, is able to withstand it.
Yet when people “fall out under the power” in today’s Charismaniac circles, lots of people are capable of remaining in full control of themselves and their faculties.
The individual who is purportedly dispensing the “anointing” or “power” remains in full control.
And so do the “catchers,” those big guys who follow the minister and break the falls of the people being prayed for/ministered to.
Last night it struck me that this passage in I Kings absolutely does NOT provide any support for the practice of “falling out under the power” as it is practiced in Charismatic circles today. If anything, I Kings 8:10-11 would prove the exact opposite - that whatever is causing people to fall down these days when the minister touches them simply CANNOT be the actual “power and presence of God.”
If the GENUINE power and presence of God were “in the house” (as Pastor Smith was fond of declaring), then all human flesh would bow in response, just as the priests in this passage from I Kings were forced to do.
There would not be anyone left standing.
Not the catchers. And certainly not the pastor himself.
It suddenly seems terribly obvious that God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, does not manifest himself as some sort of “force” that is dispensed at the will of human beings. The fact that Pastor Smith chose when, where, and how he’d “lay hands on people” – in other words, when, where, and how the (supposed) power of God would be dispensed – would put God at the control and mercy of Pastor Smith.
The Bible shows us that such a notion is absolutely ludicrous.
It’s really sad that you feel that way. God will respond in power to hungry people… and others certainly have the option to reject God’s activity in their lives.
It should be quite normal to encounter God, to experience him, to tremble in his presence. It seems as if you are arguing that it’s a rare and unusual thing for God to overwhelm us.
The anointing, the presence of God is something you can feel. Without question.
John,
I feel like you must have read a different post than the one I wrote. I am NOT “arguing that it’s a rare and unusual thing for God to overwhelm us.”
Actually, that was my whole point – that Pastor Smith and his catchers were NOT “overwhelmed.” They themselves did NOT “tremble in His presence.”
Why wouldn’t they, if it were truly God’s presence and not something manufactured by their psychological machinations and people’s hunger and expectations?
If the priests in the Old Testament – who had far more motivation to remain in control of their faculties – couldn’t stay standing in the true presence of the Lord, why would Pastor Smith and his catchers be able to withstand God Almighty…if that truly was what was at work when people “fell out”?
Again, I am NOT saying that NOBODY experiences God’s power. I am NOT saying that God’s presence cannot be felt. What I am saying is actually the opposite of that – that God’s true presence is so strong and so overwhelming that NOBODY can remain unaffected.
Not even the preachers themselves, the ones supposedly dispensing “the anointing.”
Well, you can’t determine whether God’s manifest presence is in a meeting by whether everybody falls or not. God can come like a microwave (where everybody is impacted) or by a lightning bolt… only those who he chooses are hit.
He will never violate free will. Even when God was heavily on me once, and I “couldn’t pick my self off of the ground”, I actually could have if I would have rejected his activity in that moment.
I could have put a stop to it.
There are many variables at play… some are open, some are not, some have been prepared specifically for that moment, some are in the midst of their preparation for a future moment, some have great faith, some don’t.
Imagine an angel appearing to one person in a room, but not the others… the one would hit his face immediately, the others may not sense anything unusual at all. God reveals himself in the same way at times.
I’ve been in many, many services where I didn’t “feel anything”… while many others did. I was in one meeting where people were dramatically impacted by God’s presence… many on their face and were undeniably transformed… it was a site to behold… but, I didn’t feel the glory myself. Until, near the end… a wave of God’s presence suddenly overwhelmed me… I collapsed and was there for a long time. I could barely walk after that. Very, very powerful, very real, very God.
You’re once again proving my point.
The “manifest presence of God” that you are describing is totally unlike how the ACTUAL presence of God is described in the Bible. In the Bible, when God’s presence filled a room, NOBODY could remain in control.
My original point – the point of this post – is that all the verses that our former church uses to provide scriptural support for the things that they do actually describe encounters with God’s presence that are NOTHING like what happens nowadays, as you describe.
Because of all the bizarre wacked-out craziness that seems to inevitably accompany modern-day “manifestations,” I’d prefer to stick with what the Bible describes.
If I ever experience the “manifest presence of God” where human flesh cannot stand, that’d be great. But until then, I choose to avoid pale imitations.
Wouldn’t you agree that if you can’t feel God, experiencing Him, sense Him, etc. on a regular basis that something’s amiss?
The way people respond to interaction with God is important to consider. How do we respond when a revelation, a prophetic word, etc. is receive? What about the issue of ‘groans that can’t be uttered’… what’s the prevailing encounter and experience in that? What’s the difference between emotional feelings and spiritual feelings and how do those realms interact?
John,
I’ve come to believe that the only definite thing we have to go on is what is promised to us in the Bible. And I don’t see the Bible as advocating an experience-oriented faith. Jesus Himself said, “An evil generation seeks after a sign…”
I think you and I are coming at this topic from two different sets of assumptions.
Something I’d like to add…
I used to be completely sold out on what John is advocating. I’d read every Jack Deere book out there (Mr. Deere is a highly educated former seminary professor who wrote Surprised By The Power Of God and Surprised By The Voice Of God). Actually, come to think of it, what started me out on my quest to “experience God” was Tommy Tenney’s The God Chasers.
After a lifetime of Bible-based but (I thought) dry, dull, theoretical Christianity, I wanted something tangible, something I could see and feel. I can remember how my heart beat faster as I read the first couple of chapters of Tenney’s God Chasers, in which he called the Bible a bunch of “dusty old love letters” and argued instead for being zapped by lightning bolts and such. I could so totally identify with the discontent he articulated.
When we happened upon Living Word Church (a pseudonym), I was completely primed and ready for an experience-oriented “take” on Christianity. I clapped and cheered with the best of ‘em when Pastor Smith (another pseudonym) would trash-talk “intellectualism.” I couldn’t have been too much more eager to check my brain at the door. I was so thrilled to have found a church where “the gifts” were so celebrated. I was beyond excited to think that I’d get to witness blind eyes opening, deaf ears hearing, and people getting up out of wheelchairs. I was even convinced that I had the “gift of faith,” that someday I would pray for people and see them healed.
We were taught that it was all so simple…that all it took was our faith-filled declarations in Jesus’ name. We were taught that healing was ALWAYS God’s will for EVERYBODY, and that the only reason people were not healed every time was because of a lack of faith, or because people hadn’t “warred in the Spirit” properly, hadn’t properly rebuked the demons causing the cancer or whatever.
Overnight, I became completely caught up in this mindset. I enthusiastically promoted the miracles that (supposedly) took place at our church when Pastor Smith or one of his visiting ministers held healing services. I fully believed that Pastor Smith was a “true prophet” and that when he pulled people out to “give them a word,” it was a true word from the Lord. I believed that he was 100% accurate in all that he declared.
I was also eager to buy into the “great End-Times revival” that our church kept talking about. Every visiting minister would prophesy about the increased anointing that Pastor Smith and his sons would soon possess. Over and over again, we’d listen to “words” about how Living Word Church was going to be the “epicenter” of a “great outpouring” of God’s presence. Nobody actually ever mentioned the Brownsville or Toronto Revivals (I actually think that the Smiths were – to their credit – sort of leery about that whole “laughing in the Spirit”/”barking in the Spirit” thing). But from everything I’d read about Toronto and Brownsville, it sure sounded like it’d be something along those lines. We’d hear prophecies about how people would be lining up around the block to get into Living Word Church…how they’d have to increase the number of services to several each day just to accommodate people hungry for a “touch from heaven.”
I lost count of how many times the audience would be whipped into a frenzy over these kinds of prophecies. During our first year or two at Living Word, I was among the people cheering and excitedly anticipating this revival. Each Sunday night, as we would sing various songs that Tommy Smith had written – songs that frequently would reference God’s speaking, or that would declare the outpouring – I would wonder, “Is tonight the night when it will hit?” I would spend lots of time reading up on what it was like at previous revivals, how people would be pasted to the floor under the weight of the presence of God, how (from the Tommy Tenney book) some sort of jolt from above might even split the clear acrylic pulpit in two.
I can remember lining up to go forward for prayer, worshipping and praying, crying out to God – beseeching Him – to “come on down.” It was obvious that everyone there was hungering for His presence. We were doing everything “right” – we were declaring, we had faith, it’d been prophesied to us. When would He manifest Himself in that way?
I can remember what it was like to stand up in the front, a band of us stretched across the width of the platform, our toes touching the edge of that first step. I can remember Pastor Smith very forcefully pacing back and forth, speaking in tongues very intensely, as his team of catchers also paced and babbled. I remember BEGGING God, “Oh please, let it be tonight!”
And I would think that I almost felt something, something electric and powerful. But then, maybe it was just the rush of air as the group of men paced back and forth. I couldn’t tell for sure.
I would almost always fall down when Pastor Smith touched me. As I’ve said numerous times, I still have no idea what that “force” was that would make my knees buckle. Sometimes it’d feel like I was kind of just caving on my own, but sometimes it’d feel stronger. I’d tell myself, as I’d lie there on the carpet, “You are now ‘out under the power.’ This is God’s presence! Bask in His presence!”
And it’d feel…good…sort of…
But…
It’d also feel a little bit anticlimactic.
I could never quite stifle the honest voice, deep inside my thoughts, that said, “This is NOT anything particularly special. This is just YOU, lying on the carpet.” I never experienced any lasting change from these experiences, either. Moreover, time and again, I’d see the same people go down to the front for prayer, only to come back Sunday after Sunday mired in the same sinful lifestyle choices. What was the point of all that “carpet time,” anyway? It did feel good, after a fashion, but to be brutally honest, it did NOT feel good in any way that could really be classified as “spiritual.” If it were spiritual – if it truly had something to do with the Spirit of the Living God – then it would have produced more lasting Godly character, both in me and in all the others who’d spent time on the floor.
After awhile – I don’t know how long, maybe a couple of years or so – I began to understand why some of the long-time Living Word members did not always rush to the front every time Pastor Smith announced a prayer line. I began to grasp why lots of folks weren’t as regular in their church attendance as we’d been. (Previously, I simply could not fathom why ANYONE would want to miss out on “the anointing.”)
The truth was, somewhere along the line, I’d been beset by “Charismaniac Fatigue.”
I could just no longer drum up the same level of excitement over the same old prophecies about the “great revival” that kept being predicted as happening “any minute, now.” I finally had to admit that despite all the relentless hype, the TRUTH was that our church had actually witnessed VERY FEW IF ANY dramatic healings. Nobody ever got out of a wheelchair. No blind person ever had his sight restored. After awhile, how much cheering can you actually DO for the testimonies about being healed of migraines or backaches?
I also realized somewhere along the line that Pastor Smith’s prophecies were simply not always accurate. Sometimes he so totally missed the mark with what he said that it was breathtaking. Not only had we experienced this with respect to some personal prophecies that he’d given to my husband – we also saw this happen again and again with the New Year’s “words” that he’d declare at the annual New Year’s Eve services. One year, Pastor Smith totally contradicted himself within six months’ time, having first declared that (I think it was) 2006 was going to be a “year of overflow,” and then turning around and – in July – saying that the number 6 represented imperfection, and the “year of man,” while the number 7 was the number of completion, so 2007 would be “the year of the Lord.”
Which on earth WAS it, anyway, Pastor Smith? Why wasn’t 2006 a year of overflow, a year of amazing blessings, a year when the “great End-Times revival” finally hit Living Word Church and the services were literally “overflowing”? Moreover, if Pastor Smith HAD missed it, and if he KNEW that he’d missed it (as he so obviously had to have known, since all the services were taped and he’d built an entire 6-week sermon series over the 2006 New Year’s “word”), then why wasn’t he HONEST about his mistake? Why didn’t he say something to his congregation?
As all of these things were contributing to my Charismaniac Fatigue, I was also hit over the head with several discoveries about the Smith family and their really bad and totally UN-Christlike attitudes and treatment of their people. They all copped SUCH attitudes! They all believed their own press…how anointed they were, how special. We were witnesses to some really terrible behavior from them.
Naturally, we knew that no one – even the most consecrated “Man Of Gawd” – is going to be perfect. But certainly, if someone is so “anointed” that he needs body guards to follow him around the church, and if he is truly the dispensor of God’s literal presence, and if he truly was engaged in an almost (or so it was talked up) non-stop 2-way conversation with God Himself, then certainly he’d behave more as the Bible would command. He’d certainly be a better reflection of the LOVE of Jesus. He’d certainly exhibit more fruits of the Spirit as outlined in Galatians 5.
After a couple of years of this Charismaniac Fatigue, we found that we’d grown completely disillusioned with all the elements of Living Word Church that had initially attracted us. To put it bluntly: Everything distinctively “Charismatic” about Living Word turned out to be either the product of a lot of hype, or else downright fake.
If anyone out there is thinking that this experience was no big deal, and that we somehow arrived at our disillusionment on a whim, or carelessly, please understand that it was actually more like dealing with a death. A death of something that had once held so much promise and had seemed so exciting and so wonderful and so…DEAR.
We actually mourned the death of our Charismaniac faith for quite awhile before deciding that we simply had to move on. During that time, the ONLY thing that kept me tethered to the Christian faith was what I’d previously known from the Bible. I spent hours and hours studying God’s Word. And instead of focusing only on the passages that would seem to back up the crazy name-it-and-claim-it, Word-of-Faith stuff that we’d been taught, I embraced ALL of Scripture, the “whole counsel of God,” and let IT inform MY views rather than the other way around.
And that’s when I had to come to grips with lots of hard truths.
For one thing, all that stuff about financial prosperity was absolutely unscriptural. No, it’s not that having money and/or nice things is WRONG, per se. Money is money – a neutral force – and things are things. There is nothing intrinsically evil about any of that stuff. But clearly, a person would have to play all sorts of stupid mind games with himself in order to believe that the Bible – ESPECIALLY the New Testament – supported the notions that we were taught about money. The Bible simply DOES NOT give us any New Testament examples of people who lived in mansions, who’d experienced “their harvest” (which always had to do with money!), who were living the good life that the Smith family was so fond of. Matter of fact, the Bible seemed to say so much that was the exact OPPOSITE of what was going on at Living Word Church.
All along, though – even in the midst of all the crazy Scriptural inconsistencies and contradictions, even in the midst of all the Charismaniac fatige – the thing that kept me hanging on was that I’d FELT something at Living Word. I’d always come back around to my personal experiences as “proof” that what was going on at Living Word was OK, was from God.
One day, though, I was reading something on some random blog somewhere. I no longer remember where I was reading. But the writer was talking about experience-based faith, and how such faith was simply NOT faith at all. Moreover, once we base our faith on experience, we then have no choice but to legitimize EVERY SINGLE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF EVERYBODY ELSE. After all, if we expect the pagan to believe US, then we really owe the Mormon down the street the same consideration when he talks about the “burning in the bosom” that legitimized his faith for him.
So that’s where we’re coming from. This journey out of Charismania has not been easy, not whatsoever. But always, it’s been a relief. It’s been a relief to finally be HONEST about the Charismaniac hype…about the unreliable (fake!) prohecies…about the “healings” that never actually lived up to their sales pitch…about our disillusionment with the whole “Anointing” thing…
The list could go on and on.
The bottom line is that the ONLY thing that we can truly cling to is what God has written in His Word. That is now (once again) my only standard. I no longer think that dramatic experiences should be our focus. If anything, they just seem to distract and confuse people. I can truly say that I’ve never seen any good lasting thing result from “carpet time.”
But I have seen God’s Word – the Bible – transform and liberate people who will cling to His promises and put His principles into action through faith in Him.
I read your post and can totally relate and I can really relate to your last comment. Once again, I am amazed at how similar our situations are. I feel as though you are speaking my thoughts. I experienced everything you wrote about – the yearly “words” that we NEVER saw come to pass, countless people who went up in healing lines and “fell out” but they walked away the same, so much hype and hollaring about the revival that was coming soon (and they started saying that back in the early 90’s), but we never saw anything they said, the pastor’s terrible mistreatment of people and then listening to him preach on love (never made sense to me that he didn’t practice what he preached) and I could go on and on.
I was always puzzled about the “falling out” too. It always seemed like people were faking it. The pastor would yell, “you have to jump on in” and we were told to just do what he did. He said if we didn’t dance when he danced or run when he ran then we would miss out on what God was doing. It confused me because it seemed if I didn’t feel it, then I would be faking. When I did do it anyway I felt like such and idiot. And you are so right – when did falling down ever make a difference in your life? I remember one time a visiting minister was walking around praying for rows of people and the whole row would fall down. People were falling on top of each other onto the pews. He got to our row and prayed for the first person. When he said, “Be blessed!” the whole row was supposed to fall. I was about the fourth person down. The three in front of me fell and the people behind me fell, but I didn’t fall becaus I didn’t feel anything that would have made me fall. I wasn’t going to fake it – is that what they want you to do so they don’t look bad? I guess it is. He said to me, “Don’t just stand there like a dummy!” Talk about public humiliation and embarrassment – and hurt because this was a man I respected. He layed his hand on me again and I just sat down. I didn’t feel a thing, but I wasn’t going to be yelled at again. I wasn’t being “rebellious”. I wanted to feel the power of God. I wanted more of God. It all happened so quickly I wasn’t sure what to do. I think these type of situations confuse a lot of people. I know I won’t ever find myself in a situation like that again!
These “men of God” are peddling unscriptural methods to innocent, trusting Christians who really do want more of God. It brings disillusionment when they make all these big promises and they don’t happen. These “words” they give for the year are just to keep people hanging on for another year. They want people to have something to look forward to so they’ll keep giving their money. These type of pastors are putting the emphasis on the wrong things. The prosperity message has been a distraction for Christians. It has taken their minds off of loving and serving people, to “what can I get for myself.” It makes people who don’t have as much feel like they don’t measure up. It’s just wrong! Christianity is not about falling out, running around a building, laughing uncontrollably, having a word for someone, etc. All that stuff focuses on “ME” anyway. It’s really about loving God and loving people.
I was in a number of meetings with the same minister as Set Free; the minister would say, “don’t just sit there; laugh! ha ha…ha ha ha…haha ha ha…be blessed…be blessed….be blessed!” as he would lay hands on people and the row of people would fall down.
“Don’t just stand there like a dummy! Well, do you want to be blessed or not! Then laugh! laugh! ha ha …hahahha….be blessed! be blessed! be blessed!!!”
And the people would giggle and laugh, and fall down.
I really tried to get into it, and said hahaha…ha…haha…hehe…ha….but i just never burst out laughing.
Also, in the meetings the music was so loud I had to wear tissue in my ears.
It was a circus like atmosphere in those churches; the music would play, and “like a well oiled machine” as charismania stated in another post, I remember the ushers in their business suits would get everyone to file out of their rows, go up front and stand, and the minister would come down the line quickly, lay hands on people, and they would fall like dominoes as the music blared.
I always waited in aniticipation in the “prayer line” up front; I had eagerly listened to many messages, bought tapes and cd’s, read many books; alas, I was under the Charimanias shroud.
There are at present a couple of different streams I’ve noticed: the wof business suit club, in which many people full of themselves did in fact giggle and laugh and say ha ha he he ho ho in those meetings I was in(even though Pastor Smith was apparantly not into that himself), but there is also the woo woo barking dog type club, the Toronto blessing-Todd Bentley type, with people dressed either casually or in fact like slobs.
The problem with both is unfortunately the same; the people are still full of themselves, just as I was.
I was alive unto God, but not dead to myself.
God bless them all, so many people I met, so many of them, God bless them all; I hope their eyes get opened some day.
Also, at the beginning of each year it was always the:
-year of increase
-year of favor
-year of overflow
-year of abundance
-year of harvest
-year of promotion
-year of the blessing
-year of ___you fill in the blank, as long as it’s self serving
Sometimes the prophetic words would rhyme, such as “yea, ha ha, ho ho, yea and great shall be the overflow, yea and great shall be the blessings, so rejoice and be glad, and rejoice and do not be sad, yea rejoice and
ye shall know, yea and many shall see and the blessings shall flow. So lift your hands and shout, for the victory is yours, so do not doubt, yea lift your hands in victory, for many shall come and many shall see, yea many shall know that the glory is upon the land, and the glory shall flow upon each man, yea the glory shall flow, glory glory glory, ….etc”
We used to call falling under the spirit a courtesy drop
Hi, “Set Free,” Chris, and jude!
Thanks for your comments. “Set Free,” it was great to read your blog.
And all y’all – seriously, now. My husband and I have often joked that there is some sort of “methods” classes that ALL these Charismaniac preachers attended. They sure do seem to be operating from the same playbook!
Can this all just be a big coincidence? Or, are they merely copying each other, and the trends spread across the country?
I really do wonder how it is that so much in these churches can be identical when they’re all “independently owned and operated.”
But what gets me even more, come to think of it, is that we were trained to believe that everything at our church was so original, so unusual, so spontaneous. I guess that’s in the playbook, too.
You know, instead of being skeptical it would make more sense to be saddened and alerted to the fact that it’s not normal to encounter God in dramatic fashion in churches today.
Why, John?
Where in the Bible would we see any promises of “encountering God in dramatic fashion” while in church? Specifically, where in the New Testament would we see such promises?
Really, where?
Jesus Himself said that it is an “evil generation” that seeks a sign. He then foretold His death and resurrection by saying that it would be the ONLY sign given – “the sign of Jonah.”
Frankly, the historical fact of the price Jesus paid for our salvation, and the historical fact of His resurrection, are all the signs that I need. We gather together as churches to celebrate this accomplished fact…NOT to have “thrills and chills.”
This is a significant problem… people are learning about Jesus, but not knowing him.
I often ask people, “If you were suddenly on the moon, would you rather, in that moment, learn about the make up of oxygen, or would you rather breath oxygen?”
Both are important, but if you attempt to learn only, you can do it for about 60 seconds before you die. That’s what happens in so many churches and with many Christians… they learn about God without encountering him.
He’s alive. He’s real. More real than my wife. More real than a friend. Literally real. Not a concept or an idea. Not a principle that makes my life better… he is interactive and to be known intimately.
We must embrace this interactivity… revelation, prophecy, dreams, visions, being in his presence, knowing him deeply.
John,
I’m getting a little bit weary of our back-and-forth here. You did not answer my question at all. Instead, you argue against a “straw man.”
Nobody is saying that Jesus isn’t alive or isn’t real. That was my whole point – He IS alive. He IS real. And that’s what we come together on Sundays to celebrate – that we serve a RISEN Savior.
NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE, especially in the New Testament, are we led to expect that we will experience Jesus’ reality and aliveness through the ways that “revelation, prophecy, dreams, visions” are worked out in Charismaniac churches today. Nowhere.
I asked you to provide Scriptural support for the things that you say, and you did not do so. Instead, you lecture about how Jesus is real…ignoring the fact that NOBODY IS SAYING THAT JESUS IS NOT REAL.
Given how ridiculous almost all of what passes for “revelation, prophecy, dreams, visions” is today, and how extra-biblical it so quickly becomes, I am content to focus on what God has revealed to us in His written Word. This isn’t necessarily merely theoretical “learning” – it can be just as experiential as anything.
And at least it doesn’t contradict or dishonor what God has already committed to paper for us…like much of the goofy experiential silliness that passes for “revelation, prophecy, dreams, and visions” today.
Matter of fact, here’s something else to think about.
Much of what we see today that passes for “revelation, prophecy, dreams, and visions” actually ends up DISTRACTING and DETRACTING from the facts of Jesus’ realness and aliveness.
Do you know how faith-shaking it can be, to be snookered by some fraud charlatan “prophet” (like Pastor Smith, for instance)? Do you realize how much guys like him dishonor Jesus with their hijinx? Their game-playing? Their “prophecies” that sound more like horoscopes?
Do you realize how faith-shaking it can be to engage in barking like a dog or “laughing in the Spirit” only to later realize that it was merely a self-indulgent, self-generated experience and NOT “the manifest presence of God” as you were told?
Do you realize how faith-shaking it can be to have so much attention directed to something like “falling out in the Spirit,” as though it were the hgh point of our Christian experience, only to realize after awhile that it was essentially a transient pleasure, a basically worthless exercise designed to draw attention to the pastor doing the “laying on of hands”?
I don’t understand how anyone who is serious about the historical reality of Jesus can desire to defend the crazy stuff I’m describing on our site here. I don’t understand how you’d prefer to direct people’s attention to questionable – DOUBTFUL – experiences like “falling out,” making them in effect “proof” of Jesus’ realness. When those experiences are proven false or worthless, what do you suppose happens to people’s faith in Jesus’ realness?
It sounds like you are a cessationist. Is this true? I find it strange that you would ask for an example of an encounter with God in scripture. Really? Surely you can arrive at that conclusion yourself?
Cover to cover God interacts… for some strange reason, people in the NT are finding it more difficult to experience God than people in the OT.
The Holy Spirit is here now.
In Scripture we know:
We are all to prophesy
God manifested as a wind in the Upper Room
God encountered Saul on the road to Damascus
Mere angels caused people to tremble
Dreams are to be common place for believers
Groans that can’t be uttered should be happening
Jesus heals and raises the dead
God’s glory can be felt in very powerful ways
God parted the Red Sea
He manifested as a fire by night and a cloud by day
Demons should be cast out by Believers
And on and on…
I have to hit on something that’s HUGE…
I’ve run into people who are nervous about manifestations, experiential stuff… and what always seems to happen is that they are suspicious… they tend to react to the negative.
If there’s prophecy, then most likely it’s false prophecy.
If there’s someone trembling, it’s most likely the devil.
If there’s emotion reaction, it’s most likely the flesh.
If there’s mystical/supernatural encounters, it’s probably a New Age experience.
This is tragic! We can’t be so afraid of something being the devil that we become suspicious and unbelieving. Churches have shut down prophecy because of some who misuse the gift.
When I travel and minister on the prophetic, I often ask people to raise their hands if they have never heard God, never encountered him in a dream, vision, prophetic impression, etc. At times over 90% raise their hands!
We live in a left-brained, logical age that doubts that God interacts in clear, direct manner. We’re more geared toward learning and adhering to principles (nothing wrong that that in itself, of course)… but there’s no move into the supernatural.
Did you know that trips to the 3rd heaven are biblical? Trances? Being translated? Groans? Tongues, etc?
John,
You still have not shown me anything in Scripture that would explicitly instruct us – the New Testament church – to PURSUE “manifestations.”
And no, I’m not really a cessationist. I guess I’m more of a frustrated continuationist.
Christians are rightfully leery of experience-based Christianity because there is so much fraud out there. Even your own statements to us here contain a certain amount of fraud (or self-deception).
Let’s just take prophecy as an example…
If you were to be HONEST, you’d have to admit that you yourself do not truly believe that God deals with us today in the exact same fashion as He did, say, in the Old Testament.
Otherwise, God would be killing off so-called modern-day “prophets” left and right for their frequently inaccurate and often downright FALSE “prophecies.”
Also…
If you were to be HONEST, you’d have to admit that you absolutely have never yourself seen anyone truly dead being raised back to life again.
I’d be willing to stake my life on the fact that the healings that might happen in your services are a pale shadow (at best) of the types of healings that took place in Jesus’ ministry. Why is this so? Why are all the modern-day “miracles” always stuff like nebulous back pain and headaches?
I’m sure you’ve never seen anyone with a severed spinal cord get up out of his wheelchair and walk again. If you ever actually experienced such a miracle, I’m convinced that you’d use every resource at your disposal to get X-rays and medical records. You’d follow the newly healed person to his home (just like the American Idol producers do with potential contestants) and have him describe in detail his accident, his spinal cord injury, the subsequent loss of ability to move his arms and legs, and now – praise Jesus! – the X-rays of his completely healed spinal column and regenerated muscles and nerves.
Why do you continue to argue that Christians should be focusing their efforts on these signs and wonders – when you yourself have never experienced (despite all your efforts and the zeal of your beliefs) Bible-time quality signs and wonders?
This kind of “faith” makes Christians look foolish and simply distracts from the greatest miracles of all – the historical fact that we serve a risen Savior, and the spiritual passing from death to life that happens whenever someone professes faith in Him.
I appreciate the time that you’ve taken to dialogue, but I am going to ask that you not reply further. This is not a free-for-all blog, and I’m weary of feeling the duty to respond to your posts.
Blessings!
Hi,
Haven’t read your blog in a few days so had a bit of catching up to do here.
I just wanted to comment that there must have been a huge amount of churches that were told in prophecy that they were going to be the “epi center of a huge outpouring or revival”. I know of at least 3 in this area. With several of them, there were dates given. Guess what? Those dates have long come and gone and we have yet to see the promised outpouring!
cherylu,
Isn’t it interesting, how the “epicenter of great revival” prophecy was this big trend among Word Of Faith churches?
And yet I know that at least at our church, most of us were under the impression – until we figured out that it wasn’t happening the way it’d been prophesied – that we were going to be part of something unique, something that would really put Living Word on the map.
I’m thinking now that all these ministers HAD to have known how commonplace these prophecies were/are. I mean, lots of them went to one another’s churches and gave similar “words.” And then they got the return favor. They HAD to have known they weren’t unique…
This is all just so fascinating to me, even though it’s been well over two years since we left our Charismaniac church. We were constantly taught that OUR church was special…that OUR church was one-of-a-kind…that OUR church was the only one around that did things with “excellence”…
As our pastor taught us all this stuff, he had to have known how many other churches out there were teaching the exact same things. He knew he was teaching us something that wasn’t really true. Interesting.
And I don’t see the Bible as advocating an experience-oriented faith. Jesus Himself said, “An evil generation seeks after a sign…”
Big, fat amen.
I just read through your testimony, and I could have written it. Very similar experience; took a long time (and a lot of serious de-programming and Bible study) to get over my brush with charismania.
Thank you for this blog.
Hey, Marie -
Thanks for your comment! I’m glad that you found something useful here. I’d love to hear a bit of your story if you feel like sharing.
Hi Charismania! Thanks for your welcome on 10/31/09.
A person has to go through the charismania wringer; otherwise, he just won’t “get it” such as John.
Perhaps John someday will “get it.” *Sigh.*
I remember a church I visited down South with a guest speaker one night; people were falling like dominoes -many I could tell were giving “courtesy drops” (and I remember that term) but unfortunately there was a “catcher shortage” that night. I remember one person fell without a catcher and was really hurt; it was so sad to see that happen, The music kept right on playing, sad to say, as it blared away.
I’ve noticed that some people equate sound with spirituality; the more noise, the more spiritual the meeting.
The music is pumped up so loudly it will cause long term auditorial nerve damage; I’ve seen children in the crowds who were at times quite upset with the noise level, and rightly so.
Of course, to someone such as John, all of this must be tolerated, accepted, and indeed welcomed, because “Jesus is more real” than his wife. Hmm; if someone’s wife is not so real then maybe that’s why someone in the charimaniac club such as Richard Roberts can so easily dump his first wife…or Paula White her second husband for that matter.
As a general rule, you’ll find that the WOF business suit club promotes the great end time revival which is linked to – you guessed it – the great end time wealth transfer. We will have the great revival only after the great wealth transfer takes place; once the great wealth transfer takes place, then we can fund the gospel, the gospel will then get to the ends of the earth, hence the great revival will take place.
Also, the world will see how blessed we are and will be provoked to jealousy, as per Creflo Dollar, Copeland, etc.
I sat in many of those meetings bakc in the 90s; I have to go now; I’ll check back when I can; thanks so much for your blog; God bless you!
…and the key, before i go, to the great end time wealth transfer is — you guessed it — to have to be obedient and sow big – youve got to sow big to reap big, to get your share of the wealth transfer; that;s what the debt free army stuff was about when i went to those meetings as well. But Jesus said, “when I come back, will i find faith on the earth?”
Gotta go for now; keep fighting the good fight of faith; the real fight of faith; take heart, grace and peace be with you. Marantha, God bless you!
Hello Charismania!! YOU GO GIRL!! Love your blog!