By Robin Arnaud

Decades ago when bible-based churches and denominations first examined and weighed the teachings and impact of the Charismatic movement, they largely deemed it to be a benign and relatively harmless popular movement toward informal liturgy and enthusiasm, with a few peculiar practices such as speaking in tongues tied on. It has only rarely been examined by church courts in all the years since, but in the intervening years the Charismatic movement has morphed into a shrouded form of renegade gnosticism that threatens not only the doctrines of the faith once delivered, but the spiritual well being of the people and churches in which it has been given room to flourish. Much of today’s Charismaticism bears little resemblance to biblical Christianity beyond the nominal employment of “Christian” identity and the use of historically Christian terms and organization.

Those of us who have been plucked from the storm and newly planted on the firm foundation of God’s infallible Word share a deep burden for those still caught in the seduction and superstition of the movement. Just as we once longed to see our non-Charismatic friends and loved ones who we felt were “caught in cold, dead orthodoxy” become “liberated” into the “move of God in the gifts and fullness” of the Charismatic movement, we now long to see them return with us to the certainty and stability of the faith once delivered to the saints. Having been ourselves once seduced by the illusion of signs and wonders like those known to the first century Church, we understand all too well why those still lost in that world would wish to stay.

Millions today are fleeing from Pentecostalism’s disastrous, lingering effects. The majority of those who finally see the hollowness and deception of Pentecostalism leave the movement and remain unchurched for the remainder of their lives. But there are many who turn back to the Bible, back to the roots of their Christian heritage in search of purity, simplicity, and genuineness in their faith. Historically orthodox churches have not ministered effectively to these “refugees.” It is not for any lack of love for them, nor because ex-Charismatics have not sought help from orthodox churches. Rather it is in large part because most non-Charismatic churches simply do not understand what today’s Charismatic teachers are meting out in the name of Jesus, nor why so many find Pentecostalism so appealing.

“Non-liturgical” appeal won’t help

“Contemporary” church services and “relaxed” liturgies do not offer a viable alternative to the Charismatic experience. Upbeat music and casual dress are seen as cheap substitutes for the very real thrill of expectancy that is characteristic of Charismatic gatherings. Knowing that the Spirit has liberty to move in any way He wishes; expecting to witness a “manifestation of the Spirit” rather than following a pre-printed script or having an informal sing-along and sermon, Charismatics and Pentecostals truly anticipate a close encounter with God when they gather together. Their non-Pentecostal counterparts really ought to do the same. We are there to meet God; and He has promised to disclose Himself to those who love Him (John 14:21). He is genuinely present among even two or three who gather in His name (Matthew 18:20). Yet all too often we gather as if to pay homage to a distant God, with no real expectation that He’ll actually show up, let alone show up and do what He has promised in the above verses. That sense of expectation and openness to whatever God might do is part of the appeal of Pentecostalism. That is what they think they’d be giving up if they come out of Pentecostalism. We must demonstrate that their fear is not justified! But all too often our churches appear to demonstrate just the opposite.

Reason Won’t Help

Charismatics are taught that logic and reason are “man’s wisdom” and are not to be employed or trusted by people who walk “by the Spirit.” Just as the ancient Gnostics drew a sharp line of division between soul and body (all that is of the body was thought to be temporary and inconsequential while all that is of the soul was said to be eternal and good), so many in Pentecostalism and its offspring maintain a distinction between “soul” (temporal reason, logic) and “spirit” (eternal and that which transcends human comprehension). And just as the Gnostics disregarded the body to pursue their secret knowledge, so also the Charismatics abandon reason to “experience life in the spirit.” Charismatics can point to Scriptures like 1st Corinthians 2:9-16 and 2nd Corinthians 3:6 to justify this abandonment of reason and to distort the plain meaning of the Scriptures that command us to “study to show yourself approved (2nd Timothy 2:15)” and to stand fast and continue in sound doctrine (1st Timothy 4:6, 6:3, 20; 2nd Timothy 1:13 and 3:14-17; 4:3; Galatians 1:8-9 and many more). “The letter kills,” they warn, “but the Spirit gives life!” The entire original context of that saying (2nd Corinthians 3:6) has nothing whatever to do with reason-versus-revelation, but rather lawkeeping-versus-faith! Faith is not an alternative to reason, as they would have us believe. Rather, faith is supposed to result from Spirit led reasoning from the Scriptures (Isaiah 1:18, Acts 17:2, 18:4), for “the law is our tutor to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24).” Yet Charismatics have been taught to dismiss reason as “a hindrance to the spirit.”

Religious Addiction

What we are really dealing with in our Charismatic friends is religious addiction. It is every bit as real and as damaging as any other addiction. And like most addicts, only those who are brought low enough to see the truth finally seek help, or give up hope. It is only when the drink or the drug or the pleasure fails to deliver as promised — over and over again — that the addict is finally prepared to listen to reason. When a soul is seduced by the empty promises of Charismaticism and reason is dismissed as a hindrance, the grip of this heresy tightens incredibly. One trapped in its hold seldom is prepared to reemploy long-abandoned reason until real drought and famine have set in. A Charismatic has to want help before he or she can accept it. As long as they remain content in Pentecostal delusion and satisfied with the ear-tickling, soul-thrilling “high” it conveys, they will not hear our pleas to return to what they consider to be the bondage of “cold, dead orthodoxy.”

How can we help them?

Prayer is the most effective help we as Christians can offer to anyone — saved or lost, bound or free, sick or well, aware of the danger or seduced by its allure. At some point or another, the false teachings they cling to will fail them. Pentecostalism hedges its bets by blaming the victim; sometimes for “lack of faith,” sometimes for “hiding unconfessed sin,” and sometimes due to demonic oppression. Their prescriptions for these maladies always involve some equivalent of hypnosis, further feeding on subjective emotion and deepening the grip of cultish soul addiction. By keeping their captives seeking after that which they already have in Christ, these wolves attack the heart of the gospel; the fullness of Christ, and the sufficiency of His finished work. They claim that believers don’t “experience” what Christ has won for them because of some failure on their part — never on the failure of their own teachings! But at some point, often a point of utter despair, a broken Charismatic may actually be willing to question the doctrines of their teachers. It is at that point that they may be willing to reason from the Scriptures.

The Truth is Unchanging

The Bible never changes and is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. That simple fact becomes an anchor for the despairing Charismatic, who by now may be questioning everything they’ve ever been taught. The Bible is a bridge back, a reminder that though winds of doctrine change constantly, the plain teachings of God’s word have never changed. The simple disciplines of Bible study and catechism that so many of us take for granted are either completely foreign to Charismatics or were dismissed long before as unnecessary relics of “dead orthodoxy.” But having tried all the Charismatic remedies without success, even the most despairing ex-Charismatic who doesn’t abandon the faith altogether may be willing to revisit the old tried-and-true tools that have sustained the Church throughout the centuries. Their search for purity, simplicity, and rest may finally drive them back to the unchanging word of God as it is revealed in the Bible.

The Reformation Revisited

At a time centuries ago when the Bible was not available to most people, the gospel was buried in Roman Catholic malpractice, superstition, and corruption. So it is today in the Charismatic movement. The Bible is pushed aside except as a prop for “proof texting” popular teachings and for lending credibility to some “prophetic word.” The truth is obscured for the sake of keeping the sheep in bondage to the influence of corrupt wolves and hirelings who care not for the sheep, but for themselves (Ezekiel 34, Jeremiah 23). Modern Charismaticism is exactly like Roman Catholicism was in the Middle Ages; steeped in unbiblical superstitions, false doctrines, and control over the flock.

The solution today is exactly the same as it was back then — a return to the Scriptures; a new reformation that absolutely insists upon the supremacy of the Scriptures in determining what is so and what is not. But now even as in those days, it is not to be a “just me and my Bible” approach! The Bible is to be interpreted according to “the analogy of faith” as the early fathers called it — the foundations laid by Christ and the Apostles. As inspired interpreters of the Old Testament, it is their interpretations of the Old Testament and their sayings and writings in the New Testament that formed the basis for all generations to follow. The Church is called “the pillar and ground of the truth” in 1st Timothy 3:15, and its “common confession” (verse 16) of the Christian faith appears over and over again in the “faithful sayings, worthy of acceptation (1st Timothy 1:15, 3:1, 4:9, 2nd Timothy 2:11, Titus 3:8, Revelation 22:6)” and elucidated in the ancient creeds of the Christian faith. Those “faithful sayings” that Paul and John refer to are the most ancient creeds! They were the “rule of faith,” the basis for all interpretation of Scripture. It is this rule of faith and the Scriptures alone that the Reformation restored to the Church. And it is exactly the same that must be restored to those emerging from modern-day Babylon.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=HobzJEJJ03w

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Anyway, although I am in full agreement that my post was taken off the site, I am no less of a mind that this mans explanation of the Gospel message is simply not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins and risen again.

Fortunately after my shift today, I’ve come in only to find Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio, has devoted a whole radio show to critiquing Bell’s message. I don’t think I need say anymore really, I will leave the full mp3 of the radio show below, which you can play either on this page, or click to play it in a pop up if you wish to carry on browsing.

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Carter Conlon form Times Square Church, New York, is pleading passionately, calling you to RUN! Run from the false gospels that are so candy-coated and sly and gilt-edged and flesh-pleasing.

This video will surely touch you in some way. Perhaps to move you away from what you are following, or perhaps to your knees in thanksgiving and adoration that He has moved you out and away already, or still on your knees,  that that you have never gone the way of the other gospels.
Bless you

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…others were tortured…others experienced mocking and scourging…chains and imprisonment. They were stoned…sawn in two…tempted…put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goat skins being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated…of whom the world was not worthy…. Hebrews 11:35-38

Beware of any gospel that characterizes the grace of God exclusively in terms of worldly gain in the form of finery, ease, health, and/or wealth, for it is a different gospel from that delivered by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, it is a false gospel, and as such it has no power to save.

Scripture records and Church history testifies that the life of the pilgrim may be, and often is, met with severe and protracted difficulty. Watch out, therefore, for men who would lead you astray by bringing to you strange teachings that dilute, distort or otherwise diminish the Person of Jesus Christ to serve their own covetous ends.

Guard against a gospel that promises much and requires little. Watch out for any who diminish God’s glory by making Him out to be your bell-hop who responds eagerly to your every fleshly whim, for such a depiction of I AM is a repugnant sham and those who propagate it will be judged accordingly on that Day; the God of Israel is the Supreme Sovereign and He does not bow to the misguided beckon calls of men; He is Lord of all things seen and unseen, sharing His glory with no man.

In the present day there are men teaching strange doctrines not in accordance with the truth of Scripture, men of depraved minds who for sordid gain deceive and shipwreck the faith of the weak. Depictions of the Lord by these men appeal to the base desires of men—making them popular, yet they are delusional misrepresentations of the Lord of Hosts; they are idols constructed in the recesses of depraved minds. These teachers of false doctrine will suffer the consequence of their error and those who naively follow them will suffer harm spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

All that the Lord does in and through the lives of His saints is for His glory and their good. At times His purposes are best met through the deliverance of His people and at other times by allowing them to suffer. Pilgrims who are suffering are advised to inquire of the Lord to discern if perhaps they are experiencing the loving chastening of the Father, and if sin is revealed then confession and repentance will restore their relationship with Christ. Yet men who attribute all suffering as a result of sin are liars and false teachers, the glory of God is smeared by their misrepresentations of His character, and in His time they will receive the full recompense for their folly at His hands, for “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

As the writer clearly demonstrates the saints of God often do not have a comfortable life on earth, many suffer at the hands of wicked men, others some suffer sickness and death, poverty, and loneliness as a result of abandonment by family and friends due to their confession of Jesus Christ. Many endure a lack food, clothing, shelter, while multitudes are abandoned by non-believing family members, numerous are shunned by co-workers and passed over for promotions, fired, and for many employment opportunities are withheld. In the words of the Apostle many are regarded as the scum of the earth and most of their existence on earth is one of pain and suffering. For some this is God’s design, not to punish due to sin, but to sanctify and exalt them through faith in the Him who calls.

Providence assures pilgrims seasons of comfort and suffering. Accepting suffering in faith develops endurance, making sweet the promise, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
(Reproduced with permission)

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