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 My Involvement With, And Deliverance From, The 'Toronto Experience'



My Involvement With, And Deliverance From, The 'Toronto Experience'

(First published March 1996, updated June 2006)
by Sally Richardson

My involvement with Toronto first started in July 1994. At that time, I was in a paid position of leadership in the Anglican church I attended, and on the church Staff Team.

In July 1994, the leadership of many churches in west London received an invitation to attend a meeting at a certain church in Acton, west London, which was a Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) church plant. The purpose of this meeting, the invitation letter explained, was for people to hear about and experience for themselves what was described as the "new move" of the Holy Spirit happening at the Airport Vineyard Church, Toronto and being known to some as the Toronto Blessing. The letter stated that various members of HTB had recently returned from Toronto and wanted to share all they had learnt there and then pass it on in ministry afterwards.

Several of us in leadership in my church, including myself, attended. I remember at the time feeling very excited because, if this was, as was being claimed, a new move of the Holy Spirit, then I wanted to be part of it and to experience everything that was on offer. Others in our party were a lot more careful and cautious in their approach.

We arrived at the church where the meeting was to be held to find it full - there were no spare chairs. Someone hastened to find some for us, and meanwhile, the meeting started. There was a great sense of excited anticipation in the air; so tangible was it, that it was almost electric in effect.

At that point, our chairs were brought to us, but owing to lack of space in the church, the members of our party could not sit together. We were therefore separated and given chairs in various locations round the church. I remember I was sitting in the aisle, at the end of a row, and very near the front.

The meeting started with praise and worship before the various people who had been to Toronto were brought to the front, and introduced, the notable exception being Sandy Millar, Leading Minister at HTB. Every person at the front was exhibiting various unusual manifestations such as jumping up and down like pogo sticks, jerking, laughing, convulsing, etc. As you can imagine, it was very difficult for these people to speak, and so the testimonies they gave were somewhat disjointed, to say the least!

Each person said that it was a "new thing" that God was doing, that it was a new move of the Holy Spirit, and that it was an empowering and anointing for ministry. We were then told that the time for ministry had come, and so, having invited the Holy Spirit to come, the various members of HTB and its associated churches began to move amongst the congregation, laying hands on all they could reach.

As I had a prominent position in the aisle, I was one of the first to have hands laid on me. Immediately, I went down on the floor, seemingly with some considerable force, and began to roll around on the floor, laughing uncontrollably. I seemed to be filled with an exceedingly great joy, which I felt I could hardly contain.

After some considerable time, during which I had been unable to stop rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably, I tried to get up and return to my seat. However, I felt very groggy and unsteady and could only manage to clamber halfway into my seat. As I did so, someone came up to me, laid hands on me and said, "Give her more, Lord, give her more!" I went down onto the floor once again, and the whole process of rolling around and laughing uncontrollably started once again. Altogether, this experience happened seven times in total - each time I tried to get up from the floor, someone would come along, lay hands on me, utter the now familiar words, "Give her more, Lord!", and off I would go again.

Two particular occasions stand out in my mind as I remember that night and this particular meeting. On the first occasion, I had just had hands laid on me for the third or fourth time and had fallen on the floor. As I lay there, I was aware that my skirt had ridden up, and was somewhere around my waist, exposing my person in somewhat indecent fashion. However, in comparison to what was happening, this seemed so very trivial that I could not be bothered to put my skirt down. All I did was lie there, laughing uncontollably. Then someone came along and tugged at my skirt to pull it down and make me decent. At this point, I glanced up and saw that the person pulling my skirt down was none other than Sandy Millar. For some reason, I found this uproariously funny, and laughed the harder and the louder. I remember seeing, at the same time that Sandy Millar pulled my skirt down, that various people in the congregation were either lying down shaking and laughing, or staggering around, holding onto articles of furniture to stop them from falling as they went.

On the second occasion, I remember having clambered onto a pew, where I lay laughing and shaking uncontrollably. Once again, someone came up to me and repeated the now very familiar words, "Give her more, Lord, give her more!" Whereupon, I fell off the pew and onto the floor, where I lay uncomfortably wedged between my own pew and the one in front, having uncontollable hysterics yet again.

Eventually, it seemed, the meeting ended. By this time, my vicar and the local Baptist minister had come over to me and were quite literally pulling me up off the floor. I could hardly stand, and was falling, staggering and flopping about like someone who had had too much to drink. It was very obvious to my vicar and the Baptist minister that there was no way that I could walk unaided, and so of one accord, they took one arm each, and supporting me on either side, half led and half carried me out of the church. I was laughing uncontrollably still, but as we left the church, I glanced round to see what was happening. Some people were still lying on the floor laughing and shaking, and others were staggering drunkenly about. Yet others stood with vacant or bemused expressions on their faces as though wondering what to make of it all.

Meanwhile, we were going out through the church doors and into the car-park. Still, the two leaders were half carrying me, and when we got to my vicar's car, they had to open the back door and deposit me like a sack of potatoes on the seat. None of the others, I noticed, had been touched in the way I had. I remember thinking, "Poor things - they HAVE missed out!"

When we got back to the block of flats where we live, I was helped out of the car and to the main entrance. I remember I could not open the door, and our next door neighbour's son, who happened to be standing just inside, saw me and opened it for me.

He made an exclamation of astonishment and said I had obviously had too much to drink! I remember at this point thinking how grateful I was that our flat was on the ground floor, otherwise I would never have got up the stairs - our block of flats has five floors, and the local council has not seen fit to install a lift!

I staggered into our flat and into the sitting-room, where my husband was sitting watching television. He looked up at me as I entered, a look of amazement and astonishment dawning on his face. "Are you drunk?" he asked. "I thought you had been to a church meeting!" For some reason, I found this remark highly amusing, and collapsed on the settee, laughing uncontrollably.

My poor husband! He just did not know what to make of it all, and was very perturbed. Eventually, not being able to get any sense out of me, he went to bed, leaving me to it. I remember, during one bout of hysterical laughter, glancing at the wall-clock and seeing it said 2am. I must have fallen asleep sometime after that because I awoke, around 5am in the morning, in a stiff and awkward position on the settee. I still felt groggy, as though it was the morning after the night before. Before I became a Christian, I had had a drink problem, and used to get drunk almost every night of the week on a bottle of wine or several strong beers. This experience seemed no different, except of course, that I had had no alcohol!

After that initial meeting, it was as though I could not get enough of Toronto. Toronto was like a drug to me, and I needed my "fix". The more I had, the more I wanted. I couldn't do without it. It was like being on a permanent "high". When I had been to a Toronto meeting and had been forward for yet another anointing, the effects on me were similar to when I had dabbled with drugs, especially cannabis, in the years before I had come to know the Lord. Cannabis had given me a light, floaty, dissociated feeling, and this was the same, except I didn't have to pay for it!

One particular meeting, out of all the Toronto meetings I attended, stands out in my mind. This was the Times of Refreshing Conference at HTB in 1995, and at which Nicky Gumbel was taking one session. I remember, I was sitting with my friend Mandy just in front of the recording desk, when I began to jerk and shake and jump up and down from my chair. I didn't seem able to stop myself, despite holding tightly to the back of the chair in front of me. The next thing I knew, I was jumping higher and higher each time. One or two others, I noticed, were doing the same.

At this point, Nicky Gumbel stopped speaking and said, "There are people here that God wants to anoint for a ministry of evangelism!" He beckoned for us to come forward, which we did, I being the first to reach the front. Nicky Gumbel laid hands on me and prayed for me, whereupon I collapsed in a heap on the floor. Later, at that same conference, John and Eleanor Mumford from the sw London Vineyard Church led a session. There was no preaching or teaching - instead it was mostly Eleanor Mumford sharing her testimony of how she had brought the Toronto Experience over from the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church (as it was known then).

It was following this that Sandy Millar stepped forward and asked all present (over1,000) to take their chairs, and stack them up against the walls so that ministry could begin. This having been done, he then invited the Holy Spirit to come. Immediately, order flew out of the window and complete and utter pandemonium reigned - people began falling like ninepins, including myself, laughing, screaming and making various animal noises as they went. Various anointings for various ministries were announced as the meeting progressed, and there was total chaos as people tried to make their way to the places where the various anointings were taking place, pushing their way through the sea of bodies lying prostrate on the floor jerking, convulsing, rolling and shaking. It was at this point that I experienced some stirrings of doubt and misgiving, but I quickly pushed them away and went off to receive my anointing or yet another ministry.

A few days after the Times of Refreshing Conference, I received a letter from a lady whose ministry I supported. She was writing in response to a word of knowledge I had had for her, and was sharing how that word had been pertinent to her circumstances at that time. She had enclosed with her letter various news and prayer letters from several ministries, including her own and those of Prophetic Word Ministries and Moriel. All, without exception, were about the Toronto experience, saying it was not a blessing at all, but a deception and a delusion and an alien spirit.

When I look back, I cannot think of any reason as to why this lady saw fit to send these news and prayer letters except that the Lord had laid it on her heart to do so. Much as I admired the ministries of those who had sent them, I had great difficulty in accepting what they said about Toronto. The lady whose ministry I supported recommended a tape by David Noakes, so I wrote to him requesting a copy. Meanwhile, I was determined to know the truth of the matter, so I took a day off work and went for a walk by the river in Putney. Here, I found a quiet spot to prostrate myself before the Lord and to ask Him to show me whether these people were right or wrong in what they were saying about Toronto. I didn't want them to be right, but at the same time I knew I needed to come into truth - Biblical truth - about the matter. I never thought to look at the Scripture references these ministers gave and check them for myself.

The following day, I had the day off work anyway, and decided I would go to Clapham Junction to do some shopping. I was going down Lavender Hill, when I noticed a Christian bookshop called Cornerstone.

I went in and immediately noticed a section of books on Toronto - unusually, books WARNING against it, not promoting it! One particular booklet, entitled "No Laughing Matter" by Stanley Jebb, particularly caught my eye. I picked it up, and began to look through it.

At that point, the proprietress of the bookshop came over and asked if she could help me. I asked her about the booklet, and she said she could really recommend it, as it went into great detail, with relevant Scripture references provided, to point out the dangers of the Toronto Experience.

I told the proprietress that I had been heavily involved in Toronto, and that I was trying to discover the truth of the matter as it seemed it might be different from what I had been led to believe. As difficult as it might be, I told this lady, I was duty-bound to find GOD'S truth on the issue. The proprietress urged me to take away the booklet and to look up the Scripture references therein for myself. Meanwhile, she told me, she would pray for me, and ask the Lord to bring me into truth.

The next day was the day my church's Intercession Group met. The four of us in the group met as usual, and began to bring our church, its leaders, ongoing issues etc. before the Lord, and to seek His face.

After a break in prayer, the Pastoral Worker at the church said that the leadership of the church were considering sending our vicar to Toronto, and were going to bring it up at the next meeting of the PCC. The PCC meeting was a few days later.

I could not keep quiet, and told the others that I was having second thoughts about Toronto, and that perhaps we should therefore reconsider the decision to send our vicar to Toronto. I then showed the other members of the group the materials I had been sent.

With one exception, my suggestion was met with derision and scorn. "Who DID these people think they were?" they said. "How DARE they criticise a mighty move of God!" And I was just as bad for even CONSIDERING that they could be right!

We continued to pray, but I found it very difficult, as I no longer felt I was of one mind with the others in the group, and that we were praying at cross-purposes. Nevertheless, I soldiered on. It was then that the Lord gave me a picture of a broken down stone wall of the sort that are common in Derbyshire and the Peak District.

I brought this picture before the group and we asked the Lord what it meant. However, He seemed to be saying that He would show us later, so we left it there and continued to pray.

Upon returning home, I found that the postman had been and that I had received David Noakes' tape. David had been to Toronto in October 1994 to experience what was happening there and to report his findings, and this was the tape recording what he had found there. I settled down to listen to it.

As David shared, I began to realise, through a witness in my spirit, that this was indeed the truth of the matter, and that Toronto was indeed a delusion and a deception. As David gave Scriptural references to back up what he was saying, I checked them for myself and found them to be true. (Up until this point, I had never checked the Toronto experience with the Word - rather, I had just yielded myself up to it and had chased one new experience after another).

Then a phrase that David used caught my attention. "The walls of scripture are being broken down", he said.* Immediately, the picture of the broken down stone wall came back to my mind, and I knew instantly that this was that to which it referred. The Toronto proponents were taking Scripture out of context and were making it fit the phenomena, instead of rightly testing it against the Word.

David went on to say that, in his experience, anyone caught up in Toronto inevitably needed ministry because of the strong, very dark spirits behind it. I was very perturbed, and after praying, I wrote to David Noakes explaining the fact that I had been heavily involved in Toronto, but now come out of it, and asking him to pray for me.

Meanwhile, I had returned to Cornerstone, the Christian bookshop in Clapham Junction, where Ulrike , the proprietess, suggested I have ministry to cut me free from the Toronto spirit. I told her that I had written to David Noakes, whom she knew, asking him if he might minister to me and that I was awaiting his reply. She told me that she knew someone who would minister to me if I did not want to wait to see David.

As the days went by, I became increasingly friendly with Ulrike and her husband Brian, who owned and ran "Cornerstone". Ulrike took me under her wing, and, like a mother of Israel, began to lead me in the way of truth concerning not only Toronto, but other false teachings as well. She also introduced me to "Intercessors for Britain", under whose auspices at the time that I began to attend the Ladies' Prayer and Bible Days which were then at Westminster Chapel and led by Pat Hughes, Patricia Gordon and Gay Hyde.

On my second visit to the Ladies' Prayer and Bible Days meeting, I was chatting to Ulrike during the lunch break when Ulrike came over to us. Ulrike introduced me to Patricia, and told her about my involvement with Toronto. Patricia then asked if I had had ministry to set me free. I told Patricia that I was awaiting ministry with David Noakes, but she lovingly but very firmly assured me that there was no time like the present, and that she, Pat Hughes and Gay Hyde would minister to me after the meeting. She went on to add that David Noakes, whom she knew and regarded very highly, would not mind at all, saying that the Lord had provided the opportunity for me to have ministry and that I should therefore make the most of it.

Before ministry began, Pat and Gay asked me some very searching questions such as, what had Toronto done for me, what good had come from it and whether, as many claimed they did, I had a greater hunger for God's word.

Their penetrating, but nevertheless very necessary, questions made me realise that in fact the very opposite was true. Instead of having a greater hunger for God's Word, I actually found it very difficult to pray, much less open my Bible. I honestly had not been aware of this until these three dear and very Godly ladies confronted me with it, so caught up had I been in chasing various spiritual experiences.

The three ladies first of all led me in a prayer of repentance after which, my having renounced my involvement with Toronto, proceeded to cut me free from the Toronto spirit. As they did so, I can only describe what then occurred as a heaviness going, a feeling of a large and very heavy blanket being lifted and a fog dispersing. It was as though I could see clearly again!

Later on, I did see David Noakes for ministry as the Lord had showed me that for me, Toronto was just the tip of the iceberg. Previous to becoming embroiled and entangled with Toronto, I had been involved in other false teaching and deceptive practices such as Restorationism and Name-it-and-Claim-it and realised I needed ministry in order to be released from the detrimental effects of these teachings. I saw David Noakes and his prayer partner in January 1996, and in the ministry that followed, I was wonderfully and gloriously cut free from the roots of all the deceptive practices and teachings I had taken on board in the past.

Since coming into the truth concerning Toronto and my subsequent ministry, I have had such a desire to walk in truth and holiness before the Lord, and to set no unclean thing before me. Nothing less than this will do. Since then there has always a "check" in my when something is not of God, even though there are occasions when I cannot find the reasons why in my Bible.

The Lord has also made it very clear to me that, having come into truth and having been set free (Gal. 5:1) that I am no longer to go to churches or associate myself with ministries where Toronto and indeed other false teachings, are promoted and accepted. This has meant that I have had to leave my previous church where I had worshipped for seven and a half years.

Toronto was in evidence there, as well as other false teachings such as Replacement and Dominion theology to name but two.

I thank God that, in the midst of this, He promised me that He had "prepared a place for me, a place where I would continue to be nurtured and fed and where the things that were now dear to my heart were practiced and taught." In June 1996, he led me to this place, a little independent chapel in nw London where the teaching is sound, the ministry balanced and without excesses and where I received a warm welcome and became part of a close-knit church family. I AM used of the Lord there, but not in any of the supposed "anointings" I received when I was caught up in Toronto. I got nothing from these "anointings", despite all their promises of equipping for ministry. Instead, I still have the gifts I have always had since being baptised in the Holy Spirit.
Sally Richardson June 2006

Epilog

11 years on, and I am still at the same independent fellowship that the Lord led me to in 1996. It is a precious little fellowship where the things of God are faithfully taught and where the truth of Scripture is paramount. I am reminded that it was at Shavuot (Pentecost) 11 years ago that I first attended a service at this little church, and it was Shavuot last weekend. I owe so very much to the Lord, and am grateful too for those dear folk who prayed for me and helped me to come out of deception. Sadly, although our church has been extremely careful to uphold Biblical practice and teaching, much of the church has not, and in the last 11 years, I have seen error and deception proliferate and multiply.

The Lord has spoken to me much out of Ezekiel 13. Read it for yourself and you will see how relevant and pertinent it is to the situation in much of the Church in these days. When I look at verse 5, which reads YOU HAVE NOT GONE INTO THE GAPS OR BREECHES, NOR BUILT UP THE WALL (FOR THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL - parantheses mine) THAT IT MIGHT STAND IN THE BATTLE OF THE DAY OF THE LORD, it reminds me of David Noakes' warning on that tape I listened to all those years ago where he said that the walls of Scripture were being broken down.* Much of the church is in ruins because of false teaching, false prophecies and deceptive practices, and yet they seem unaware of their wretched state. People tell me that Toronto is over, but it has surely left its legacy. So too, will the latest fads and teachings that many are so taken with, the latest being Purpose Driven.<

I can only pray for those caught up in false teaching and deception and especially pray that He might open their eyes and bring them out as He brought me out. Will you join me?

Sally Richardson


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CHRISTIAN

 2008/5/14 3:23Profile
enid
Member



Joined: 2006/5/22
Posts: 2680
Nottingham, England

 Re: My Involvement With, And Deliverance From, The 'Toronto Experience'

I read this article before some time ago.

She seemed honest about everything she experienced, which also shows that everything we experience is not necessarily from God.

Soulish emotion can make us 'feel' as though God is in the experience we have, but that does not mean that it is God.

Remember the wind, earthquake, fire and still small voice that Elijah witnessed? God was in the still small voice that you have to be quiet to hear. The others will drown out any voice.

Thanks for the post.

 2008/5/14 3:32Profile
AbideinHim
Member



Joined: 2006/11/26
Posts: 5185
Louisiana

 Re:

I believe that the Toronto Blessing started out good but because many sought after experiences rather than seeking the Lord, there were many things that happened that were not of the Lord. The manifestation of laughter or falling out under the power is not the problem. These things have happened in many moves of God and revivals. The problem is when men seek after these manifestations, that the enemy is more than happy to give them a counterfeit. We seek after the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to have His way in us.

Below is an article by Derek Prince that is very relevant to this subject, and he even refers to various manifestations that took place in the "Toronto Experience".



Navigating Through The Minefield Of Signs And Wonders
by Derek Prince

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Based on a series of talks given by Derek Prince to
his coworkers in Derek Prince Ministries in March 1996

LET US HONOR GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT
This is the first in a series of three messages. In this, number one, I will seek to analyze a problem that has arisen in many sections of the church in many parts of the world. In the next message, I will seek to analyze how the problem arose. And in the third message, I will consider ways to guard against that problem arising again. The title of this first message is "Let Us Honor God's Holy Spirit."


SIGNS AND WONDERS DO NOT DETERMINE TRUTH

There has been in recent years a worldwide explosion of signs and wonders. Some have been biblical and helpful. Others have been bizarre and unbiblical. Signs and wonders are not new. They are recorded in various passages of the Bible and in different periods of church history. However, the current explosion extends more widely than any particular church or denomination and has attracted widespread attention in both the religious and the secular media.

I want to make it plain that I have no personal prejudice or anxiety concerning unusual manifestations. In actual fact, I have in my own lifetime experienced quite a number of them. They do not frighten me. I am not negative about them.
As I recorded in my booklet Uproar in the Church, my own personal encounter with Jesus in World War II began in a very unconventional way. In the middle of the night, in a barrack room of the British Army, I spent more than an hour on my back on the floor, with my body first racked by convulsive sobs and then filled with a river of laughter which grew continually louder.

Next morning, I found myself a completely different person, changed not by any act of my will but by yielding to the supernatural power that had flowed through me. I then looked up various passages in the Bible that speak about laughter. To my surprise, I discovered that - for God's people - laughter is not primarily, as we imagine, a reaction to something comical, but rather an expression of triumph over our enemies.

In Psalm 2:4, David actually depicts God Himself as laughing:
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh: The Lord shall hold them in derision,
Here, God's laughter is not a reaction to some comedy that is being enacted on earth. Rather, it is His response to the ridiculous human midgets who have the effrontery to oppose His purposes. It is His expression of triumph over all the forces of evil.
Sometimes, God fills us with His own laughter that we may share in His triumph over those who are both His enemies and ours.

Later I pastored a fellowship in London that met on the top floor of a five-story building. One evening a lame man was miraculously healed and threw away his crutches. We all burst into spontaneous praise. At that moment the building began to tremble and shake with the power of God. The praise and shaking continued for about thirty minutes.



I realized that something similar was recorded of the early church in Acts 4:31: And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. At that particular time, our fellowship was conducting several evangelistic meetings each week in the streets of London, and we certainly needed more than natural boldness.

But with regard to any kind of manifestation, there are two questions that I always want to ask.
Number one: Is it a manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God? Or is it a manifestation from some other source?
And number two (and this is related to it): Is the manifestation in question in harmony with Scripture?

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the author of all Scripture, and He never says or does anything to contradict Himself. Every genuine manifestation of the Holy Spirit will, in some way. harmonize with Scripture.

NOW, I WANT TO BEGIN WITH SOME WARNINGS OF JESUS, PARTICULARLY RELATED TO THE END TIME PERIOD IN WHICH I BELIEVE WE ARE LIVING.

These are warnings against deception. They are found in Matthew chapter 24, verses 4, 5, 11 and 24. In other words, four times in 21 verses, Jesus specifically warns us against deception in this period of the close of the age.

The first thing Jesus said about the events leading up to His return, in Matthew 24:4: "Take heed that no one deceives you." Verse 5: "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Messiah (Christ),' and will deceive many." Verse 11: "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many." And then in verse 24: "For false messiahs (christs) and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect."

SO, JESUS WARNS US FOUR TIMES AGAINST DECEPTION. ANYBODY WHO SHRUGS OFF THAT WARNING OR TREATS IT LIGHTLY DOES SO AT THE RISK OF HIS OWN SOUL.

The greatest single danger in this end time is not sickness, nor poverty, nor persecution. It is deception. If anybody says, "It could never happen to me," it has already happened to that person, because that person is saying something could never happen that Jesus said would happen. That is a sufficient indication that such a person is deceived.

Next, I want to say something important about signs and wonders. They do not determine truth. It is very essential to understand that. Signs and wonders do not determine truth! Truth is already determined and established, and it is the Word of God. In John 17:17, Jesus is praying to the Father, and He says, "Your word is truth." And in Psalm 119:89, the psalmist said, Forever, 0 Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Nothing that happens on earth can ever change the smallest little sign or letter of the Word of God. It is forever settled in heaven.

Now, the Bible speaks about signs and wonders. It says some things about them that are good, and some that are very frightening. I want to turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and read a few verses there, beginning at verse 9.

The coming of the lawless one [that is the title of the Antichrist] is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So, Paul says here there are such things as lying signs and wonders. There are true signs and there are lying signs. True signs attest the truth. Lying signs attest lies.

SATAN IS FULLY CAPABLE OF SUPERNATURAL SIGNS AND WONDERS.

Unfortunately, many in the Charismatic movement have the attitude that if something is supernatural, it must be from God. There is no scriptural basis for that assumption. Satan is perfectly capable of producing powerful signs and wonders to attest his lies, and the reason such people are deceived is because they did not receive the love of the truth. On such people God will send strong delusion.

That is one of the most frightening statements in the Bible. If God sends you strong delusion, you will be deluded. I think that is one of the most severe judgments of God recorded in Scripture, sending these people strong delusion. They will be condemned, these people, because they did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Therefore, signs and wonders are not a guarantee that something is the truth.

There is only one sure way to know the truth. It is in the Word of God. Jesus said in John 8:32, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." There is no other way to be sure that we can escape deception in these days except that we know and apply the truth of God's Word, the Scripture.

In 1994, for the first time, I was brought into fairly direct contact with one of the groups where those manifestations were occurring. A group of leaders went to some of their meetings and returned all excited, saying they had experienced something wonderful and we all needed to experience it. They said, "Now, you don't test it. You don't try it out. You don't examine it. You just open up to it and receive it." That was the first time that I really began to be suspicious of some of these things, because such a statement is directly contrary to Scripture.

TEST ALL THINGS:

In I Thessalonians 5:21, Paul says to Christians, Test all things: hold fast what is good. So, if we do not test things, we are disobeying Scripture, and anybody who tells us not to test things is, himself, not in harmony with Scripture.
Our hearts cannot be relied upon to give us the truth. Proverbs 28:26 says, He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. So do not be a fool. Do not trust your own heart. Do not rely upon what your heart tells you, because it is not reliable. Again, in Jeremiah 17:9 the prophet says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

That word deceitful in the Hebrew is a very interesting word. In 1946, I was attending the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as a guest student studying the nature - or the law - of the Hebrew language. I was listening to the head professor in this field at that time talking about this verse: Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things. He gave reasons which I cannot carry over from Hebrew to show that this form of the word deceitful is active, not passive. It does not mean that your heart is deceived. It means that your heart deceives you, so you cannot trust your own heart.

The professor gave a very vivid picture of what it means to find out the truth about your own heart. He said it is like someone peeling an onion. You peel off skin after skin, but you never know when you have reached the last skin - and all the time your eyes are watering. So that has remained with me now for 50 years - such a vivid, scriptural warning against relying on my own heart to tell me the truth. There is only one source of truth, and that is the Scripture.

MIXTURE PRODUCES CONFUSION AND DIVISION

Now, I would like to give briefly my summation of this whole phenomenon /movement/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, based partly on personal observation and partly on what I believe to be reliable reports. My summation is very simple: it is a mixture of spirits, both the Holy Spirit and unholy spirits. They are mixed together.
In Leviticus 19:19, God warns us against mixture. He is opposed to mixture. God says this, "You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you."
So, God warns against three things: breeding mixed livestock, sowing with mixed seed and wearing a mixed garment.

We could say that sowing with mixed seed represents the message that we bring, when it is partly truth and partly error. Wearing a mixed garment would be like a lifestyle that is partly scriptural and partly of this world. And letting livestock breed with livestock of an incompatible kind would be equivalent to a Christian ministry or group aligning itself with a group or ministry that is non-Christian.

It is an interesting thing about such breeding; its product is always sterile. For instance, you can mate a horse with a donkey and the product is a mule. But a mule is always sterile; it cannot reproduce. I think that is one reason why there are so many "sterile" operations in Christendom - they are being bred with the wrong mate.

Now, I have observed this carefully, and I have had grievous experience of this condition of a mixture of spirits. I find that it is something which the Scripture warns us against. For instance, there is a character in the Bible, King Saul, who had a mixture of spirits. At one time, he prophesied in the Holy Spirit; at another time, he prophesied in a demon. His career is really a warning. He was a king who ruled for forty years. He was a successful military commander. He had a lot of successes. But mixture was his undoing, and his life closed with tragedy. On the last night of his life, he went to consult a witch, and the next day he committed suicide on the battlefield. Surely that offers no encouragement to any of us to cultivate any kind of spiritual mixture in our lives.

I have observed that the result of mixture is two things: first of all, confusion; and then division. For instance, we have this mixed message, part of which is true, part of which is false. People can respond in two ways. Some will see the good and focus on it, and therefore accept the bad. Some will focus on the bad, and therefore reject the good. In either case, it does not accomplish God's purposes.

Once upon a time I was a pastor, a long time ago, but I remember that the most difficult kind of people to deal with were people who were a mixture. I will give you a little imaginary example. We have Sister Jones in our congregation. One Sunday she gives a beautiful, prophetic message and everybody is uplifted, excited. But two Sundays later, she stands up and gives a revelation which she had in a dream. The further she goes with this revelation, the more confused and confusing it becomes. Eventually, as pastor, I have to say to her, "Sister Jones, I thank you, but I really don't believe that is from the Lord," and she sits down - but that is not the end.

After the meeting, Sister White comes to me and says, "Brother Prince, how could you talk to Sister Jones like that? Don't you remember that beautiful prophecy she gave two Sundays ago?" And when Sister White is gone, Brother Black comes to me, and he says, "If that's the kind of revelation she has, I won't listen to any more of her prophecies!"
So, you see what we have? Confusion, and out of confusion, division. I believe that is exactly what is happening in the church: confusion resulting in division. Certainly there is tremendous division! I believe confusion will always produce division.

The Bible gives us no liberty to tolerate the incursion of evil into the church. We are not to be passive; we are not to be neutral. Proverbs 8:13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. It is sinful to compromise with evil. It is sinful to be neutral toward evil. In John 10:10 Jesus spoke about the thief, the devil, who comes: to steal, to kill and to destroy. We always need to remember, whether it is in an individual life or in a congregation, the devil only comes with three objectives: to steal, to kill and to destroy.

I can remember many times I have been speaking with a person who needed deliverance from an evil spirit, and I have said to that person, "Remember, the devil has three reasons for being in your life: to steal, to kill and to destroy. You need to take a stand against him, not be neutral - you must drive him out." What is true of an individual is true of a congregation. It is true for the body of Christ, worldwide.

Some of these unusual manifestations have been compared with unusual manifestations that accompanied the ministry of John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney. Undoubtedly there were unusual manifestations in the ministries of those four men, and I have studied some of them myself, but I think the differences are greater than the similarities with the present situation. Let me point out to you three differences:


FIRST OF ALL, ALL THOSE MEN MAJORED ON THE STRONG PREACHING OF GOD'S WORD.

They hardly did anything until they had preached the Word of God, or apart from the preaching of the Word of God. Finney, himself, commented somewhere about his ministry, "I usually spoke an hour or two." I do not know how many contemporary Christians in the West would listen to a two-hour sermon, but Finney gave the Word in its purity and in its power.

SECOND DIFFERENCE: ALL THOSE MEN MADE A STRONG CALL FOR REPENTANCE.

That was their primary demand on the people to whom they ministered. Some people call what we are seeing today "a refreshing," but in Acts 3:19 Peter says that refreshing must be preceded by repentance. Any refreshing that bypasses repentance is not scriptural.
The third difference is that in the ministry of those men, there is no record as far as I know that any of them laid hands on people. I am not saying that it is unscriptural to lay hands on people, but there is a difference. There is a situation in which people receive directly for themselves from the preached Word and another situation in which people have hands laid on them by others.

If I could take a simple example. It is like rain. If you are out in the open and the rain falls upon you, you have received your rain direct from heaven. But, on the other hand, if rain is caught and stored in some kind of a cistern, then you are not receiving that rain direct from heaven. You have to take into account the cistern and the pipes through which you receive the rain.

This is very vivid for me, because my first wife, Lydia, and I lived in Kenya for five years in a house where our water came from rain caught on the roof and channeled into concrete cisterns. Although the water came from heaven, we quickly learned by experience that if it stayed for any length of time in the cistern, worms developed in it and, consequently, we always had to boil our drinking water. There was nothing wrong with the rain as it came down, but something happened in the channel through which the rain came to us, and it was no longer pure. I think this can be true of laying on of hands. It is a channel which is not always pure.

Recently some ministers have moved from actually laying on hands to some other action of the hands - such as waving or pointing. However, this does not change the fact that something is being transmitted through the hands. Otherwise, there is no reason to use the hands at all. The important question still remains: Are those hands pure channels through which only the Holy Spirit can flow?

For instance, Ruth and I were in a meeting fairly recently where ministers deeply involved in the current move were speaking. We were sitting about two rows behind a woman who was having a terrible experience. She was like somebody continually trying to burp or trying to vomit, and she just went on and on and on. Eventually, I said to Ruth, "I think we ought to try to help her."

So, although it was not a meeting for which we were responsible, we went over quietly and started to talk to her. We discovered very quickly that she was speaking in a tongue, but for both of us it was evident that it was a false tongue; it was not a Holy Spirit tongue. We challenged her to confess that Jesus is Lord, and she was not willing or able to say that. So I conclude that she had a false spirit.

Later on, the people who were with her came over and talked to us and asked us what they should do about it. I asked them, "How did it happen?" And they said, "Well, she went to a church that's involved in this move and somebody laid hands on her and this is the way she has been since then. But," they said, "she's convinced it's from God. We can't help her." That is just an example of "rain" that came through a "cistern" that was not pure.


Also, in the present move, there is a great deal of emphasis on love. I agree that love is the greatest thing. But the trouble is that people are not always clear about the nature of love as it is described in the New Testament. First of all, love in us is expressed by obedience to the Lord. Any kind of love that does not result in obedience is unscriptural love.

In John 14:15, Jesus said to His disciples, "If you love Me, keep My commandments," or, in a perhaps better text, "You will keep My commandments." In other words, what is the evidence that you love Him? The evidence is keeping His commandments. Then in verse 21a. Jesus says, "He who has My commandments and keeps them. it is he who loves Me." And in 1 John 5:3, it says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. Therefore, any kind of love that does not result in obedience to the will of God revealed in His Word is not scriptural love. It is a counterfeit, a substitute for the real thing.

Then, we need to consider the way that God expresses His love toward us. True, God is our Father, and He loves us. But as a Father, if necessary, He is prepared to discipline us. In the messages to the seven churches depicted in Revelation, I would say that Laodicea is probably the one that corresponds most closely to the contemporary church in the West. And to that church the Lord said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent" (Rev. 3:19).

So, God's love is not sloppy. It is not sentimental. It is right down-to- earth. If we are straying from His ways and if we are disobedient, His love is expressed in rebuking us and chastening us, and He commands us to repent. Once again we have the problem of trying to get what God promises, but bypassing the basic condition of repentance - which is a

THE IDENTITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

In all of this that we are speaking about. this worldwide phenomenon, I believe there is one, central, underlying issue, which is often obscured. In fact, very seldom do we come really to grips with this issue.This issue is the identity of the Holy Spirit. How do we recognize the Holy Spirit? How do we know what the Holy Spirit is like? And how do we distinguish the Holy Spirit from other spirits?

I read a statement recently by some New-Ager in which she said about the "New Age," "When the holy spirit comes, then the New Age will be here." Of course I am sure most of you would understand that when she talks about the holy spirit, she is not talking about the same Holy Spirit that the Bible speaks about. This is one of various indications that there is a counterfeit holy spirit.

It is nothing new for Satan to produce a religious counterfeit. Since the time of Jesus, history records a whole series of counterfeit messiahs who have risen among the Jewish people. All of them had a following. Some like Sabbetai Zvi, had a widespread and enduring influence. The latest of them died in 1994.

Another religious counterfiet is the being titled the "blessed virgin Mary." With all the claims that have been made for her and all the titles that have been ascribed to her, she bears no resemblance to the humble Jewish maiden who became the mother of Jesus, and later of His brothers and sisters. Yet over the centuries this counterfeit has claimed the devotion of millions of sincere Christians.

We need to be on our guard, therefore, that we do not entertain a counterfeit "holy spirit." I want to suggest to you three ways to identify the Holy Spirit, to recognize who the Holy Spirit is.

The first way I refer to in my little booklet Uproar in the Church, which I wrote about two years ago. I will just quote a few paragraphs:

Another danger that threatens those who minister in the supernatural realm is the temptation to use spiritual gifts to manipulate or exploit or dominate people. At one period in my ministry I found myself casting spirits of witchcraft out of church-going people. Eventually, I asked the Lord to show me the true nature of witchcraft.


I believe the Lord gave me the following definition: Witchcraft is the attempt to control people and get them to do what you want by the use of any spirit that is not the Holy Spirit.

After I had digested this, the Lord added: And if anyone has a spirit that he can use, it is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and no one uses God. That is very important. The Holy Spirit is God, and no one uses God.

Then I went on to say, Today I tremble inwardly when I see or hear of a person who claims that he has spiritual gifts which he is free to use just as he pleases. It is surely no accident that some of those who have made such claims have ended in serious doctrinal error.

It is important to see that there is a difference between the Holy Spirit Himself, as a Person, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 11:29, Paul tells us that the gifts ... of God are irrevocable. In other words, once God has given us a gift, He never takes it back. We are free to use it, not to use it, or to misuse it. But even if we misuse it, God does not take it back. Otherwise it would not be a genuine gift, it would only be a conditional loan. It is a fact that people do misuse gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Paul provides a clear example in I Corinthians 13:1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Obviously the Holy Spirit Himself does not become a clanging cymbal. But the gift of speaking in tongues - when misused - can become an empty, discordant noise. Unfortunately this often happens in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles.

I believe it is possible to misuse other spiritual gifts - such as a word of knowledge or a gift of healing. This can happen when a person uses a spiritual gift to achieve a result or promote a movement which is not in harmony with the will of God. One obvious misuse would be for personal gain.

In such a situation, our safeguard is to be able to recognize the Holy Spirit as a Person and to distinguish between Him and His gifts. This, then, is the first and most important fact about the Holy Spirit: HE IS GOD. And we need to relate to Him and treat Him always as God.

The second fact about the Holy Spirit is that He is the servant of God the Father and God the Son. This is an exciting revelation because it gives such a high value to servanthood. Many people today despise the idea of being a servant. They feel it is demeaning and undignified to be a servant. But I think it is wonderful that servanthood did not begin on earth. It began in eternity and it began in God. God the Holy Spirit is the Servant of the Father and the Son. This does not demean Him or make Him less than God.

But it is a fact that we have to recognize about Him, which directs His activities and the things He does.

In John 16:13-14 Jesus gives us a glimpse of the Holy Spirit's ministry and activity:
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak on His own authority [literally: from Himself] but whatever He hears He will speak: and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you."

So we see: the Holy Spirit does not speak from Himself; He has no message of His own. Isn't that remarkable? He only reports to us what He is hearing from the Father and the Son. Secondly, His aim is not to glorify Himself, nor to attract attention to Himself, but always He glorifies and focuses attention on Jesus. That is the second important way to identify the Holy Spirit.

Now, I want you to listen to this carefully, because it is revolutionary. Any spirit that focuses on the Holy Spirit and glorifies the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. It is contrary to His whole nature and purpose. Once you have grasped that, it will open your eyes to many things which are going on in the church that are otherwise difficult to understand.
For example, we have a very beautiful chorus that we sing about the Father, the Son and the Spirit.



The first verse says to the Father, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." The second verse says to Jesus the Son, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." The third verse says to the Spirit, "Glorify Thy name in all the earth." I love to sing the first two verses, but I decline to sing the third verse, because I do not believe it is scriptural. The Holy Spirit never does glorify His own name. His purpose is to glorify the One who sent Him.

Let me make another statement which may surprise you. I have not found in the Scripture anywhere an example of a prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit. So far as I can understand, no one in the Scripture ever prayed to the Holy Spirit. You probably would do well to check that for yourself, but I have looked carefully and have not found one example.

You might ask, "Why so?" And I would give you this answer: It is a question of heavenly "protocol." There is so little respect nowadays for protocol on earth that we sometimes do not realize that there is protocol in heaven. It is protocol relating to a master-servant relationship. In such a relationship, when you are dealing with a servant, you do not speak to the servant, but to the master. You ask the master to tell his servant what to do. It is wrong to directly address a servant when his master is available for you to speak to.

I believe that is heaven's protocol. When you recognize the relationship of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son, you understand that we never give orders to the Holy Spirit. When we want the Holy Spirit to do something, we address our request to the Father or to the Son.

When I was looking through this, I found a passage in Ezekiel chapter 37 which I thought, at first, was an exception. It is part of Ezekiel's well-known vision of the valley full of dry bones with no life in them. First of all, he prophesied and the bones came together, but they were still lifeless corpses. Then, in verses 9 and 10:

Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Come from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live."'" So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

So, I thought that the "breath" is really a picture of the wind - or the Holy Spirit - and so Ezekiel was praying to the wind. But he was not praying. He was prophesying. And it did not come from himself. He merely passed on to the wind a command that he had received from God Himself. Therefore, as far as I have been able to discover, there is not a single example anywhere in the Scripture of praying to the Holy Spirit.

Now, I am not seeking to make a big issue out of that. On the other hand, I think it is very important as we try to discern the nature and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You would say to me, "Well, doesn't God hear our prayer when we pray to the Holy Spirit?" I think He does. But we are not praying in full accord with heaven's protocol. If we really want to please the Lord and show respect for Him, we will show respect for His protocol.

The third important fact about the Holy Spirit is what is indicated in His name: He is Holy. This is His primary title: the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew it is the Spirit of Holiness. He has many other titles: for instance, the Spirit of Grace, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Power, and so on, But they are all subsidiary. His name and His primary title is the Holy Spirit.

Anything that is unholy does not proceed from the Holy Spirit. The Scripture also speaks of the beauty of holiness. There is a beauty in holiness when it proceeds from the Holy Spirit. It is not necessarily external. It may be internal beauty. For instance, in I Peter 3:4, Peter speaks about the hidden person of the heart, and he speaks about the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. This is not external beauty. It is internal beauty, which comes from the Holy Spirit.
I want to say, however, with the utmost emphasis:

ANYTHING UNHOLY OR UGLY DOES NOT PROCEED FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT.
I will give you a list of 12 adjectives, all of which I believe cannot be applied to the Holy Spirit or to anything that is the product of the Holy Spirit. As I go through the list, I suggest you check mentally and see if you agree with me. Here, then, are words that would never apply to the Holy Spirit:

self-exalting
self-assertive
degrading
flippant rude
sham
vulgar
indecent
insensitive
stupid
silly
degraded

I have in my heart, if God wills and I live, to write a book at some time of which I have already chosen the title. The title is this: Holiness Is Not Optional. Only God knows whether I will ever succeed in writing the book, but I want to say, in any case, that the title states the exact truth. In the Christian life, holiness is not optional.

Many Christians seem to think about holiness as if it is like something added to a car, such as fancy leather upholstery instead of the normal kind of plastic. But that is not true. Holiness is an essential part of salvation. In Hebrews 12:14 the writer says, Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. What salvation do we have that does not bring us to see the Lord? But without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

We have in our contemporary Western Christianity a very incomplete picture of salvation. "If I get saved and born again, and then I want to go on and be holy. I can do it - but it is an option." I want to tell you that your salvation depends on your being holy. And holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.

There are many features of purported moves of the Holy Spirit that I could pick out
and hold up as examples of things that are not holy. But I will only deal with one, and that is: animal behavior in human beings attributed to the Holy Spirit. There are many such examples, some I have witnessed and some have been reported.

First of all, there is no passage in Scripture that I know of where the Holy Spirit causes any human being to behave like an animal. There is the example of Balaam, but that is a strong contrast. God caused Balaam's donkey to speak like a man - but He never caused Balaam to bray like a donkey!

There was one man whom God caused to behave like an animal: Nebuchadnezzar.
He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.
(Daniel 4:33)

But that was God's judgment, not His blessing! Revelation 4:6-8 depicts four living creatures that surround the throne of God. Three are there as representatives of the "animal" kingdom: a lion, a calf and an eagle. But none of them make noises that express their "animal" nature. All of them alike proclaim the holiness of God in pure and beautiful speech.

It is important to understand that there is an order in God's creation. Man was created in the image and likeness of God to exercise authority over the animal kingdom (see Genesis 1:26). Man is, in fact, the highest order of the creation described in the opening chapters of Genesis. This has a bearing on the way the Holy Spirit blesses us. He uplifts those whom He blesses. He will at times cause an animal to act in some ways like a human being.
But He will never degrade a human being by causing him to act like an animal.

I have a certain amount of experience in this area because I have encountered animal spirits many times in Africa. I recall one particular deliverance service that I held in Zambia with about 7,000 Africans present. When I had finished the teaching and began to command the evil spirits to manifest themselves and come out of the people, there were all sorts of animal spirits that were let loose. By "animal spirits" I mean evil, demonic spirits that enter human beings and cause them to behave like animals. The first thing that happened was that a man with a "lion spirit" tried to charge me. But someone tripped him up and he did not reach me.

You need to know that the reason these Africans in this part of Africa have so many animal spirits is because many of them are hunters of animals. They have this superstition that in order to hunt an animal successfully, you have to get the spirit of the animal in you. So a man tends to have the spirit of the animal which he seeks to hunt. For instance, the man who is hunting a lion, will get a lion spirit.
There are many others. We dealt with spirits of wild boars that caused people to burrow in the earth with their noses like a wild boar rooting for something. Then there were many snake spirits. These were mainly in women, and when they were manifested, the women were flat on their bellies slithering around like snakes. All these I actually witnessed myself.

There was one other spirit that I did not witness, but heard about from the missionary couple who organized the meeting. Later I met the lady concerned. She was a very sweet Christian lady - a school teacher - but her husband was an elephant hunter. When she came to the missionary couple for deliverance, they commanded the elephant spirit to come out. Immediately she dropped on her hands and knees, crawled out through an open door, put her forehead up against a small tree, and began to try to push it down. Wasn't that remarkable?

Perhaps some well-meaning Western Christian might have said, "Our sister is pushing a tree down for Jesus," but that was not the explanation. The elephant spirit in her was causing her to do what elephants regularly do, which is push down trees with their foreheads. As soon as she was delivered from that spirit, she no longer had any urge to push trees down with her forehead.

In the West, we sometimes tend to speak about the people in Africa as unsophisticated and to consider ourselves more sophisticated. However, I think in this realm of animal spirits it is we, in the West, who are unsophisticated and the Africans who are sophisticated. They have lived for generations with such spirits, but until the gospel came, with the power of the name of Jesus and the Word of God, they had no way to deal with them. Thank God that many of them now know how to deal with them!

Another example of which various reports have been given is people behaving like dogs. I am a dog lover, but I think dogs should be kept in their rightful place. I do not believe that the Holy Spirit ever causes anybody to bark or to run around like a dog.
Where such manifestations of animal spirits have occurred, there are certain steps that we need to take. We cannot tolerate or encourage such manifestations. Nor can we merely sweep all this under the carpet and go on as if nothing had happened.
In Matthew 12:33, Jesus instructs us:
"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit."
Wherever there is bad fruit, it comes from a bad tree. It is not enough to get rid of the bad fruit. We must also cut down the bad tree that produced it. If we fail to do this, the bad tree will go on producing more bad fruit.
Undoubtedly the tree that produces animal behavior of this kind is some form of occult or pagan practice. For instance, there are frequent manifestations of animal behavior in some parts of Africa and India.

To cut down the tree requires that the leaders responsible identify the problem, confess it as sin and repent of it. Nowhere in the Bible is there any ground to suppose that God will forgive sins that we are not willing to confess.


Somebody has said, "The confession must be as wide as the transgression." If leaders have tolerated these things in the presence of their people, then in the presence of their people they need to confess it as a sin and cancel it. Otherwise, if the bad tree is not cut down, it will go on producing bad fruit.

In closing, I want to give a little "parable" of my own construction, which is about my relationship with my wife. In this parable my wife represents the Holy Spirit and I represent God.
Now please understand, this is a very simple little parable and I am fully aware that the Holy Spirit is not the wife of God. But with those cautions, let me relate the parable.
A friend comes to me and says, "I saw you and your wife together on the platform the other evening and she looked so beautiful, so fresh, so full of the Holy Spirit."

So I say, "Thank you. That's really how she is." Then, a little later, the same man comes to me and says, "You know, yesterday I saw your wife in a bar with a man drinking." And I say, "That was not my wife! My wife is a pure and godly woman. She does not go to bars and she does not drink with strangers. My wife was right here with me all day yesterday. Don't speak that way about my wife!"

But a little later, he comes to me and says, "You know, I saw your wife yesterday sunbathing topless on the beach." Then I get really angry. I say to him, "My wife was nowhere near the beach yesterday, and she would never expose herself like that! If you want to remain my friend, you've got to come to the place where you don't identify that loose, immoral woman as my wife, because that's an insult to her and to me, If you want to remain my friend, you've got to change the way you speak about my wife."

The application, of course, is this: if you want to remain a friend of God, you cannot afford to identify His Holy Spirit as something that is loose or immoral or ugly or unholy, because that angers God intensely.

Now we come to one final Scripture, which is in Matthew 12:31-32. Jesus says,
"Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."

That is a very solemn and frightening warning. We are warned by Jesus Himself to be very, very careful how we speak about the Holy Spirit, how we represent the Holy Spirit. Jesus uses the word blasphemy, and I decided to look it up in my big Greek lexicon. The primary meaning of to blaspheme is given in the lexicon as this: to speak lightly or amiss of sacred things. So when you speak lightly or amiss concerning the Holy Spirit, or misrepresent the character of the Holy Spirit, by definition you are close to blaspheming.
If you have ever done that, or been prone to do it, or been associated with those who do it, I want to offer you some sincere advice: You need to repent. You need to settle that matter once and for all with God and never again be guilty of misrepresenting God's Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is holy and He is God.


_________________
Mike

 2008/5/14 8:15Profile





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