Pentecostalism & the Charismatic Movement

We want to go through the history of the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement since the New Testament era. Stepping through that, Josiah went through this table, which if you didn't get a copy last week, Nancy, I think we've got some left that we can draw from. Is it in the file? Yeah. Okay. Josiah went through that. I don't expect you to read that, by the way, but the handout is plenty readable.

He also went through the end of first Corinthians 13 which gives time frames and conditions for the ending of some of the apostolic era gifts as well as saying that that faith hope and love now abide and That love is what never falls off, okay? One of the things that Josiah brought out here was we had in the centuries right after the church a some mention of tongues, mostly it was centered around this fellow Montanus that you see on the left hand side of the time scale there. And one of the things that was brought out, Montanus had two prophetesses, Maximilla and Priscilla, and they had deserted their husbands in order to follow him, which was not really a very good start, but nonetheless, they had this movement there in this region called Phrygia, and what you notice, what's now modern Turkey, then Asia Minor, the seven cities of Revelation are on the west end there, you see those as the black dots, and Phrygia is kind of on the east end of those seven cities, and that's where he was located. And I want you to take note of that, because one of the things that he said is, not only did they speak in tongues and prophesy, but they also said that Messiah was not to come back in Israel, but coming back to their area.

Wouldn't you guess? But that doesn't compare well. You can look at a number of passages. We give here Zechariah 14, which says he's going to come at the Mount of Olives, right? And what does Acts 2 say, but he'll come back in the same way, in the same place to which he left. So there are a number of passages that that contradicts. But here's one of the things you'll find frequently when prophecies of the Lord's coming are given by other groups, One of the patterns is they tend to make the Lord's coming to where they are.

And we'll see that later on with another group as well. One of the other things about Montanus, he had a couple of church leaders during his time call him a heretic, including Polycarp, who we know is a direct disciple of John, and also Papias, probable that he was a direct disciple of John. The information is not quite so confirming. But here is at least one and possibly, I would say, likely two direct disciples of John that said, hey, this is not biblical.

They're calling it what it is. This little chart that you have here that's in small scale was passed out in larger scale, full sheet, in an earlier handout some weeks back. Now, here's an interesting jump. 1,500 years. 1,500 years gap from Montanus now up to the Khamisards. So 1,500 years later, it shows up again.

And what you find there, the Khamisards were a French prophetic group. I'm going to turn the sound off because it gets a little distracting, I think. A French prophetic group, they moved to England in the early 1700s, they basically got driven out. What it was, there were groups out of the Huguenots, and there were groups out of the Jensenists, which were kind of a Catholic group, that joined together and developed into this group here. The children allegedly spoke in tongues, prophesied future events, and they had the ladies serve as prophetesses there.

They pass their gift through laying out of hand, which we'll see in a little bit here is a significant feature. Then one of the things just like we saw, did you hear the mooing in this little video and this little video and audio kind of towards the tail end is a little mixed up with some of the other laughter, but one of the things that came up with animal sounds and I just had a short clip here. I don't want to waste our time with lots and lots of clips, but. Howling like animals, all sorts of animal noises is a common phenomenon among this group over the centuries.

They were branded heretics, they ran out of France and so they went over to England. One of the other things is apparently there was some violence involved with their group as well. Just typical of the times as we've seen in church history. Lots of violence, it seemed like If there's anything having to do with religion, violence is involved with it too. Same thing here. The violence, of course, was disruptive. So they were run out.

They went over to England and carried it on over there. John Wesley is the next name to bring up. We sing hymns here from time to time by Charles Wesley, his brother. Some of those hymns are good hymns. However, John Wesley has some things in his background we ought to be aware of. He endorsed Montanus in his practices in his journals. He had a magazine that he published, and in that magazine he talked about some of these phenomena, including communicating with the dead. Wales, obviously these commissars from France went into Britain, and Wales was one of the places they ended up.

They carried it on. They had these ecstatic jumpers. People who would just jump for the whole church time. The whole church would be jumping. Everybody's jumping. Female sleeping preachers was the term. They would have these girls go into a trance and they'd walk around preaching while in this trance.

He spoke of that in positive terms. He wrote of that in positive terms in the magazine. Wesley, like Montanus, gave women leadership positions in the church. One of the things that Wesley brought up, and this was the idea of instant perfection, Christian perfectionism. His concept was this.

When a believer was saved, they had two natures. They had the new nature and the old nature. How has the old nature gotten rid of, according to this view? When you have this second work of grace, the old nature is then gotten rid of. Not when you become a believer, but when you have the second work of grace.

At that point, then you reach a point of spiritual perfection. That was the teaching. And so what's happened, this teaching in various forms has been carried on in the Charismatic and Pentecostal groups. The Pentecostal groups, for example, would say, once you've had the baptism of the Holy Spirit evidenced by tongues, that then you are at a place of spiritual perfection. You're there. You've arrived.

Now, the next one in the series is Mother Ann Lee. She founded the Shaker cult in America. Have you heard of Shaker furniture? Shaker housing design, things of that sort. They did have an influence in other areas, but this is one of them. The connection, by the way, between the Shaker cult and the earlier group, remember the Commissars that started off in France and went to England. The connection between them and the Shakers is through the Quakers. The Quakers was the link. They carried on this Pentecostal charismatic tradition through the Quakers. So anyway, Mother Ann Lee was the lady's name who founded the Shakers.

You see a Smithsonian article there on the upper part on the right, and then her gravestone on the lower right. And they practiced speaking in tongues, prophecy, holy laughter, spiritual drunkenness, being slain in the spirit, and communicating with the dead. Now it's interesting, the communicating with the dead thing, that's really getting off whack, but that became one of the phenomenon that was involved here. They rejected water baptism, and also a list at the end of the Lord's Table, salvation by faith in Christ alone, the word of God as God's final revelation. What they believed was that Mother Ann Lee was the second incarnation of Christ. And so they didn't worship God, as we know it biblically, they worshipped Father-Mother God, of which Mother Ann Lee was the incarnation. How's that? Pretty wild, huh? Now, that's not all. You have a quote here, I won't bother reading through it.

This is from a fellow who pulled together a number of different historical accounts, as well as quotes of diaries and things like that. But basically they had a gathering with the American Indians, and it was a mixture of their expressions and the American Indians' expressions, and they thought that was great, that that was fine.

One of the things that you notice, the second to the last sentence, they have heard the sounding trumpet calling them to receive and be united with mother's children. See, those who are part of the Shaker group were mother's children, because of Mother Ann Lee being the incarnation of Christ. Anyway, that was the Shaker group.

It's a group that's frequently referred to if you go through Pentecostal or Charismatic history. The historians of that group will frequently appeal to this group as being, see, this is an expression of the Holy Spirit. Okay, next one, Cane Ridge, Kentucky. The revival just after the turn of the century in 1800. And basically there was revival But along with that, in these kind of open air meetings, they also had the shakers gathering with them. And so the typical shaker expressions were there, along with these manifestations that we talked about. And so this also is often referred to as a charismatic expression.

And see, it's a part of Christian history. As a matter of fact, Nancy was even told that by one of the proponents. See, it's a part of Christian history. One of the things I bring up, this fellow, and this is the fellow last time I think I butchered his name, I'll try again. Friedrich Schleiermacher, is that a little better? Not too bad, okay. I bring him up not because he is charismatic or Pentecostal. brought up roughly 200 years ago, the idea that religion is fundamentally emotions. That's the real basis of it. That's what religion consists of, is really emotions. Really?

Veil maker? Okay. He doesn't see it. Okay, good. Good insight. Anyway, we bring his point up here because he made that point not because he was Pentecostal, but because he propounded an idea that took centuries, you know, over the last couple of centuries, at least a century and a half, to really completely catch on. Tom? Okay, all right. And so I bring it up not because he's Pentecostal at all. Don't mistake me on that.

But because he propounded that idea, it took a while to soak in and get accepted in the churches. But basically, the idea has been fully bought into, hasn't it, by a great many of the churches. It's, when you go to churches, how do I feel? That's the question. How do I feel? How do I feel when I walk out? That's what matters. Did I have an experience?

Another one that we would bring up in here is Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard was the father, some would say the grandfather, of religious and secular existentialism. He expressed this leap of faith idea in verifying truth by experience. One of the things that Josiah brought up in his reading of some of the Pentecostal writings, they would actually say, we verify truth by experience.

This is where the idea comes from. Yes. It's often quoted in churches everywhere. There are church leaders that follow this guy like crazy. His ideas got carried into neo-orthodoxy. His ideas got carried into a lot of the Pentecostal and charismatic groups.

Truth is verified by experience. Morality is verified by how do I feel. One of the other things it looks for is that faith has no basis. That's part of his message. Faith has no basis. You just take a leap of faith. One of the things that we underscore here is, no, not so. Because Christianity is a belief founded in real-time, real-world history.

Christ's resurrection isn't valuable because it's just inspiring. but it is in fact something that took place in history as a part of historical and spiritual reality. And that's where he kind of dumped the ship. He sunk the boat in his communicating this message because the whole world has taken on to this in some degree and it's just something that Christians need to have their ears open for.

In that same era, here's this fellow, Edward Irving. I'm not trying to pick on the Presbyterians, believe me, but this guy's a Presbyterian minister. He was in Britain, and he taught on the restoration of the apostles, prophets, and supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Here's on March 28, 1830, Mrs. Mary Campbell began to speak tongues in his meeting. That was the start. Here's the specific date and time recorded. We'll see here in a minute something very similar was going on in the United States. about the same time. Here's Edward Irving again and so Mary Campbell's sister began to speak in tongues and prophesy and soon it spread.

He was excommunicated by the Presbyterian Church, good for them, but he continued to spread his views. Joseph Smith in 1830. Remember I mentioned it was going on in the United States? Founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith published his first edition of the Book of Mormon in 1830. By the way, if you ever get a chance to take a look at one of those, it's different from this version. It's been revised a number of times.

The 7th of the LDS 13 Articles of Faith says this, we believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth. This is right in their Articles of Faith, they've got 13 items, this is number 7, right down the list. So this is not a past teaching, this is a current teaching. It's a current teaching of the LDS Church. Nancy and I used to look out our front window and see the LDS church and be reminded of things like that every day. Okay, here's a second thing on Joseph Smith. This is the minutes of a meeting and you'll find some strange grammatical or spelling irregularities and that's because that's the way the minutes were written.

Prayer by Joseph Smith, this is January 22, 1833. Prayer by Joseph Smith, Jr. After prayer, the president spake in an unknown tongue. He was followed by brother Zebedee Coltrane and he by brother William Smith. After this, the gift was poured out on a miraculous manner until all the elders obtained the gift together with several of the members of the church, both male and female.

So here, at the same time as Irving's got this thing started over in England, Joseph Smith has got it going in the United States. I have up there a Kirtland currency because what Joseph Smith did is he not only had that, he had a militia, he had his own currency, he had his own set of laws and rules.

So this was a Mormon Kirtland, Illinois note. That was their way of controlling things. We not only have religious teaching but along with that we have our own currency and you must use it. That allowed them also to keep them separate from other people, people outside of the Mormon religion. Okay, here's another one.

Zion, Illinois is a place founded by Alexander Dowie from the 1890s until 1906, a year before his death. This is a guy from Australia. He came to the United States and what he did is he bought the 6,800 acre piece of land and started Zion, Illinois. If you go there today, they've got a Dowie Memorial in the middle of the town square.

He started it. At the time he started everything up, he had all sorts of industries going. He had Dowie Cookies. Everything was Dowie. About a dozen different industries. Lace, all sorts of things. So the people were all tied in to Dawi. You worked at Dawi's cookie factory or lace factory or whatever. And you lived there and you lived Dawi's religion. So he had this area that he controlled.

But he did preach the divine healing and supernatural gifts of the spirit. As we look here in this next slide, he saw himself as the first restored apostle to the church. Elijah the Restorer was what he called himself. He believed Christ's soon return would be based on his work. He said, I'm going to make things so good here that the Lord's got to come back.

So anyway, this was another expression during that time. Another one that pops up on the scene about the same time. Here's Charles Fox Parham. He left the Methodist Church. He rejected some of its beliefs. Interesting, you see the Methodist connection, but also going beyond it. So it isn't just simply an expression of Methodism, even though it started in Methodism. In his own Bible school, just east of us here a ways, in Topeka, Kansas, he taught on the restoration of gifts, which is of course something he would have gotten out of the Methodist Church as well.

There was a lady by the name of Agnes Osmond, who spoke in tongues at the school January 1st, 1901. What a way to start a new year, huh? Yes, the land of Osman, right? Okay. So, later Parham was arrested for sodomy and became a member of the KKK. He was indeed a racist. There was a fellow by the name of William Seymour, and we'll see that name crop up again. He was a black man. He made him sit in the hallway and listen from the hall because he wouldn't have him in a room with white people. So anyway, rather disgusting, but that was his practice.

Parham is viewed as the father of American Pentecostalism, being the first to teach tongues as the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's the standard old-line Pentecostal teaching, that the gift of tongues is the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's when you have that baptism, so it's taught, that then you reach a state of spiritual perfection. But without that, you'll never get there. Now, here's this fellow Seymour again. This is the fellow that sat out in the hallway. He was forced to sit out in the hallway. William Seymour came to California in 1906.

On April 6th, a woman began to speak in other tongues here with his gathering. Seymour and others began to speak in tongues and prophesy. That started the Azusa Street Revival. Thousands began to come to this Azusa mission to get the blessing. It started off this movement and within our era, and with that understanding. And soon the meetings had a whole bunch of other things that weren't involved. They had mediums, hypnotists, and other people involved in the occult that were gathering kind of around the periphery of this meeting here.

Now, one of the things that sometimes you'll hear these terms, first wave, second wave, and third wave. Here's what it's talking about. The first wave Within the last roughly a century, it was the Pentecostal movement followed by the founding of the Pentecostal denominations. The Assemblies of God, Foursquare, some of the old-line Pentecostal denominations. Their teaching was that in order to make sure that you reach this Christian perfection, that you have this baptism of the Holy Spirit evidenced by tongues. That was the old-line Pentecostal teaching.

Assembly of God. I have some background with it. My grandfather was the first Assembly of God pastor in California. So lots of background history there. However, I'd like to talk to him about it later. Anyway, then you have various Pentecostal denominations started during that time. That's called the first wave. Those groups are still around. Some of them have kind of changed and morphed. Look at some of the subsequent waves here. The second wave started around 1960.

It actually started with an Episcopal priest about that period of time. That was a charismatic movement. How is it different? A couple respects. One is that it jumped the borders, so to speak, and moved into other denominations and groups. It wasn't just a Pentecostal denomination. It moved into Baptists and Episcopal and Catholic and Presbyterian and things like that. So you started having it jump.

The other way in which it was different is because they no longer said, well, you've got to have the gift of tongues as the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They began moving more into, hey, we've got a bunch of these and you might express different ones. And so they were more non-specific in that regard.

The symbol of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Society, off in the left there. This one here, just to the right of that, that looks sort of egg-shaped with the cross and waves and a fish picture, that's a Baptist Pentecostal, Baptist Charismatic group. This is the book Experiencing God. Have you ever seen that in the bookstores?

One of the frequent sayings in that book is, God spoke to Moses and he'll speak to you. So what is he doing? He's saying that God's going to give you additional revelations outside of what's in scripture. Now he ignores the fact that even Deuteronomy says God spoke to nobody like he spoke to Moses. So he fails to make that differentiation. Nonetheless, experiencing God is in the Southern Baptist. That's a Southern Baptist publication.

And then finally, on the right, Chuck Smith, who started Calvary Chapel. This was some years after the start of this charismatic wave. I would call it light charismatic. Many of their meetings, actually, you'll see good sound teaching, and then they'll have some sort of meeting off to the side afterwards that'll be more of an expression of some of the charismatic groups. There's actually some really good teaching in a lot of those churches. And the charismatic thing is included, but put off to the side. The third wave was one that started around 1980 with John Wimber.

He established the Vineyard Churches. It went beyond the Vineyard Churches. As a matter of fact, some of the expressions were beyond what Wimber could handle. Wimber, by the way, was kind of sent off from Calvary Chapel by Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith sat him down and said, hey, you're going places we can't go with you, so you'd better go elsewhere. So anyway, Wimber went and started the vineyard.

You have some of the expressions that you see there. Kind of the drunken spirit, holy laughter, holy spirit glue, some of those kinds of things you see displayed. So anyway, now it's gone crazy. I mean, there's spiritual barking, barfing, mock birthing. I mean, it's gone way out of bounds.

Here's the third wave idea. Pentecostal denominations had the idea, we want New Testament expressions now. The Charismatic group said, that's fine, but we just won't specifically make tongues the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it jumped to different denominations. The third wave takes Scripture not as the authority, but as a place of departure. Oh, we don't mind all that stuff, but we've got other new manifestations. So that's the third wave, and that's currently what we're in.

I was speaking at a conference not quite two years ago, and it was asked, what's next? And the truth is only the Lord knows. But looking at the dimensions of where they have to go, because the expressions are already outside of Scripture, the only direction that it can really go is outside of Christianity altogether, linking up with other religions, and there's basis for that. We'll see here in just a minute.

Some of the indicators of charismatic influence in the church. A focus upon experience and feelings above biblical truths. This would be contrary to Romans 6, for example, that repeatedly says, knowing, knowing, knowing. The Christian life is acted out based on knowing some things, not just What does it feel like and what's the experience? Emotional expression is the key indicator of spiritual impact. Is that the key indicator?

No. If you look at it, we quote there 2 Peter 3.18, we reference that. Growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 3.18 talks about beholding the Lord. and so growing from grace to grace.

This is beholding Him, not just wild manifestations outside of anything spelled out in scripture. Another one would be acceptance of subjective revelation from God outside the scripture. And for some of the passages we have there, and one we've referenced earlier before is Jude 3, which is an appeal to contend for the faith that was once delivered. Contend for the faith once delivered.

Looking at what is revealed, not adding to it at this point. And a lack of equipping so that people are not biblically founded. Ephesians 4, 11-16 is a key passage in this. And right in the middle of it, what does Paul say? Not being thrashed about by wind of doctrine. Not being tossed to and fro. Yes. Typically, you'll see that in third wave groups where there'll actually be an encouragement, don't pray.

Or, you know, in one case there was, I have a recording, I won't show it because it takes too long, a fellow read Luke chapter 1, but the whole thing took him about 10-15 minutes because he cackled the chicken cackle in the middle of the stuff. He'd be in the middle of verse and all of a sudden the chicken cackle would break out. It's a little hard to know what to do with that. We won't encourage that here.

Inroads of charismatic influence. These are some things that you may well have encountered over time here. Pleading with the Holy Spirit to come, return, descend, fall upon us, or anoint us now. Heard songs like that? And some of them have even become fairly popular. Scripture says that every believer has the Holy Spirit. If you don't have the Holy Spirit, you aren't His. It's as clear as that.

One of the terms that I've heard is, oh, that was really anointed, or I'm praying for the anointing. Any place that the New Testament talks about anointing and believers, it's in the past tense. The anointing of believers in the past tense. Why? Because the anointing is a figurative reference to the Holy Spirit. And you have the Holy Spirit 100%. There isn't any waiting for an anointing or praying for him to come back. Repetitive words or melody lines in songs and prayers. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord for the next 15 minutes.

If you've ever been through this, the idea is you kind of get yourself worked up into something. If that doesn't do anything for you, usually it's monotonous. But that's one of the patterns. Musical performance that overpowers the lyrics. Focusing more on entertainment. How does it make me feel? And of course, if you're inclined that way, the more the decibels, the better, right? So crank it up. And then finally, Have you heard any of these phrases? Bathed in prayer, blanketed in prayer, walls of prayer. Have you heard those? Have you seen those?

Okay. What they are, they're terms that have come into use among Christians in the last, I'd say, couple of decades. And what's interesting is those are actually terms out of the occult. And they've been pulled into use by Christians. At first it sounds good. I would caution for a couple reasons. One is because of the occult source. But here's one of the areas where it falls apart. First of all, those aren't biblical terms.

Prayer is relationship with the Lord. Do you see that in here? This also indicates that prayer is something we create. Isn't it? See that? Blankets, walls, it's something else. Instead of being relationship with the Lord, it becomes an object I'm building or making. You see the difference there? These are words that are generally used out of a movement called Word of Faith, where we are creating the spirituality by what we do, instead of recognizing that all of our spirituality is of the Lord's doing. So, a word of caution there.

So, some folks will ask, what is the source of these manifestations? I mean, you've got the holy barking and holy barfing and the holy mooing and the holy cackling and roaring and all those things, and the holy spirit glue and all that. What are those manifestations all about? Where do they come from? What's the source? And so we want to ask that.

One proposal is that it's psychological. I think there's a basis for that in scripture. Paul writes to the Corinthians, which is one group that had trouble with how these gifts were properly used. In his point there, he says, And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. For you are still fleshly. There's still the flesh, this human source for the things that you're doing. And so some have suggested that. Here's one quote.

A lot of social scientists have looked at this tongue-speaking phenomenon because, for one thing we've brought up, it's not found just in Christianity, as we'll see here in a minute. It's found in other groups, too, as well as cult groups. And so one observation of social scientists is that it seems to be some sort of an altered mental state. Frequently, if you've ever been with people that are supposedly speaking in tongues, A lot of times it's a repetition of three or four, I'll call them phonemes, kind of sound groupings, and they'll repeat and alternate between those different groupings. More of a psychological phenomenon. Another is fraud. How many of you have heard of Peter Popoff? Ever heard of him? He's one of those televangelist types. There was an investigation done of Popoff back in 1986. It was published in 1987. Here's what happened. He was meeting at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium.

He had this group, a whole bunch of people coming in this well-advertised gathering. The auditorium was full. And as he began addressing the group, he started to say, I know you, and he'd mention somebody's name and he'd give their address. And he says, you have this, and you've got this problem too, don't you? Well, what was happening is he was receiving messages from his wife at 39.17 MHz, and his wife was feeding the information off of prayer cards that had been submitted as people came in the door. But it sounded to people that were there like, this guy is giving messages that are straight from the Lord. Well, it was revealed, and actually this was put on television, And it kind of blew out his ministry.

He is still in operation. I just checked last night. Peterpopoff.org if you want to check it out. And he's still in operation. He's still going. There's some interesting words on the website, the way things are described. But he's still carrying on the same thing. Basically kind of laid low for a little while and then went back to it and still works. And I guess the broadcasting system still works too.

The next one is, some have suggested that demons are the source for it. Now, on the one hand, I want to be careful about making such a statement, because scripture does not explicitly say so. Some have suggested this, and about as far as I can go, it makes me wonder. But let's leave it at that.

Because it does show up in Islam, Hinduism, and Mormonism. some of these charismatic expressions. Some have documented a number of similarities between these third wave manifestations and Hindu kundalini manifestations. You've got some information on it. Kundalini means serpent power. Tom? People in grade school are being told by teachers to assume the kundalini Yeah, it's a specific yoga discipline. So at any rate, they do have this kundalini discipline within Hinduism. They say it's from a god or a goddess, typically Shiva is the name given.

Here's an interesting chart. Here's the kundalini chart on the left, the shaker chart in the middle, and the third wave chart. Look at the similarities. They are phenomenal in terms of the same kinds of expressions in each of the groups, including how it was transferred.

Notice that laying out of hand seems to be a pattern. Even today in groups that are carrying this on, what will happen is people will go to the gathering to get the gift, so to speak, and then go back to their church where they're at to spread it. Laying out of hand seems to be a common phenomenon. Nancy? Yes. Yes.

This is their stated source. Thank you. Their source they say is Shiva, for example, in Kundalini. The source for the Shakers, that was their father-mother God. And then for the third wave, the given source is the Holy Spirit. Yes. Thanks for the clarification. So, to me, I look at it, does that prove that it's demonic? Really, but it does make you wonder. I'm not sure how you come up with a proof if scripture doesn't say so. So, anyway, Sue? Satan is a deceiver? Yeah. It certainly can be something, even if it were psychological, it certainly seems that there's a deception going on and Satan's capable of using that.

I would be careful in pointing and saying, see that's it. you can point out the similarity, I think the better thing would be to leave it there, because it's difficult biblically to found that statement. One of the things, as we turn to scripture, and we say, okay, this is all great and fine, Vern, this is weird stuff, but what does scripture say? As we turn to scripture, here's Galatians, it gives the fruit of the spirit, and key in there that we've highlighted is self-control. And as you look at it, you say, okay, well this is the fruit of the Spirit, and specifically the Holy Spirit that they say the manifestations are coming from.

And what do you see? Self-control. That was the opposite of that little film clip we saw. People were rolling around and that sort of thing. Disorder takes over. See also, here's these passages in 1 Thessalonians, Titus, and 1 Peter. Numerous passages where self-control is given as either something that's an evidence of the Holy Spirit, as in Galatians 5, or the believers are called to self-control. So, real interesting, that's not what you see here manifested in these groups.

And then, in 1 Corinthians 14.40, here again, what is Paul doing? He is giving the Corinthians, which is a church that has difficulty dealing with these manifestations, All things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. People aren't glued to the floor, not everybody talking and moving at once. But instead, it's orderly.

He gives, in that chapter, particular guidelines up to three at a time, even during the New Testament era. Three at a time, in order, make sure that somebody's present because you have to understand what's being said. If you're mooing, I don't know how you can understand what's being said. So, what are Christians to think? I think one thing is to realize that during the time of the New Testament, there was all sorts of wild, crazy stuff going on. I mean nuts.

Ephesians 5.18, don't be drunk with the spirit. I don't think he was just talking about purely a drinking problem. There was a religion there called Dionysius. They worshipped Dionysius or Bacchus was the alternate name.

And what they would do is they would get crazy drunk and they would tear up animals live with their bare hands. Crazy stuff going on. The New Testament era had all sorts of wild things going on as well. It was not like these things are brand new. These things have been around for quite some time. One of the mystery religions, they'd bring somebody in a room or in a cave and they would beat a gong next to his head for a long, long time until the guy just couldn't even think straight.

Wild, crazy stuff happened during the New Testament era as well. So when the apostles are speaking, they're not speaking with a total ignorance of the kind of things that we see taking place now. They know very well that all sorts of strange things had taken place during their time, quite aware of it, but nonetheless calling believers to the truths that were laid out in the New Testament. While we see these things, I think it's important for believers not to be pulled in the direction of phobia, hysteria, or animosity even. I don't think a lot of animosity with ourselves and people of that persuasion is even going to do any good. We stick to what's clearly revealed in scripture and we stand on that basis.

And I think that's ultimately the key here. It's possible for a person to get so passionate about pointing out that's wrong that they lose track of pointing out what's right. And I think that's a key thing in our relationships with them. Because of the background that I had in my family background, where there was a lot of this background in earlier generations, my family reunions were something. But it was a matter, I think, of learning these principles here. That basically it's, what does scripture say? Instead of a lot of mutual finger pointing. And what does God want? What is God's intent here? And really asking that. Otherwise, it gets back to too much back and forth between human beings. While we show these things, I would not want to encourage a lot of heated animosity if you encounter somebody who is of the persuasion of one or more of these.

Finally, in Ephesians 4, 11-16, this is the biblical process that the Lord intends for the Church. that the gifts have been given, not so that we can honk and bark and, oh wait a minute, honking? Let's see. Oh anyway, not so that we can howl and things of that sort, but rather that the church is built up. The church is built up and that building and equipping process, not only, as we see in verse 14, not only keeps us from falling into the kinds of things that are characterized by lack of teaching and lack of being built up. But ultimately, that we're built up as a whole body, and that the knowledge of Christ is at the core. That's key. It's not simply a matter of saying, see, that's wrong, don't do that.

But focusing here on what does God have in mind. And notice out of those verses, which are all inspired verses, Just one there in verse 14 focuses on the negative elements. Paul's primary focus is on what's true, what's God's intent, what does the Lord have in mind. See the difference there? See the contrast? And there's a balance there. And I think it's important that we strike that balance as well.

And finally, the passages that we have here keep us focusing on the Lord, on the truth of His word. One of the areas where the modern movements, which are really recreations of ancient movements, aren't they? One of the things that the modern movements have done is to look at scripture as a place of departure, rather than seeing this is the place where I behold the Lord. And so we can see the distinction there, and indeed hold to scripture, not just because we're stubborn, but because we see this is the place where we find the focal point with our relationship with the Lord and our growth in Him. And that's what we need to zero in on here. All right, questions? Yes.

Okay, the Swayin' in the Spirit phenomenon takes place, and by the way, that's taken place even in the old line Pentecostal churches. It's interesting. They'll look, for example, at passages like where John fell down as though dead in Revelation at the foot of the angel, and they'll say that's slain in the Spirit.

What will typically happen is some guy, the leader, will come up and he'll slam somebody in the forehead and that person will fall down on the ground or fall into their chair or something of that sort. They have in churches that do that a lot. They have people who are kind of like ushers, only they're catchers. And so they go around, they're there to catch people who are slain in the spirit. And they also have people to put blankets especially over the ladies if they have dresses.

So in order to keep them modest. So it gets to be a big part of what goes on. Answer the question? Yeah, basically they're going to fall down. If they stay falling down for a long period of time, they'll call that Holy Spirit glue or carpet time. Let's hope there's a carpet there instead of a concrete floor, right? Other questions? Yes, yeah.

Yeah, that essentially starts out of like Kenneth Hagen, Kenneth Copeland, That group? Wouldn't you know it's out of Fort Worth? Anyway, the idea with the Word of Faith movement is that your faith is the substance. And it puts a great deal, instead of putting our faith in the Lord, your faith is the very substance of which the Lord is going to make things and create things. So you have to have that seed faith, and it is your faith which accomplishes things. So it's humanistic, it's also a teaching that comes out of Hinduism, where the idea of your faith is what creates things, instead of saying, my confidence is totally in the Lord and He's the one who does things. So anyway, that's in summary the difference. They've obviously taken it to mean a lot of other things in terms of the consequences, but that's the germ of the idea. It's one of the reasons why the words like walls of prayer, blankets of prayer, bathed in prayer, those are word of faith kinds of terms because it's what I create, it's what I do, it's what I accomplish. And it puts the focal point on that instead of on the Lord.

Make sense? Or at least understandable? Yeah. Yes, there are some that will go to that point, yeah. If you don't speak in tongues, you're not saved. Right. Yeah, there are some that go to that point. If you don't speak in tongues, you're just not saved. You're still, you may think you're a Christian, but you're still on the way to hell. Yeah, that's true, Marilyn. Yeah.

I don't know how that can be formed out of Paul's, I mean, Paul made many statements about I guess this must have possibly whetted the appetite of other serious Christians who wanted to have the same experience again. And then they kind of crank themselves up to that level that they finally go into this I don't know. I mean, I have a little problem with that. Why did he make it so positive? Why did Paul make it positive? Well, I think that what you have to look at is Paul, I mean, one of the first things that he would do, right, he'd go into Newtown. What did he do?

He'd go into the synagogue. It was a testimony of the Jews. And tongues was primarily a witness to unbelieving Jews. And so Paul had the opportunity being prior to that 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem, to give warning of coming judgment in his time. It was very relevant for the situations that he stepped into and commonly found himself in, where he could use that as a matter of giving warning.

He does make emphasis in the church context, which is interestingly a little different from what we see in Acts, Once it steps into a church context, he puts controls on it in terms of, okay, both prophecy and tongues, one, two, or three at the most, you know, one at a time. Tongues only with an interpreter. So he puts controls on it, and that's obviously something they were having a problem with. But what he said was appropriate for the situation and time that he was in prior to 70 AD. But what you find is For example, the Apostle John wrote after that time and you find no mention of tongues at all.

Yes, actual languages. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Yeah, these are actual known languages. That's what you see in Acts 2 where we've got the best indication of what this was. The people who heard the tongues heard their own dialect and language from the place that they were from and understood it as that. There was nobody sitting around saying, boy, what does this mean? There was about a dozen different groups and they identified the language as they heard it.

But yes, there are known languages in both the context and any other way that those words the Greek words were used in other texts, it was a known language. Well, that's an interesting thing because quite often you get a linguist analyzing and they'll say this isn't the language. Conversely, there have been instances, one fellow in Southern California was fluent in Old Testament Hebrew, he quoted Psalm 23 in a group, an interpretation was given and it didn't match, and then he told them that he just quoted them Psalm 23, and the place just broke out into hysterics. Yeah, it's a problem in that I would say the majority of the instances that I've read of, it's not a known language in the current context.

Okay, we better wrap it up. Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks for the time we've gathered together. Lord, as we look at this, we see how numerous influences have come in and impacted the church. Here, though, we look to you, we look to the things revealed in your word and the truths that we have from you, and we look to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.