One often hears the term ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’, particularly from the mouths of those within the Charismatic movement. Many non-Charismatics and Charismatics alike who persistently question various doctrines and practices considered by the Charismatic movement to be of God, are quite often confronted with the warning to take heed lest they be in danger of committing the unpardonable sin.

Is the Charismatic movement right in sounding such a warning? Are those who adhere to it’s teachings, and those who don’t, equally in danger of one day committing the unforgivable sin simply because they have some questions and concerns regarding the teachings and practices of the Charismatic movement and merely seek to follow biblical procedure and test them in light of Holy Scripture? Or is the use of the term ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ being wholly misused, and even abused, in Charismatic assemblies today in order to shut the mouths of genuine inquirers?

This booklet presents a biblical examination of the term ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’, and compares its use today with what the Lord Jesus Christ meant when He warned of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It then shifts the spotlight onto the Charismatic movement itself: its claims of healings, miracles, prophecies and other signs, and most importantly its gospel, and poses the question, ‘Is the Charismatic movement of God?’

We begin our study with a look at the words of Jesus Christ pertaining to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

"Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come" (Matt. 12:31,32).

The principal requirement, if we are to arrive at a proper and biblically accurate conclusion as to what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is, is to conduct a proper and contextual study of the relevant scriptures. Not a study exclusive to the above two verses only, but also of those which immediately precede them and those which follow. We turn our attention then to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 12, wherein is found the passage containing the words of Jesus Christ which have to do with the unpardonable sin.

In our opening verse we read of a man possessed of a demon who had been struck dumb and blind by the invader, brought to the Lord Jesus Who, with a word, cast out the demon, at which time the man, previously unable to speak or see, immediately regained both the ability to speak and the sense of sight. A true miracle had occurred at the hands of Jesus Christ through the power of Almighty God (see Jn.14:10).

Upon seeing this mighty and clearly undeniable work of God, the people stood amazed and exclaimed, ‘Is not this the Son of David?’ This was not so much a question as it was a statement. The Jews were in effect saying, ‘This must be the Messiah’ (cf. Jn 7:31). The common people were well acquainted with the prophecy in Isaiah 35:5: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped."

This key verse in our study shows the Pharisees’ indignant response to the people who had made such a comment in v.23 and who stood in awe at what they had just seen, which at once reveals what the hearts of the Pharisees were full of. The Pharisees were jealous of Jesus. They envied and even hated Him, and would do or say anything to discredit Him in the eyes of the people (cf. Matt. 27:18). The Pharisees could not deny what had happened, for all the people had seen it with their own eyes. So in a determined effort to discredit the Lord in the eyes of the people, they shifted their attention to the source or origin of Christ’s power so as to cast doubt in the minds of the people as to who this man, Jesus, was. Their allegation was that Jesus Christ did not in fact cast out demons by the power of God but that He, being in collusion with Beelzebub (Satan), had commanded the demon to leave by Satan’s power. The word Beelzebub is derived from ba’al zebul, which means ‘lord of the dwelling’ in which evil spirits dwell. Others believe it to mean ‘god of filth’ or ‘god of dung’. In the corresponding scripture from Mark 3:22, the scribes were united in the Pharisees’ condemnation of the Lord and pronounced, "He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth He out devils", insinuating that Jesus had an agreement or compact with Beelzebub and, far from being a benefactor, was a dangerous malefactor who sought to deceive the people.

Can you see what they were in effect saying? Neither the Pharisees in Matthew 12, or the Scribes in Mark 3, were denying that a demon had been cast out, or that Jesus had been responsible for its expulsion. They could not deny what had occurred, for everyone around them had seen the deed for themselves and the evidence that some great work had taken place was irrefutable. The Scribes’ and Pharisees’ outrageous claim, their last desperate attempt to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people, was that Jesus did it by Satan’s power and not by the power of God. What the people had seen, according to the Pharisees, was a flagrant display of satanic power and not the Holy power of God. The Pharisees were accusing Jesus Christ of endeavouring to mislead the people by making Himself out to be the Son of God, whilst all the while deceiving them by employing satanic power and claiming it was through the power of God that He cast out demons.

In response to the Pharisees’ blasphemous, unwarranted, unfounded and utterly absurd claim, the Lord Jesus Christ responds by explaining that a kingdom, a city, or even a house (family), would not and could not properly stand if it were divided against itself. "Jesus replied to their claim by saying, in essence, ‘If I’m casting out Satan by using Satan’s power, what do you think Satan is doing to himself?’ Obviously the Devil would be destroying his own kingdom, which would make no sense at all. The Pharisees had such hatred for Christ that their logic was twisted. Instead of being rational, they were being ridiculous."

In this verse, Jesus proceeds to calmly and logically state that if Satan truly cast out his own demons then he would be opposed to himself, his own work. The Lord Jesus then asked how Satan’s kingdom could possibly continue to stand if there was such a conflict of interest within it. Of course, the Pharisees had no answer to this. Those mentioned later in the passage who asked Jesus, "...Master, we would see a sign from thee" (Matt. 12:38), were in all likelihood not the same group of Pharisees who had earlier made the blasphemous accusation that Christ worked by Satan’s power, but a different set "...who would not content themselves with the signs He gave, unless He would give them such further proof as they should demand." One minute the Pharisees were claiming that Jesus is casting out demons by the power of Satan and the next other Pharisees were referring to Him as ‘Master’ (instructor, teacher) and with feigned respect, asking Him to perform for them a sign. But why ask for a sign when they had time after time all witnessed Him perform countless miracles?

In this scripture the Lord Jesus pursues His line of reasoning and asks them, if it was by Beelzebub that He cast out demons, then by whose power were the Jews casting them out? "There were those among the Jews who, by invocation of the name of the Most High God, or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did sometimes cast out devils. Josephus speaks of some in his time that did it (‘The Works of Josephus’ 8.2.5), we read of Jewish exorcists (Acts 19:13), and of some that in Christ’s name cast out devils, though they did not follow Jesus and His apostles (Mk. 9:38). These the Pharisees condemned not, but imputed what they did to the Spirit of God. It was therefore merely from spite and envy to Christ, that they would own that others cast out devils by the Spirit of God, but suggest that He did it by compact with Beelzebub. The judgements of envy are made not by reason, but prejudice."

Here the Lord Jesus continues His response to the Pharisees’ slanderous allegation by saying that if He indeed was casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the fulfilment of the Scriptures had occurred in their midst. The Kingdom of God had come upon them and He was indeed Who He said He was: the Son of God! "His exorcizing activity, while resembling that of others, is unique. In Him—and Him alone—God acts to establish His final rule which entails crushing Satan’s empire. Far from operating in Satan’s power, Jesus assaults Satan (not just his underlings, as did other exorcists), binds him and frees his victims."

In verses 28 & 29 of Matthew 12, the kingdom of Satan is clearly shown to be vulnerable, for we see his angels being driven out of the hearts of men. The Kingdom of God is seen here, not only as something future, but also as a very present reality (cf. Matt. 7:13,14; 11:28-30; 23:37; Jn. 7:39). Jesus explains that to advance the Kingdom of God on earth, He was to deal with the strong man, the captor, Satan. Satan had long held people captive in his kingdom of darkness, which involved, in part, the possession of humans by demons. In order for these captives to be set free, the captor himself had to be taken captive, or bound. The outward demonstration that Jesus Christ had overcome the strong man, Satan, was in the casting out of demons thus setting the captives free. Christ’s work upon the cross being the supreme work of destruction upon the one who had the power of death, that is the Devil (Heb. 2:14).

Jesus was here saying that He, being infinitely more powerful than Satan, had come to bind the strong man, and to point out the need for the strong man to be bound (immobilized) in order that his goods could be spoiled. "Jesus is doing all this because by means of His incarnation, His victory over the Devil in the desert of temptation, His words of authority addressed to the demons, His entire activity, He has begun to bind Beelzebul, a process of binding or curtailment of power that was going to be further strengthened by means of His victory over Satan on the cross (Col. 2:15) and in the Resurrection, Ascension and Coronation (Rev. 12:5, 9-12). He has done, is doing, and will do this through the power, not of Beelzebub himself surely, but of the Holy Spirit, as He has just said."

The passage indicates Christ’s personal power over Satan. Jesus is speaking in this verse in a language which was recognizable to the Jews. In effect, He was saying that He would ‘lead captivity captive.’ This was an Old Testament phrase signifying a conquest over one’s enemies (cf. 1Sam. 30:26), and in particular, those who had formerly led others captive (Isa. 49:24,25; cf. Eph. 4:8; Col. 2:15). Isaiah 49:24,25 is also a most interesting and helpful passage, for therein lies the key to understanding exactly what it is that Jesus is describing in Matthew 12:29. Here in Isaiah we see the nation of Israel as captives, lawful captives. They had offended God and were rightly delivered into captivity. This is also what happened to man at the Fall. Man had sinned and, consequently, God delivered him into the captor’s (Satan’s) hands. Man could not free himself from the bondage he was now in (cf.v.24) and needed a Savior, a Deliverer, to set him free.

In all probability, it was the enemies of Israel whose words we see in Isaiah 49:24- "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?" They were asking in effect, ‘Who could possibly take the prey from the mighty?’ (the captives from the captors?). Who would have ever thought that Israel could have been taken from their mighty captors? But they were! In verse 25 we see God saying, "...Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered..." because it was God Himself, the Almighty One, who would contend with Israel’s foes. This, in fact, was what Jesus was doing in Matthew 12. The strong man, Satan, the mighty one who had held the prey captive, had himself been taken captive. Jesus the Lord, the Almighty One, in due time, came to bind (i.e., to deprive of liberty), the strong man and spoil his house, i.e., set the captives free (Col. 2:15; Eph. 4:8). The captor, Satan, has now become the captive and has been stripped of his armour (Lk. 11:22). The captives in both passages were delivered by God’s leading captivity captive (Psa. 68:18; Eph. 4:8; cf. Num. 23:8; Zech. 9:11; Rom. 8:31; 1 Jn. 3:8).

"He that is not hearty for Christ, will be reckoned with as really against Him: he that is cold in the cause, is looked upon as an enemy. We must be entirely, faithfully and immovably on Christ’s side: it is the right side, and will at last be the rising side. The latter clause is to the same purport. Christ’s errand into the world was to gather in His harvest, to gather in those whom the Father had given Him (Jn. 11:52). Christ expects and requires from those who are with Him, that they gather with Him; gather others to Him. If we gather not with Christ, we scatter; it is not enough not to do hurt, but we must do good." Christ expects His people to preach His Gospel and to promote it as the only way God saves. Any who go against this biblical command, any who tolerate other gospels and claim that people are just as saved, that they are just as much of Christ as those who believe only in His Gospel as God’s power unto salvation, do not gather with the Lord but scatter, for they are His enemies.

WHAT IS THE
BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT?

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit must, in accordance with the context of our passage, have been committed, or at the very least been on the verge of being committed, in the verses we have just looked at. The context demands it! No other conclusion can be reached but that of the Pharisees being the guilty party.

In vv. 31 & 32 the Lord Jesus Christ warns the people, and in particular the Pharisees, of just what they were in danger of doing. He told them the very truth. In one of the two principle verses of our study, the Lord Jesus here states in verse 31 that all sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, even blasphemies directed toward the Son of man (see v. 32), but that there is one, and ONLY one, sin that will never, and can never, be forgiven, not in time or eternity, and that is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. "One might speak against Jesus’ humanness—the way He looked, spoke or acted—but if one claimed that His miraculous works, done by the Holy Spirit to prove Christ’s Deity, were actually done by Satan, that person was in a hopeless state of rejection. He or she could not be saved. That is what Jesus was saying. If those Pharisees had seen and heard all that Jesus had said and done, yet still were convinced it was satanic, they were hopeless. They had concluded the opposite of what was clearly true, and had done so with full revelation."

Let us look again at what the Pharisees were alleging in Matthew 12:24: "...this fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." It is vital, in order to attain a proper understanding of what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit actually is, to realise that this statement was not made in ignorance of who Jesus claimed to be or of the fact that He was casting out demons.

The evil Pharisees consciously and purposely disputed the indisputable. The Pharisees were belligerently persistent in their denial that Jesus was the Christ. They had heard His teachings and had seen His miracles which, as was the case with the apostles’ miracles in Acts 4:16, they could not and did not inwardly, nor amongst themselves, deny were in fact being performed through the power of God. One Pharisee, Nicodemus, told the Lord "...we know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with Him" (Jn. 3:2 cf. Jn 11:47). But outwardly, motivated by jealously and hatred towards Christ Jesus, they did most vehemently cast aspersions upon their origin, insisting that Jesus’ power was Satan’s power. "Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (i.e. against the manifest activity of God, as seen in verse 28) is more serious than other forms of slander and abuse. It indicates a deliberate refusal to acknowledge God’s power, a totally perverted orientation, like that of Isaiah 5:20 (‘those who call evil good and good evil’). This was what the Pharisees were doing in attributing Jesus’ healings to satanic power....the incognito character of Jesus’ ministry means that failure to recognize Him for what He was might be excusable (cf. Acts 3:17); even Peter ‘spoke against’ Him (Matt. 26:69-75) and was forgiven. The difference is then between failure to recognize the light and deliberate rejection of it once recognized; compare Numbers 15:30,31 for unforgivable blasphemy in contrast with unwitting sin in vv.27-29 of the same chapter...the punishment for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not only on earth, but extends to the age to come; it indicates a hardening against God which is deliberate and irreversible."

Here we have it in a nutshell. The clear and unmistakable definition of what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit really is. It is the ‘deliberate rejection once recognized’ of the power of God, or the activity of God if you will. It is an act of rejection which is performed willingly and without ignorance of what one is actually doing. The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is something which could not, therefore, ever be committed by a Gospel-believing, Holy Spirit-filled, born-again believer, for how could a born again child of God, after having recognized a work as that done by the hand of God, or the only Gospel of God, ever reject it and pronounce it a thing of the Devil? The Charismatic movement, as we shall come to see in greater detail, claims that its works and wonders are a demonstration of God’s power, but its false gospel and the endless array of failed healings and false prophecies left in its wake evidence anything but the power of God at work. The Charismatic movement has yet to prove that its works are of God, and so they cannot be recognized as the works of God. How then can one be guilty of rejecting something as being from God which has not the hallmarks of a work of God? When all the evidence points to a work or sign as being a counterfeit, one is well within one’s rights, and is commanded by Scripture, to reject it. But it is not a work of God that is being rejected, hence it is no blasphemy of His Spirit that is being committed. The whole basis for the rejection lies not in the fact that one is deliberately rejecting what one has recognised as the power of God at work, but that the sign or wonder has been rightly recognised as not being a work of God at all. Therefore how can one be committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when, in rejecting a work of the Charismatic movement, all one is doing is rejecting a counterfeit?

According to the leaders of the Charismatic movement, who have an erroneous understanding of what the blasphemy is and have passed on their perverted interpretation to their people, the blasphemy is being committed when one (rightly, biblically and sincerely) raises questions and seeks to test the biblical validity and veracity of the gospel of the Charismatic movement, or what is manifesting and presenting itself through the Charismatic movement as a work of God, and those who are performing the ‘signs’. The Pharisees were not guilty of this. They did not test what Christ had done, or His teachings, to see if He was truly of God, they were not genuine seekers of the truth, but flat out denied His claims and works out of envy and prejudice. No honest and sincere person is doing this when judging the alleged miracles of the Charismatic movement, but is rightly and properly seeking to examine, question and test its claims, wonders and signs to see if it is the power of God involved. Nowhere in the Scriptures are any condemned for employing this biblical directive.

"Throughout the ages...false teaching has thrived on incorrect versions, and often people have become mentally ill, fearing they have committed the unpardonable sin. It must be stressed that the Bible teaches only ONE unforgivable sin and that is the rejection of Christ. Any message which does not exalt Christ is uninspired. The work of the Holy Spirit is to exalt Christ; when a person rejects that message, there is no forgiveness, either in this world or the next." Any gospel that does not rightly exalt Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior of HIS people elected by God before the foundation of the world, which is at odds with God’s testimony of Who His Son is and what His Son has done and for whom He has done it, is therefore uninspired. It is a false gospel and no one who believes it is saved. Christ is revealed exclusively in and through the Gospel and any spirit promoting any other gospel is not the Spirit of God. There is no forgiveness for anyone who rejects the Gospel, for Christ says in a clear and unmistakable manner that he who does not believe it shall be damned! (Mk. 16:16).

Importantly, and perhaps surprisingly, we are not warranted to believe that the Pharisees had in fact committed the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, for Jesus’ words to them were in the form of a warning and not a sentence. "...we are not true to the context, when we say that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is that of attributing to the Son of man complicity with Satan. That is blasphemy against the Son of man, and He distinctly said that such may be forgiven (see v. 32). What, then, is the nature of the warning? The Lord had said, ‘If by the Spirit I cast out demons, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you;’ and in those words He evidently intended to teach that there are only these alternatives; exorcism of demons is either by Satan or by the Spirit of God. They said that He had wrought by Satan. In so doing they had denied that he wrought by the Spirit, which according to His interpretation meant that they were refusing the Kingdom of God. In the presence of the claims of that Kingdom, in the presence of the demonstration of the power of that Kingdom, they were refusing it. THAT, if it be ultimately and finally persisted in, is the sin against the Holy Ghost which has no forgiveness. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the ultimate refusal to believe on the testimony of the Spirit concerning Jesus Christ. The sin against the Holy Ghost is persistent, determined, and final rejection of the Spirit’s demonstration of the meaning of the Kingdom, and of the power of the King."

We see then from our study how far removed the true ingredients which go to make up the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit are from that which many are falsely accused of in these last days. The leaders who promote a perverted idea of what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is and who use this biblical term in order to fill their bridled followers with fear, who in turn, with equal zeal, espouse the same perversion of what Scripture teaches, have no idea what they are saying. They are in serious breach of the proper teaching of God’s Word.

One man says of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit: "It denotes the conscious and wicked rejection of the saving power and grace of God toward man." There are others who are of the persuasion that "...the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was a dispensational sin committable only during the ministry of Jesus Christ whilst here in human form, and is therefore a sin which cannot be carried out today and, in a primary sense, they are correct." But the Scriptures themselves point out that, by its very nature, this sin can still be committed as the Holy Spirit may still be resisted and rejected by the non-elect. "...anyone, with evidence of the Lord’s power before his eyes, who should declare it to be satanic, exhibits a condition of heart beyond divine illumination and therefore hopeless." "...they sin against the Holy Spirit who, with evil intention, resist God’s truth, although by its brightness they are so touched that they cannot claim ignorance."

As there is only one Way to the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Gospel, so too, there is at the last only one way to stay out of heaven and that is by a persistent, stubborn and evil rejection of the true Jesus of the true Gospel. It is important to be clear on this point, that there is only one unpardonable sin and not several. Murderers may be forgiven their sin, adulterers may be forgiven their sin, homosexuality, lying, stealing and coveting are all sins which may be forgiven. But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is that unique sin for which there is no forgiveness. "There remains nothing for him who doth despite to the Spirit of Grace but a ‘certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries,’ (Heb. 10:27,29). This is that ‘sin unto death’ whose remission is not to be prayed for, 1 John 5:16: for He having taken upon Him to make effectual unto us the great remedy provided in the blood of Christ for the pardon of our sins, if He in the prosecution of that work be despised, blasphemed, despitefully used, there neither is relief nor can there be pardon for that sin." Of course no elect child of God can ever commit this blasphemy. Only those who at the end are proven to be reprobate are the ones who can and do commit this unforgivable sin.

I cannot emphasize the following point enough to every believer, that the Bible encourages us to test everything and to hold fast only that which is good: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5:21. cf. Prov. 14:15; 1Jn. 4:1). We are to reject all that is not of God and to accept and embrace all that is of God. The Christian abides in the doctrine of Christ and no other. Any abidance in false gospels is a denial of the true as the one and unique Gospel that testifies to the true God and the only way He saves. Belief in any false gospel reveals the believer of such a gospel to be no Christian at all. We are to make absolutely certain we are fully aware and biblically—as distinct from experientially—certain of what we are embracing. The Christian, and all who aspire to be Christians, is to judge ALL things by the standard of the written Word of God, for this is his authority, and is not to be overwhelmed by experience perceived to be of God. 1 Corinthians 2:15 plainly states: "...he that is spiritual judgeth all things..." meaning "...he who is sanctified is capable of judging about matters of human wisdom, and has also a relish and savour of divine truths."

We implore the charismatic person to not be found trusting in their own judgement that which is of God and that which is not but to do it objectively in light of Holy Scripture. Read what the Scriptures have to say and do not read into the Scriptures what you would like them to be saying. Do not give place to naivety and ignorance in your lives. Do not give place in your lives to untested doctrines of false gospels, which cannot save. Test and examine the gospel you have been taught and look at the Gospel which the Holy Scriptures attest to. Become aware and learned and knowledgeable of the subtleties of false gospels and false ministers. Be willing to know the truth as God has written It and be fully abandoned to it regardless of the earthly consequences. In commenting on 1 Thessalonians 5:21, one man encourages those who claim to have a desire to become Christians to, "Subject everything submitted to you to be believed to the proper test...." He adds that one must "...carefully examine everything proposed for their belief. They are not to receive it on trust; to take it on assertion; to believe it because it was urged with vehemence, zeal, or plausibility. In the various opinions and doctrines which are submitted to them for adoption, they are to apply the appropriate tests from reason and the Word of God; and what they find to be true they are to embrace; what is false they are to reject. Christianity does not require men to disregard their reason, or to be credulous. It does not expect them to believe anything because others say it is so. It does not make it a duty to receive as undoubted truth all that synods and councils have decreed; or all that is advanced by ministers of religion. It is, more than any other form of religion, the friend of free inquiry, and would lead men everywhere to understand the reason of the opinions which they entertain." True Christianity does not use fear or intimidation to ensure that its teachings be adopted and upheld. Christians are not in bondage, but have been made free by the truth they believe. Truth has nothing to do with fear and intimidation. Truth has to do with freedom from these things and the Lord Jesus has made it clear that "...the truth shall make you free" (Jn. 8:32).

The final scripture in our text is a reiteration of the Lord’s warning made in the previous verse, with one inclusion, ‘...whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him...’ There are several instances in the Bible where we find men who blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ and yet later received mercy, repented and were forgiven. The apostle Paul, in 1Timothy 1:13, admitted that prior to his conversion he was "...a blasphemer and a persecutor..." This, however, was done in ignorance of the truth. Jesus prayed for those who ignorantly reviled Him at the cross, asking the Father to "...forgive them for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34). Many who reviled Him were forgiven, including one who was crucified with Him.

Thus ends our study of what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is. Clearly, there has been a great deal of confusion and mystery over what the blasphemy is and whether one has committed it or not. Hopefully, this section of the booklet has cleared up much of that confusion so prevalent in the minds of many sincere Charismatics, and of those who are so often falsely accused of this sin by charismatic people and leaders alike.

Charismatics need to be extremely careful before they take it upon themselves to accuse anyone of committing the unpardonable sin. It is not a term that should be bandied about for it is no light thing to accuse someone of this sin. Today, the term ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ is all too frequently used in ignorance of its true, biblical definition, and, as we may conclude from our study, in a careless, wrongful and unjustified manner. To those leaders who employ this term as a way of silencing the ‘trouble makers’ in their assemblies who are merely following a biblical directive—to test everything and hold fast to that which is good—we say ‘be aware of what you are doing and repent of it and believe the true Gospel, lest God Himself take vengeance upon you!’

"You’d better watch out you don’t commit the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit." This warning is one that is often heard from leaders of Charismatic churches and from the lips of Charismatics, in response to those who are genuinely and rightly questioning and examining whether the doctrines and fruits of the Charismatic movement are of God. Sadly, so many have ceased a proper and biblical study of the movement and its claims for fear of committing this sin. They have allowed themselves to be intimidated and threatened to the point of putting their doubts aside and remaining in two minds concerning the movement. They, like people of the past, have acquiesced to the claim that the leaders are those who know and the common folk should but listen and believe, failing to remember that the Lord Jesus spoke of blind leaders who would lead the blind. At the best of times it is foolish and irresponsible to entrust one’s children to a perfect stranger, how much more perilous an act is it to entrust one’s eternal future to what a man says and not question and examine his words in light of the Holy Scriptures. So many today have unwittingly fallen into the trap of believing what a man says God’s word is saying, rather than hearing and believing what God’s word is really saying. What God has actually said and what many say He has said are often two vastly different propositions.

Anyone who comes along, even Charismatics themselves who are beginning to have doubts as to whether what they have experienced and are involved in is from God, is warned not to question past a certain point but just believe lest they stumble into committing the unpardonable sin. Imagine someone telling you to believe something and then censoring you from a biblical investigation with the threat that is tantamount to having one’s name blotted out of the Lamb’s Book of Life! Our suspicions must be raised when encountering such people or ‘churches’ who discourage questions, or certain types of questions, and the use of the mind which God gave us. The Charismatic catch phrase let go and let God, and the edict to leave one’s mind at the door are among the most dangerous things anyone could ever do and are totally without biblical support. Abandonment of the mind and one’s reasoning is an integral part of Occultism and has nothing whatsoever to do with being a Christian. Christianity is not, nor ever has been, made up of people who blindly and mindlessly accept what they are told or see. The Bible encourages, rather than opposes, the scrutiny of itself by those against it, for the truth has nothing to hide. It is the suppression of inquiry that is the key ingredient of any oppressive and potentially totalitarian organization.

Whenever you encounter any religious group telling you to accept and believe something they are teaching or that is occurring in their meetings which they claim is of God, INDEPENDENTLY OF YOUR MINDS, take it as a clear warning from God to flee that group and never have anything more to do with it. God gave us our minds, and He expects us to use our minds before we accept anything being presented to us as truth. If our minds are not active we are in danger of becoming mere instruments, puppets if you will, of those whose minds are active.

Within Charismatic circles, the genuine truth-seeker and his persistent inquiries are often met, not with a calm and orderly exposition of Scripture, but with a brisk warning that he not dare to question what everyone else is comfortable in believing is of God. Often the enquirer is made to feel the odd one out, and that something is wrong with them rather than the teaching or practice in question if they are not as quick as others to accept what has been offered them. This is nothing less than one of the many cheap tactics used by cults the world over. The underlying theme to so many people’s involvement with any organization is the natural desire to belong. Cults know this human trait very well and they have a lot of experience with people who at first questioned, but upon fear of excommunication etc., have virtually turned their backs on what they know to be legitimate concerns in order that they might belong. And oh how these people, in turn, attack those who raise the same concerns in private conversations or in publications such as this. Conveniently for those leaders who have no answer for, but only a fear of, certain questions from their followers, it is strongly recommended that enquirers cease to ask dangerous and ‘boat-rocking’ questions lest they be guilty of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. No one wants to offend God, so the questions are forgotten and blind belief put in their place. Many ‘pastors’ have been professionally trained to give pat answers to questions of doubt. They resort to pastor speak and often leave their hearers wondering what on earth they meant by what they have said. No true Christian minister will ever leave his listeners in any doubt as to what the Gospel is, of Who God is or of how God saves.

Does all this sound familiar to you? It certainly does to this author. You see, dear reader, if there is one thing that cults of every description do, from the Roman Catholic Church down to the smallest suburban cult, it is to discourage a persistent questioning of their teachings and practices. It is not expedient for any of these groups to have people among their ranks who, rather than tow the line (and lengthen it), want to examine it and see what makes it tick. What these groups want is believers, not questioners. Much like the hypnotist who searches for the right subject because he can do nothing with the non-suggestive person, cults of every description are happiest with those people who readily accept what they are taught and experience as being unquestionably from God. It is preferred that the cult member not be too inquisitive, not one who questions incessantly but rather one who is credulous and instantly accepts everything he hears. And, if any do have questions, that they readily accept the first explanation given to them.

One can be assured that detailed explanations of hard to understand teachings and dubious practices will not be volunteered to those who just accept what they have been taught and experienced. Such people are also told to never question the hierarchy lest they be found offending, or at the very least doubting, God. Now of course, not every charismatic pastor or elder is like this. Some do take the time to sit down with confused members of their congregations and genuinely attempt to explain that what they teach and practice is in line with the Scriptures. But at the same time, any persistent questioning is often met with what has become the final refuge for all truth-fearers, that of warning that the unpardonable sin may be committed if any further questioning or doubting is expressed. ‘Just ask God to help you believe’ rather than ‘search the Scriptures’ is the usual advice. Ironically, Charismatic pastors who warn that the blasphemy may be committed are often automatically thought of as very wise and God-fearing men merely because they have sounded such a warning, when in reality it is not God whom these leaders fear but Truth! Charismatics, and any denomination for that matter, need to realise that simply because a man has undergone several years of indoctrination does not mean that man is a man of God and that he has the truth. It just means that he has been taught, and has fully complied with, the teachings etc., of the particular group that has taught him and now employs him.

The writers of the Didache, a first or second century treatise of Christian morals and practices, must surely have been the fore-fathers of those like-minded persons today. They insisted, in stark contrast with 1 John 4:1 and other verses of scripture, that "You must neither test nor examine a prophet who speaks in the spirit: for ‘every sin shall be forgiven, but not this sin" (Bettenson p. 51). This mirrors precisely the saying of many Charismatic leaders who, in the face of questions, many of which they know they have no answer for, respond with a perverted use of the scriptural warning "...touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm" (1 Chron. 16:22). But how, we ask the writers of the Didache, was a person to know that the one speaking was doing so in the Spirit and was who he claimed to be if his words were not to be tested and examined? Their interpretation of the unpardonable sin was as flawed as that of the modern charismatic, for it runs opposite to the commandment of 1 John 4:1, that Christians are to test everyone that comes their way claiming they, their words and their works, are of God. Christians are not to allow anyone to lord it over them, they are not to be as those who were ruled by the Nicolaitanes, but have a right, nay a biblical command, to test and examine all that is presented to them as truth. The writers of the Didache seemed to have a protect the leadership at all costs mentality. But what did they have to fear? What did they have to hide? Would not the questions of would-be followers give these people the opportunity to further explain their teachings and provide them with the opportunity to prove that what they were saying was indeed of God? The truth bearer need not fear questions, for they are the window of opportunity to explain in further detail what is being taught and show that what they are teaching is in line with the word of God. But leaders of cult-like groups such as the Charismatic movement would prefer not to have you ask any questions, that their tenets might enjoy a smooth ride into the minds and lives of the religiously gullible. Questioning and inquiry is not encouraged, which is at odds with what the Scriptures show. The Bereans questioned and put to the test the apostle Paul and Apollos in Acts 17:11, to which the apostle Paul offered no protest or rebuke. Neither Paul or Apollos addressed their inquirers by saying, ‘How dare you question me!’ No man of God anywhere in the Scriptures tried to avoid questions about what he was preaching because he had nothing to fear, and as we said earlier, they saw people’s questions as a positive sign in that it gave them opportunity to further expand on and explain what they had been teaching. The Lord Jesus commended the Christians at Ephesus in Revelation 2:2 for testing those who claimed they were apostles but were not and were found to be liars. These Christians did not know these men, so for all they knew they could have been apostles, nevertheless this did not exclude them from having their claim tested. Rather than rebuke those who examine and put to the test those who claim to be of God, the Lord Jesus encourages true Christians to do so and heartily commends them when they do.

As we have observed in our exposition of Matthew 12:22-32, genuine questioning and searching for, and a desire to know, the truth is not what constitutes the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, nor can it even be remotely associated with it. Sadly, it must be reported that many Charismatics who read this booklet will still believe what they believe about the blasphemy, not in accord with reason or logic or anything so silly as that, but simply because their pastor says, ‘This is the blasphemy and he is wrong’. There are not a few Charismatics with whom I have had experience, who at first listened and seemed to see what I had been showing them about the Charismatic movement etc., but after returning to their ‘pastors’ and hearing a word from them, they quickly returned into the arms of deception and I never saw or heard from them again. Such people are not moved at all by what the Word of God says, only by what their ‘pastors’ say the word of God says! All that they have read in this booklet, all that they have seen in the Scriptures dealt with in this booklet, will be swept aside and forgotten, with no logical answer or explanation to any of the points made. They are promptly and conveniently dumped and ignored after they hear their leaders speak. ‘He’s the pastor, he must know,’ they say, and that’s that. These people are intimidated by fear because they are ignorant of the truth. Truth makes a man free of fear! It would be fair to say that most religious people today are followers of men, which may explain why the words of pastors have an almost hypnotic influence upon them, an influence so powerful that even verifiable and documented facts and plain Scriptural evidence is ignored. These people are much closer to having an immunity to the truth than being lovers of it!

It is important to note that the pastor is not the final authority. No pastor, not even the one who is truly of God, should be looked upon and trusted in to the point that what they are saying is accepted as the truth purely because it is they who have said it. The apostle Paul taught the Galatians that if he, or even an angel from heaven, were to come preaching a gospel that differed from the one he had taught them, they were to consider him, or the angel, as accursed!! (see Gal. 1). This passage from the Bible clearly teaches that reputation is NEVER to be allowed to influence our judgement as to whether a man is speaking the truth. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa. 8:20). The pastor is not to be looked upon as some superman who has all the answers and is accurate and correct on every point. He is not to be blindly followed, and the mind’s analytical capabilities are not to be put on hold when he speaks. My friends, it is the Word Of God, the Holy Bible, which is the final authority. Let us not become as those in the dark ages who followed every word of their leaders because they simply could not examine their teachers, for they had no Bible to refer to. People in those days thought, ‘Who are we to argue against what these men are saying? They are the ones who have done all the studying and we are but simple folk.’ The point is, how do we know that what your ‘pastor’ has been taught and the conclusions he has arrived at is the truth? Are we to judge a man as speaking the truth merely because he speaks it with confidence and conviction? Hardly! True Christians have no obligation to blindly accept and believe what their leaders say, but have the freedom to question and examine what they are taught before it is believed. We now have God’s Holy Word. We have a holy Standard by which to test and examine all that the professed pastors and leaders present to us today as truth, and the responsibility remains firmly with the individual to make sure that what he is being taught, and consequently adhering to, is in fact THE Truth. The apostle Peter, writing to Christians, informs us that "We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place..." (2 Pet. 1:19). It will do no one any good to say to God at the end, ‘But I sincerely believed what my pastor told me was Your word’ or ‘The only reason I believed what he was saying is because I believed it to be the truth’. Far from being rewarded for such ignorance and gullibility, this will only redouble the damnation he deserves for believing lies about God, thinking them to be truth, and is an open admission of ignorance, which reveals the absence of the love of the truth.

This author has spoken with many Charismatics and has often found a mind-set which at first listens and seemingly understands and is even temporarily swayed by the truth, but is later proven to be a mere head knowledge. The seed sown in them endured for awhile, but as with that sown in stony ground, it soon died and withered away for it had no root. The minds of such people are like that of children—they bounce from one teaching to another never actually arriving at the knowledge and belief of the truth. The information does not sink down into their hearts but is discarded and forgotten as quickly as it was ‘gained’. It is then replaced by a counterfeit truth which they are more familiar, and certainly more comfortable, with. Rarely does it ever become heart knowledge which is acted upon. This is the classic mind-set of any cult member and of those the Bible describes as "...children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. 4:14). These sorts of people are among the blind who follow the blind leaders whom Jesus Christ spoke of in Matthew 15:14, saying that "...both shall fall into the ditch." Its not just the teachers who have got it wrong that will suffer eternal punishment for their promotion of lies, but those who have blindly followed them who will also suffer everlasting damnation for their adherence to false gospels and unbiblical practices.

There is a large element amongst the leaders of charismatic churches—and it must be said of nearly every other denomination—including pastors, elders and deacons, who equally resist the truth for they know that if they are proven wrong by any examination of what they believe and teach, their lives would have to change drastically. They would have to resign their position if they turned from their error and believed the truth. They would no longer have a title or office. Perhaps they might even lose their families. They would be asking, ‘Where will the next meal come from’; ‘What will I do now’; and ‘What about the embarrassment?’ So, not only are these men not keen to address questions about what they teach, often because they do not know the answers themselves, but also because they don’t even want to think about such things, for they do not have a genuine desire to know the truth but only to remain comfortable with what they teach the truth is and the livelihood and prestige it provides. To these people we say: those of God believe God’s one and only Gospel. They all love the truth and go wherever it leads them. They fear no questions and they seek to avoid none of the answers. The Lord meets all the needs of His people, He is rich in mercy and pleased to show it to all His chosen. Follow His Word of Truth for His Word "... is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psa. 119:105).

The Pharisees in Matthew 12:22-32 were not questioning or searching for truth. They were firmly established in their religion and had the respect of the people and had no intention of changing. They loved "...to go in long clothing, and love(d) salutations in the marketplaces, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts" (Mk. 12:38,39). They were loaded with prestige and position and had built up credible reputations in the eyes of the people, and they looked down on anything that would threaten their comfortable existence. The Pharisees flatly stated that Jesus Christ cast out demons, and in effect did all His miracles, by the power of Satan. They did not do this ignorantly, but knowing who Jesus was, they deliberately rejected Him. This could not be any further removed from the meaning the Charismatic movement has placed on the term ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ when accusing their own adherents, and those of other denominations, when they simply question that which is being presented to them as truth. Incidentally, not only did the Pharisees say that Christ cast out demons by satanic power, but they also excommunicated any who dared to question their ruling or reject their declaration, and follow the Lord (see Jn. 7:12,13; 9:22, 34; 12:42). The tactics of false ministers have not changed, only the organizations they represent.

We, according to the Charismatic movement, must believe that what they have called the work and the signs of the Holy Spirit are the work and signs of the Holy Spirit, or we run the risk of committing the unpardonable sin! All will go to hell if they do not believe what the Charismatic movement believes is of God! I mean, what other type of organization could get away with such obvious bullying and intimidatory tactics as this, other than a cult of religiously deluded zealots? Blind religious followers the world over seem to just accept the totalitarian governments of religious institutions and their iron rule, and by their subservience only make these monolithic money-making enterprises stronger by the hour. ‘Don’t dare question what we say about it, just believe and accept it,’ and the most extraordinary thing is that most people do! Now most won’t come out and say it that blatantly, but this is exactly what they are, in effect, saying, which is no different to what any cult says of its claims. ‘We are right and anyone who disagrees is anathema.’ Men like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland of the Faith movement actually warn of physical illness and even imminent death awaiting those who deny their words or call their movement a cult. Everyone claims to have the truth and everyone vehemently and stringently defends their religious group as being the one that has the truth. The true Christian does not defend any group but says, ‘God is right and everyone else is wrong. Believe what God says His Gospel is or you will be damned.’ It is never ‘believe what WE say...’ or ‘you must belong to our group...’

Let me ask the following questions at this point. Just who made the Charismatic movement the authority on the Holy Spirit? And, what is this Charismatic movement? In answer to the first question, the authority of the Charismatic movement is self-appointed. Its foundation is not the word of God, but is underpinned by its subjective experiences. The Charismatic movement is made up of a large group of people who undeniably have a zeal of God, but that zeal is not according to right knowledge of God or His Gospel. They have experienced a mixture of psychological and supernatural occurrences in their lives and have been taught some truths, but not the truth. They have subsequently accepted all their experiences as being of God—and therefore the teachings which accompany those experiences as also being of God—simply because they all claim to love Jesus and sing His praises, not to mention the ‘positive’ influence this movement has had on their lives. It is an acceptance based on the foolish presumption that people with good intentions cannot be deceived, and the age old deception—energized by man’s wicked and deceptive heart—that continues to fool people to this day, ‘how could so many be so wrong?’ There was a multitude prior to the flood, while a man was building an ark, who thought the same way. I dare say they don’t think like that now. The ‘safety in numbers’ philosophy, as with those who drowned in the flood, just does not tread water.

CAN A TRUE BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN
EVER COMMIT THE BLASPHEMY?

Can a true born-again, Spirit-filled, believer accidentally or unintentionally commit the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? The answer is an unequivocal NO!!! As we have seen in our study thus far, the unpardonable sin can only ever be committed by one who purposely rejects that which he has recognized as the power of God, denying it is the power of God. It can only ever be committed by one who, once having recognized the Gospel or activity of God, rejects it and labels it satanic.

What a nightmare it would be, and how totally ludicrous the concept, to live the Christian life filled with love for God and His Gospel and a desire to do His will, filled with His Holy Spirit, and at the same time live in constant fear of one day committing the unpardonable sin! How can a Christian, whose past, present and future sins have ALL been washed away by the blood of Christ, possibly commit a sin for which there is no forgiveness??? As many have rightly stated, if you fear you may have committed this sin against the Holy Spirit, you can be assured you have not. Does it sound plausible to you that God would leave a Christian in fear that one day he might commit the unpardonable sin? Of course not! Those who have committed it know full well that they have. Moreover, the teaching that a Christian can commit this sin is a direct attack upon the biblical principle that once a chosen one of God has become one with Christ, he cannot lose his salvation (Jn. 10:28,29; Eph. 4:30; 1 Peter 1:3-5). Those who say otherwise, who hold to the Arminian view that one can lose one’s salvation, are akin to the Romish fear-mongers of the dark ages, whose lives were steeped in superstition and whose gospels were according to works.

The author is a born again Christian who loves the Lord Jesus Christ and the glorious Gospel wherein is revealed His saving Righteousness, and is committed to obeying His Gospel and to the defence of His Gospel and Name. How could a true Christian ever call a genuine work of God a work of the Devil? This is not, I repeat NOT, the blasphemy against God’s Holy Spirit anyway. The blasphemy is knowing full well in one’s heart that what is occurring or being taught is of God and yet calling it satanic. It is summed up well in Isaiah 5:20: "WOE unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" The next part of this booklet will examine this so-called ‘Charismatic’ movement, which many believe to be the receptacle in which God is bathing His people in these last days, and will prove that it cannot be of God.

The real issue, that which is being missed in all the din of false accusations and warnings and fear-mongering that the blasphemy may be being committed, is the primary question, which is of paramount importance: ‘Is that which is taught and occurring in and through the Charismatic movement of God? Do we accept the claims of this movement simply because they say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and have several of the fundamentals of Christian teaching, such as the Virgin birth and the historical fact that Christ died, was buried and is resurrected, correct in their theology? Then why not accept Roman Catholicism and all her ‘miracles’ and ‘apparitions’ as being of God? For they, too, are correct in many of the fundamental doctrines of true biblical Christianity. No, my friends. Do not be fooled by that which looks and sounds just like the real thing. If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, LOOK CLOSER, it may be a decoy! Moreover, there are plenty of people who have been misinformed about what the ‘duck’ actually is and what it looks like. Satan is a master illusionist and he continues to keep millions in his kingdom of darkness by using a vast array of spiritual decoys including counterfeit gospels. Be wise and search the Scriptures, and you will discover what the genuine article really is.

No one has ever proven from the Bible, nor has anyone from the Charismatic movement ever convinced the movement’s enemies, that her practices and so-called ‘miracles and signs’ are indeed of God. In light of this, how can anyone with any confidence feel comfortable in believing that the charismatic gospel is the Gospel of God. If its signs and wonders are not of God, how could its message of salvation be, and vice versa? From the Bible, we learn that one of the chief signs that a miracle was of God was that even His enemies were convinced and could not deny it. Jesus’ enemies were convinced: "...What do we? For this man doeth many miracles" (Jn. 11:47) and the apostles’ enemies were likewise convinced that their miracles were indeed of God: "...What shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it" (Acts 4:16). If these men were really of God, why would they want to deny it? But the enemies of the Charismatic movement are far from convinced, be they secular or Christian, that what is happening in and amongst the Charismatic churches and people is of God, not because of any ill feeling towards the people, not from any prejudice or biased views, not from any jealousy or envy, but from the glaringly obvious fact that, to the Christian at least, their claims, let alone their gospel, just do not match that which is portrayed in the Scriptures.

It is at best high presumption and at worst utter blasphemy against God to accept and believe that merely because the name of Jesus is being proclaimed and praised and apparent ‘healings’ and ‘prophecies’ etc., are being performed in His name, that this automatically means that all is being done by the hand of God and that this, in turn, is verification that the doctrinal teachings of the Charismatic movement are all correct and above board. The attitude is, ‘I love God, I worship God and therefore whatever happens once I have prayed or laid hands on someone or have hands laid on me, must be of God. How dare anyone say it is not so. I say I love God and therefore that is the only prerequisite I need to assure me that anything that happens to me, and in our meetings, is from the true God!!!!!!!!’ In other words, sincerity is the force-shield of life. No one can touch you, let alone can you be wrong, as long as you are sincere!! The scripture that is often employed by those so persuaded, is Luke 11:11: "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?" It is presumptious, to say the least, to automatically infer from this verse that what the charismatic is praying for is in fact bread! It has yet to be proven that it IS bread they are asking for. If they are asking for the gift of tongues, which has ceased, how could it possibly be the true gift they are receiving? To ask for bread is to ask for what the will of God is for a person, so to ask for something that is no longer available is simply not asking for bread. And how, for that matter, can any charismatic be calling on the true God for bread when they have not even heard of the true God, not having had the true Gospel taught to them? "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?..." (Rom. 10:14). If the gospel the Charismatics have been taught and believe is a false gospel, how then can it be the true God they are calling on and to whom they are making their requests? They haven’t even gotten to step one yet—knowing God and believing His Gospel—so how inappropriate of them to presume to use the true God’s Scripture to justify what they are asking their god for. The Charismatic movement is a movement of high presumption. Its followers, like the followers of any false christian organization, have assumed so much and taken for granted that which they should have examined. There is no doubting that Charismatic people do evince a certain zeal, but it is misplaced and not according to knowledge. A zeal which is founded on ignorance is of no benefit to anyone. Remember, just because you disagree with a teaching does not automatically mean that what you believe instead of it is the truth. The gospel of the Charismatic movement is another gospel and not the Gospel of God, so it is not even the Baker they are addressing when they ask for what they perceive to be bread. They are living in a fantasy world, a religious Disneyland of delusion and illusion. The Gospel of God is what God says it is, not what the Charismatic movement claims it is. Bread is that which the Baker calls bread, not what the buyer insists it is.

No doubt, many Charismatics who read this booklet will say that once this author has explained the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, he then goes right ahead and commits it himself by saying that the Charismatic movement is not of God! I would encourage those people at this point to go back to the commencement of the booklet and re-read everything up to this chapter in the hope that, upon a second reading, they will come to a clearer understanding of what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit really is.

There are many good and reliable books which provide a detailed study of the history of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, including a biblical study of their teachings and practices. However we shall, as space permits, proceed to give a brief general overview of these two movements and similar groups which have appeared throughout history, which have so heavily relied upon signs and wonders as evidence that they are indeed of God. Religious movements and groups may be easily and readily identified as not being of God simply by an examination of what gospel they teach. One can look at the signs and the wonders emanating from a group and study these closely to see whether or not they coincide with those of Holy Scripture, but the quickest way to learn if what is happening in a religious organization is of God or not is to look at the gospel they promote, for one can be assured that if the gospel they teach is false, then it cannot be God Who is behind the signs and wonders of that group.

Firstly, let us return to the days of the early Church. Jesus Christ, in Acts 1:8, told the apostles, "...ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you..." Once this had occurred, as may be seen in Acts chapter 2, the apostles were enabled by God’s Holy Spirit to speak in unlearned but recognizable human languages (tongues), thus making it possible for those who were not familiar with Hebrew or Aramaic to hear of the wonderful works of God pronounced in their own language. The apostles were also enabled by the Holy Spirit to perform instantaneous healings and miracles and the casting out of demons. These signs and wonders were always, and only, accompanied by the true teaching of God’s Holy Word (Mk. 16:20 cf. 1 Cor. 2:4,5; Heb. 2:3,4) for they were in fact, the evidence, or sign, that the men speaking were of God. The only other people who were able to perform the same signs, by the same Holy Spirit, were those upon whom the apostles had laid their hands. It is important to note that the Scriptures have no record of these men ever having laid hands on others, thus conveying to them the gifts of the Holy Spirit which they had received at the beginning through the laying on of the apostles’ hands. This is possibly the strongest argument for the cessation of the gifts. Perhaps an even more forceful argument is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is never to be heard where the Charismatic-type ‘healings’ and ‘miracles’ have occurred. It is always a false gospel, and not God’s one and only Gospel that is preached. Only a fool would insist that God would be working His signs and His miracles through the hands of accursed men preaching an equally accursed gospel and not God’s only Gospel.

Ever since the passing away of the apostles and those upon whom they conveyed the gifts, and even during their own life time, there have been many who have claimed to have the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the ability to perform miracles. Some even claimed to be apostles themselves (Rev. 2:2). There are even people today who claim to be apostles of God. These claimants all have an affinity with a man described for us in the Book of Acts. In Acts 8:9-11 we learn of a man during the apostles’ time, named Simon, a sorcerer who, unbeknownst to him, was in league with Satan, yet of whom "...all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, THIS MAN IS THE GREAT POWER OF GOD. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries" (Acts 8:10,11). How could so many be so wrong? Quite easily!! Here is the biblical precedent, here is the evidence that no charismatic person can afford to ignore, that proves that a man working sorceries by Satan, CAN be construed BY THE VAST MAJORITY NO LESS, as actually performing miracles through the power of God! Now, imagine a whole religious movement filled with such men. How powerful and influential it would be, and how utterly convinced its followers would be, of its Godly origin. But no matter how convinced its followers, or how abundant and powerful its signs, a movement cannot rightly be judged to be of God unless it preaches and promotes the only true God by means of His one and only Gospel. So many throughout the history of the world have labelled men of Satan as ‘men of God’ who worked the ‘work of God’, when all the time their works were being performed by the Devil himself whilst being indoctrinated into believing false gospels! Such men would have instantly been recognized for what they were had the Gospel been known among their followers, for by it they would have recognized the gospel that accompanied the signs and wonders as counterfeit and not at all of God.

One man has stated in response to those who claim that charismatic gifts continued after the apostles for several centuries, that: "There is little or no evidence at all for miracle-working during the first fifty years of the post-Apostolic Church; it is slight and unimportant for the next fifty years; it grows more abundant during the next century (the third); and it becomes abundant and precise only in the fourth century, to increase still further in the fifth and beyond." The more time that has elapsed since the days of the apostles and those whom they laid their hands on, the more claims of miracles of healings etc. Every one of these groups and individuals espoused a gospel other than the one God teaches His people. Erroneous teachings—in particular false gospels—and counterfeit signs go hand in hand and are equally repugnant. Satan wants to be as God. And what he sees God do he tries to emulate. What better way for Satan’s false gospels to gain acceptance with the people, even the majority who profess and believe themselves to be Christians, than by signs and wonders that all have the appearance of the genuine, but in reality are inspired by the prince of demons!

As time went on, there was an ever-increasing number of heretical cults who claimed the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The more time that had elapsed people became less familiar with the truth, and so in came the false signs, the false visions and counterfeit healings and miracles, etc., all supported by gospels which contained truth to varying degrees, but never the whole truth. It is vitally important to note that all these groups taught heresies, which, of course, the Holy Spirit would never bless and confirm with His true signs and gifts. It is also of great import to realise that of all the claims being made today by the Charismatic movement, there is nothing new; nothing which has not been claimed by various other erroneous and heretical groups throughout history. The Charismatic movement’s claims are nothing new, for the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, has had a continuous claim on the miraculous since its inception. The history of the Roman Catholic Church is replete with claims of the miraculous. Though not necessarily doubting the actual occurrence of such things, no true believer will for a moment entertain the possibility that even one of the signs or miracles performed at the hands of Roman Catholic leaders and ‘saints’ was actually from God. For God would then be a God who works true miracles through men who lead people into false gospels that have never saved anyone.

The reality of the situation is that the claims of the Charismatic movement, far from being what the Church has been waiting for, are in direct contrast with what the Lord Jesus prophesied would attend the last days. Jesus did not say that there would be a restoration of the sign gifts and of revival in the Church, but that the last days would be signified by apostasy, false signs and lying wonders (Matt. 24:24; Mk. 13:22). Multitudes would be swept away with such signs, which perhaps is what led the Lord to ask: "...when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Lk. 18:8). What is interesting to note is the fact that these last days are witnessing a monumental revival of paganism and the occult, and the professing church is as much a part of this revival as is any other group. None of the seducing and deceptive signs and wonders today are leading anyone to the true Gospel. "Today, in spite of the warnings by both Jesus and Paul (2 Tim. 3:7,8), there is scarcely any thought that today’s signs and wonders might be part of the very spiritual deception which the Bible foretells." Numerous occultic practices are being embraced by those within the walls of professing christendom. New Age techniques and the customs of the East, such as Yoga and meditation, are now being practised in the ‘christian church’ all in the name of Jesus! All the while, this occult revival in Christian clothing is aiding and abetting the rising tide of ecumenicism, which continues to engulf more and more who at one time wanted nothing to do with it. The leaders of this Tsunami-like wave of occultic driven pseudo christianity are the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements.

Now, if false miracles were only occurring outside of what is recognized as the Church, they would be far more identifiable and easily avoidable. But the fact is that these false signs are occurring within the walls of professing christendom. They are false signs for they are always, always, always accompanied by erroneous doctrine, other gospels which cannot save. Just how clear the source of modern-day Charismatic signs and wonders is can be seen in the fact that there is more than one former witch and former occultist who has left the Charismatic movement because what they witnessed therein was exactly what they had escaped!

The following is advice which no person can do without: "THE FIRST AND MAJOR TEST OF THE SOURCE OF ANY MIRACLE IS TO ANALYZE THE DOCTRINE OF THE MIRACLE WORKER. If the doctrine attested to by the miracle opposes any fundamental truth of Scripture, (in particular the Gospel), the person working the wonder is either deceived or a deceiver (however wide his smile and however loud his professed love for Jesus is). The source of such miracle working power is demonic. God will not and does not oppose Himself. THOSE PERFORMING HIS WORKS WILL TEACH HIS DOCTRINE... The Incarnate Word and the Written Word never contradict each other. THEY ARE BOTH THE REVELATION OF GOD. Wherever Christ and His Word are opposed, denied or compromised, THERE is the work of evil. No divine miracle can grow out of that soil....the connection of alleged miracles with erroneous doctrine invalidates their claims to be genuine works of God." Like oil and water, false signs and the true Gospel, or a false gospel and true signs, simply will not mix.

A very clear warning against ‘miracle workers’ is presented in Deuteronomy 13:1-5: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul..." "The people were not to believe or obey him ( the miracle worker), if he taught them anything contrary to what God had taught them. The false prophet’s appearance among them was a test of their love of God. Would the people of God follow the false prophet, mesmerized by his acts of power, or would they continue in the commandments of the Lord? IF THE PEOPLE WERE IGNORANT OF GOD’S WORD, THEY WOULD HAVE NO SAFETY AGAINST SUCH EVIL WORKERS. They would not have a standard by which to test his teaching. Also, if they forgot that a miracle could be caused by an evil source, their souls would be in great danger. The same rule applies today." The charismatic person is in an extremely perilous situation because he is part of a group that claims to be Christian and is surrounded by signs and experiences which all seem to be leading people to God and enhancing their lives, yet unbeknownst to him the charismatic has embraced a false gospel which, far from having saved him, has only served to deceive him. Religions the world over have done, and continue to do, the very same thing whether in the name of Christ or not. People are following particular religious beliefs based on their experiences, and the new ‘peace’ they now feel and how improved their lives have become, rather than examining the gospels these groups are teaching. Gospels identify the gods they promote. False gospels promote false gods and only the true Gospel reveals the true God. THE GOSPEL IS THE ISSUE and not improved peace-filled lives and an abundance of experiences that make a person feel ‘spiritual’.

The first century Church witnessed various erroneous cults that insisted the gifts, including tongues and miracles, were still in existence and operating through them. The second century saw the rise of a man named Montanus, a self-proclaimed prophet from Phrygia, who gave utterances as if God Himself were speaking through him, not unlike the false prophets of the Charismatic movement that abound in our own day. Montanus believed that he was a prophet sent from God to reform Christianity through asceticism, tongues and prophetic revelation, which he believed to be equal to that of Scripture. Many of today’s Charismatic ‘prophets’ also claim that their words are coming directly from God and should be adhered to accordingly. Such ‘prophecies’ are often published and can be purchased, and are often placed inside Bibles as if they were equal to the Word of God. "Montanus opposed formalism in the Church and boldly intimidated Christians by claiming his followers were more spiritual than those who had only the ‘dead letter’ of the Scriptures. In most respects, Montanists were orthodox. But the movement was schismatic, believing only themselves to be the true Church. The rest of professing christendom branded Montanism as a serious heresy to be rejected (cf. Rom. 16:17). Augustine wrote against the movement, and the Council at Constantinople decreed that Montanism was tantamount to Paganism." Much of what history has taught us has been lost, and most Charismatics today have absolutely no idea of what has preceded their movement, or of how indistinguishable the practices of universally recognized cultic and heretical groups of the past were to their own group. Charismatics need to become informed, just like this author was over a decade ago, of the origins and spiritual forefathers of the Charismatic movement.

The prophecies of Montanus were false, and the tongues that he spoke were not the biblical gift but the mere ecstatic speech which prevailed in many pagan tribes or cults. This, coupled with the fact that he did not preach the Gospel of God but another, showed clearly that he was not a man of God. None can be of God if they abide not in the Gospel of God (2 Jn. 9). No true miracles and signs can ever come from one who promotes a false gospel, just like black can never be white and white can never be black. "The contemporary Charismatic movement is in many ways the spiritual heir of Montanism. In fact, it would not be at all unfair to call today’s Charismatic movement neo-Montanism. At least one leading Charismatic writer, Larry Christensen, agrees, and even claims the Montanist movement as a part of the Charismatic historical tradition." (L. Christensen, ‘Pentecostalism’s Forgotten Fore-runner’, from ‘Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins’ by V. Synan, ed., pp. 32-34).

Two brief quotes from early ‘Church’ fathers Chrysostom and Augustine, both of whom lived in the fourth century, provide some interesting insight into what was occurring in their day. Firstly, Chrysostom, commenting on 1 Corinthians 12:1,2 and specifically alluding to the gifts, states: "This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place." Augustine asserted, "For who expects in these days that those on whom hands are laid that they may receive the Holy Spirit should forthwith begin to speak with tongues?" This latter quotation has been used in a most cunning and deceptive way by some in the Charismatic movement, being purposely misquoted so as to show that Augustine testified that there were genuine signs of the biblical gifts, including tongues, being performed in his day. The first three words of Augustine’s statement have been changed from ‘For who expects...’ to, ‘For we expect...’

Throughout the following centuries there arose a cavalcade of claimants to the gifts. Many of these were from the Roman Catholic Church. All such signs and wonders that occurred in the Roman Catholic Church then, as now, were attended by false teachings and therefore could not possibly have come from God. Moreover, the very characteristics of Roman Catholic ‘miracles’, as with those of the Charismatic movement, show clearly that they are not of the same type, they do not have the same characteristic features as those that Jesus or the apostles performed. For example, ‘Transubstantiation’ is a miracle, according to the Roman Catholic Church, in which the bread and the wine of communion literally become the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, though it remains indiscernible to the human senses! No miracle of this type is recorded in Scripture. In contrast to this, every miracle of God was obvious and apparent to all, believer and unbeliever alike. It had tangible evidence to support it. One could readily see that a change had occurred: the blind man could see; the crippled man could walk; the deaf could hear and even the dead became alive again. One did not merely hear about a true miracle of God; people were not forced into believing it with some blind ‘faith’ at the threat of being excommunicated or by fear of committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit if they did not believe, for they could all see it for themselves. Even the enemies of God could not deny a miracle of God. Such is the evidence of a true miracle from God (see Jesus turning the water into wine in John 2).

There are multiplied millions of people who are now on the broad way that leads to destruction whom Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7, who are following leaders or movements that promote false gospels and which titillate and seduce them with signs and wonders that could not possibly be coming from God, lest God be found to confirm doctrines of demons with true signs and wonders. We should not be surprised at this, for the Bible says that in the last days "...there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders..." (Matt. 24:24) and, "...some shall depart from THE faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils" (1Tim. 4:1).

The late Seventeenth century saw the emergence of a group known as the Cevennol prophets. This "...group of militant protestants in the Cevennes region of southern France began to prophesy, experience visions, and speak in tongues. The group...are remembered for their political and military activities, not their spiritual legacy. They were rabidly anti-Catholic, and advocated the use of armed force against the Catholic Church. Many of them were consequently persecuted and killed by Rome. At the other end of the spectrum, the Jansenists, a group of Roman Catholic loyalists who opposed the Reformers’ teaching on justification by faith, also claimed to be able to speak in tongues in the 1700's. Another group that practised a form of tongues was the Shakers, an American sect with Quaker roots that flourished in the mid-1700's. Mother Ann Lee, founder of the sect, regarded herself as the female equivalent of Jesus Christ! She claimed to be able to speak in 72 languages. The Shakers believed sexual intercourse was sinful, even within marriage. They spoke in ‘tongues’ while dancing and singing in a trance-like state."

Edward Irving, whom many consider to be the fore-runner of the modern-day Charismatic movement, led a church in the 1800's which practised so-called speaking in tongues and included those who also claimed to be prophets and prophetesses. Irving not only preached a false gospel, but he also taught erroneous tenets such as the heretical concept that Christ’s flesh was sinful. Many at the centre of Irvingism believed in the restoration of the sign gifts but later recanted and confessed that they had been deceived and used by the Devil. One such person, Robert Baxter, a confidante of Irving’s, experienced many things that he initially deemed to be of God, but later renounced. His lengthy testimony states in part: "The whole work is a mimicry of the gift of tongues—and so of prophesying and all the other works of the power. It is Satan as an angel of light, imitating as far as is permitted, the Holy Spirit of God." (’The Charismatics and the Word of God’, p. 219).

The Pentecostal/Charismatic movement owes a very great deal to the early Black Holiness Churches. Black Holiness Pentecostalism, which formed between 1885 and 1916 "... is not a denomination but rather a movement encompassing several denominations professing belief in Spirit baptism accompanied by several signs including speaking in tongues, with historic roots embracing, but not always restricted to, both a Wesleyan-Arminian and finished work of Calvary orientation. Participants believe that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a normative postconversion experience available to all Christians for the purpose of becoming more effective witnesses in carrying out the Great Commission" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p. 77). This is rather ironical to say the least, since the true Gospel of God was never preached by this movement. These Black Holiness Churches were the breeding ground from which sprang the modern-day Pentecostal/Charismatic movement: "Perhaps more than any other twentieth-century religious movement in the West, Black Holiness-Pentecostalism is regarded by many as a highly significant catalyst and spawning ground for scores of denominations including the Charismatic renewal, all emphasizing the centrality of the Holy Spirit. So little attention had been given to Black Holiness-Pentecostalism by historians that Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while visiting the U.S. from Germany, referred to its participants as the ‘step-children of modern church history’" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p.77).

Very few publications, be they Christian or secular and for reasons known only to them, have ever touched on the curious connection between those early Black Holiness Churches, from which Pentecostalism and Charismaticism emerged, and the Voodoo religion of those very black men and women that made up these early gatherings. The word Voodoo is derived from a West African word for God. The above mentioned Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, a pro-Charismatic and Pentecostal publication, admits: " ...it appears from the evidence that Black Holiness-Pentecostalism shares the legacy of black slave religion, whose historic roots are anchored deep in African and Afro-Caribbean religion" (p.77), the most prominent African and Afro-Caribbean religion being Voodoo. And this is the movement that fathered the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements of today! Not only was the Black Holiness movement filled with false signs and lying wonders, it also promoted the satanically inspired gospel of John Wesley’s Arminian way, and had within its constitution all sorts of traditions and practices carried over from the Voodoo religion.

Several years ago a little-known, yet highly significant, article entitled, ‘Hear That Long Snake Moan’, appeared in the progressive L.A. Weekly. Written by Michael Ventura in the Spring of 1987, it shed much light on the origins and ancestry of the modern-day Pentecostal/Charismatic movements. Here are some extremely revealing excerpts from this article: "W.E.B. DuBois described black Christianist religion as a meeting of three elements: ‘The Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.’ It is in the frenzy that, with both black and white fundamentalists, we find African Voodoo absolutely intact, with merely the symbols changed. The object of the Voodoo ceremony is possession by the god. Possession by the Holy Ghost is as much ‘a formal goal of the religion’ in Holiness and Pentecostal churches as possession is in Voodoo. Writes Paul Oliver in his ‘Songsters and Saints’: ‘Placing himself in the hands of God, the supplicant sought possession by the Holy Spirit...Glossolalia, or uttering unintelligible syllables believed to be the language of the Holy Ghost, was evidence to many that the speaker was possessed by the Holy Spirit...and this was an essential part of the process of sanctification. People possessed of the Spirit in church might ‘fall out’ in a trance and might even require to be forcibly held down or controlled until they came around.’"

Ventura adds that one man named Metraux, "...observed the relationship, too, saying that ‘a pentecostal preacher describing his feelings when ‘the spirit was upon him,’ listed to me exactly the same symptoms as those which I heard from the mouths of people who had been possessed by the ‘loa’ (gods)...Undeniably the ecstasy which breaks out during the ceremonies of certain Protestant sects in the South of the United States reflects a survival, if not of the rites, then at least of religious behaviour" (p.43). Voodoo customs and traditions were kept very much alive by the black slaves who had been shipped to America in the nineteenth century. They would often drum the voodoo rhythms in the cotton fields and sing. When the slave masters discovered what they were doing, they outlawed the drumming. In place of this, the Voodoo-devoted black slaves turned to tapping out the voodoo beat using their feet through what we know today as tap-dancing. This satanic, beat driven music is continued today in Charismatic assemblies through its use of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a style of music which has indisputable links with Voodoo, as is attested by some of the world’s leading secular musicians. It was from this very Voodoo slave religion that a "...’black style’ of worship developed in an unstructured way....It was the slave’s adaption to Christianity without being completely divested of his native religious worship style that later proved to be significant in its impact on black religious lifestyle" (‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, p.77).

Michael Ventura makes a further comment on the disturbing similarities between the manifestations and occurrences during Voodoo ceremonies and early Black Holiness-Pentecostal gatherings: "The wild movements of the ‘horse’ mounted by the godly ‘rider’; the wild speech, including speaking in tongues which in Haiti is sometimes referred to as ‘talking with Africa’; the unpredictability of the possession, how, excited by the music, the frenzy can strike people who don’t want it and don’t believe in it (this is a common occurrence in Charismatic meetings, especially the Toronto Blessing meetings where many who doubted and disbelieved the veracity of the phenomena occurring in those meetings suddenly found themselves rolling about on the floor in hysterical and uncontrolled laughter), you find all of these central Voodoo phenomena in most black and white fundamentalist churches (needless to say the author here is referring to those Pentecostal and Charismatic Fundamentalist churches). Maya Deren tells of first resisting and then being overpowered by a god during a ceremony she was observing..." (p. 43). Interesting to note that it has been reported by some people who have been present with those who were experimenting with drugs such as LSD, but who had not themselves partaken of it, that suddenly and without warning they, too, began to experience the effects of the drug which others had taken but which they had refused, showing that a spiritual experience was taking place. This same phenomena is reported by many who have attended charismatic meetings as mere observers. Suddenly, they too experienced being ‘slain in the spirit’ or speaking in ‘tongues’, unable to control their mouths (one woman needed to have a towel stuffed in her mouth in order to stop her ‘tongues’ speaking!), or rolling about on the floor in hysterical laughter, some people even trying to divest themselves of their clothing. A spiritual experience is taking place, but the spirit behind it all is NOT the Holy Spirit of God.

In more recent times, there appeared on the scene a woman named Agnes Ozman who, on January 1, 1901, whilst enrolled at the Bethel Bible College of Pentecostalism co-founder Charles F. Parham, in Topeka, Kansas, claimed to have received the gift of tongues just as it was given on the day of Pentecost. What ensued was what would later become known as the Azusa St. meetings, which began in 1907 and were attended by people from all over the world, much like the infamous ‘Toronto Blessing’ meetings in our own day to which people foolishly flock. Even now many, if not most, Charismatics believe that the series of meetings at Azusa St., which were held three times a day, seven days a week and went on for years, was a second Pentecost, but as the following quotes from the very founders of Pentecostalism no less and other eye-witnesses will show, these venerated meetings were far from godly and in accordance with biblical order or precedent. The following is an eye-witness account of what occurred at Azusa St. one evening: "When I visited the Azusa St. Mission, the first person to attract my attention was a woman with a thin, white silk waist on, who stood shaking from head to foot...There were several rows of chairs in front of her that were filled with seekers. The coloured leader, Seymour, was preaching; but I could not keep my eyes off the woman who continued to shake until a man in front of her slid down out of his chair and became unconscious. I then lost sight of the woman. The man who fell in a vision was pale and thin, and under high nerve pressure, and continued in the same position on the floor until after a number of seekers had gathered around the altar. Then he arose, staggered to them and began to shake his hand in front of their faces and wave his arms over their heads and moan. He was still apparently in a half-conscious state. Then he put his hands on the heads of the women and began to shake their hair. Some of them lost control of themselves and went under a hypnotic spell. He rubbed a man’s jaw until the victim tumbled over on the floor and lay for half an hour, then suddenly began to jabber. Those who had received their ‘Pentecost’ cried out, ‘He has the baptism, he has the baptism!’" I challenge anyone to find for me a biblical precedent for any of this that was Holy Spirit-inspired and not a display of demonic-inspired lunacy! Only the naive, the gullible and the ignorant could possibly be deceived by such madness into thinking that they were in the presence, and under the influence, of the Holy Spirit.

The eye-witness account continues: "A young colored woman, doing her best to get the gibberish, went through all kinds of contortions in her efforts to get her tongue to work. While work among the seekers at the altar was going on, a colored woman had her arms around a white man’s neck, praying for him. A man of maturer years leaped out of his chair and began to stutter. He did not utter a distinct syllable, but as fast as tongue would work, he said, ‘tut-tut-tut-tut-tut.’ This was evidence he had his ‘baptism’. The woman who had on the silk waist appeared again, this time singing a far away tune that sounded very unnatural and repulsive....When the altar call was made, a woman walked up to the front and kissed a man...kissing between the sexes is a common occurrence in the tongues meetings." (‘Demons and Tongues’, pp. 71-73, A. White).

Another witness to these meetings, where disorder and confusion reigned, had this to report: "Our missionaries have been stationed at Los Angeles (where the Azusa St. meetings were held), during the whole history of the Tongues movement, and have watched it closely from the very first outbreak in Seymour’s meetings; and truly, conditions have been such that it would be impossible to publish the things that have occurred there. The familiarity between sexes in the public meetings has been shocking, to say the least. Hell has reaped an awful harvest and infidelity has become more strongly rooted on the Pacific coast than ever before." (‘Demons and Tongues’, p. 82).

The ‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’, reporting on William J. Seymour, co-founder of Pentecostalism and pastor of the Azusa St. Mission, said, "Seymour moved away from a theology of tongues as the initial physical evidence of baptism in the Spirit. In point of fact, Seymour ultimately repudiated the "initial evidence" teaching (speaking in tongues) as providing "an open door for witches and spiritualists and free-lovism"." (p.36). Strange, those who spoke in tongues in the Bible did not have any trouble with witches or the like at their meetings. "Azusa was typically described by the press as a ‘colored’ congregation that met in a ‘tumble-down shack’ and made the night ‘hideous’ through the ‘howlings of the worshippers’..." (p.36). Seymour’s co-founder, Charles Parham, concluded the following: "Never were God’s servants surrounded with more deceptive counterfeits of real divine experience than in this day and age...the magician’s work is so well nigh perfect, that it often is indeed hard to distinguish the true and the false...I have witnessed great dangers in the work here in Los Angeles, and in pointing them out I shall not refer to individuals, but to the work itself as a whole, so that we all may see the error of our way and get back to God." (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, pp. 166-167). And this from the leaders of events that are held in as high regard today as those which occurred on the day of Pentecost, by those who have perpetuated such ungodly events. Now it is one thing to shrug off the critiques of those exposing Pentecostal or Charismatic movements, but to ignore, or choose to remain ignorant of, the very warnings of the leaders who co-founded Pentecostalism and to choose to continue the traditions and practices, which these leaders themselves condemned, is utter stupidity.

One of, if not the most, disturbing aspect of these meetings at Azusa St., which many today ignorantly and blasphemously hold to as equal to the events of the day of Pentecost as recorded in the Scriptures, may be seen in the following accounts: "...spiritualists and mediums from the numerous occult societies of Los Angeles began to attend and contribute their seances and trances to the service.. Disturbed by these developments, Seymour wrote to Parham (his spiritual father) for advice on how to handle ‘the spirits’ and begged him to come to Los Angeles and take over supervision of the revival." (‘The Holiness Pentecostal Movement in the United States’, p.110). "W.J. Seymour was still writing urgent letters appealing for help, as spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic forces and fleshly contortions as known in the colored Camp meetings in the South, had broken loose in the meetings." (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p.156). Does any of this sound even remotely like a description of meetings between true Christians in the Bible? Of course not! Unlike the Azusa St. meetings, which not only attracted spiritualists and mediums and the like, but saw them actually take an active and not insignificant part in the meetings, we see that the outpouring of God’s one and only Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost resulted in the following, as is recorded for us in Acts 5:12,13: "And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them." No medium or witch dared to approach the Holy Spirit who was resident in the apostles who were performing genuine miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rather than be a place to avoid, the meetings at Azusa Street were, in reality, a Mecca for spiritualists, witches and mediums alike! Merely because these facts are little known and rarely reported does not alter the fact that they are all documented and verifiable, historical FACT!!

The final comments from the pen of Azusa Street founder, Charles F. Parham, should resound in the minds of every charismatic today as they begin to see, and come to terms with, the corrupt foundation upon which their movement is based: "Let me speak plainly with regard to the work as I have found it here. I found hypnotic influences, familiar spirit influences, spiritualistic influences, mesmeric influences and all kinds of spells and spasms, falling in trances etc. All of these things are foreign to and unknown in the movement (the Apostolic Faith movement) outside of Los Angeles, except in the places visited by the workers sent out from this city." (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p. 168). Parham added: "After preaching two or three times, I was informed by two of the elders, one who was a hypnotist (I had seen him lay his hands on many who came through chattering, jabbering, speaking no language at all) that I was not wanted in this place" (‘The Life Of Charles Parham’, p. 163). I doubt whether there are very many Charismatics at all who are aware of the controversy and very un-Christian occurrences which characterized the infamous Azusa St. meetings.

The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements informs us that: "There is now historical evidence to suggest that the Azusa St. revival was no more than confirmation of a phenomenon that had already begun among Black Holiness-Pentecostals"(p.80).

"Many former charismatics, including pastors, have renounced what they had at first believed were true gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is seldom realized that there are many former charismatics and pentecostals who have reassessed the whole issue in terms of Scripture, experience and history and have turned their back on the claims of a modern-day revival of biblical gifts. A former Pentecostal pastor of 25 years, G.E. Gardner, declared, "I have heard hundreds of messages in tongues, and interpretations. Not one has ever added anything of value to the meeting" (‘The Corinthian Catastrophe’, p.53). Gardner adds that the seeking of these modern charismatic experiences is ‘never harmless’ (‘The Corinthian Catastrophe’, p.55).

One of the most moving testimonies in this regard comes from a man who spent over 20 years in the pentecostal atmosphere of the Apostolic Faith Mission, Full Gospel Church and Assemblies of God, attending and assisting major campaigns by various leaders. He wrote: "I laid hands on the sick. I rebuked death. I prophesied. I spoke in tongues. I interpreted. I would say now, in all sincerity, that I saw and experienced nothing which would lead me to believe that Pentecostalism offers ANYTHING along the lines of the New Testament Church’s experience" (‘Reformation Today’, Oct/Nov. 1973, K. Haarnhof, p.20). The above quoted Pentecostal minister acknowledges that there are many sincere people in the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, but his conclusions and his exposure of the ‘faulty doctrinal basis, manipulative indoctrination’ and ‘charged atmosphere’ remain firm. Sincerity can never be the evidence that substantiates what one is zealous for as being of God. And a zeal without right knowledge can never be of, or lead to, the true God (see Rom. 10:1-4). No one is saved because of zeal alone, or by sincerity alone, but only if one has been given the gift of the love of the truth that is revealed by God in His mighty Gospel.

As can be clearly and immediately observed by the discerning believer in whom God’s Word and Spirit reside, these meetings at Azusa St., which initiated the first wave of modern-day charismania upon the world, were far from God-ordained. The meetings were clearly a satanic counterfeit of the wonderful events that occurred on the one and only birthday of the Christian Church: the day of Pentecost as described in the book of Acts. The Azusa St. meetings were not only a hive of satanic experiences and a spiritual free-for-all, but importantly, these experiences, which millions of people are seeking even today, also gave credibility to false gospels and the acceptance of such in the minds and hearts of their recipients. God’s Gospel was never preached at Azusa Street and the Holy Spirit, therefore, never performed any work there. Nevertheless, the facts and the Scriptures were thrown to the wind as, from this unsightly and unscriptural mess, the Pentecostal movement grew and grew and later became popularly referred to, in the mid-1960's, as the Charismatic movement.

One New Testament scholar has made the following observation: "Too long Christians have assumed that the noncharismatic must produce incontestable biblical evidence that the miraculous sign gifts did cease. However, noncharismatics have no burden to prove this, since it has already been proved by history. It is an irrefutable fact admitted by many Pentecostals. Therefore the charismatics must prove biblically that the sign gifts will start up again during the Church Age and that today’s phenomena are this reoccurrence. In other words, they must prove that their experiences are the reoccurrence of gifts that have not occurred for almost 1900 years." (‘The Cessation Of The Sign Gifts’, p. 374). While this is a very good point, it would be a rather futile exercise seeing that the Gospel has never once been preached by these charismatic groups, who place so much emphasis on their signs and wonders rather than on the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. The signs and wonders are really only the tip of the iceberg. What the even greater evil in all this Pentecostal and Charismatic chaos is, is the fact that amid all the excitement and smiling faces and the ecstatic experiences, the Gospel is not being preached and therefore no one is being saved. People have simply been hoodwinked, by all the activity and ecstatic hullabaloo occurring within Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, into believing that because all is being done in the name of Jesus, these movements are sanctioned by God Himself and all involved are Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth! If there is no Gospel, that is, God’s Gospel, then it is not a Christian gathering and any phenomena present is anything but Christian. The Scriptures state clearly in 2 John 9 that "Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, HATH NOT GOD..." If individuals who hold not to God’s Gospel have not God, what makes anyone think that a gathering of such people is attended, ordered and supported, by God? The math is quite simple: NO GOSPEL - NO GOD!!

In light of all the evidence presented thus far, we can only conclude that though there are many sincere people in the Charismatic movement, the movement itself cannot be of God, for all the ‘gifts’, all the ‘signs’, all the ‘wonders’ it lays claim to are just as flawed and riddled with imperfection as those that are common to every like cult that has preceded it. This movement is nothing new, just the largest of its kind. There is no true Gospel accompanying any of these lying signs and wonders, so how can God be the one behind them? What would be the point of all these signs and wonders if the people experiencing them are not being taught the truth and being saved? I suggest that, rather than tearing this booklet up in anger and frustration at this point, the charismatic have courage enough to continue into the next chapter and learn some more startling facts about the movement he so zealously seeks to defend and be a part of.

There is so much that Charismatics are ignorant of concerning the movement they follow, not the least of which being the fact that the Roman Catholic Church—the mother of all harlots—has welcomed this experience-centred movement whose subjective theology is akin to her own, and perceived it as the vehicle that will bring so-called Protestants and Roman Catholics together, and eventually a one-world religion wholly based and united over identical experiences, irrespective of individual doctrinal belief. Even the Pope has given his official blessing to the Charismatic movement.

1971 was the year which saw the emergence of what was to become a very influential book. Entitled, ‘The Pentecostal Movement In The (Roman) Catholic Church’, it was authored by a Roman Catholic priest named Edward D. O’Connor. The book became recognized as a classic and is still considered so by the Vatican and Roman Catholic activists. The following excerpt from the book, which may shock some Pentecostals and Charismatics, highlights the rather eyebrow-raising compatibility between Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism: "(Roman) Catholics who have accepted Pentecostal spirituality have found it to be fully in harmony with their traditional way and life. They experience it not as a borrowing from an alien religion, but as a connatural development of their own." (p.28). The word connatural means to have a similar nature in origin, allied or associated in nature or origin.

Two further quotes taken from the book reveal additional evidence of the harmony which existed over 40 years ago between the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements and Roman Catholicism, a harmony which is even stronger today: "The spiritual experience of those who have been touched by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal movement is in profound harmony with the classical spirit of theology of the (Roman) Catholic Church" (p.183) And, "...the doctrine that is developing in the Pentecostal churches today, seems to be going through stages very similar to those which occurred in the early Middle Ages when the classical doctrine was taking shape" (pp.193,194).

We learn from this the curious fact that the Roman Catholic Church sees no threat posed to it by the Charismatic movement, a supposedly Protestant movement I might add, but has officially approved and embraced it and is receptive of its ‘blessings’. However, Roman Catholic doctrine is NOT changing! Roman Catholics who have become involved in these charismatic experiences are more than ever remaining faithful to the teachings of the Vatican and in their prayers and devotions to Mary, the use of the Rosary beads, and other pagan and unbiblical Roman Catholic doctrines and practices. But how can this be if the spirit behind Charismaticism is the Holy Spirit of God? Wouldn’t there be a revolution occurring in the Roman Catholic Church among its leaders and followers who are experiencing the charismatic gifts and signs? Obviously, the spirit behind the gifts and signs is quite happy for Roman Catholics to remain in their error and false gospel, and following a man who dares to call himself the ‘vicar of Christ’. This clearly evidences the fact that the spirit at work in the Charismatic movement is not the Holy Spirit of God, for God’s Spirit does not for a moment tolerate erroneous doctrine that makes up a false gospel that speaks of another christ. The Holy Spirit was sent to guide God’s people into truth, not to make them more comfortable in their error. The saved man is brought out of darkness and into the Light of God—the Gospel—upon his rebirth. His understanding does not remain in darkness, therefore he does not continue walking in the vanity of his mind. His life is not surrounded by false signs and lying wonders because he has been led into truth.

For decades many have believed that true revival has been occurring, firstly through the Pentecostal movement and later the Charismatic movement, and that these two groups have witnessed the great move of God in these last days. And yet we see these ‘great movements’ walking hand in hand with Romanism—the perpetuator of paganism—and other proponents of erroneous doctrine like the Mormons, through movements such as the Promise Keepers. They have become great friends. Some would even call it a family reunion. Roman Catholicism and the Charismatic movement, in particular the Assemblies of God churches, have played a major role in the on-going formulation of the one world church via the Ecumenical movement. In addition to this, there are Charismatic renewal movements in such varied and doctrinally conflicting denominations as the Lutheran Church, United Methodists, Mennonites, Episcopalian, Anglican, Baptist and even Presbyterian churches. Doctrine is laid aside to make way for the god of experience, which is the slave master of all involved in signs and wonders movements.

Wilson Ewin, author of the book, ‘The Pied Piper Of The Pentecostal Movement’, informs us of the fact that: "Untold millions of Catholic Pentecostals are now among the faithful of the Vatican. They are distinguished not only by the Pentecostal experience but also by their unswerving loyalty to the dogmas and teachings of the Roman Church. Medieval Catholicism as defined by the Council of Trent, remains intact in their hearts" (p. 25). Ewin adds: "The very powers of classical Pentecostalism are now being shared with Roman Catholic Pentecostalists. And this, of course, without conversion to Christ. The exploits of Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Rex Humbard, Aimee Semple-McPherson, David Du Plessis and other mainline Pentecostal stars are even being outpaced by some Roman Catholic Pentecostalists" (p.26).

A little known fact is that approximately half of all Charismatics in the world just happen to be Roman Catholic! The Charismatic movement is the ultimate ecumenical machine, for it is not focussed on doctrine but on experiences. It is as much for the Roman Catholic as it is for the ‘protestant’, with no need for doctrinal change. In an atmosphere charged with the loud and various styles of popular music today, such as rock ‘n’ roll and even hip-hop, and punctuated with all sorts of signs and wonders etc., what need is there for doctrine? This movement has gone ‘beyond’ doctrine and is now in the ‘higher realm’ of full-on spiritual experiences and direct communication with ‘God’. It does not matter what doctrine you believe, because everyone gets ‘blessed’ with the charismatic experience. One can believe in Purgatory and the worship of Mary and yet be as much a part of the Charismatic movement as those who deny such beliefs, calling them heretical!! There can be no true biblical unity unless it is a unity bound by doctrine that reveals, rather than obscures, the true God. Scripture says that a man is not of God if he does not abide in the doctrine of Christ. The Bible speaks of true Christians not only enjoying fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer time with one another, but that they also "...continued STEADFASTLY in the apostles’ DOCTRINE..." (Acts 2:42). Among true Christians there is a unity of faith. They have all been given the same faith from the same God to believe in the same Gospel. Christians do not believe in several different gospels whilst being bound together by their experiences. This is not what Scripture teaches. Christians believe the same Gospel because they have been given the same faith, the faith that is given by God to His people, which cannot and does not believe in any other gospel but that of God’s. Can you imagine for a moment God giving His faith to His people so that they would believe different gospels? Of course not. If it is the same faith then it must believe in the same Gospel. The gift of faith that comes from the true God is given so that all to whom it is given will believe the same Gospel—GOD’S GOSPEL! Not only does the Christian not believe in any other gospel but he rejects them one and all as having any power to save.

Throughout his book, Ewin tells of large combined meetings being held by Roman Catholics and Pentecostals: "Meetings have been carried on for many years between Vatican authorities and Pentecostal leaders. Cardinal Leon Suenens, usually involved in this, spoke at the 1977 Congress in Kansas City. He and Thomas Zimmerman (A.O.G.), J.O. Patterson (Church of God in Christ) , and Archbishop Bill Burnett (Anglican) stood together before the vast multitude in an unprecedented demonstration of unity" (p.34). In another of his books, Ewin writes: "Today, the Charismatic renewal within the Roman Catholic Church is the fastest growing and by far, the greatest numerically of all Pentecostal groups. Millions are found within its ranks and the phenomenal growth continues unabated. Pope John Paul I told the Charismatic Renewal’s International Leaders’ Conference in Rome, July, 1981 that the future of the Roman Catholic Church lies in their spiritual renewal movements and groups." (‘You Can Lead Roman Catholics To Christ’, p.151).

There still exists somewhat of a doctrinal gulf between Roman Catholics and Charismatics, but these have been irresponsibly, and with indifference, put to one side as they bathe together in an insipid orgy of experience-based unity. The Assemblies of God churches and the Vatican both agree that it is God’s Holy Spirit who is at work in both the Charismatic movement and Roman Catholicism. And yet, when we examine the testimonies of Roman Catholics who have gone through the charismatic experiences such as ‘tongues’, ‘the slaying’ and the ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’—a term not found in the Scriptures—we see that they are not consequently being led out of the errors of Romanism but deeper into them! The Scriptures proclaim that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (Jn. 16:13). But how can the spirit which inspires and leads the Roman Catholics and the Charismatics be God’s Spirit of truth, when many of the doctrines of these groups are contradictory and when neither group teaches the true Gospel of God? How can it be the Holy Spirit leading these people, when some are being led to believe one thing and others are being led to believe the opposite? Adding to this confusion is the fact that many former Roman Catholics, upon becoming Charismatics, abandoned Romanism as a work of the Devil! These are vital questions and issues that Charismatics must not ignore, but face up to in the cold light of day.

One testimony specifically records that one ‘back-slidden’ Roman Catholic actually began to pray the Rosary, "A practice," they said, "I have taken up since the baptism in the Spirit" (‘Catholic Pentecostals’, p. 68). Another Roman Catholic wrote of his renewed allegiance to Mary since experiencing the charismatic renewal. A Roman Catholic priest declared after his ‘baptism with the spirit’, "Never before had I such a sense of Mary’s role in leading me into the fullness of Christ and the Spirit" (‘The Charismatic Renewal And The Irish Experience’, p.92). How can the Holy Spirit, Who according to Christ Jesus the Lord would glorify Him, be the one who is turning such people’s attention towards Mary and not the Lord? Christ says: "...when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself...He shall glorify Me (not Mary)..." (Jn. 16:13,14)! The Holy Spirit is sent to speak of Christ, to lead people to Christ. He will not speak of Mary, or even Himself, but of Christ Jesus the Lord and Savior. In following the Charismatic spirit, some nominal Roman Catholics who were not amongst those who prayed to Mary or prayed the Rosary or even attended Mass, now eagerly take part in these non-biblical practices as a direct result of the charismatic experience! This spirit, far from being the Spirit of truth, is fully approving of Roman Catholic doctrines, which are nothing but ancient pagan teachings with a Christian veneer! This spirit is NOT the Holy Spirit of God!! He does not lead people to the true Gospel. Nor is he leading people into biblical practices, but those with a heathen origin.

E.N. Gross, in his book ‘Miracles, Demons and Spiritual Warfare’, says: "The Charismatic movement now embraces Roman Catholics with a total openness. Basic differences of doctrine no longer seem to matter. Huge Charismatic meetings feature Protestant and Roman Catholic speakers as if there were no difference between them. ‘Tongues’, ‘prophecies’, ‘healings’, abound in such meetings--all with loud united shouts of ‘amen’ and ‘praise Jesus’" (p. 160). Another discerning writer has made the following important observation: "There is a burning need to demonstrate the startling fact that the Charismatic religion of today is not the Christianity of the Bible. There is an analogy here with Roman Catholicism, in the sense that it has enough in common with true Christianity to render it an air of biblical respectability to the untaught and unstable; but once a little research is carried out into its theology and practice, the differences between it and the breadth of biblical truth gape like yawning chasms."

If it is the Holy Spirit doling out these experiences to Roman Catholics, how then are we to explain the fact that these people are not being led out of Romanism and renouncing her blasphemous teachings but are becoming more firmly entrenched in her heretical doctrines and practices? They are not being brought out of the miry pit but are being pushed further down into it! They are not only not being told of their error, but what’s worse, the signs and experiences are confirming to them that their beliefs are right and that their doctrine and gospel is nothing but the truth of God. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and our Lord Jesus further states that: "...when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth..." (Jn. 16:13). He would not confirm and establish Roman Catholics, nor anyone else for that matter, in their error. He would not leave any of God’s elect comfortable with anything that is dishonoring to God, including gospels which do not identify the true God, but would lead them out of their error and into the truth of God. The Holy Spirit does not play games with people, He does not deceive people by dispensing experiences which please the heart and body but do nothing for the soul. To walk in error is to live in darkness and lead a life of vanity, for it is unprofitable. The principal work of the Holy Spirit is to lead all of God’s people to God’s truth. The spirit which is guiding the Roman Catholics and Charismatics and filling their lives with experiences, can hardly be accused of giving even a cursory glance to doctrinal matters, but allows both Roman Catholic and Charismatic alike to continue thinking that the darkness they walk in is light.

But wait. We need to ask ourselves a very important question at this point: ‘How then can the spirit which is active in both the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements be the Holy Spirit of God when this same spirit, it is agreed, is active amongst Roman Catholics and is leading Charismatics not to point out the flawed doctrines of Roman Catholicism, not to evangelize them, but into an experience-based unity with Roman Catholics and even Mormons through the Promise Keepers movement? If the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements are of God, and in light of the fact that Roman Catholicism is a promulgator of false and misleading doctrines concerning the Lord God, how could they possibly even want to have unity with people who are the carriers and messengers of her appalling doctrines? Scripture puts it this way: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?...wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord..." (2 Cor. 6:14,16). The word of God says here that the Christian is not to join himself to those who do not believe the Gospel. They are not to be united in religious fellowship, for there can be no true fellowship between that which is righteous and that which is unrighteous. The charismatics reveal themselves to be anything but Christians by their all too ready and willing approach to unite with Roman Catholics. Scripture says there can be no communion, no intermingling, between light and darkness. According to the Word of God, the only unity that can exist is that between light and light or darkness with darkness. NEVER CAN THERE BE A UNION BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS. The Roman Catholic Church and the Charismatic movement are either both light, or they are both darkness. They cannot be both. And since those involved with both groups do not consider either one darkness, we must assume that both organizations consider each other to be light. But how can this be, when large and contradictory doctrinal differences exist between the two and neither one preaches the Gospel? The only right conclusion that can be reached is that both these colossal religious empires are nothing at all but darkness, hence the passionate and very comfortable union that exists between the two. Far from advocating unity between those who believe the truth and those who do not, God states clearly that His people are to come out of, they are to separate themselves from, those who do not believe His Gospel, and have no religious fellowship with those who adhere to doctrines of darkness: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine (the doctrine of Christ), receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 Jn. 10,11). The reality of the situation is that the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement’s zeal in joining with Romanism shows, in no uncertain way, that they themselves do not know the truth, they do not preach THE Gospel, and so cannot recognize the profound evil of the doctrines that Romanism, not to mention that of their own movements, promote. They cannot discern the fact that so many of Romanism’s practices are, far from being Christian, a blatantly blasphemous continuation of pagan rites and God-dishonoring ceremonies and man-made traditions. If there is one thing the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements lack, it is the spiritual discernment which comes from being a true Gospel believing born again Christian. These movements are steeped in ignorance and immaturity, and the fervor shown by them in joining hands with just about any as long as they are enjoying the same experiences, is proof positive that they have NOT the Holy Spirit in them.

Jesus Christ said that the Holy Spirit, Whom He called ‘the Spirit of Truth’ three times in the Gospel of John, would guide God’s people into all truth. Evidently, the spirit at work in both the Charismatic movement and the Roman Catholic Church CANNOT be the Holy Spirit, for this counterfeit is not guiding people into all truth, but is leading them to believe in false and contradictory gospels, encouraging fellowship with error and leading people into a false unity: a unity made up of a perverted idea of love and unbiblical experiences rather than the biblical unity that has always been based on what God says the truth is. According to this, those involved in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements cannot be of God for they are not being led to His truth, because the spirit that guides them is as ignorant of it as they are!! It is not only blind men who lead the blind, but blind spirits who lead men into a deeper, darker and ever increasing fog of spiritual darkness. The only time the Holy Spirit is present in a Charismatic, Pentecostal or Roman Catholic person’s life is when He is leading them OUT of those movements and into God’s glorious truth.

Disciples of both groups, some of whom may be elect and who will therefore eventually come out of their error and into the Gospel of Christ, need to be made aware of the fact that doctrine cannot be laid aside because of an overwhelming desire to unite at any cost. This does not honor God, it is not something which is God-authored. To lay doctrine aside is to ignore what God has said and replacing it with what is perceived to be what God is doing. But the principal way to discern whether it is God at work is to focus on what is being taught. If it is the Gospel it is of God, but if it is not the Gospel, then whatever occurs, however stupendous the works, signs, miracles or whatever, IT CANNOT BE GOD! Doctrine distinguishes, doctrine identifies, the god/God one worships. Doctrine is like a spiritual X-ray which either identifies the true God or a false one. Doctrine is that which teaches a person the details of the god/God it promotes. This desire for unity at all costs, especially at the expense of doctrinal truth, is not supported by Scripture. It is anti-scripture because it ignores the truth and replaces it with good feelings. It transports people from spiritual reality to sensual illusion. True biblical unity, the kind of unity that God Almighty is the Author of, is and can only ever be, based on sincerity and truth!!! "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood..." (Josh. 24:14). Any other kind of ‘unity’ is not merely a poor substitute initiated by man, it is a dangerous one. True unity is bound by sincerity AND truth. False, or counterfeit, unity is bound by sincerity and anything but truth! Those who have no love of the truth—real truth, not merely what a person perceives to be truth— will perish (see 2 Thess. 2:10). The true followers of God not only continued in prayer and mutual kindness and love with one another, but "...in the apostles’ doctrine..." (Acts 2:42), and in no other. To be a Christian is to believe the truth and reject all that opposes and contradicts it. The true Christian, rather than joining with those who abide in false doctrines, remaining ignorant or still worse, silent about them, is commanded to avoid such people and not to fellowship with them at all, for what fellowship can light have with darkness? In being commanded that they not fellowship with those who abide in error it is patently obvious that the true Christian can discern the error of false christians and the truth of God. True Christians do not mix with error but have the discernment to recognise it and avoid all those involved with it. Just as God has divided the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:4), so too, He has divided, or separated, His people from those who are not His people. Let darkness abide with darkness, for light never has, it never shall, and it will never want to! Paul states clearly in Romans 16:17,18: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." Do not join with those who have a different doctrine but AVOID THEM, for those that hold dear false doctrine, who have embraced a counterfeit gospel, do not serve the Lord Jesus Christ!!! Paul the apostle spoke to the Galatians about their days as lost people before they knew and loved the Gospel of God, in the following way: "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods" (Gal. 4:8 cf. Matt. 7:23; Rom. 10:14). Before one knows the Lord, before one trusts in the true Christ, before one is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, one does not know, and therefore does not serve and consequently does not experience, God. Paul speaks of it only being possible to trust Christ "...AFTER that ye heard the word of truth, THE GOSPEL of your salvation..." (Eph. 1:13). Neither Roman Catholics, Charismatics or Pentecostals are profiting one iota from their union, for the spirit which guides them has not lead them, nor is he leading them, into truth. He is not revealing to them the Gospel of Almighty God and cannot therefore be the Holy Spirit of God, Who does not lead His people to believe in differing gospels but in the only Gospel that God testifies to and saves by.

The sight of the Charismatic movement and the Roman Catholic Church merging ever closer by the minute and, though disagreeing on certain doctrinal issues, warmly welcoming the dark spirit which is leading them deeper into ecumenical matrimony, demonstrates that it is indeed one and the same spirit at work in them both, but that it is NOT the Holy Spirit. The fact that both groups are leading people into error and a false gospel clearly demonstrates that these blind movements are being led by a blind spirit which is not nor ever has been the Holy Spirit of God, but a foul counterfeit. A counterfeit which is expert in titillating and soothing the senses of man and which relishes the opportunity to feed his insatiable urge to see and feel and experience and unite. The Lord Jesus spoke of just such a generation in Matthew 12:39: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign..." A unity in the name of God which is not centred on the truth of God, the Gospel of God, is an obscenity!! Rather than joining such people to God, this unity is further separating them from God! To have a man-forced unity now based on experiences, rather than await the true unity which only Jesus Christ can bring, is truly the work of an evil and adulterous generation, inspired and led by the Devil himself.

God’s Holy Word states that the Christian’s walk is one of faith, not of sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Their path is illuminated by the word of God and leads to Him. It is not some dark and dingy weed infested track that leads away from God. God has chosen to speak to His people in these last days through His Incarnate Word (Heb. 1:1,2), not through signs and wonders. The signs and wonders of the Bible were used to make it clear that what was being taught was the very truth of God. The signs and wonders are no longer necessary as the Authority, the Word of God, has been established. It is in the Holy Scriptures where you will find true experience with God, not in some flesh-pleasing titillation manufactured by the mind or by some unclean spirit, which leads to error. The Christian’s life begins with the Gospel. No one ever became a Christian whilst in ignorance of the Gospel, which testifies to the real God. Every Christian is born of the Gospel of God and no other. No believer starts his Christian life believing any other gospel but God’s Gospel, for the faith he is given by God believes no other Gospel but the Gospel of God. Before one is led to truth, one resides in error. Every Christian believes the same Gospel. Not a gospel which merely names the name of Christ, but the Gospel of God which testifies of the one, true Christ—Who He is and what He has done and for whom He has done it. The Gospel which honors Christ and does not spread lies about Him. No matter the quantity or quality of one’s experiences, no matter how sincere a person may be, there can be no salvation for those who do not hold to, and abide in, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul stated in his letter to the Galatians that no matter what experience, even if it was an angel from heaven presenting itself to them, who brought with him another gospel which differed from the one Paul had been given by God and had relayed to them, they were to consider that one accursed of God rather than a magnifier of His Word: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8). If even an angel, not a counterfeit mind you, but a real angel from God’s heaven, were to come to a man, he should not be overawed and immediately presume that all the angel would cause him to experience and all that the angel would say to him was truth. The thing that made all the difference, that thing which matters most of all is not that an angel appeared before you, but ‘did the angel preach God’s Gospel?’ The fatal mistake that all Charismatics make is in allowing themselves to be overawed by experiences whilst paying scant regard to what is being taught. IF IT IS NOT GOD’S GOSPEL BEING TAUGHT, THEN TO HELL WITH THE EXPERIENCES!!! If even an angel’s gospel is not God’s Gospel, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the angel is accursed and not at all of God. Now, if even an angel is to be considered accursed of God if he brings with him another gospel, how much more a movement filled with people who do nothing but promote another gospel, who have placed their trust in another god? People who believe, as well as those who teach, false gospels, the Scriptures say, have not God: "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, HATH NOT GOD. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, HE hath both the Father and the Son" (2 Jn. 9). Doctrine determines deity. False doctrine teaches false deities and only the true Gospel teaches and reveals the true and only Deity!

In John’s first Letter, chapter 4 and verse 1, we see the Holy Spirit’s instruction to "...believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." A vast number of professing christians today do not adhere to this Godly edict. They do not question, they do not make inquiry, but merely accept that if an experience is real and reaps seemingly beneficial results, it must be of God, especially if it has occurred in a religious environment. This gives credibility in their minds to whatever ‘church’ one has had the experience in and the teachings that ‘church’ promotes. "This must be from God and the people promoting it must be of God, because what I have experienced has helped me ‘get closer to God" is the flawed logic of such ‘thinkers’. But if it is not the Gospel of God that is being taught, how then can it be the true God Whom they are getting close to? People who think like this have only a superficial understanding of reality. They are pragmatists in that if they experience something that makes them feel good, they conclude that it must be good and therefore, to the religiously inclined, of God. They never stop to think that this is exactly how the followers of other religions of the world think. Hindus and Mormons and Muslims and Buddhists all believe that their positive experiences are further confirmation that they have the true God! But the Scriptures teach that right doctrine is the confirming sign that one is of God and has God (see 2 Jn. 9). Everyone has ‘positive’ experiences during the course of their religious lives, but none of these experiences are on what the true Christian bases the fact that he has the true God. The true Christian lives by faith, not by feeling. It matters not if one has a lifetime of positive experiences, for if the doctrine is wrong, if the gospel is not God’s Gospel, then it cannot be God Whom you follow, it cannot be God Whom you worship and it cannot be God Who is providing the experiences.

The exuberant, albeit infantile, ‘reasoning’ adopted by the Charismatics is: ‘If Roman Catholics are having the same experiences as we are, then praise God! God must be blessing the Roman Catholics!! See, they must be true Christians and their teachings mustn’t be all that bad because God is blessing them with the Holy Spirit. Doctrine must not really matter after all, but it is the condition of the heart that is all important." Such people fail to realise that Scripture calls the heart of man "...deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked..." (Jer. 17:9). The person who thinks this way never stops for a moment to consider the possibility that God couldn’t possibly be behind all this activity, for the Roman Catholics believe lies and teach heresies and follow a Church which declares accursed those who believe that salvation is by faith alone, by grace alone, through Jesus Christ alone. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent, whose declarations were all confirmed by Vatican Council II, declared: "If anyone shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than faith in the Divine compassion forgiving our sins for the sake of Christ, or that this faith alone is that by which we are justified, let him be anathema (accursed)." How could any true Christian, upon learning this fact about Rome, possibly believe that the Holy Spirit is blessing that establishment, and how could they stand and remain side-by-side, arms interlocked, with people who belong to such an organization who are obviously led and fed by a lying spirit, an unholy spirit rather than the Holy Spirit of God? Furthermore, how could they honestly consider the Charismatic or Pentecostal movements as being of God when the spirit guiding these movements is leading them directly into an unashamed and unrepentant union with the mother of all spiritual and doctrinal harlots: the Roman Catholic Church! The Charismatics’ ongoing union with Roman Catholics reveals that they are as ignorant of the true God and His Gospel as is the Roman Catholic. GET OUT of the Roman Catholic Church; GET OUT of the Charismatic movement; GET OUT of the Pentecostal movement and get into "...the General Assembly and Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven..." (Heb. 12:23), who all believe in the only Gospel God has ever spoken, and repent of ever believing that any other gospel could save.

Those people who refuse the truth have no love of the truth. They all claim to love the truth but have no discernment of the truth! They claim to love the truth but when presented with it, they reject it as the truth! Their heads are buried in the sands of error. Their ears and eyes and mouth are all clogged by the grains of falsity. They can neither hear, see or speak the truth of God. "The true Holy Spirit’s voice is unheard in the unity uproar emanating from the ‘spirit experience’." What is truly curious is the fact that "Never in all the flourishing maze of charismatic literary works, do the writers ever stop to examine the spirit experience as the apostle wrote: ‘...believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world’ (1 Jn. 4:1)." Not one book has ever been published by the Charismatic movement which examines and exposes the counterfeit prophets and signs that would come in the last days. You see, they could never produce such a work, for if they did present a proper study of today’s perversion of the genuine biblical gifts, they would be exposing their own movement. So loud the silence...

It is clear that the same spirit working within the Charismatic movement, and whom Charismatics have trusted in for decades, has lead them into fellowship with another domain of darkness. But if it is leading them deeper into spiritual darkness, how could it have EVER been the Holy Spirit that they have followed? What a deception has befallen those who are still so convinced that what they are experiencing is the great move of God in these last days! This same spirit is not guiding Roman Catholics into all truth by charismatic experiences, but deeper into the heresies of Romanism. Both peoples are grossly deceived to the point they are quite delusional in thinking that what they are experiencing is from God and that they themselves are of God. Now, to call anyone deceived does not mean that we have reduced our argument to a personal level, that we are taking a personal swipe at them. We say these people are deceived because we love God and we want to see truth prosper in their hearts. We want to preach the Gospel to them and see them enjoying the real truth of God, and not the many counterfeit gospels of these last days. We are tired of seeing people deceived by the counterfeit forms of Christianity that exist in our day, which have no doctrinal substance but only subjective experiences to offer their followers, and wish only to present the facts to all so that all will have a proper understanding of the Word of God. We are also very concerned over the fact that the Holy name of God continues to be aligned with the lying wonders and false gospels of erroneous groups such as the Charismatic movement and Roman Catholicism, and that the world continues to associate God with the spiritually psychotic world of experiences and false teachings that spew forth from the Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

Again, the spirit behind these groups is not the Holy Spirit of God but is the unholy spirit of Satan. It is God’s Spirit Who guides His people to the truth, and it is Satan’s foul spirit that guides people into false gospels and causes them to ignore doctrinal discrepancies by distracting them through sensual experiences. God’s elect need to, and will, come out of the Roman Catholic Church and the Charismatic movement, according to Revelation 18:4, "...that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Proverbs 19:27 states: "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge." Any of God’s elect in these movements need to hear the Gospel and believe it, and remove themselves from the experiences they have undergone, and repent of the doctrines and false gospel they have believed and for ever having thought that whilst believing such lies they were Christians. Believe AND repent, is the scriptural cry. The line has been clearly marked out. Will you continue to follow the spirit which is at work in the Charismatic movement and the Roman Catholic Church or will you give truth a chance, will you listen to the Gospel and follow the Holy Spirit Who has led many out of these groups and guided them into all truth? We exhort Roman Catholics and Charismatics alike to remove their Roman Catholic/Charismatic tinted glasses and study the Word of God objectively, and enjoy the ultimate experience: the TRUTH!

It is important to remember that people need to be very careful before they start making allegations that people such as this author are biased against the Charismatics; that we have some hidden agenda – to oppose the Charismatic movement at all costs, by hook or by crook; that hatred towards those involved in the majority groups of professing christendom, and not love for God and His truth, is the motivating factor that drives us. That, my friends, is the form of judging that the Bible warns against. We are not to judge the motives of men, but it is imperative that we judge—put to the test—their teachings and what they claim is of God, for the Bible directs us to do so. This, of course, includes the proper biblical testing of what this author has written. You’ll note that throughout this booklet, we have not once judged a person’s motives. We have in fact mentioned the sincerity of many who are involved in the Charismatic movement. We say nothing against the people, but only point out the errors of the establishment they have chosen to follow and the false gospel which they embrace, and the fact that Scripture pronounces such people accursed because they do not believe the Gospel of the grace of God. If you cannot stomach that, my friends, if you cannot stand the examination by Scripture of the teachings and practices of a man or movement you follow, if you cannot abide the possibility that you are wrong and that the gospel you follow is a false one that has never saved anyone, and that you are currently in a lost state, then you are amongst the saddest of all people. You have an idol in your life. Fear is your taskmaster and you have yet to be made free by the truth of God. We do not say these things to put you down but in an effort to lift you up by making you aware of things you are currently ignorant of and that you might turn to the true Gospel and believe it. Those who are not of the truth attack the truth, as did Saul the Pharisee, all the while thinking that they are the ones who have the truth. But when Paul was made free by the truth he embraced it, and turned his back on all that he was and knew. ‘Hang the consequences’ was his attitude, for Paul could now see that all that matters in this life is the truth of God (see Phil. 3). Incidentally, the Bible teaches that the Christian is to judge all things by the standard of the written Word of God. Paul said: "...he that is spiritual judgeth all things..." (1Cor. 2:15 cf. Rom. 6:17).

A very quick, effective and simple method, or test if you will, of discovering—if one is not yet fully convinced—whether the Charismatic movement is of God or not, apart from a scriptural examination of the gospel it teaches, is to scrutinise its claims to the miraculous. Now, the good deeds of the movement, the missions it conducts throughout the world and related works, are really no evidence to prove that its origin is of God, or that it is preaching the Gospel of God, for numerous other erroneous groups such as Freemasonry and cults like the Roman Catholic Church, Mormons and the J.W.’s, have covered the globe with ‘good works’ and yet we know this is no evidence that any of these groups, and all that occurs within them, is of God. It is interesting that so many happily, and without protest, judge overtly non-Christian organizations such as the J.W.’s and Mormons by the doctrines they teach, but the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements are said to be of God because of the experiences people are enjoying and how loudly the name of Jesus is praised. If their doctrines are scrutinized, those performing the examination are accused of not being loving and of causing disunity.

The Charismatic movement claims that it is the Holy Spirit of God Who works through it and supplies the ‘prophetic’ words and miraculous works that its leaders and followers utter and perform. Also claimed are the many instances of the casting out of demons, of healings, and the much treasured and sought after gift of ‘speaking in tongues’. To say that all such instances are in reality not occurring, but are merely a case of mass hypnosis or a result of psychological manipulation, is to speak as a fool. No one can deny that, whether by the power of suggestion or by supernatural forces, something is definitely happening in the Charismatic movement. The question we need to ask ourselves is: ‘Is it actually God who is responsible for all this activity?’ A resounding NO can be our only conclusion after we have examined closely, in light of God’s Word of Truth, the claims, and in particular, the types of manifestations occurring today within the Charismatic movement.

PROPHECY - A prophet of God, as may be observed in both Old and New Testaments, was a man chosen by God to be His mouthpiece. The words that a true prophet spoke were God’s very own words; they were true and pure and without error. When a prophet spoke in the Scriptures, his words were preceded by the term, "Thus saith the Lord" (1 Sam. 10:18; 1 Kings 14:7; Isa. 66:12; Jer. 5:14; Ezek. 13:3). When a prophet of God spoke, it was in reality the Lord speaking and not the mere words of a man. The prophet was God’s spokesman in that he would not utter his own words but the very words of God, and so it was guaranteed that his words were infallible. When a prophet of God spoke, he was not moved by his own heart but by inspiration of the Holy Sprit (Acts 11:27,28; 21:11). The things that a prophet of God uttered always came to pass, down to the very last and finest detail. The prophecies were as accurate and precise as anything God had ever said, for they were His words and not man’s words. They were 100% accurate 100% of the time. They had to be, for anyone claiming to be a prophet of God who proceeded to speak forth prediction which was found to be faulty, even in the smallest detail, was to be stoned to death. No God-fearing man would ever dare proclaim himself to be a ‘prophet of God’ if he was not 100% certain it was in fact God who had called him and given him the words to speak (see Deut. 12, 13 & 18). I dare say, there would be substantially fewer men eager to promote themselves as the Lord’s prophets today were this law still in effect!

The prophecies we see emanating from the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, from leaders such as David Wilkerson and from Faith movement identities such as Kenneth Copeland, Rodney Howard-Browne and Benny Hinn, and which may be heard on most Sunday’s in Charismatic churches for example, are very unlike the prophecies found in the New Testament. The main reason being, that not all the prophecies of these so-called prophets come true. They are riddled with error, inaccuracies and imperfections, showing conclusively that the words being uttered by these so-called, self-appointed and self-proclaimed ‘prophets’, are not God’s words at all and that these men cannot therefore be God’s prophets. This is confirmed by the fact that none of them preach God’s Gospel. Now, these facts cannot and must not be overlooked if we are to consider ourselves serious students of the Bible and objective examiners of the Charismatic movement’s claims. So many today claim a love for the truth but refuse to examine the people or movements they follow for fear of committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So many today claim to love the truth but when they are presented with the genuine article, recognize it as anything but the truth and want nothing to do with it, and cast a wary eye on those who teach it. The only time they ever stumble at believing something is when they are presented with the truth. Then suddenly they become examiners and testers of what they are hearing, and with an incorrect method of examination they rule the teaching false. They never see the errors of their own ways, their own beliefs, but only those which they perceive exist in those who have the real truth.

Today’s prophets of God, or secondary prophets, as they are termed, do not claim Word authority for their message from God. That is, these individuals claim to speak God’s inspired Word yet curiously do not declare it to be without error! Amazingly, they openly admit that their prophecies from God contain some element of error! And even more incredibly, that which would once have brought about the stoning to death of professing prophets—any admission of error in their prophecies—is now seen as adding credibility, honesty and even validity to a man’s claims to be a prophet of God! The so-called prophecies of such charlatans, it is said, are to be accepted as a mixed-phenomenon where the human spirit with all it’s imperfection combines with God’s Holy Spirit in all His perfection. They claim that in our era, due to man’s weakness, as opposed to that of the Bible prophets, this kind of prophesying is imperfect. They tell us that their prophecy truly reveals something from the Lord but does not have the infallibility of Scripture! But surely, if it is something coming from the Lord, it MUST HAVE the same infallibility of Scripture, for Scripture is of the Lord! The Bible states that "...the truths which the prophets communicated were not originated by themselves; were not of their own suggestion or invention; were not their own opinions, but were of higher origin, and were imparted by God..." The proof of this was always seen in their infallibility! The apostle Peter states clearly that no true prophecy could contain any error whatsoever: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). The context of these two verses is highlighted by the very next verse which states "But there were false prophets also among the people..." (2 Pet. 2:1). False prophets were obviously not holy men of God and consequently were not moved by the Holy Spirit at all, but by their own hearts. Their so called prophecies were inspired by the will of man and not the Holy Spirit of God. How could anyone moved by the Holy Spirit to speak forth the words of God possibly speak any error? And how could such words be any less infallible as those which God had previously spoken such as those recorded in the Scriptures? The Bible certainly contains no evidence of any of God’s prophets uttering anything less than the perfect word of God, whereas the Charismatic movement is literally running over with such ‘prophets’!

Popular charismatic identities, Dennis and Rita Bennett, have commented, "A man may be strongly used in the prophetic office, and yet may be completely wrong from time to time" (‘The Holy Spirit and You’, p. 106). Not partially wrong mind you but completely wrong!! What new novelty is this that a prophet of God can NOW not only be recognized as one who unerringly speaks forth truth but one whose predictions are from time to time COMPLETELY WRONG!!! Put simply, the claim is this: God inspires the message, but it is not 100% true and is not equal with Scripture! What is even more outrageous in light of all this is the fact that many times, these secondary prophets have the utter audacity to preface their so-called messages from God with the phrase, ‘Thus saith the Lord’, thus directly attributing error to God! Another charismatic, Wayne Grudem, author of ‘The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today’, believes that prophets today speak messages revealed to them supernaturally from God. Yet he believes these messages may not always be completely accurate. What then is the difference between such men and those professional tele-psychics who claim to be hearing messages from dearly departed loved ones, but who often provide spurious information? Unfortunately, Mr. Grudem never answers the obvious question his position raises: How can any message revealed by God contain even a trace of error? IF IT IS FROM GOD THEN IT MUST BE OF GOD AND MUST THEREFORE BY DEFINITION BE FREE FROM ERROR. False prophecy, by definition, CANNOT be from God. (To learn more about false prophets and the true, ask for the author’s booklet, ‘Energy of Deceit’.) Those so-called ‘prophets’ whose messages contained any error at all are described clearly in the Scriptures: "Then the Lord said unto me, ‘The prophets prophesy lies in My name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart." (Jer. 14:14). Here we see that God calls so-called prophecies which do not come to pass, or contain any error at all, LIES!! Now how are you going to recognize prophets who speak lies in God’s name? Obviously by the error, inaccuracies and imperfections their ‘prophecies’ contain. True prophecy was always fulfilled. This is because it was always without error and supernaturally inspired by God. It was God speaking. Though God has used imperfect and fallible men to mediate His message, He has never failed to deliver it intact and without error. Otherwise, even God’s prophecies would not be immune to error and therefore would be no different to those imaginations of men. God’s Word and Will would be subject to man’s imperfect and sinful state. Everything would then be at the mercy of man’s sinfulness and not at all influenced by, or subject to, the will of an Almighty God. How ridiculous! But if this were so, then how do Charismatics explain the fact that all of Scripture is without error and that it records not one instance of a prophet of God uttering one single thing that did not come to pass entirely as prophesied? There is only one kind of genuine prophecy, and that is the true prophecy that is without error and totally inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s Words that are being breathed out. They are the words that come to us by God’s mouth: "...prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21). Obviously, this verse teaches that the complete fulfilment of that which a prophet from God spoke was due to the fact that he spoke as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. There has yet to be found a scripture which says that in the last days, true prophets of God would be any different.

There is only ONE other kind of prophecy according to Scripture, and that is the false kind. The kind that does not come true, or only partially comes true, or only on occasion comes to pass. Anyone can make a series of predictions and have some of them come true. No doubt even some of the horoscopes in the daily papers achieve some level of accuracy some of the time, or they would not be so avidly read by millions the world over. This is precisely how we are to distinguish the true from the false when it comes to prophecy. The false prophet speaks his own words, which are unreliable; the true prophet speaks forth God’s Words, which ALWAYS come to pass ALL OF THE TIME IN THEIR ENTIRETY! Prophecies like this have only one source: God. Jeremiah 23:16 says, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, listen not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you; they make you vain; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord." God does not deal in a mixture of the false and true. There is no darkness in Him. God is Light. God is Truth. Light is a pure thing, as is truth. They are not mixed with anything else, but are perfect. Such is God, and such is His Word, even when uttered by imperfect men. Prophecies from God are no different to the Word of God, and both are defined and recognized by the fact that neither contain any error whatsoever. One of the reasons it is so difficult for people to be convinced that the one they are listening to is, in reality, a false prophet, is the fact that the person claims to be a Christian and is always lauding and praising ‘God’. What a person, especially a Charismatic person, needs to get over is the fact that false christians don’t often appear as false christians, but look like the real thing. They must learn to put personalities aside and the dangerous practice of judging by appearance and all apparent sincere claims to being Christian, and objectively examine what the person is teaching and/or ‘prophesying’, and cease taking people at face value. How can anyone, in these last days especially, risk taking anyone at face value without a thorough examination of what they believe or teach, when Scripture clearly warns of wolves who would appear as sheep?

The Charismatic prophets of today are obscure in their declarations. Their prophecies are, for the most part, very general in content, unlike the prophecies of the Bible, which were characterized and distinguished by the high level of detail they contained and their 100% fulfillment. Many so-called ‘prophets’ in Charismatic assemblies today use King James English so that their proclamations will sound more authentic and authoritative. Nevertheless, not all of today’s ‘prophecies’ come true. Some only partially come to pass, and some not at all, whilst others are completely opposite to that which ends up occurring! They are no different to the worthless dribble that many deluded people pay attention to in the daily horoscopes that appear in many newspapers and weekly magazines, or from the mouths of mediums and gypsies alike. And yet millions of people continue to pay attention to such verbal diarrhoea!!

Anyone can make predictions and achieve some level of success, and even, on occasion, pin-point accuracy. But what set apart a prophet of God from the false prophet was that ALL that issued forth from his mouth was accurate down to the finest detail. Of course this HAD to be the case, for the prophet was not speaking his own words but the very words of God Himself. Any error present was a sign that such a ‘prophet’ was not of God, and he was immediately to be stoned to death: "But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die....When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him" (Deut. 18:20,22 cf. Deut. 13:5).

HEALINGS - The principal characteristics that were synonymous with genuine and miraculous healings from God according to the Bible, was that when Jesus Christ or the apostles or the seventy spoke or laid hands on any, the person was ALWAYS healed, and their particular disease or demon DID NOT EVER return to them. As with genuine prophecy, true healings from God were 100% pure and free from any deficiency. These signs were the distinguishing marks that separated a true healing from God from the many false healings that occurred at the hands of pretenders and charlatans. All such healings attended the preaching of the Gospel and never false gospels. Any failure of success was proof positive that the signs were not coming from the true God, and that the gospel being preached was anything but the Gospel of God.

There was never such a thing as a partial healing, or one that took place gradually over several weeks, for this would not be demonstrative of a miracle having occurred. Nor was there ever an instance, as is so common today, where a person was healed, only to have the sickness return after a short while. Nor was there ever a case in Scripture where someone laid hands on a person, or spoke a word to them, and they were not healed. Many today, who are sincere in seeking healing, have someone pray over them and lay hands upon them and are then taught to ‘claim’ a healing from the Lord, despite the fact that nothing has occurred, nor does anything ever eventuate from the ‘healing’. Not once in all the pages of Scripture do we read of such utter lunacy.

In comparing true biblical healings with those occurring in the Charismatic churches of today, we see a vast difference. Some might say, ‘Yes, but that was Jesus’ or ‘They were the apostles and we’re not as great as they were’. But wait a minute. Jesus said that it was the Father in Him that performed the works (Jn. 14:10); it was also by God’s power that the apostles were able to heal (Acts 3:12,13), and so it stands to reason that anyone claiming to be a healer from God in our day must also be performing the healings through the power of God. What has the healer got to do with the success of a healing when it is God doing the healing? And don’t most of today’s so-called ‘healers’ say that their ‘healings’ are not being performed by them, but by God? Isn’t that what is being claimed by those in the Charismatic movement? Well then, why aren’t today’s healings identical to the type of healings found in the Bible? If it is the same God of the Bible performing the works, why the discrepancy? Charismatics are very fond of quoting Hebrews 13:8—a verse they actually misuse—which says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. If they insist that their healings are coming from God, they could not possibly use this verse to defend their claim, for it is obvious to all that the ‘healings’ occurring in the Charismatic movement are not the same as those found in the New Testament. And if they are not on a par with New Testament healings, they cannot be God’s healings. Where is the biblical evidence that today’s healings and prophecies are to be different to those found in the Bible? And again, what of Hebrews 13:8, which the Charismatics insist means that Jesus does the same things today that He did in the past, and in the same way??

The so-called charismatic healings of today are so unlike those found in the Bible as to clearly render them counterfeits. Today’s charismatic healings, as is the case with the ‘healings’ of secular faith healers and the faith healers, witch doctors and priestly healers of the world’s religions, are very different from the healings recorded for us in the Bible. These are the types of healings that the charismatic healings are identical to and indistinguishable from. They are not compatible with the healings of the Bible. They are not coming from God.

Again, today not every healing lasts. Not every person who is prayed over and who has hands laid upon them receives a healing. Some receive a partial healing only to see the disease return, and in some cases with increased severity. In such cases, the person’s faith, or lack of it, is blamed and it is never the fault of the ‘healer’. Many other reasons—or should we say excuses—are given to fill up the cracks, nay, chasms, in the multitude of cases when healing occurs partially or not at all, something that is a prominent feature of the Charismatic movement. Some would argue, "But what about the healings that do occur, where a person is cured and they remain cured of their ailment for the rest of their lives?" Again, we refer the reader to the fact that there are many such healings among pagan tribes, white witchcraft and new age cults of the world. They, too, experience sporadic success in their healings, but this does not mean that God is supporting their pagan teachings, and therefore that God is the one performing the healings. If none of their ‘healings’ worked, these religions would lose many, if not most, of their followers. The ‘healings’ that are occurring in religions and cults are nothing but deception. They appear to be real, but the people are simply being played for fools by demons who were allowed by God to bring about the symptoms of a disease or ailment and then simply removed them from such people, leaving them with an apparent healing but, unbeknownst to them, further entrenched in false gospels. Satan could not care less how much you ‘praise God’ or how moral a lifestyle you lead. As long as you hold to a false gospel, which teaches a false god, Satan is more than pleased for you to go on the way you are. What Satan wants is not to stop you leading a moral lifestyle, not even a religious lifestyle, but from hearing and believing the Gospel of God. Nothing pleases him more than deceiving a person, by false signs and lying wonders, into thinking they are Christian when they are not, or thinking they have the true God but do not. True Godly miracles and healings always and only accompanied the true preaching of His Word, and were never manifested in the midst of the promotion of false gospels and the like. What the Charismatic should be concentrating on is not whether out of 100 or 200 attempted healings a handful seem to produce results, but the fact that when 100 or 200 healings were attempted in the Bible, they ALL produced the desired result. 100% success and accuracy is the minimum requirement for a healing or prophecy to be of God. Any presence of hit-and-miss miracles etc., is evidence that God is not involved. Any absence of the Gospel of God is also evidence that God is not involved.

‘Not enough faith’ is perhaps the most often heard reason given for a failed attempt at healing. So many sincere people have become so disillusioned with ‘God’ because of their belief in the Charismatic movement’s false and blasphemous claims that her healers are operating under the power of God, and any healing that fails is the fault of the person and their lack of faith or some unconfessed sin. Conveniently, for the ‘healer’ and the movement he represents, this means that an unsuccessful healing is never the healer’s fault. No one can ever justly point a finger at him and so he remains untouchable, immune from any accusation of fraudulent activity. A high level of faith was not a prerequisite for healing in the Bible. One man, in Mark 9:24, asked the Lord, "...Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief." This man obviously had faith but he also had doubts, and yet the demon was cast out of his child (verse 25).

Others say that there was a time when even Jesus could not heal because of the people’s unbelief. Matthew 13:58 tells us, "And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." This verse is not telling us that Jesus could not do any mighty works there, but that He did not do many mighty works there. The reason for this is revealed in the context of the passage whence this verse is found. "...it would have been useless to the great purposes of His mission to have worked miracles there. We are not to suppose that His power was limited by the belief, or unbelief of men. But they were so prejudiced, so set against Him, that they were not in a condition to judge of evidence, and to be convinced. They would have charged it to derangement, or sorcery or the agency of the Devil, compare John 10:20: ‘And many of them said, ‘He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him?’" These people also knew His family, and Jesus did say that a prophet was not without honour except in his own country (see Matt. 13:55-57). The people would not believe Jesus could do these things because He came from their midst. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Dear Charismatic, imagine you had been alive in the days of Jesus and had been an eye witness to His marvellous miracles and healings, and someone was to say to you one day that Jesus Christ was close by prophesying and performing healings, and upon inviting you to join them to go and see, you did so gladly. Only, not long after arriving at the scene you noticed something very strange. Unlike the healings and signs you had previously observed, you could see that on this occasion only some people were receiving healing when prayed for or when having hands laid on them and only some prophecies were coming true. Although the man performing these hit-and-miss signs certainly looked like Jesus and was not saying anything against God, you would have been right to flee that scene for you could clearly see that these signs were not like the signs you had previously witnessed the real Jesus perform. Today, a true Bible-believing Christian would also flee such a scene, for these would not be the signs of God Almighty, and the people performing these ‘signs’ would not be doing them in the power of God, for when the power of God was present everyone got healed, and every demon was expelled, and every prophecy came true, and every miracle worked. The charismatic today has been mesmerized, by a slick and fancy religious setting, into believing that the signs happening around them, whilst not being exactly the same as those in the Bible, actually are the same! That they are at once different and also the same. True Christians, who know what the true Gospel is, would also flee any scene where a preacher stood up and began to preach a different gospel to God’s saving Gospel. False signs and lying wonders, and not Godly ones, are what is happening in Charismatic churches today.

Today’s signs are not God’s signs. The fingerprints of Satan are all over these counterfeit signs, which are always accompanied by false gospels and which the Bible prophesied would be the signs synonymous with the last apostate days of this age (see Matt. 24:24). Why then do so many still flock to Charismatic meetings? Why then are so many people still involved in a movement that performs the same ‘hit and miss’ signs indiscernible from those that are occurring in any of the other false religions of the world? The main reason is that these ‘signs’ are being done in the name of Jesus Christ. His name is being lauded and He is being praised with rousing, emotion charged, music. And sadly, for so many, this is all they need to convince them that they are in a Christian environment. Have you, the Charismatic, ever stopped to think what a counterfeit christian assembly would do other than the very things occurring in your own ‘churches’? False christian groups don’t stand up in unison shouting, ‘Cursed be Christ’, for, rather than being counterfeit christians, they would obviously be antichristians. The wolf must not only say he is a sheep, he must also look and sound like a sheep!!

So many pastors, writers and preachers seem hesitant, even afraid, to call the proponents of these hit-and-miss signs pretenders and charlatans, false christians who know not the Gospel and therefore know not God. Now we are not saying that every self-proclaimed prophet and healer is intentionally defrauding people, but this does not deny the fact that they are all deceiving the people and leading them astray by their false teachings and lying wonders. These men who come in the Lord’s name and proclaim that ‘Jesus is Lord’ are exactly who Jesus and the writers of the New Testament warned would come and that the last days would see a veritable plague of false prophets, false christs, false signs and lying wonders, and according to Matthew 7, these signs and wonders would be done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and would deceive many: "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt. 7:15); "For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many" (Matt. 24:5); "For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders..." (Matt. 24:24); "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). It is beyond irony that those who cannot see, who have no Gospel Light to guide them, have interpreted this monstrous mess as ‘revival’: the buzz word amongst Charismatics. It is a true proverb which states ‘those will never see who will not see’.

In verses 22 & 23 of Matthew 7, the Lord Jesus issues a sombre warning that there will be many people who will call Him ‘Lord’ and claim that they did many signs and performed wondrous works, and even cast out demons, in His name. Jesus will respond by informing them that He does not know them nor has He ever known them, and that what they had in reality been performing were works of iniquity, which works He hates, and that they were to depart from Him. "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" (Matt. 7:22,23). These sobering verses are chilling to say the least. They teach us that there are people who are convinced they are Christians, and who even call Jesus ‘Lord’, who honestly believe that the ‘signs’ done by their hands are coming from God and that demons are departing the possessed at their command, and that they are filling the world with many such wonderful works. But Jesus’ words show clearly that these people are not, and never were, Christians, and therefore none of the signs they performed were of God: the healings were false; the wondrous works were false; and the demons were deceiving them by giving the impression that, by their commands, they were departing. How many ‘deliverance ministries’ today are deceived by the very demons they believe they are ‘casting out’? Importantly, these words of the Lord Jesus show that these people were never Christians. He does not say ‘I once knew you but no longer,’ but He states clearly that He NEVER knew them. We learn from this that these people were not backsliders, they were not people who were once strong for the Lord but had fallen away. They had never been His people for He said He never knew them. Most frightening of all for these people is the fact that their faith was a false faith and though they prayed and worshipped God, they did so in vain. Also made clear in this passage is the fact that these people had no inkling that they were anything but true Christians. They had no idea they had been deceived and would, in light of all they were doing ‘for the Lord’, have laughed at the suggestion. But from the Lord’s words we see that they were very much deceived, despite what they thought of themselves and how convinced they were in their hearts that they were Christians who were performing wonderful works and were busy with their various healing and deliverance ministries. Many people today believe they ‘know’ God, but the question is: DOES GOD KNOW YOU? Those in Matthew 7 had a zeal for God, but their zeal was not according to right knowledge of God, it was not according to the knowledge of the truth which all saved men have (see 1 Tim. 2:4), and they therefore had never acknowledged the true God. They were never of God to begin with. Their zeal was according to lies about God, thus making their worship of God a vain one founded upon ignorance. They did not have the true Gospel and therefore were not followers of God, nor obeyers of His truth and no instruments of His power, but were pretenders, and so were deserving of judgement. The Scriptures say that Christ will come with His mighty angels "...in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. 1:8,9). To know God is to obey the Gospel of God and to obey the Gospel of God one must know the Gospel of God and believe it is the only Gospel that saves.

We know, from what is recorded for us in the Bible, how God heals. Now if some pastor says to you, ‘Oh well that’s how it was in the days of the New Testament, but that’s not how it is today,’ please ask him, ‘Why?’ and, ‘Where is your proof? How does he arrive at such a curious and convenient conclusion? Is it because, though convinced by the evidence he can see that the healings and so forth are different but because he is so convinced that those involved are all Christians it must be that God works differently in these last days? What sort of perverted reasoning is this? What kind of mind, after hearing a prophecy foretelling that an upcoming birth would produce a male child and upon seeing the child was female, would think that God must now be making males differently to how He used to? What absurd and nonsensical reasoning. But this is exactly the type of thinking that Charismatics have adopted, because they do not for one moment entertain the possibility that what they are involved in may well be a counterfeit! Because all involved are ‘Christian’ then all that is happening must be of God and if it is different to what occurred in the Bible it is no sign of a counterfeit only that God is doing things differently these days. For such people the Word of God is no authority but the standard is the very experiences they are enjoying. The apostle Paul did not say that if anyone claiming to be Christian came preaching a different gospel to his, it meant that God had changed and that people could now believe various, and even contradictory, gospels as well as the true one and still be saved! God’s Standard came first, and if the claims and teachings of a person did not fit with that Standard, then it was the person who was wrong and not God Who had changed!! Paul said that if anyone preached a different gospel to his, it was INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE that they and their message were not merely wrong but accursed. So, too, when any come with healings and prophecies different to those of Scripture, take it as sure evidence that they and their ‘miracles’ are NOT of God!! Its the differences that make all the difference and that which speaks volumes to the discerning mind. And what are we to do with the Charismatic cry that ‘God is the same yesterday, today and forever’, in light of the Charismatic’s insistence that God does do some things differently amongst them?? Where are the scriptures to prove that what the Charismatic pastor is saying is right? He will not provide you with any because there are none! No one today can answer these two simple questions. And sadly, many who cannot cope with the consequences of what I have just asked, retreat into the ‘safety’ of a sort of surreal world because they cannot comprehend how a man can speak reverently of God and yet not be of God, and how it is possible that they could have been so deceived for so long.

We beseech every Charismatic and Pentecostal to look carefully at what they are involved in and not to allow themselves to be fooled, by a veneer of Christian terminology and a superficial atmosphere wherein is lauded the name of Jesus but where the true Jesus is not present, into thinking, ‘What else could this be but Christianity? Remember the people in Matthew 7:21-23. They, too, believed they were Christians, for they called Jesus ‘Lord’ and saw many wonderful works and wonders being performed at their command. What do you think is meant when the Bible warns that wolves would come dressed as sheep and would deceive many? It means that error and deception would not only be presented, but presented in such a way that the simple would perceive it to be truth in the last days and many would be deceived thereby (see 2 Thess. 2:9-12). The wolf could never catch as many sheep without looking like a sheep himself. If he did not look like a sheep, all the sheep would see him coming and have time to flee. But when the wolf is indiscernible from the sheep in appearance, pity the sheep that are within his grasp. These wolves would not be a scattered breed of renegades and their followers a mere few, they would be formed into large organizations bearing the name ‘Christian’ and made up of those who are actually on the broad way that leads to destruction, rather than among the few who walk through the Strait and Narrow Gate which leadeth unto life, for the Lord Jesus said that "MANY" would be deceived (Matt. 24:5), and that many (plenteous, abundant) people will consider themselves Christians and call Him ‘Lord’. The world is almost filled to the brim with false christian organizations, and counterfeit gospels that fail to present and identify the true Christ, which therefore do not, and cannot, save. Scripture says that no one seeks God! In a world that is overflowing with religion and religious fervor, not one person by nature is seeking the true God (see Romans 3). The Gospel is that which must be believed, for only by the Gospel does God reveal His Son. Only the Gospel reveals the truth about God and how He saves, for only the Gospel reveals all that was needed to be done in, and what was necessary for, the salvation of a man. Only the Gospel reveals the glorious righteousness of Christ, without which no man can possibly be saved regardless of what he has done, or not done, or what he has experienced. Only the Gospel of the doctrines of the grace of God leaves no room for a man to boast, but gives all the glory for salvation to God. Those who are deceived into accepting false signs and lying wonders have not the true Gospel and therefore cannot have the true God.

TONGUES - There are many who believe that tongues is still a gift available to Christians today. Much like circumcision in the Old Testament, some even believe that this is the sign that proves that one is a Christian, and that if one has not spoken in ‘tongues’ one is not truly born again. To such people, belief of the Gospel is not the key, instead a mindless chattering and babbling is the sign that one is saved and Spirit-filled. Needless to say, there are several scriptures conveniently overlooked in reaching and maintaining this wrong conclusion, which show clearly that today’s ‘tongues’ is a vastly different proposition to what we find in the pages of the Bible. The issue is not really whether tongues have ceased or not but whether that being practised in the Charismatic movement is the tongues of the Bible. Rather than enter into a lengthy discourse on whether tongues or any of the other gifts have ceased, all we need do is compare what is happening today with the true biblical gifts as appeared in the New Testament. We have just learned of the significant differences between the prophecies of the Bible and those rather limp ‘prophecies’ of today, as well as the unbiblical healings being performed in today’s Charismatic scene. Let us now turn to the ‘tongues’ of today and compare them with the biblical gift.

In simple terms, the modern-day ‘gift of tongues’ is nothing but babble. Nothing but a series of mindless and meaningless sounds and syllables repeated over and over, something that Jesus Christ strictly forbad the Christian to practice (see Matthew 6). The tongues of today are no different to the ecstatic speech practised centuries before the biblical tongues were given on the day of Pentecost, and to the tongues of many native tribes of America, Africa, Australia and other regions of the world. Today’s Charismatic tongues, which are accompanied by the same feelings and sensations and sound the same as any of the tongues of witches, satanists and pagan cults the world over, are also practised among cults such as the Roman Catholics, the Christadelphians, the Way International, the Mormons, and other such groups. People today are even taught how to speak in tongues. Various methods are employed to produce this counterfeit gift. One such method is having the one learning tongues to repeat over and over "La, la, la, la, la, la..." "Some have said that they first began to speak in tongues by making noises with their mouths. Surely this means that tongues is a man-created thing?"

Some actually claim to be speaking a foreign language when exercising their ‘gift’ of tongues, and yet they have no interpreter nor any proof that what they are speaking is a foreign human language, other than the speaker’s feeling or sensing it is a definite language or that it sounds like Arabic or Greek. Even if someone could produce verifiable evidence of a person actually speaking a foreign language they had never learned, what would it prove but that one person happened to speak in a tongue? This would be no evidence that such a person had the true God of the Gospel, because many such instances have occurred with people who do not even profess to be Christians. Even possessed people have been known to speak a tongue they have not learned! It would have no bearing whatsoever on the fact that the vast majority of people who speak a nonsensical gibberish they call tongues are not speaking any language known to man or angel.

There have been sporadic reports of people who have been heard to speak actual foreign languages during Charismatic services and prayer meetings, only to have someone who understood the language as Greek or Hebrew tell them that they were uttering the vilest of blasphemies against God. We have heard of one person frightened to the point of running out of a particular Charismatic meeting, horrified at hearing the person next to them speaking blasphemy in Greek whilst believing themselves to be speaking the glories of God via their use of the ‘gift of tongues’. How such a one could be led of the Holy Spirit, let alone be a Christian, is beyond me. How can Charismatics, who pride themselves on their ability to discern that which is of God and that which is not, be unable to discern blasphemy in their midst, and what’s worse, think that what they are hearing is Holy Spirit-inspired!! And how, for that matter, can those Charismatic leaders and pastors stand there listening to such horrors, not being able to discern that blasphemies are being uttered rather than things which glorify God? How many Charismatic pastors have said ‘praise God’ after a tongues-speaker has ended their blasphemous oratory? Can you imagine the apostle Paul being present amongst a group of people speaking in tongues and not discerning that a person was uttering blasphemies, and worse still, thinking their utterances were a direct communication from God?!? Moreover, can you imagine the apostle Paul being convinced the tongue speakers had received their ‘gift’ from God, when in actual fact they were speaking gibberish? And worse still, could you imagine God, Whom many charismatic pastors say speaks directly to them, remaining silent whilst all this was going on in His name? Of course not!

On one occasion, a man heard a woman chanting/singing the following words over and over, ‘Anathema Yesous Christou - Anathema Yesous Christou - Yesou Christou Anathema’ believing herself to be uttering a biblical language. The language was Greek, which the man was quite familiar with as he had taught it for 8 years. He promptly informed the woman that the words she was saying meant, ‘Cursed be Jesus Christ’. The woman, with prideful indignance, replied that no one speaking by the Spirit could say such a thing, and choosing to ignore the interpretation, merrily continued to sing those horrible words, which no true believer speaking by the Spirit of God could ever say (see 1Cor. 12:3). The woman was so convinced by her circular reasoning that what she spoke was a biblical language inspired by the Holy Spirit that she ignored the interpretation she received, which proved it was indeed a biblical language (Greek), but was not being inspired by the Spirit of God. No conviction can be a good thing when it blinds you to the truth. The woman was so convinced that she, and what she had, was of God, it blinded her even to the possibility that she could be deceived and that her ‘gift’ was a counterfeit. People caught up in experiences that they genuinely believe are from God, are often so hardened by those experiences that they are blinded to the truth, even when it is clearly presented to them.

One man shared with me the time when, at a Charismatic prayer meeting, a young lady speaking/praying in ‘tongues’ was actually saying the word ‘penis’ over and over in the Macedonian language, a language she had never learned. Many people have heard similar reports. On another occasion, in a Charismatic service, one person stood up and proceeded to ‘speak in tongues’. Once he’d concluded his oration, another promptly stood and gave the ‘interpretation’. One man who was present at that meeting was a missionary on furlough, who, after having received permission by the pastor to speak, informed the congregation that the interpretation was entirely wrong, and that he understood the language which was spoken and heard nothing but blasphemy issuing forth from the ‘tongues’ speaker. If that man had not been present at that meeting, everyone would have gone home believing the tongue came from God and that the interpretation was correct, never knowing the vileness of what had really been uttered. How often, we may well ask, has this occurred, and continues to occur, in Charismatic meetings? How often have they praised God for things that He has had nothing to do with?

"One who has had years of experience in the (Charismatic) movement in England, Scotland, France and Holland writes, ‘A regular tongues speaker in a church will, in a message in tongues, utter almost the same syllables week after week, only to have a different interpretation on each occasion’" (‘The Charismatics and the Word of God’, p. 67).

Charismatic tongues have been closely examined by linguistics experts on many occasions and their findings are as follows: "The conclusions of the linguists indicate that modern glossolalia is composed of unknown sounds with no distinguishing vocabulary and grammatical features, simulated foreign features, and the total absence of language characteristics" (‘The Modern Tongues Movement’, p. 67). Another writes, "It is significant to note that at least two competent linguists, after analysing taped samples of glossolalia, both came to identical conclusions: what they heard were not actual languages but types of ecstatic speech, with peculiar consonantal structure and very limited vowel sounds, which bore no resemblance to any language spoken on earth" (What About Tongue Speaking?’, p. 132). Of course, the Charismatic would say to this that it proves nothing but that the tongues they speak are not human languages at all but the language of angels, referring to 1 Corinthians 13:1 where Paul stated: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." In referring to the tongues of angels here, Paul is saying" "Were I endowed with the faculty of eloquence and persuasion which we attribute to them; and the power of speaking to any of the human family with the power which they have. The language of angels here seems to be used to denote the highest power of using language, or of the most elevated faculty of eloquence and speech. It is evidently derived from the idea that the angels are superior, in all respects, to men; that they must have endowments in advance of all which man can have." Also, the apostle’s mention of the tongues of angels in no way suggests that the gift of tongues included men speaking with the language of angels. This is reading into the passage what is simply not there. Paul was making the point that if he could speak every human language, and even the language of angels, but did not have love, it would be of no profit at all.

One of the most significant points to be made about the biblical gift of tongues is that it was sent by God to be a sign to the unbelieving Jews (1Cor. 14:21,22 & Isa. 28:11). Conversely, today’s tongues are used as a sign for believers that they are born again. The biblical gift of languages was a judicial sign from God upon the children of Israel in response to their rejection of the Messiah and His Gospel. Many Charismatics today wrongly teach that the unbelievers which the Bible mentions tongues was a sign for, were those Christians who would not believe. But if one merely reads the chapter from which the verse originates, one will readily see that it was in fact a sign to the Jews and NO ONE ELSE!

A careful study of Scripture will also reveal that tongues were never used as a secret prayer language, or as a tool used in healing, or in the casting out of demons, as today’s ‘tongues’ are often utilised by those of the Charismatic movement. They were never used for self-edification but were for the edifying of the Church, as they were always and only to be spoken if there was an interpreter present (1Cor. 12;7; 14:28). The fatal error most Charismatics make when provided with such facts as I have mentioned is to reply with, ‘But... but... but...’, seeking to bring other scriptures into the conversation without properly dealing with the Scriptures that have just been shared with them. What they need to do is look at the scriptures that have just been given them, try and overcome those giant hurdles to a modern-day revival of biblical tongues, and then we can get to the other verses they are so keen to talk about. They never seem to give a direct answer to the scriptures that they are presented with, but always refer to those they are convinced proves them right, and dispute what is said to them with a convenient, ‘That’s just your interpretation.’

The Bible informs us that those who spoke in tongues spoke of the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:11), which was similar to the language used in the Psalms. Significantly, the tongues (varieties of languages) of the Bible was a phenomenon which made communication possible, whereas the tongues of the Charismatic movement today make communication impossible! God is not the Author of confusion but of decency and order.

According to the Word of God, it was permissible for only two, or at the most three, people to speak in a tongue (language) at one time, "...and that by course...", meaning one at a time, and only if there was someone present to interpret, revealing that it was essential that an interpreter be sought before the tongues were allowed to be uttered in the assembly: "If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church..." (1Cor. 14:27,28). If no interpreter could be found, the tongue speaker was to remain silent in the church for no one would understand what he was saying. This also shows that biblical tongues was not something spontaneous over which the speaker had no control, but something which he could control and perform in an orderly manner and when the speaker was ready to speak (see 1 Cor. 14:32). In direct violation of these scriptural standards, today’s Charismatic churches are filled with the noise of the babble of most, if not all, worshippers speaking simultaneously and without any interpretation whatsoever! The Bible knows nothing of the like. At other times, a person stands and ‘speaks in tongues’ and then the congregation is directed by the ‘pastor’ to remain silent as they wait in hope of an interpretation. Often there is no interpretation given, which is exactly the opposite of what Scripture directs should be the case. The Bibles’ tongues speaker was to search for an interpreter BEFORE he spoke, but the charismatic ‘tongues speaker’ speaks and then hopes an interpreter is present! Its all backwards. So we have the situation where a person has wasted 5-10 minutes of the people’s time by uttering things no one has been able to understand. No one is edified and no one profits, which defeats the whole purpose and makes a mockery of the biblical gift of tongues – that of edifying the church. To add to this unbiblical scenario, many in the Charismatic movement sing in tongues, something that is also completely foreign to the Scriptures.

Today’s ‘tongues’ is everything the biblical gift of tongues was not, and it is practised in a most unbiblical manner. The Bible says that God is NOT the author of confusion. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Charismatic missionaries have to attend a school where they must learn the language of the mission field they are to minister at. Most of these missionaries claim to have the gift of tongues, but isn’t it strange that never once is it a language with which they can speak to the foreign tribe they have been sent to?

There are many books and audio tapes available through this author that will help people understand the many differences between Bible tongues and the babble that has bewitched many today. Some of these are by former Charismatic ministers who were involved in the Charismatic movement for a number of years. In this brief comparison between biblical prophecy, healings and tongues, and what masquerades today as the same, we can see that there are huge and undeniable differences. Sadly, there is much misuse and abuse of the Scriptures too. Many scriptures have been twisted in such a way as to support the Charismatic version of these practices with all their deficiencies, whilst others are conveniently ignored. And all too many people not biblically sound in the knowledge of the Bible fall for it, hook line and sinker.

No, my friends, this author has not committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit by saying that the Charismatic movement and her practices are not of God, for that is not what the blasphemy is. The Charismatic movement has never proven that its practices and ‘gifts’ are in fact of God. Simply saying, ‘Hear what I say and look at what I do’ is no evidence that what you believe is the truth. All we have done in this booklet is explain what the blasphemy is and what it is not. Also, we have rightly examined the fruit of those who claim ownership of God and His miracles and who, curiously, are all too quick to denounce any examination or inquiry as devilish. In truth there is freedom — in error there is fear.

The Charismatic is reminded of one very important and overlooked fact. It is just as much a blasphemy of God to say that something is of God when it is not, as it is to say that something is not of God when in fact it is. Paul spoke about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and said that if Christ has not indeed been raised, he, and those with him, would be found to be false witnesses of God (see 1 Cor. 15:12-15). The Charismatic prophet claims his words are from God. But how could error and inaccuracy come from the mouth of one who claims to be speaking the words of God? This is blasphemy. The Charismatic healer claims his healings—when they do come—are of God. But how, we ask, could hit-and-miss healings come from the Hand of Almighty God? This, too, is blasphemy. And the Charismatic ‘tongues speaker’, rather than speak a language that is interpretable, speaks a gibberish that has no meaning to it at all. None of these Charismatic signs and wonders are of God and it is blasphemy for anyone to say that they are.

One scripture which is heavily but incorrectly relied upon to assure the Charismatic that he cannot be deceived in anything, is Matthew 24:24: "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." The verse does not mean that true Christians (the elect) cannot be deceived, but that they cannot be deceived to the point where they would abandon the Saviour and the Gospel which reveals Him. Charismatics are automatically ruled out as being the elect ones Christ spoke of, for all of God’s elect believe in the same Gospel, which is not the gospel preached in Charismatic churches.

Some will concede, ‘O.K., so there are some prophecies in the Charismatic movement that don’t come true. There are some healings which don’t take place. But that doesn’t mean we should drop the whole Charismatic movement and say it’s not of God!’ My friend, THAT is the very evidence that proves the Charismatic movement is not of God, and this is precisely why you should abandon the Charismatic movement in its entirety. Their claims are that God gives the words, God does the healing. Well, why aren’t they the same as they appeared in the Bible? The whole movement is founded, grounded, and based on, the alleged revival of the BIBLICAL gifts. Well then, why aren’t the gifts we are seeing today BIBLICAL??????? If these experiences and ‘gifts’ are different from those found in the trusted Word of God, then it is incumbent upon every Charismatic out there to show that this is what the Scriptures teach; that the gifts in the last days would differ to how they were manifested in the Bible. But they will find that nowhere does the word of God foretell of biblical signs and gifts being different in the last days. The only signs it speaks of are counterfeit signs! So in light of this, we must ask ourselves what it is that is loose in Charismatic churches today; what it is that is running amuck and deceiving so many people today. IT IS A COUNTERFEIT SPIRIT!! For if the gifts are counterfeit; if the signs are counterfeit; and if the gospel is a counterfeit, then it must be a counterfeit spirit at work. Scripture teaches that if any came preaching anything different to what it teaches, it is a sure sign that a spirit of falsehood is behind the phenomena and not the Spirit of God. Scripture does not merely have a standard, SCRIPTURE IS THE STANDARD, and if anything does not match with what it says, then it is the sure-fire evidence that it is not of God. Look at the detail dear Charismatic person, for the Devil is often found in the detail! You’ll never discover the counterfeit by its general appearance, but you will always discover its true value, or should I say lack of value, in its detail!!!

No sane person would accept a counterfeit $50 note simply because it was very similar, even bearing a striking resemblance, to the genuine. If it is not genuine, no matter how close to the real thing it appears to be, the sane man would have no hesitation in rejecting it out of hand, indeed would have no reason to hesitate. Only the person who has discerned the $50 note to be a counterfeit knows that it is of no value whatsoever. But to the untrained eye, to the eye that knows not what to look for, the note looks as good as any other and could be nothing but what it appears to be. All counterfeits, though having the look and feel of the genuine, are absolutely worthless. Only the unwary believe it to be of any value at all. We believe that we have sufficiently highlighted substantial differences between the false gifts of the Charismatic movement and the genuine gifts of the Bible to render the Charismatic movement a counterfeit movement that is not of God. This is not an attack upon the people who attend those churches. It is an exposé of a system and its false and blasphemous claims, and is a warning to those people to get out of the Charismatic movement, repent of its gospel and signs as being of God and believe the only Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. Even after having made this clear, I know there will be many Charismatics who will only see this booklet as a personal attack on them, and I know there is nothing I can say to those people that would convince them otherwise. There is nothing I can do for these people but say what I have said and pray.

Many will stand aghast and respond to our plea for Charismatics to abandon the Charismatic movement in its entirety by saying, ‘Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.’ My friends, it is not a baby in the bath water, but a life-like doll that has no true life in it! It may have the appearance and the feel of a baby, it may even make the same sounds as a baby, but it is a worthless plastic imitation! You say, ‘You speak rather boldly’. I say: ITS TIME TO BE BOLD!! Its time to have courage enough to call a spade a spade, in love, that those who are in error might at least have the chance to hear the truth, to hear the warning trumpet, to hear the TRUE Gospel and know the TRUE God. It’s time to speak frankly and defend the Word of God and His true works with forthrightness and clarity, for anything that comes in Jesus’ name and is in fact not of Him, must be exposed for what it is and be avoided at all costs.

Others will say, ‘But how could so many people be so wrong? Do you mean to tell me that millions of people are deceived when it comes to the claims of the Charismatic movement? YES!! That is exactly what we are saying. We do not denounce or put down these people, and we rebuke anyone who does so. We merely sound the alarm bells in the hope that some might be alerted to the dangerous practices and false gospel they are involved with and flee. Look how many Mormons there are, how many Muslims and how many Roman Catholics. The total would be well over two billion! At least two billion deceived people on the broad way that leads to hell, and most, if not all, are sincere in their beliefs. How shocked they will be when they arrive in hell and realise they had all the while been deceived. That no matter how many their experiences, or how wonderful they were made to feel or how sincere they had been in their religious lives, they never had the true God and therefore were never saved. You see, sincerity proves nothing, yet many use it as a type of security blanket little realising that the blanket will one day become their grave cloth. People see an attempt to expose error in their lives as some sort of attack upon their sincerity and honest convictions. No one is doubting how sincere Charismatics are or how honestly they are convinced about what they believe. All we are doing is exposing the lies taught by this movement and the false signs and lying wonders it uses to get its lies accepted. He whose trust and faith is not of God, is not in God. Those who do not trust in the true God are in fact trusting in their own hearts. They believe with a faith that is not of God but is natural to man, hence his attraction to a counterfeit christianity rather than to the truth (see 2 Thess. 2:10-12). The Bible says that the human heart is "...deceitful above all things and desperately wicked..." (Jer. 17:9), and "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool..." (Prov. 28:26).

Many would respond to this by saying, ‘But how could I be deceived; I claim the name of Jesus; I call Him Lord? I love Him with all my heart’. Again, sincerity is not security and conviction without truth is the heart and soul of the deceived state. Sincerity in what you believe is no guarantee that what you believe is the truth. How many people do you know who sincerely believe in something they know to be wrong? I don’t know of any and neither do you. Everyone believes that what they believe is right, and in the religious realm everyone believes what they believe to be the truth. ‘Everyone believes they are saved, before they are saved, until they are saved.’ Many warn of a false jesus but no one believes that the jesus they believe in is a false one. No one is doubting that you love the one you have been taught is Jesus the Lord. What we are saying is you have been taught another jesus that is not the Savior of His people. Matthew 7 is where the Lord Jesus tells us that many who not only claimed to love Him but actually did works in His name and called Him Lord, will be told that He does not know them, in fact He never knew them for they had fallen for another jesus. Their names are not registered in the Lamb’s Book of Life, they never have been. He then commands them to depart from Him. Who are these people? Think well my friend of what you believe and what you are involved in. Many might say, ‘Yes, but they couldn’t possibly have been Christians.’ That’s right, but they were convinced they were! They were convinced that what they were doing was of God and that they had Paradise awaiting them. But they were dead wrong!! They were wrong about their being Christians, they were wrong about their works being of God, and they were wrong about the one they called ‘Lord’!! Simply because a person is convinced they are Christian is no evidence that they are, it merely tells us that they believe they are. Conviction without truth, just as zeal without true knowledge, is the state of the ignorant. Simply because you believe you love the Lord Jesus Christ is no evidence that the jesus you love is the true Jesus. These are concepts and possibilities that never enter the minds of those who have no time or desire to judge, question, and examine themselves to see whether they are in THE Faith. What a person believes will show whether or not they are Christian, for the gospel or Gospel they believe identifies the one they believe in. False gospels can only identify and promote false christs. Only the true Gospel rightly identifies and distinguishes the true Christ from the false, for only God’s Gospel contains God’s Testimony of Who His Son is and what His Son has done to save the people He did it for from their sins.

We are not for one moment suggesting that all Charismatics are reprobate. God’s elect come from every tribe and nation, from every walk of life, and have been brought out of various groups espousing doctrinal darkness and there may well be many who are currently in the Charismatic movement who will one day hear, understand and believe the true Gospel and come away from her smothering embrace. What we are saying is that the Bible clearly shows that there will be many who will call Him Lord in the Day of Judgement whom He never knew. And these people were involved with signs and the casting out of demons! Some will say, ‘Yes, but they must be the J.W.’s or some cult like them’, no, these people called on the name of Jesus and addressed Him as Lord. They believed they were Christians! The Bible commands God’s people to flee from error; from Babylon, and every true Christian will do so. Why would any Christian willingly remain in the midst of error, especially when God has commanded that we flee it? Scripture teaches: "Cease...to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge" (Prov. 19:27). How could any person born again of God’s Spirit, whose eyes have been opened to the true Gospel, remain a believer in a false gospel and continue to sit under its preaching, surrounded by false signs and lying wonders? Many who have seen the counterfeit in the Charismatic movement, remain within its walls with the excuse that they feel they can best help those who are still deceived by remaining a part of the movement. They may well be doing this with good intentions and a noble purpose, but they are defying the biblical command to "‘...come out from among them, and be ye separate,’ saith the Lord..." (2Cor. 6:17). Others remain in the Charismatic movement with the excuse, ‘Where am I supposed to go, and if I do leave where am I supposed to fellowship? All my friends are here.’ These excuses fly directly in the face of the biblical commandment to flee error and that contained in the above verse from 2 Corinthians. People who offer such excuses place themselves before God. They speak as if God were not able to lead them to a sound group of believers, or that they will suffer if they split from a group to which they have become attached. The issue is not, ‘Where will I fellowship, where will I go?’, but ‘Believe the Gospel, separate from error and assemble with God’s true people!’

A final word on tongues. Mark 16:15-18 is a passage wherein we find Jesus addressing the apostles. In this portion of scripture, Jesus tells the eleven that they shall speak with new tongues (v.17). The Charismatic is very fond of this verse and uses it with authority to defend his belief that every Christian has a biblical directive to speak in tongues. We will not, as so many others do, allow ourselves to become caught up in an exposition of this passage from Mark. Along with such verses as 1Corinthians 14:39, where Paul commanded that the Corinthians not forbid to speak in tongues, Mark 16:17 is used in a false sense because it is presumed that what is practised today is the biblical gift of languages. No it is not! and this author challenges anyone to prove that the babble of today is the great gift of tongues as demonstrated in the Bible.

Regardless of the scriptures he may quote, the Charismatic is required to prove that what he has is in fact the tongues of the Bible. One cannot just quote a scripture under the presumption that what one believes to be tongues is that same tongues mentioned in the Bible. This would be like believing that people of differing religious persuasions are all talking of the true Jesus when they speak of the jesus they follow. The Mormon is not speaking of the same jesus the J.W is, and the J.W. is not speaking of the same jesus the Roman Catholic is, and the Roman Catholic is not speaking of the same jesus whom the Seventh-Day Adventists advocate, and none of these, including the Charismatics, are speaking of THE Jesus whom God testifies to in His Gospel. Incidentally, Jesus went on in Mark 16 to say that several other signs would follow the apostles, not only tongues. These verses are conveniently ignored by most. Verse 18 for instance talks about taking up serpents and drinking deadly poison. Why aren’t the Charismatics as zealous about these verses as they are about tongues? Why aren’t serpents and strychnine present at every Charismatic service? Robert Gromacki, in his outstanding book, ‘The Modern Tongues Movement’, concludes: "These signs (in Mark 16:17,18), are not found in the other accounts of the great commission (Matt. 28:18-20; Lk. 24:46-49; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8). Since they are not all found in the experience of the early Church, this passage should not be set forth as the intended pattern for this age. Also, it is not right for the modern tongues movement to select one of these signs and to emphasize it as the sign of Spirit-filled living apart from the other four. It is either all five or none at all. That is what the passage teaches" (p.78).

SLAYING IN THE SPIRIT - If ever there was a sign that shows the Charismatic movement is not of God, this is it. The slaying in the spirit is believed to be the Holy Spirit’s presence on a person, causing/forcing them to fall backwards, often unconscious and at times against their will. In more recent times, people have been shaking uncontrollably after being ‘slain’ and laughing or crying uncontrollably. Others roar like lions, bark like dogs or slither along the floor like snakes! Remarkably, these same manifestations, once believed by Charismatics to be the evidence of demonic possession, are now believed to be prompted by the Holy Spirit! For many, the main issue concerning the ‘slaying’ has become: is it real or not? ‘If its real then it must be of God,’ is the perilous line of reasoning that many Charismatics follow. This author does not deny that in many instances the ‘slaying’ is very real. My question is: who or what is causing it?

Needless to say, there is no Scriptural backing for such a mad display of ecstatic religious fanaticism, a fact that many Charismatic leaders affirm. One remarked that even though there was no biblical precedent for the slaying phenomena, ‘One must go by experiences sometimes’. We see from such a foolhardy and irresponsible comment as this, that though this practice cannot be attested to by Scripture, we are to believe it is of God simply because it has happened to people who claim to love God. This is, to say the least, a very dangerous principle to live by, for it not only paves the way for all sorts of erroneous doctrines, including false gospels, but is a gateway to the demonic. We are expected, then, to believe that men who say they are of God are of God simply because they say they are, and to believe that the Holy Spirit is responsible for the ‘slaying’ simply because it is real. How are we to test this experience? By listening to testimonies of those who have experienced it? If so, our faith becomes one that is based on subjective experiences, or on the word of others, rather than on the revealed Word of God, in which case the doors are flung open to any and every experience and as long as it is done in a ‘christian’ environment, all is well and it must be of God. This kind of illogical thinking has wrecked the lives of many a soul, for it provides an open doorway for Satan to come in as an angel of light. The Lord Jesus Christ said that it was a wise man who built his house upon rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ, the Word of God (Matt. 7:24,25). Only a fool would build his house upon the sands of experience. Proverbs 14:15 says, "The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going."

Convulsions, fainting spells, uncontrollable rantings and ravings and the like, are common occurrences throughout the world wherever there is religious fanaticism, whether it be pagan, cultic, or even in professing christian churches. Yet many, particularly those who have experienced the slaying, hastily disagree with the above comments because they have experienced great peace and comfort during their slain state. They believe they have been drawn closer to God by such an experience, little knowing that the god they have been drawn closer to is a counterfeit! They remain as ignorant as ever of the true Gospel and therefore do not know the God of the Gospel, and so remain open to counterfeit gods and their openly non-biblical experiences such as the slaying. The ‘peace’ and ‘spiritual ecstasy’ experienced by those ‘slain in the spirit’ does not, however, alter the fact of its non-scriptural origin or deny the many horrendous experiences people have endured whilst being in the slain state, or as a consequence of it. Testimonies are not to be relied upon. Testimonies, more often than not, have no tangible evidence to prove their veracity. The strength behind testimonies is the willingness of the hearers to believe them. If we are to go by the ‘positive’ testimonies of others, including those who have experienced the ‘slaying’, then we must with equal zeal and credulity listen to those who have disturbing things to say about their negative experiences with the ‘slaying’, as well as to those who say they experienced great peace because of it. All that will result will be confusion. Reliance and a real trust based solely upon the Scriptures will bless and comfort and make one clear as to what is of God and what is not. Experience only validates itself. It often has nothing to substantiate it other than perceived results, which can be influenced by the mind‘s often desperate willingness to believe that ‘something of God’ has happened. Interestingly, many who have experienced the ‘slaying’ have told of a feeling of weightlessness or floating, which is identical to the testimonies given by many who have undergone hypnosis. Others have felt a heaviness or great weight upon them, which is also what many hypnotized people have experienced. "Tingling in the hands was one of the most commonly experienced sensations during one of (John) Wimber’s meetings with 52 percent of the total sample experiencing it. One who experienced the Toronto Blessing in England reported: ‘I fell over and the Holy Spirit came through my feet like a tingling electric current and up my body to my chest, where I felt resistance.’ During some exercises in autohypnosis, hand tingling was also one of the most commonly experienced sensations with 72 percent experiencing tingling in their hands" (‘The Toronto Blessing and Slaying in the Spirit, The Telling Wonder’, p. 18). Many have experienced the feeling of an electric current passing through their bodies whilst being slain in the spirit. This phenomena is precisely that which is experienced by those involved with the occult, as well as those involved with Hinduism and the Kundalini force, and some whilst indulging in illicit drugs such as marijuana and the like. The following is just a sample of what ‘slain’ people have experienced: "Very strong ‘electric current’ through arms, with fingers turning in...Electricity feeling over head...Electric shock during the presence of the Holy Spirit, envelopes of ‘energy’?—difficult to describe. Cone of power/energy descended on me. Aura of tremendous power around lower arms and hands, electricity in legs. Force field coming over me like rain running down from head to toe. It was like something out of Star Wars. (‘Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact? p. 187); "As she lay there she was aware continuously of energy passing through her body" (‘Overcome By the Spirit, p. 40).

One man offers his comments as to why the ‘slaying’, and other such experiences, is one which has no scriptural basis: "...there is nothing in the Bible to lead us to regard these bodily affections as the legitimate effects of religious feeling. No such results followed the preaching of Christ or His apostles. We hear no general outcries, faintings, convulsions or ravings (except in those possessed by demons) in the assemblies which they addressed....Their authority is directly opposed to all such disorders. They direct that all things should be done decently and in order. They teach us that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, in all the churches of the saints (1 Cor. 14:33,40). These passages have particular reference to the manner of conducting public worship (cf. Psa. 2:11). They forbid everything which is inconsistent with order, solemnity and devout attention. It is evident that loud outcries and convulsions are inconsistent with these things...They cannot come from God for He is not the author of confusion." Another makes the following striking observation: "It is worth remembering that in the Bible it is only God’s enemies who fall backwards when confronted with His naked spiritual power (e.g., Jn. 18:6; cf. Isa. 28:13); whereas the Lord’s true people always fall forwards on their faces in awestruck adoration and worship (e.g., Gen. 17:3; Josh 5:14; Ezek. 1:28; 44:4; Matt. 7:5,6; Rev. 7:11; 11:16)."

Even two of the Charismatic movement’s biggest supporters are against the slaying. Cardinal Leon Joseph Seunens, former archbishop of Brussels-Malines, has stated that "The slaying is the work of an alien force" (‘Resting in the Spirit’, back cover). David Du Plessis, the representative of the Pentecostal churches at Vatican Council II, beseeched Roman Catholics to avoid the mistake made by the Pentecostals in the past, and not to introduce the ‘falling phenomenon’, which had given them "NOTHING BUT TROUBLE!!" (‘Resting in the Spirit’, p.32). It is interesting to note that the prince of Arminianism, John Wesley, saw the slaying occur often in his so-called revival meetings, wrongly interpreting it as something of God. Arminianism, upon which the Charismatic movement is founded, teaches the very popular, but nonetheless false, gospel that Christ died for everyone and that man is not dead in sin to the point he cannot choose God by his free will. "John Wesley’s Journal tells of people who during his preaching ‘were struck to the ground and lay there groaning’ (Knox, 1950 citing Wesley’s Journal, p. 118). The Methodist circuit-rider Peter Cartwright’s preaching was also accompanied by listeners falling under the power. Similar results accompanied George Whitefield’s preaching and are attested to in the writings of Jonathan Edwards as well (ibid., 526, 529, 530). Charles G. Finney’s Autobiography recounts episodes in which people could not move or speak, in one instance for sixteen hours (Wessel, 1977, reprint, p. 58)." It must be pointed out that the preaching of both the Methodists and Charles Finney were Arminian and strongly opposed to the Gospel of the Bible. Also, Whitefield was a tolerant Calvinist claiming to believe the so-called Calvinist doctrine and yet insisting, like Spurgeon, that those who believed the Arminian gospel, whose doctrines are diametrically opposed to those of the Bible, were also saved. Many in the Charismatic movement, in an effort to show that the slaying occurring in their meetings is a Christian experience, often refer to the meetings of several respected mainline Protestant leaders of the past where the same phenomena occurred. What they fail to realise is that the men they so eagerly refer to were not preachers of the Gospel and so they, too, were deceived by something which was not of God at all. These instances are merely further evidence of how false and demonic signs attend the preaching of false gospels and never the true.

The ‘Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements’ also admits that the ‘slaying’ is not biblical. It says that ‘The source of the experience can be a purely human response to autosuggestion, group peer pressure or simply a desire to experience the phenomenon" (p.789). The writers go on to say, "It is equally unquestionable that there is no biblical evidence for the experience as normative in Christian life" (p. 791). Though denouncing the practice, the writers of this dictionary are irresponsible in their failure to address those who have felt a very real force pressing on their chests or heads, forcing them to fall backwards. If this is not the Holy Spirit, which it patently is not, then it must be demonic. There are, of course, many instances where people allow themselves to fall for whatever reason, but there are others where a very real pressure is felt pushing them backwards, and people who did not really want to experience the phenomenon but who, against their will, fell to the ground nonetheless, some even suffering injury in the process. My friends, the ‘slaying in the spirit’ is not a biblical practice, and it has never been accompanied by the preaching of the true Gospel. It has always accompanied the teachings of men who knew not the Gospel of God, but who promoted a counterfeit in His name. It is not found in the pages of the Bible, yet there are many who trust in it as an experience from God simply because they claim to love God and because the experience is real. I have seen the smiling faces and heard the high praises from people who have experienced this phenomenon, but none of this outward display of conviction is any proof that the experience is of God, for many people in other religions have experienced the same thing. The common denominator of the Charismatic movement and others who experience the ‘slaying’ is that none of these groups teach the Gospel of God. Charismatics have made the fatal mistake of trusting both in their own hearts and the words of others who come to them and say, ‘Experience this, for it is of God.’

We have clearly shown the reader what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is and what it most definitely is not. Charismatics must break free from the shackles of fear that hold them in a vice-like grip to the erroneous teachings and counterfeit practices they have been led into. The Bible encourages God’s people to not blindly believe and follow, but to TEST, believe only the truth and follow!! The genuine truth-seeker has nothing to fear from the truth. The genuine truth-seeker will welcome truth, and scorn error and all falsehood that would dare present itself to him as truth. He will not seek, nor want, to defend error, or the teachers of it, but will flee from it. The genuine truth-seeker who is caught up in error may be somewhat hesitant at first to test those whom he follows, but his hesitancy and apprehension will dissolve if he receives the grace of God and prays for guidance and help from Him. NOW is the time to make sure that what you believe is exactly what God is saying in His Word. NOW is the time to make sure that the practices you are involved in are in complete harmony with what went on in the New Testament.

Many today are quick to boldly declare their love for the truth and willingness to examine what they believe and practice, because they are so convinced that what they hold to as truth is truth. They are totally unprepared for the real truth, for they do not expect to find out that they have been believing in lies and that they are not saved because they have been given a false gospel to believe, and many, when they do, abruptly cease their studies or discussion with those who seek to share the truth with them for FEAR. Upon discovering that they may well have been deceived up to this point in their lives, and realising that should they accept these things they would have to admit they had never been Christians but wholly deceived by a false gospel, many quickly pack everything away and try to carry on as if nothing has happened. Many are just simply not prepared to admit that they have been wrong and that they have wasted years of their lives in a false gospel. Mumbling some sort of excuse to themselves, they return to their improper understanding of the Scriptures and enjoy the ‘peace’ this brings them. They find comfort in joining with others who continue in their own ignorance of the truth, and dare not share their findings with them at the risk of being seen as an oddball, but consciously choose to forget what they have learned. They ignore both the historical facts and the Scriptures, which shine God’s Light upon their false beliefs, because of an often pride-induced fear resident within them that stubbornly refuses to accept the possibility, not to mention the implications, ramifications and accompanying embarrassment and humiliation, that they have been deceived. One such person, a Charismatic, said upon having seen for himself that certain information provided to him concerning the gross errors of the Charismatic movement, was undeniable, that ‘I cannot deny what this evidence is saying but I cannot accept it, for I would then have to admit that for the past three years I have been deceived.’ Can you imagine thinking this way and can you see the bondage such a person is in? To be ignorant is one thing, but to be willingly ignorant in the face of undeniable fact is the domain of the most ardent of fools.

This author was once like this. Browsing through a local ‘Christian’ bookstore I came across a book on spiritual deception which I proceeded to skim through. I came across a section which was talking about the Faith movement. Upon realising that the book was pointing out the dangerous errors of Kenneth Copeland, I quickly closed the book and carried on as normal. I did not want to know what was said against Copeland, nor did I want to examine any of it. I did not want my little religious life upset and wrecked by, what I later learned was, the truth, because I enjoyed Copeland’s preaching and collecting his tapes. But thanks be to God and His marvellous grace, His Light shone upon me when I was not seeking Him because I believed I truly had the true God. Merely because I did not consider myself to be in bondage, did not make me a free man. The worst kind of bondage is when the bound person does not believe themselves to be bound, but free. Deceived people don’t struggle against that which has bound them, they sit back comfortably in its arms. After a couple more years of Copelandism, God made me willing to examine closely the erroneous teachings of Kenneth Copeland and the Faith movement and examine them in light of the Scriptures to see if the man I was following, and the gospel he was preaching, and the gifts he was claiming, were in fact Christian. I had been in bondage to Roman Catholicism and the Faith movement and tolerant Calvinism for over 15 years but have been made free by the Incarnate and written Word of God!! I have been made free by the Holy Spirit, Who has led and guided me into the truth of God’s one and only Gospel, the only Gospel that saves! And I now see clearly that I was never saved whilst believing the false gospels of those I once followed. What loss have I suffered, now that I have gained the truth? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! I share in the apostle’s thoughts: "...I count all things but loss (no profit) for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3:8,9).

One of the biggest obstacles that keeps people from examining themselves and acknowledging the truth and the fact that they have been deceived, is CHANGE! They are afraid of the change in their lives that would follow the necessary abandonment of the teachings and practices of their friends and church. ‘Where will I go? What will I do? Where will I find fellowship? What will my family say? What will my friends say?’ These are words of fear. People who are not prepared to face up to and accept the cost they must pay if they want to follow Jesus cannot be among God’s chosen. Christ says it this way, "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:37,38). When truth comes it will make you free, and the truly regenerate man will never regret his acknowledgement and acceptance of the truth of God. This love of the truth is far greater than anything fear can come up with to try and intimidate a person. To love, believe and obey the true Gospel, is to truly know, love and obey God (see 2 Thess. 1:8) and no Christian has ever been without it, or regretted the ‘loss’ of all that preceded it.

Now, it’s one thing to say you are willing to test and to have tested, but the question is: Have you tested correctly? Do you know how to test correctly? What have you used to test your experiences and gospel by? Have you used the proper objective method via the Scriptures, or have you simply gone by your feelings and listened to the preaching or writings of men who hold to those lies? Many say they have tested their experiences, but all they have done is look at the same scriptures in the same way they have been doing for years and prayed, ‘Lord, if this is not of you please take it away.’ Listen my friend, don’t try to play games with God. God has given His Holy and unerring Word and provided us with a mind with which to think, and He expects us to use our minds and the Scriptures in conjunction with prayer so that we might discover what is right and what is wrong. Things aren’t just going to drop down from heaven. Signs aren’t miraculously going to appear before us saying, ‘this is not of God.’ One must search and study and apply oneself (see Prov. 2:1-5 cf. 2 Tim. 2:15). So many people are fooled by their own heart, which Jeremiah 17:9 tells us "...is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?", when they pray this way. So many think they are sincere when they pray such a ‘noble’ prayer when in reality, all they are doing is merely using this ‘plea for guidance’ and ‘openness to correction’ to confirm what they want and are content with. They are playing games with their eternal futures and are no seekers of God. Others test by Scripture but use the Bible incorrectly, taking texts out of their contexts and ending up with pretexts. They read into the Scriptures what they were never meant to say. They listen to tapes or check up on the Bible references used by their leaders and seem to gain comfort merely in the fact that those scriptures exist, interpreting the existence of the scriptures quoted as some sort of guarantee that what they have been taught about them is the truth, or merely in the fact that those they listen to or read encourage them to test what they are saying. ‘Don’t just believe it ‘cause I said it,’ is proof enough for some people that what a man is preaching must be the truth.

After having their error pointed out and being provided with a biblical definition of a scripture, those who have no real answer often respond by saying, ‘But that’s just your interpretation.’ This really is not the most spiritually mature statement one could make, for in resorting to it one could just as easily be accused of the same thing. The person who implies that what someone believes and teaches is merely an interpretation that originates within the person and is not necessarily the truth, must also accept the possibility that what they believe is likewise a mere interpretation. Neither can then say with any confidence that what they have is the truth, for this line of reasoning renders everyone’s beliefs and teachings mere interpretations of what the real truth is. Obviously, the Lord God would not have left His people in such a ridiculous mess as to live their lives never knowing, and it never being possible to have, a proper understanding of what He is saying in the Bible, of never knowing what the true and saving Gospel is. How then would the Holy Spirit be able to lead His people to the truth if none of them were able to discern it? And how could God’s people be encouraged to test everything and hold fast to that which is good if all we had to go on was mere interpretation? If we are to test, there must be a Standard by which a thing can be tested and identified as either truth or error. The Bible’s teachings are knowable and after a thorough and proper searching of the Scriptures and comparing scripture with scripture, we can then teach with authority on what God has revealed to us in His Word. It is true, the Bible says that, "...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man (the natural or unregenerate man, see 1 Cor. 2:14), the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. BUT GOD HATH revealed them UNTO US (His people) by His Spirit..." (1 Cor. 2:9,10). God has and does reveal His truth to His people and they have and shall all see, understand and believe the same truth, the same Gospel, for they have all been given the same faith and therefore are all of the same mind, the mind of Christ (see 1 Cor. 2:16). It is only those who have not been given the love of the truth, who have not embraced the truth, who do not recognize it as the Word of God but as mere opinions of men (see 1 Thess. 2:13; cf. Jn. 10:26,27).

The big test is to study the Bible in the correct and proper manner. Find Scripturally based books that point out the errors of the Charismatic movement and have courage enough to discover why. Then test it all by searching the Scriptures, all the while asking God to show you the truth. Above all else learn what the true Gospel is. Learn what the Gospel that Paul taught is and live and judge by that Gospel alone. DON’T judge by appearance or a person’s reputation, DON’T judge by your experiences or those of others, DON’T judge by your good intentions, honesty or zeal, DON’T judge by the sincerity and conviction of others but only judge by the written Word of God, the Truth of God, the Gospel of God!! Belief of the Gospel of Christ is of paramount importance for without the Gospel no man is saved or can be saved (2 Jn. 9; Mk. 16:16). The short cut out of the Charismatic movement and any other false christian organization, is to hear and believe the Gospel for all counterfeit christian groups are recognized and identified as such by the false gospels they promote. Know that if any bring a gospel that differs in any way from God’s only Gospel it is evidence that they are accursed and that their gospels cannot save (see Gal. 1:8,9). God has written His Word so that His people would not remain in darkness nor be confused by the doctrines of demons and other liars. He has written His Word so that His people, His elect, would be free from the world’s lies and from the Devil’s lies and all false gospels and all uncertainty, and that they might know the truth and all abide in that truth. The people of God are all sanctified "...of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto He called you by our GOSPEL..." (2 Thess. 2:13,14).

There will be many Charismatics who read this booklet, or should I say partially read it, who will throw it away as just so much rubbish. These people, I am afraid, will never come out of their error. They are loyal to it. They are devoted and committed to a false gospel and are abandoned to the experiences which are part and parcel of it. They are clinging to what has become an idol, a flesh-energized religion of sometimes demonic experiences which, in their spiritual stupor, they believe are signs from God and to which they are as addicted as the alcoholic is to his drink and the drug user to his needle. It is not Christianity, no matter how loudly or how often they profess Jesus as Lord.

But there will be some, I pray, who will heed the warnings of this booklet. They will see that what they have been involved in is not of God, but a strong deception that is leading many into contact with the demonic counterfeits of the true gifts of the Holy Spirit as found in the Bible. They will see what the true Gospel is, what the true God is really like, and what it means to be a true Christian, not merely a professing one. The very nature of the counterfeit is to resemble the genuine as closely as possible in appearance. But no matter how good the counterfeit may be, when examined in detail, it becomes clear—as long as one knows what the genuine looks like—to all that it is a worthless imitation. Think about what the Charismatic movement is asking you to believe. You are being told that the biblical gifts are still in operation today yet, as we have shown, they are not identical to them! SIMILAR IS NOT THE SAME. So what we are left with is something DIFFERENT to that which is described for us in the Bible, yet claimed to be one and the same thing!!!! If this is not a perfect description of what a counterfeit is, I give up! I am afraid that Hitler was right when he said, ‘The bigger the lie the more people will believe it.’

Today, many have become involved with the ‘Toronto Blessing’. Charismatic churches are mixed in their opinions of this satanic mess. The American A.O.G. churches have officially rejected this ‘laughter’ movement as not being of God. Here in Australia, however, the A.O.G. movement has welcomed the Toronto phenomenon with open arms as ‘a wonderful move of God’ and its leader, Rodney Howard-Browne, has preached several times at the Paradise A.O.G. Church in South Australia which was once headed by former A.O.G. Australia leader, Andrew Evans. Now, either we have the American A.O.G. churches calling something of the Holy Spirit ‘satanic’; or we have the Australian A.O.G. calling something that is satanic ‘of God’. It is a tangled mess, a confused mess, and the blind leaders of the Charismatic movement, who say they are so familiar with the authentic, cannot agree as to whether something as bizarre and patently unbiblical as the laughter movement, is of God or not! And the sad reality is that so many are trusting in these men and clinging to their every word as if there was no Bible, as if we were back in the Dark Ages when the Bible was hidden away in monasteries! Pay attention to the Word of God, dear people, and trust only in it and not the fallible leaders of today. Believe in and judge by the one and only Gospel by which God saves and trust in what God has written, not in the experiences that many have welcomed as the new authority.

The very great need in these last days is to search the Scriptures. To adhere to the words of God in the Bible like never before. To stand steadfast in the Word of God regardless of the number of false signs and lying wonders and testimonies which are occurring in our day in support of false gospels. Regardless of how many people approach us with glowing reports that they have experienced the Holy Spirit and how wonderfully their lives have improved and how at peace they are, and how we need what they have. If you are a born-again Christian, you have experienced, and are continually experiencing, the Holy Spirit by walking in the Spirit, obeying His Word and living in harmony with the truth. We pray that the following words, written long ago but perhaps never more relevant, will echo in the minds of all who have read this booklet: "If seduction and darkness were again to begin through the wrath and decree of God (as will happen after our days, it is to be feared), and the Devil were to begin to perform signs through some false prophet and perhaps cure a sick person, you would no doubt see the mob press to espouse the cause in such a way that no preaching or warning would be of any avail...FOR IN THOSE WHO HAVE NO LOVE FOR THE TRUTH, THE DEVIL WILL BE POWERFUL AND STRONG....If, then, these teachings (of a false prophet) contradict the chief doctrine and article of Christ, we should accord them neither attention nor acceptance though it were to snow miracles daily".

The apostle Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:15 that if Christ were not risen, he, and the other proponents of the Gospel, would be found "...false witnesses of God...". Christ, of course, is risen and Paul is a true witness of God, and God receives glory when the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are rightly proclaimed. But when false signs and lying wonders and half truths, by way of prophecy, are attributed to God, this does not bring glory to Him at all, and all our good intentions and well-meaning sincerity can never change that. You cannot attribute to God what is not of Him and expect God to be pleased that His name has been so slandered and associated with error. What you must understand, dear reader, is that God cannot and does not receive glory merely because we attribute to Him something which we think is of Him, when in fact it is not. God cannot even be worshipped in a way that is unbiblical but which we believe will bring honor upon His name and be pleasing to Him (see Lev. 10:1,2). Sincerity does not justify the means. We must believe the Gospel God has authored and we must worship God the way He has commanded — in Spirit and in Truth: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him" (Jn. 4:23). We must believe His Gospel, and no other, if we are to rightly consider ourselves saved and worshippers of the true God.

As was mentioned earlier, the Lord Jesus will speak to such false witnesses of Christ in that Great Day which is to come. In one of the most shocking passages of Scripture, Matthew 7:21-23 reveals a people who had come from years of what they perceived to be genuine prophesying, the casting out of demons and the performance of many wondrous works, all in His name, only to hear the dreaded words "...I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (v. 23). Those who are not known of Christ are those who have not the Spirit of Christ: "...Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 8:9). Isn’t it interesting that a movement such as the Charismatic movement, which prides itself on having an intimate relationship with God’s Holy Spirit, in reality have not the Spirit of Christ for they have not the doctrine of Christ. Now, if you are deceived, no matter how wonderful your intentions, you cannot but deceive others. You may well be sincere but you will be sincerely wrong in what you preach and advocate. The deceived do not know they are deceived. The deceived are like those who cannot discern the words in a book because they have it right up against their face. What they need to do is take a step back away from the book so that they may be able to discern properly and with an unobstructed view what the book is actually all about.

The wolves that Jesus prophesied would come would not say, ‘Cursed be God’, but ‘Praise His name’, and ‘Hallelujah’, and ‘Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ’. They would not come speaking in the name of Satan, but in the name of Jesus. They would not call their gospels false gospels but the true Gospel. The counterfeit gods of false christianity would not be called by any name other than Jesus and God. What better way to get the lies of Satan accepted in the churches of professing christendom than to utter them in the name of Jesus. The ministers of Satan would come clothed as sheep and present themselves as ministers of righteousness proclaiming the name of Jesus with signs following (2 Cor. 11:13-15). But the signs that these people spoke of in Matthew 7:22 were not true signs, for if that had been the case, they would have truly been Christ’s people and He would have known them and owned them as such.  If they were true signs done in the power of the Holy Spirit, it would have been a case of the Holy Spirit working through people whom Christ never knew! But no. The Holy Spirit was not the spirit behind the signs and wonders of those in Matthew 7 for the Lord Jesus Christ did not know them. They never were His people and neither were their false signs and lying wonders of God. False signs attend false gospels and honor only a false god.

God Almighty does not attend the words of men or demons, but only His own pure unadulterated Word. The Lord God does not associate Himself with the works of darkness, with pathetic counterfeits of His true signs, prophecies, miracles or Gospel. God is pure, there is no darkness in Him, and He certainly would not lend His Hand to a movement that holds to these counterfeit signs and promotes a false gospel, which identifies another christ and not the Son of God, and is leading people into a miry ecumenical pit.

The Bible is the standard by which we are able to distinguish truth from error. Many today naively believe that if it feels good, that if they are experiencing virtually anything that is strange and out of the ordinary and which they have no control over, then it must be of God. In fact the stranger, the merrier. The less control they have, the more spiritual they believe themselves to be. The stranger the experience, the more spiritual the experience. The more confusion and disorder there is the more convinced they are in the Holy Spirit’s presence! For many, the ‘proof’ that it is God behind the experience is their failure to understand or make any sense of it, coupled with their sincerity in the matter and in their desire for ‘God’ and ‘God’ only, as well as their clean moral lifestyle. Do you see the dilemma these people are in? They have become slaves to experience and must follow wherever experience takes them, no matter how strange and unbiblical, no matter how weird the doctrines and no matter how different the experiences are to those of the Bible. All is explained away with the quaint expression ‘God is doing a new work in our midst’. They are pragmatists. The pragmatist holds to the concept, whether he is aware of it or not, that truth consists, not in correspondence with the facts, but in successful coherence with experience. They have entered the world of the mystical where experience is all that is required to validate experience and justify belief; a world where the rules are made up as one goes along; a world where there is no room for the scripture which warns that Satan is transformed into an angel of light and that his ministers appear as ministers of righteousness (2Cor. 11:14). There is no room for testing the spirits in this world, as the Scriptures say. As far as they are concerned, it is time for experiences and all you need be equipped with for protection is a love for God and a sincerity of heart and then all you will experience will be of Him. Such people have failed to realise that there is a ‘beautiful side’ to evil. A side which is far more dangerous than obvious evil for this evil finds its way easily into the lives of the unwary and gullible because it comes packaged in very attractive wrapping. However, Charismatic pastor, Chuck Smith, does see the problem clearly but not clearly enough: "One of the greatest weaknesses of the Charismatic movement is its lack of sound biblical teaching. There seems to be an undue preoccupation with experience, which is often placed above the Word. As a consequence charismatics have become a fertile field for strange and unscriptural doctrines proliferating through their ranks" (‘Charisma Vs. Charismania’, p. 127). No matter how beautiful the house may be, its quality material and A-1 construction will not amount to a hill of beans if it is built upon a foundation of sand.

This booklet has sounded the warning bell loud and clear. It is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that what he believes and perceives to be of God is in fact of God, and not some devilishly clever counterfeit. And the primary thing a person claiming to be a Christian needs to do is to examine the gospel he holds to and see if it is the true and only Gospel of God. For if it is not, the Scriptures state clearly that such a person is not of God, that such a person is not currently in a saved state. This is not said to make us sit and wallow in misery but to WAKE US UP and turn us to the truth and that we might abandon all that has preceded it in our lives. Christ said that those who believe the Gospel "...shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mk. 16:16). The fact that Satan is transformed into an angel of light providing false signs and lying wonders and that his ministers, who appear as sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves, are those who teach and promote false gospels, cannot be denied. This fact is one that is all but ignored in these last days. Members of Charismatic groups, and those professing christians who are so busy in ministries committed to exposing their false and demonic experiences, have missed the most vital of all issues: What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Everyone just presumes everyone else is a Christian, despite what doctrine they believe! The Bible not only warns of false ministers, false teachers, and false prophets and false brethren, etc., but it sounds a very clear warning when it talks of another spirit, another christ, and another gospel (2 Cor. 11:4). This other spirit is one which energizes, and provides accompanying false signs to, other gospels that speak of and promote another christ, and not the Christ of the Gospel of God. We do well to read the Scriptures fully and take heed of its warnings and implications. Those who bring with them false gospels are the servants of deception and death, "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, and no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works" (2Cor. 11:13-15)

The true Gospel of God is the only means by which a person is saved. No matter how many experiences one believes one has had, no matter how many wonderful works one claims to have performed, no matter how many demons one believes one has cast out, none are saved who have not the authentic God-authored Gospel. None can have a true trusting in the true Christ before one has heard, understood, and believed, the only Gospel of Christ: "That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. In Whom ye also trusted, AFTER that YE HEARD the Word of Truth, THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION: in Whom also AFTER that YE BELIEVED, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:12,13). The true Christian is born of the Gospel of God. It is this Gospel, and this Gospel only, that is the Seed of God and no other: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God...And this is the word which BY THE GOSPEL is preached unto you" (1 Pet. 1:23,25). For detailed teaching on the Gospel that must be believed if any are to be saved, please see my other writings. What follows is a brief definition of God’s only Gospel.

The true Gospel of God’s grace gives all the glory for salvation to God, leaving no room for a man to boast in anything he has done in order to get saved or stay saved. It is not a complicated message. It is not a message that is difficult to understand. It is a plain and simple message. Man is dead in sin and cannot come to God in and of himself (Matt. 19:25,26; Rom. 3:10,11; 5:12; Eph. 2:1,12); no man by nature understands God and therefore does not, and cannot, seek the true God; without God man has no hope. This teaching is the launching pad for grace. It introduces people to grace and the fact that no part of salvation is conditioned on anything else but grace. Salvation is not by the will of man but the will of God according to His grace and mercy. God chose a people for Himself before the foundation of the world, not based on anything they did or would do, but upon His will, wisdom and grace and according to His purpose (Eph. 1:3-6; 2 Tim. 1:9); salvation is according to the election of grace and not by the works of man (Rom. 11:5; Gal. 2:16); Christ Jesus was sent to the earth to establish a perfect righteousness by obeying the law, and dying, as the Representative of, and a Substitute for, those people God had chosen and entrusted to Christ’s care (Jn. 10:27,28; 17:2,3; Eph. 5:25); their sins had to be atoned for and would be charged to Him and His Righteousness to them, thus making them wholly acceptable unto God (2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 5:2); these people would all be taught of God and made willing in the day of His power to love and believe the same Gospel—GOD’S ONLY GOSPEL—and be saved, for this is the will of God and none of them will ever perish (Jn. 10:26-29). This, in a nutshell, is the Gospel of God. Of course, there are several truths about Christ, such as His virgin birth and His resurrection and the fact that the Triune God is the Creator of all things, that must also be believed in. Belief in any other gospel will not, cannot and never has saved anybody.

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