THE PENTECOSTAL CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT:

whence is it?

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Up until now I have deliberately refrained from becoming entangled in an appraisal of the Pentecostal/Charismatic phenomenon. The reason has been twofold: on the one hand practical and on the other personal. As a movement it is impossibly diverse and multifarious, ranging from quiet error to rampant blasphemy and heresy. This makes it difficult to know which of its many tails to take hold of first. On a personal level, I have lost many friends to the movement, several becoming well-known leaders. One, a Swedish friend, was a room-mate at the Bible Institute where my wife and I were students. He has since his elevation to dizzy heights refused to acknowledge my emails. Another friend from the United States along with his wife became Bible teachers with the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship or ‘Toronto Blessing’. Seeing that we were once such good friends, this makes matters distressing.

Furthermore, I have seen local Churches decimated and broken up by this frightful and delusory mockery of the Christian faith. As I have continued to learn of folks whose lives have been totally messed-up by their involvement, I have now determined to speak out and hold my peace no longer. A husband and wife, friends of my wife Valerie, were deeply involved in the Charismatic world. The wife lost her mind completely and was placed in an institution by her husband from whence she eventually escaped and landed on our doorstep having travelled all the way from Germany without having paid a cent in fares. In another instance, a lovely young lady, gifted with a fine singing voice who attended the sister Bible institute in Germany to the one we went to just north of Paris, was caught up together with her husband in an extreme Pentecostal group. She became distressed enough to commit suicide. I hope she will find grace and mercy in the Saviour whom she once trusted for salvation. Listening to her beautiful singing recently on YouTube moved me sufficiently to make me yet more determined than ever, even for her sake, to expose this dangerous and fraudulent movement for what it is. I swing between deep sadness and quiet anger at this perversion of the precious Gospel of the Lord Jesus. These charlatans preach another Gospel born of another spirit than the Spirit of God (2 Corinthians 11:4; Galatians 1:5-8). They worship another ‘Jesus’, another Saviour not found in Scriptures who is unable to save them from slipping one day headlong into the bowels of hell from whence this awful deception came. No one will be more surprised than they.

“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22-23)

This movement is not just another branch of the Christian faith. It is certainly not in any sense Christian and should never been seen as such. I can only echo the famous words of G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) of Westminster Chapel, London, who would have been much saddened at what has happened to his broken Church today. He was very clear about the Pentecostal phenomenon, calling it “the last vomit of the Devil”. A sentiment I can share.

This subject is not one to be entered upon lightly as the implications are extremely serious. Either these manifestations originate with God or they come from somewhere else and there is only one other place that can be. How can we know? It is not difficult but very straightforward. The modern Charismatic movement blasphemously attributes the work of Satan to that of the Holy Spirit. The holy Word of God, the God-given, God-inspired Scriptures, these are our measuring rod and not the various extraordinary experiences to which these people lay claim as the work of the Holy Spirit. Are these things found anywhere in Scripture? No, they are not, none of these things. Then I am obliged by God’s own authority to throw them out. Nowhere in Scripture do I find ‘believers’ barking like dogs, clucking like chickens, rolling about all over the floor laughing like demented hyenas, hopping around like kangaroos with St. Vitus dance, overturning tables and chairs, a rowdy cacophony of frenzied voices. It would be a blasphemy against the Spirit of God to reckon such wild antics to His working. Nowhere do I read in Scripture anywhere of apostles and evangelists knocking people to the ground whilst all the time babbling gibberish. Don’t you see it yet? Such lunatic pandemonium cannot be thought of as biblical worship of our thrice-holy God. I reject such a suggestion utterly and completely.

Above all, to seek to approach or worship God in a manner other than that prescribed in Scripture and at the same time is inappropriate to His holy character and nature is to dishonour Him and treat Him with the utmost contempt. Much that is found in the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement today is deplorable in God’s sight and an affront to Him. We must heed the warning of God’s Word that “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

These groups are silently springing up everywhere almost overnight like highly coloured mushrooms on my back lawn: bright, gaudy, but poisonous and fatal if taken internally. This exponential spread should not deceive us into thinking that this is a work of God. Far from it. It is false fire, fake ‘tongues’, feigned ‘words of prophecy’, a forged revival engineered by those who would deceive us and are themselves deceived. Having refused the genuine and biblical Gospel for so long, having wasted the biblical heritage we inherited, let us not be surprised should God send a deception like this to blind men to the truth.

“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11)

As I survey the wider area where I now live, I have difficulty in answering the question as to where there is a local Church preaching and living by the Gospel of God’s Word. The days when one could find such a Church nearby are long since gone. Woke and wacky seems to be an apt description of many. Finding a Gospel Church is like looking for gold dust in the desert. In the place of thoroughgoing biblical preaching, congregations/audiences are fed a diet of entertainment. Godly hymns and psalms that have sustained the spiritual worship of God’s people for centuries have been replaced with repetitive melodies and inane doggerel. Even worse we may find ourselves facing a cheap imitation of godless, sensual, worldly pop concerts. We can add to this the banal babble of mind-deadening speech, some suggest is ‘speaking in tongues’. One observer has suggested that in recent times that which was once extremist among Pentecostals has now widely become mainstream. Many leaders make fraudulent promises of health and wealth, enriching themselves at the same time.

One once regular Pentecostal pastor known to me and living not far from here now claims to be able to cure cancers and raise the dead. Others have said they can bring to life again dead pets. This idiotic nonsense and sacrilegious deception is insulting and outrageous. A well-known Charismatic ‘apostle’ claimed to have brought an end to mad cow disease in Britain and Europe. It was naturally, a lie. I make no hesitation in calling these people what they are: swindlers, fraudsters, criminal deceivers. Inexplicably, people fall for this madness. Let us not mistake gullibility for faith.

The modern Pentecostal movement began at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, although it must be admitted they have had numerous precursors down through the centuries. For the most part Pentecostals initially remained within the confines of their own denomination. Until the early 1960s they were deemed a cult by most conservative and evangelical groups and generally held at arm’s length. Years ago, it was not unknown, and at least one case is known to me, where members of staff who had embraced the new Charismatic teaching and remained working in some evangelistic and missionary associations would be asked to leave. Tragically, this has changed.
Today the Charismatic poison has contaminated almost every denomination and is also strong within the Roman Catholic Church. This movement has perverted the authentic biblical Gospel to achieve its own ends and provided a breeding ground for false teachers and heretical beliefs. It is a deadly virus, a plague. Despite donning at times an appearance of biblical faith, it is not Christian but a counterfeit, becoming the most vigorous and aggressive imitation there is of Christianity. It is probably the most dangerous heresy and cult the genuine Church of Christ has ever faced. It cannot go unchallenged, but must be exposed for what it is. It only takes a little of the poison to spread its toxicity to the whole body.

I make no apology for saying that I have always throughout my Christian life taken what is generally known as a cessationist position with respect to ‘miraculous gifts’. What is that? For a classic definition I turn to Benjamin Warfield (1887-1921):

“These gifts…were part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church. Their function thus confined them to distinctively the Apostolic Church and they necessarily passed away with it.” Counterfeit Miracles

Arthur Pink brings Scripture into the argument.
“As there were offices extraordinary (apostles and prophets) at the beginning of our dispensation, so there were gifts extraordinary; and as successors were not appointed for the former, so a continuance was never intended for the latter. The gifts were dependent on the officers: see Acts 8:14-21; 10:44-46; 19:6; Romans 1:11; Galatians 3:5; 2 Timothy 1:6. We no longer have the apostles with us and therefore the supernatural gifts (the communication of which was an essential part of ‘the signs of an apostle.’ (2 Corinthians 12:12) are absent.” Studies in the Scriptures

Let me quote from two others:

Robert L. Dabney (1820-1898)
“After the early church had been established, the same necessity for supernatural signs now no longer existed, and God, Who is never wasteful in His expedients, withdrew them…Miracles, if they became ordinary, would cease to be miracles, and would be referred by men to customary law.” Discussions: Evangelical and Theological

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
“The charismata must therefore be considered in an economical sense. The Church is a large household with many wants; an institution to be made efficient by the means of many things. They are to the Church what light and fuel are to the household; not existing for themselves, but for the family, and are to be laid aside when the days are long and warm. This applies directly to the charismata, many of which, given to the apostolic Church, are not of service to the Church of the present day.” The Work of the Hoy Spirit

There are of course many more such quotations available to me.

The counterargument is that this position stifles or restricts the work of the Holy Spirit. This is nonsense as in fact quite the opposite is true for it removes the false and counterfeit from the picture and promotes and makes room for God Himself to work.

It would be an enormous task to take on every aspect of the movement. In any case, an able defence of the cessationist position has already been made by so many theologians and Bible teachers far more qualified to the task than I am. A list of those I have found most helpful is to be found in a bibliography below. For my own part, I shall concentrate in future articles for the time being on two aspects I have encountered recently in those who have left the movement but are still hindered in the faith by remnants.

These are:

The deeply controversial Shepherding movement begun by four well-known Charismatic leaders. Many of these false teachings have been emerging in Churches without the leaders realizing from where they have come.

Pentecostal deliverance ministries have at their heart the idea that punishment for sin, in particular transgressing the law, is carried out by evil spirits and passed on through generational lines causing spiritual and perhaps even physical affliction. Some falsely contend that Christian believers can be entered by demons ‘when their guard is down’.

Initial research has shown me that some of these ideas are in essence not only found in early Pentecostal false teachers such as William Branham (1909-65), but also New Age, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Theosophy, Christian Science, Swedenborgianism, New Thought metaphysics and many others. No doubt when I go further back, I will find it in Greek philosophy, Gnosticism and elsewhere. Some naturalist thinkers and authors at the turn of the 20th century thought, for example, that the aptitude for drunkenness, for criminality of various kinds could go back up to seven generations and was thus incurable. This kind of thinking also pervaded the Nazi policy on criminality in 1930/40s Germany.

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” (2 Peter 2:1-3)

These emissaries of Satan are holding our blessed Lord and Saviour up to ridicule and turning our faith into a laughing stock for the world. I find it grossly offensive.

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THE PENTECOSTAL CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT:

whence is it?

FURTHER READING

David W. Norris