We have arrived at an hour in the history and experience of the Church when there is much confusion, many questions and a multitude of heretofore unheard and unexpressed doctrines and spiritual practices being promulgated by so-called “revivalists,” “apostles” and “prophets.” I have italicized these titles, because I am convinced that a fair number who claim such designations are not what or who they claim to be. This in no way is intended to denigrate the legitimate among us, but rather to differentiate between the true and the false, between the authentic and the counterfeit.

Without doubt, no generation since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been faced with more questionable and previously unheard of teachings than the current generation of believers.

This is a time when mature believers who have been grounded in the incorruptible Word of God must stand up and let their voices be heard.

In the balance are potentially millions of souls who are naive, gullible or ignorant of the devices being employed to destroy their faith in the Sovereign God.

Sadly and dangerously, we also have come to an hour when anyone who questions currently claimed revelation or “present truth,” regardless of how spurious it might appear, is held in absolute contempt and disregard and is relegated to the ranks of the hyper-heresy hunters, doubters-of-everything good, and the Pharisaical accusers of the brethren or even as outright enemies of the Cross.

Because of the immediate and violent attacks any honest enquirer might be confronted with, many have been effectively silenced because of the scorn and retribution meted out by those who embrace extreme and extremely questionable doctrines.

The writer of this article has no reputation to protect and no empire to preserve, and thus welcomes any and all attacks from those who oppose honest questions from simple believers in Jesus.

I am only one voice, but I am a voice. Those who choose to indict my faith and insult my intelligence by hurling their own accusations at the straw dogs they may carefully construct will not intimidate me. So long as God gives me breath, I will speak the truth as it is revealed in His holy, pure and incorruptible Word.

In this article, I have been kind I think, generous and even positive in my assessments of what I have witnessed by those involved in various Charismatic, Pentecostal and Evangelical movements, renewals and outpourings. I have not attacked and will not accuse any singular person; I refuse to condemn any individual. My observations are about doctrine and practice, and not personal criticism. I remain supportive, as a Brother in Christ to those with whom I disagree and who disagree with me. This is about positions and practices and not personalities.

I have not accused any man or woman of being demonically controlled or of being adherents of New Age teachings. I have maintained the position that the Lord of Hosts would eventually reveal either the truth or the error of events in and around various revival movements. I believe that ultimately, a righteous and holy God will deal justly with those who would lead even one of His own elect astray. I continue to refrain from personal attack, even though those affected by this article may feel otherwise.

Finally, this writer is no enemy of renewal and revival; on the contrary, I have been both a student of revival and a participant of a powerful move of the Holy Spirit which began in my own life and church in 1995 and continued unabated until 2005. The effects of that move of the Spirit remain with me today. There are those who will make the claim that since “the voices of the former move of God will always condemn the current revival” I am obviously guilty of the same. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Whenever I learn of moves of God here or revival there, my initial sense is always of support and not opposition. I caution anyone against attacking any revival before the fruit of that revival may be seen, and some fruit takes longer to appear than other fruit.

After spending many (now 48) years among Pentecostal and Charismatic fellowships, and after having seen the genuine, the precious move of the Spirit of God, the lives transformed, healed and set free, I also have witnessed abuses, excesses, gross error and rampant disregard for the solid Rock of God’s word. I am compelled to speak for the sake of the innocent and the hungry and for the future of revival in a world so desperately in need of a genuine visitation from heaven.

Approaching a trans-oceanic vessel from water level, an ocean-going ship appears monstrously huge. Its hull was laid with the effort of men and machines and with much sweat and muscle and exertion. Gazing at such a massive craft, one would likely not notice or pay attention to something as mundane and minuscule as a compass, or even an anchor. Yet without these two devices, any journey would be fraught with danger, even suicidal, for one provides direction while the other assures security. It is the compass that ensures the seaman of his course and of his eventual destination. It is the anchor that grips the sea floor and holds the vessel in place when wind and waves would shatter the ship on rocky shores.

If I have perceived anything regarding some current expressions of “revival” as manifested in various places around the world, neither instrument is prominent, and without both a compass and an anchor, an eventual collision between the ship of revival and the jagged rocks of reality is inevitable.

The compass and the anchor of which I speak is the singular instrument of the Bible, the divinely written, inerrant, perfect, complete and holy Word of God: A book possessed by virtually every modern believer in Jesus Christ, but one which either is untouched by or largely unfamiliar to far too many Christians.

Biblical Knowledge has been Trumped by Spiritual Experience.

We live in an era of general biblical ignorance, where the value and emphasis of experiential Christianity trumps the old, “boring” disciplines of learning and applying the scriptures to one’s life. The Bible itself warns, when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy (Proverbs 29:18 NLT). We want this verse to refer to divine guidance as experiential revelation, but the context of the verse leaves no room for misunderstanding, “. . . whoever obeys the law is happy.” The “Law” refers to The Book, The Word of God. Jesus explained that “you shall know the truth (His Word), and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). If freedom is what we as children of God desire, God’s word will take us there.

Experience Finds its Source in the Word of God, not the Reverse

Many have quoted the well-used line, “A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.” That is a patently false, misleading and dangerous statement: If someone has an experience that flies full in the face of the revealed word of God, are we to accept that experience over and above the clear teaching of Scripture? If however a person reports an experience that is upheld by the Word of God, the very reliability of God’s word trumps any other experience, because all spiritual experience must flow from the word of God, and not the other way around.

Merely because someone physically shakes is not an indication that the Holy Spirit is the primary causa of that physical experience. Falling to the floor or being “slain in the Spirit” in itself offers no certain evidence that God is involved in the falling. Speaking with other tongues, or glossolalia, while impressive to the ear is not in itself necessarily expressive of the Spirit’s activity.

Physical responses, often called “manifestations” may be the result of the activity of the Holy Spirit, but they are not certain indicators of God’s presence. I’ve watched Satanists shake and Hindus fall to the floor in trance-like states. I am not persuaded that God is present just because someone shouts unintelligible syllables into a microphone. I’ve heard men shout “hula, hula, hula,” “boola, boola, boola,” and “yoi, yoi, yoi,” among other unintelligible phrases. I’ve never felt particularly spiritually encouraged or especially blessed in the hearing of these utterances. I am, however impressed when the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk.

Indeed if the Spirit’s work in an individual is to place him into a state of ecstasy wherein he can merely mumble incoherently, please tell me how that person will effectively be a witness for Jesus in the marketplace of men. Will a non-believer suddenly cast off his unbelief and embrace Christ if I chant, “hula, boola, moola” to him?

Heart and Character, Not Trances and Dances

The acid test of all spiritual encounters is this: What happens to the character of the person experiencing that manifestation? If I have been genuinely touched by God, should I not expect to be benefited in my heart and in my character? As has been said, “When a man is truly born again, even his dog ought to know it.” Any person touched by heaven will reflect something of heaven to those around him or her. That’s Bible: You can trust your life – your eternal life on that Book, and only on that Book.

I realize in making such a statement that there are believers, followers of Jesus who do not hold to a time-worn and time-tested reliance upon the Word of God as the singular infallible, divinely inspired, inexhaustible rule of faith and conduct. I recognize that in some Christian circles today, such language is considered out of date, pathetically cerebral, without anointing or unction, but, dear reader, those very terms – anointing and unction came to us not by a revival-spawned revelation but by anointed men of God, moved upon by the Holy Spirit.

The biblical phrase “inspired by God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 is translated from a single Greek word qeopneustos. The first word is qeos. It is the word for God. The second word is pnew which means “to breathe” or “to blow” and is also the verbal form of the Greek word pneuma, meaning “spirit.”

The resulting understanding from Second Timothy is that “all Scripture is God-breathed.” The very breath and Spirit of God is infused into the words of Scripture. This is why we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. If reliance upon the Word of God, the very God-breathed words of God is somehow unspiritual or out of date, what then may we rest our souls upon and in what may we place our trust for our eternal future?

In support of the veracity and genuineness of what many Charismatics and Pentecostals call renewal or revival, various devices outside the Bible have been utilized which, under scrutiny fail to bear the weight of authenticity. Following is a non-inclusive listing of the most objectionable teachings and or practices I have witnessed by the proponents some of these movements and the extreme prophetic, “mystical” movement.

1. Use of Well-Known Personalities to legitimize and justify an experience, renewal or revival. The appearance of and endorsement by known apostles within the Charismatic church is not an assurance of biblical accuracy or of ministry appropriateness.

It was no less a recognizable name than the Apostle Paul who declared, “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

I care not one whit if Smith Wigglesworth or John Wesley themselves are trooped across the stage in support of any so-called move of God; if their testimony is not consistent with the eternal word of God, their presence means absolutely nothing to me beyond the astonishment of seeing the dead raised to life.

With reference to well-known and beloved ministry personalities, I will doggedly hold to Paul’s counsel in Galatians 1:8, cited above. I may love and honor such persons, but they are not equal with or superior to the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.

It is biblically and spiritually appropriate that we recognize and honor any man or woman whom God has used mightily, we are never encouraged by Scripture to place our trust or our hope in any human vessel. The world has never seen any faultless, complete or sinless figure outside of the Person of Jesus Christ Himself. To place final trust in any man or group of men is to invite spiritual disaster. God’s Word and not God’s creation must be our ultimate and final authority. This is especially and critically true with regard to those who claim prophetic gifting, calling and office. Vast numbers of hungry believers have been devastated because of foolish, presumptuous and even down-right silly so-called prophetic direction.

2. Relating with Contemporary Society by adopting the language and the behavior of the culture outside of Christ.

Simulating the use of illegal drugs, and using the language of the illegal drug culture is not a legitimate way of reaching the “lost.”No exceptions and no apologies. Terminologies such as “Godka,” “Toking the Ghost,” “Jehovajauna” (pronounced Jehova wauna) and “Holy Ghost Bartender,” among many others do great dishonor to the character and nature of a holy God. To reduce the Holy Creator of the Universe to a joint of marijuana or a bottle of alcohol is a crime I am convinced no true, sensitive follower of Jesus could ever allow him or herself to commit.

“Toking the baby Jesus” as was demonstrated in one online video is blasphemous. Strong language, I know, but the images I have viewed of such behavior also are strongly objectionable and trivialize the Holiness and the Purity of our God and of His Holy Spirit.

Further, consider one specific meeting where the leader advocated and demonstrated the procedure for locating and injecting a vein with heroin. The “leader” then mumbled, “that’ll hit you in about half an hour.” Imagine someone in that meeting who had recently (even not recently) been delivered from mainlining heroin or from any other illicit drug: How will that person respond to such a suggestion?

3. Use of New Age or Misinterpreted Terminologies and Practices will never be conducive to a true, Spirit-engendered practical theology and faith. I have listened to one “revivalist” use terminologies such as coming into the state of the “ecstasy” of God wherein he describes the spiritual states of “Mystical Union,” “Absorption Ecstasy” and “Concentration Ecstasy” as conditions that thirsty Christians should seek to experience. These terms are mentioned in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) where, on page 996 under the heading of “Prophet” (dealing specifically and exclusively with the question of how “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” in 2 Peter 1:21) and hails to the unio mystica discussed by J. Lindblom in the aforementioned text.

From the ISBE, I quote regarding the unio mystica, or mystical union, “The ecstasy of the true prophets did not usually display itself in peculiar behavior, for their ecstasy was basically a private experience of the conscious reality of God’s presence. The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not, therefore, be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets.” Please note that final sentence: “The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not . . . be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets. “Hula, boola schmoola?”

4. Uncorroborated Testimonies of Healings and Raisings from the Dead. Nothing will kill the reputation of revival quicker and more decisively than making claims of miracle healings and raisings from the dead which cannot be substantiated by outside medical sources. Expecting believers and non-believers alike to simply “swallow” these claims without evidence is not only arrogant, but stupid. If a person were raised from the dead at a hospital, do you actually believe that no nurse, no physician, no friend or family member at that hospital would be aware of such a miracle, and be willing to talk about it?

Over the years, secular journalists who have heard reports of conspicuous miracles – the dead being raised, cancers dying, diseases disappearing, have sought to receive from the related ministries medical corroboration of such phenomena. Time after time, generalized testimonies and incomplete information, coupled with evangelistic gobbldy-gook has not only substituted for simple, direct medical evidence, but has also given the Church a black eye in the view of the unbelieving public. Verifiable testimonies and medical documents go a long way in substantiating claims made and establishing the veracity of any claimed move of God. Yet the media packet held no proof beyond names, locations and contact information which had been blacked out.

If God – not a contemporary evangelist or the Apostle Paul or Greg Austin – if God is raising the dead, we should expect to see evidence of these miracles. We should be able to see these people on camera, listen to interviews with them, and hear the astonished physicians’ statements of the veracity of these claims. These would surely honor God, but refusing to provide anything specific beyond claims that “we have X number of people raised from the dead and counting,” is both dishonest and dishonoring to God.

5. The Centrality of Angels and Apostles to the neglect of the true centrality of the Person of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not desire to be noticed, but He always points our hearts to Jesus. The Holy Spirit has come to us to guide us into all truth: Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus. Never do we find the Holy Spirit exalting angels. Indeed, Paul asks the Corinthian church rhetorically, “do you not know that we will judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:3).

Much emphasis today has been placed upon the title or office of Apostle. I have watched with some concern at what I believe is an unhealthy and unholy veneration of those called “Apostles.” As I read through the New Testament, I see the apostles as servants; men and women with hearts of humility and grace, who desired that the work of God and the Kingdom of God should be advanced far more than their own work and their own were benefited or that their own names should be known or remembered. The Bible speaks of apostles as “foundational” gifts to the church. These are they who establish and maintain the flow of spiritual ministry based upon the revealed word of God. Nowhere in scripture is there any indication that apostles should be worshiped, or their words taken as the inspired word of God. Apostles champion God’s word; they do not seek veneration from any man.

During His temptation, Jesus told the devil, “’You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve’” (Lk 4:8). To a Samaritan woman who desired to understand true worship, Jesus said, “worship the Father” in John 4.

When a messenger from heaven appeared to John in Revelation 19, John says, “. . . I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

When certain Greek seekers came to Philip, their request was straightforward: They said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The point in all these scriptures is that there is only One Who is worthy of our worship and our adoration. I thank God for those true apostles who quietly and decisively carry out their calling and their office, but a true apostle would be the first to warn us “don’t worship me.”

In all that I have said, I am not suggesting that no miracles have taken place in any revival or renewal atmosphere. I have listened to more than one testimony from individuals I personally know who have testified to receiving healing or miracles as they sought God during such meetings. But here is the key: They were seeking God. A principal upon which we may rely is this: God will not deny Himself, and if an honest seeker reaches out to God in faith, regardless of what personality may be present on a platform, God will honor such faith. One of the greatest dangers to any leader is to believe that when miracles are taking place in his meetings, he is somehow responsible for those healings. 

The Word of God is the only reliable compass for negotiating the spiritual realms of life. The Word of God is the singular anchor that will hold us when the storms of life arise.

Any reliance upon any other device for direction, doctrine or practice than God’s inspired and immutable word; any use of so-called revelation that takes one beyond the boundaries of the revealed word will lead surely and ultimately to disaster.

Forgive my repetition, but it bears reiterating: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

There is no legitimate “progressive revelation” that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.”

Jude writes (Jude 3) “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Please observe, “the faith which was once for all delivered . . .” “Once for all.” There is no progressive revelation that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.” The principles of the Word of God have been established for all time and eternity. The thrice repeated declaration of Jesus should settle our hearts on this matter: “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall never pass away” (Mt. 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk. 21:33).

God’s word is all inclusive; that is, whatever man needs to know or may know about the secrets of the Kingdom of God or the world to come has already been provided within the covers of our Bibles. If we waver on this crucial issue, we lose the whole structure upon which our faith is built.

May we grow in our understanding of the increasing depths of God’s word? Absolutely! Is God’s word so deep and so rich with spiritual truth and meaning that we may not, in a dozen lifetimes understand all its secrets? Without doubt. But once again, all the truth which may be known concerning faith and Christian practice is contained within God’s word.

There exist mysteries which finite man cannot know. There are unknown realms man cannot approach because we are creatures of time and space and not of eternity – yet. It was John, the Apostle who declared, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 Jn 3:2).

Please notice, “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.” There are unknowns, ambiguities, secrets unrevealed, undisclosed until the Day of Christ.

The natural instinct of man is a desire to teneo ultra, “know beyond.” When the serpent approached Eve in the Garden, her vulnerability was the thirst to “know beyond” what God had revealed. The entry point for the venom of sin was the desire to teneo ultra, to “know beyond.” The serpent played upon her desire for knowledge beyond what God had provided. While every tree God had placed in the garden was available to her and to Adam, one tree was forbidden of God to be touched. But the curiosity, the desire to “know beyond” what God had revealed drew Eve inexorably into sin like the mesmerized Ulysses of Homer’s Odyssey is drawn to the seductive song of the Sirens, who lured men to their death on the rocks around their island. Interestingly, Homer depicts the Sirens song promising “wisdom and knowledge of past and future.” And so Eve attempted to satisfy her desire for “wisdom and knowledge,” and in the process committed an act that would require the sacrificial death of God’s own Son to remedy.

New Age practitioners, cultists of every ilk, and myriad false religionists and magicians play upon the same, instinctual need to “know beyond” in order to ply their trades and fill their coffers. When a Syracuse, New York banker named David Hannum (not P.T. Barnum) proclaimed, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he was merely affirming the truth that man wants to know and is willing to commit intellectual suicide or pay exorbitant material and perhaps eternal, spiritual fees in order to know even what cannot be known.

Many claims have been made by various revivalists of visitations to the “third heaven.” Support for those claims comes from Paul’s statements in Second Corinthians 12 of his own (singular, so far as we can read) translation into the third heaven. He writes, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago–whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows–such a one was caught up to the third heaven.”

Follow Paul’s discourse regarding that incident in Second Corinthians, chapter twelve. Does he speak of revelations that surpass contemporary knowledge of the things of God? Does he reveal deep revelations of angelic encounters or of prophetic knowledge beyond what other apostles were aware of? Paul’s own words are notably absent of any such claims. In fact, he divulges no deep secrets to his readers. He speaks of “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” He makes no claims of super-revelation, he is decidedly not lifted up in pride and arrogance. He is silent about what he saw and heard while in Paradise, but instead tells us that he is careful not to boast of the experience, and even goes on to describe his personal caution.

He says, “I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.”

A Final Proverb

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and his men have landed on the island of the Lotus-Eaters, and Odysseus sends out a scouting party of three men who ate the lotus with the natives. This caused them to fall asleep and cease to be concerned about going home, with only a desire to eat the lotus.

Odysseus went after the scouting party, and dragged them back to the ship against their will. He set sail, with the drugged soldiers tied to the rudder benches to prevent them from swimming back to the island. Unrealized by the stupefied sailors, Odysseus not only is saving their lives, but he is returning them to the true desires of their hearts; to their homes.

After a life of pursuing truth and the knowledge of God’s Son, the Apostle Paul bursts forth with the heart-cry, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).

There are, I fear, those who only desire to “eat the lotus” and not to know the Jesus Whom Paul pursued and was willing to lose everything in order to find.

My heart cries out for these “scouting parties” who have fallen prey to the “lotus” of false spiritual experience and subjective revelation. I want to reveal the truth of God’s word, and with Odysseus, drag them back to the ship of faith in order to save their eternal lives.

The false, temporal substitute of the Lotus – of temporary psychological, emotional, physical manifestation and experience crumbles and falls to the earth in pieces when confronted with the superiority and supremacy of a solid and true faith and experience in the Christ of God’s Word and in the Word of God’s Christ.

I am thankful to God for the Compass of His Word and the Anchor that holds us in the swelling tide. “On Christ, the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

Several years ago in Derry, Northern Ireland, I was conversing with Clive Price, a free-lance journalist from England, (now a resident of Northern Ireland). We were discussing the very topics I have written about here. Speaking about certain extreme practices and unsupportable claims I said, “Clive, I believe God is calling the church to clean up its act, and if we won’t do it, the world will do it for us, and the world won’t be benevolent when it starts cleaning house.”

 

The news came, as it typically does, in the midst of a full schedule of commitments and responsibilities. My wife and I had just returned home from four days of ministry and fellowship at a gathering in South Carolina.

We were tired, and glad to be home. Our oversized mailbox was filled to overflowing, our dogs needed loving attention and after taking care of these, we left home again for another commitment in our city.

I discovered the news when we had returned home the second time, at around 1:30 in the morning.

John Keating has died. Some of my readers never knew John, but he was closer than a brother to me.

John and I first met in the lobby of the Seattle Revival Center in 1997. John was an Irishman, scheduled to minister among us. I had walked into the lobby and saw a room full of people, among which was one man who stood out in stark relief among that crowd of saints, at least, to me. I walked up to him, we exchanged appraising looks and then we moved together into a warm and Christ-filled hug. We somehow ended up on the floor, legs and arms askew and our hearts meshed inseparably.

John was far from a typical preacher, minister, apostle, prophet; he didn’t fit anybody’s image or expectation. He was rooted in another world, joined to a kingdom not of this world. And because he was much more a member of an eternal kingdom than he was a member of a temporal world, John seemed odd to many people. Well, he was odd. And I suppose, so was Paul and Peter and Steven and the whole host of First Century follower-leaders of Christ.

We ministered together in America and in England and in Holland and in Northern Ireland and in the Republic. We worked together from Cork to Coleraine. We were in Omah just after the bombing. We prayed through Londonderry – or Derry – your choice. We laughed in pubs and preached in pulpits and met men and women in the streets and we watched our God bring peace where it was claimed no peace could be found. In 2004, John and I made a quiet, private tour of the North and then drove into the South. John wanted to purchase a pub and serve as barman and it would be a church – a John-kind-of church. Under the radar. Non-conventional. Effective.

He didn’t buy a pub, but we toured a lot of them. And John moved on. Under the radar. Non-conventional. Effective.

Last night I was scrolling through Facebook Messenger and found a video clip of our Fireland days. I commented to my wife that the music we were listening to were songs we sang during those heady days of revival in Northern Ireland. And then, unexpectedly, a dam broke in my soul and tears rushed from my eyes and all I could do was roll into a fetal position and cry.

When John first came to America, he was enthralled with this giant land we Americans call home. He wanted something American to wrap himself in and that something became a fine, leather coat. We went shopping and John found just the coat he was looking for: A heavy, well-made leather coat. John wore that coat proudly until one night he or somebody, I’m not certain who looked at the tag inside the coat: “Made in Ireland.” John was so disappointed, but I thought to myself, “You can get John Keating out of Ireland, but you can’t get Ireland out of John. He was passionate about the Irish and the land and the history, of Celts and Vikings and the Irish who endured and he was passionate about Ireland becoming Fireland as the fires of God’s Spirit burned through the land, touching hearts in every city and county and region.

The cloud of witnesses that has cheered John, and you and me onward toward the Prize has grown this week with the entry of John Keating.

I grieve for Sandra and for John’s family, both biological and spiritual. I grieve for the cities and the churches and the people that now will never hear John’s rich and simple voice, urging us upward, onward, inward toward the high calling in Christ Jesus. I trust that God knows what He’s doing, and for what He has done with Johnny. But I miss the lad. You know, I miss you, John.

Greg Austin

I was born again (in the classical, biblical, evangelical sense) on May 15, 1971. In the context of world history, May 15 was a dull day. Phil Pfister was born that day. He grew up to become an American strength athlete although I had never heard of him until I Googled “May 15, 1971” today. Oh, and “70, Girls, 70” closed on that Saturday at the Broadhurst Theater in New York City after 35 performances. Never heard of it. Phil was born and “70, Girls, 70” closed, and I died to self and was reborn into the Kingdom of God.

Before I had turned one month old in Jesus, I was introduced by my Christian mentors to something they labeled as “spiritual warfare.”

In those days, we battled unseen, but dangerous demons of every sort. We were taught that these spiritual entities were assigned by the Devil himself to attack our lives, harass our spirits, confuse our minds and wreak general destruction among the church and the world alike.

Much of what we were taught was and is indeed true and real. And much of what we engaged in during those early days of Jesus Life was just so much psychic silliness.

I was first taught that spiritual warfare was akin to gladiator-versus-lion in a Roman Empire coliseum or the raw, bare-fisted combat of a spiritual boxing ring. In the early 1970’s, fasting, anointing, screaming at demons, puking up green devils into sandwich bags (after discovering there was an imp behind every fence post and tree) was not only common among many of us “Jesus people”, it was a daily anticipated function of the Jesus life.

Then Loren Cunningham (think YWAM, or Youth With a Mission) showed me the true secret and power of spiritual warfare – (it may be good here to pause long enough to re-read Matthew 5 and 6).

The thing Loren taught that breaks the devil’s strongholds and disrupts his efforts is primarily found in obeying the commands of Jesus. You know, “If you love Me, keep my commands” and “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” And His Word is enveloped by, drenched in, lubricated with and marked by, love. Indeed, His own word declares that God is, He does not merely possess or reflect or participate in, but God IS love.

The chief command Jesus gave to us is to LOVE. He taught, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Not, “this is my commandment, that you ‘labor for the Master from the dawn ‘til setting sun’” or that you drag your body across bruising stones in order to prostrate yourself before heaven’s high and holy throne.

Jesus taught that if one would defeat the devil, if we would stymie Satan’s evil agenda, we ought to love as Christ loves us.

Satan can and will argue doctrine with the saints of God (and win!). The devil isn’t stupid as some believers vainly suppose: he knows scripture better than you (and I) do. He has caused the mighty to fall and the powerful to stumble. He has ruined ministries and destroyed the anointed of God. But the one fortress that our enemy cannot penetrate, the wall he cannot surmount is the love of God. And when all the shouting has silenced and when all the methods of warfare have ceased, there remain these three, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.

Please note: I am not discounting the appropriateness, power and occasion for casting out demons or cleansing homes and yes, even or especially church buildings too, but I am suggesting that before we begin our war with devils we “put on” the royal and impenetrable robe of love.

To love is to become like the Savior who, because of love gave Himself, “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

To love like God is to love the unlovely, to love the least of humanity, to love the loser and the liar and the robber and the persecutor and the accuser and the hater and to embrace with a life transformed by the love of God the unworthy and the utterly evil and sinister and devious among us.

Hell has a strategy to defeat every confessing Christian, and that strategy is sadly successful in too many lives. But hell has no weapon, no strategy, it has no offensive or defensive ability to conquer the love of God.

If you want to see the devil discouraged and defeated in your life or in your church, love one another as Christ loved (us) and gave Himself for us.

 

Why are we here? Why are you here? On this earth, living in the nation where you live, with the career and the family and the conditions in which you are found; why are all of us here?

As believers. As followers of Christ. As members – representatives of the kingdom of God, why are we here?

We are here to bring heaven to earth. We are here to reconnect heaven and earth. We are created to become conduits of the atmosphere of heaven, flowing into and transforming the atmosphere of earth. We are here to become the mechanism that will accomplish the appeal that insists, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

We are not here to convince people to attend our churches or to sing our songs or to pray our prayers or to adopt our theologies or to support our charities or to be impressed with our state of the art technological lighting, sound, smoke and effects. We have not come to the kingdom for “such a time” and purpose of popularizing Christianity among a host of world religions.

We are here to bring heaven to earth. We are here to re-join the disconnected. The connection that was broken, the relationship that was injured, the original association between Creator and creation, Father and sons, these were damaged, broken, fragmented, lost.

Where we feel disused, overlooked, passed by, ineffective as evangelists is in the place where we misunderstand: we think we are called to preach a sermon, produce a song, argue or embellish or convince those “without” so that they may desire to be found “within.”

Ours is not a calling or a responsibility to perform spiritual magic tricks that will persuade unbelievers to join the ranks of we believers. No, ours is the calling to represent, to embody, to contain, possess, to carry within our very beings, at the very core of what we are, the character and the image and the glory and the very Person of the Christ who came to enable us to be both reconnected and to reconnect others with heaven.

Why are we here? Why are you here, on this planet, in this time, in this place? We are here, you are here to reveal, to demonstrate, to become and to be and to be seen as the true manifestation of the sons of God in the earth.

“…When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” And as sons, these would become they who would reflect the image and share the DNA and become accurate representations of the Father.

By “being” and not primarily by “doing.”

Salt does nothing. Salt, “is.” Salt possesses an augmenting effect; it enhances a flavor already present. Salt “enlivens.” We are called to be something that does nothing but something that simply “is.” We are salt that enhances a substance that already is present; the substance of the kingdom and therefore of the very nature of God.

“Light” exerts no effort. Light, “is.” Light produces an environment; it creates a canvas upon which content may be seen, perceived, comprehended, understood. Light dissolves darkness; pushes back that which has pushed forward. Light “displaces” darkness, simply by existing.

The Genesis account describes the condition that allows displacement. The phenomenon is found in the action of placing something – or some one into a medium, water, which then causes the water level to rise. When you, when we are inhabited by God’s Spirit as followers of Jesus, we cause a displacement, a movement of the powers that were because of the power that is, which is the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Where righteousness moves, unrighteousness must, by the law of displacement, retreat.

In that first account, God caused a displacement, ““And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.” God separated the waters above from the waters below. Something, the presence of light and of love and of the Lord of heaven caused the displacement, the movement necessitated by the introduction of some “firm” appliance into the atmosphere that was.

We are alive for the purposes of God, for the purpose of being, of simply being salt and light until the world has seen, has perceived, has comprehended and received the love of God

And so it is that when we, as believers, as “temples of the Holy Spirit” are introduced into the atmosphere of what was, we create, by our presence, what is: The kingdom of God comes to earth, pushes back darkness and evil and fills the newly formed void with “light and righteousness and joy and peace” in the Holy Spirit.

We are here, on this earth, on this turning, spinning, hurtling sphere called planet earth and we are alive for the purposes of God, for the purpose of being…of simply being salt and light until the world has seen, has perceived, has comprehended that the God of all creation loves them, each of them, individually, personally, face-to-face, Father to son until all the world, every human being, “red and yellow and black and white,” of every kindred and of every tribe and of every tongue has seen, and known, and comprehended the eternal everlasting and gracious love of God.

Christianity is currently experiencing the most convulsive, unsettled period of change since the birth of the Church more than two millennia ago.

No generation of Christians, from the first disciples of Jesus until now has witnessed the vast and accelerated alteration of the structure of the church that the current generation is now undergoing.

Surely, we comprise that generation “upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

The voice of the Spirit of God has been heard clearly by innumerable saints whose ears are open and whose eyes are searching for the unmistakable activity of the Lord of the Church. It is He who declares,

The Current Structure of the Church will not accommodate what I am about to do.

If we are willing to face truth without the insulation of emotion or the panacea of nostalgia or the comfort of tradition and with a determination to hear no other voice than the expression of the Spirit of God, we must recognize and accept clear realities, among which is this: Much of what Christians (followers of Jesus Christ and recipients of His forgiveness and mercy and grace) have for all our lives called “church” has little to do with the concept intended when Jesus announced, “I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18).

Allow my redundancy here: “The current structure of the church will not accommodate what God is now doing.” The structure of the building, the skeleton of the Body is being challenged with change and as is true in the physical body, it also is true of the spiritual body. When change, required for growth is demanded of us, pain is involved. When a muscle is exercised, that muscle will initially protest and will make itself heard through the vehicle of muscular ache and pain. These “growing pains” occur also in the church, which God describes as a “Body” (Eph. 4:16).

If you are a church member or church attendee, ask yourself these questions:

• What really is the spiritual condition of my church?
• How effective are we at winning the lost to Jesus?
• How are we penetrating our society with the claims of Jesus, with the fruit of converts and disciples?”
• Are we more caught up in the worship of worship than we are the worship of the Lord?
• Does the preaching of my church impact my community as Paul’s preaching did, that “came not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power?” (1 Cor. 2:4).

If your church is like the majority of churches around the world, your answers are not encouraging.

Indeed we can point to a convert here and a new disciple there, but these are infrequent and most of what we call “church growth” is actually transfer growth – Christians dissatisfied with the church they have attended moving to greener pastures, a new worship style or a novel preaching form. We call this activity “growth” when in fact it is merely a shuffling of the deck, a relocation of spiritual refugees from one address and building to another.

We can look at finances and building programs and musical performances and evangelistic crusades and interest building programs and by these criteria claim some level of success as churches. But if we are honest, we must admit that our experience is far from the original pattern of the church we’ve read about in the Book of Acts and the church that existed during times of worldwide revival.

Most churches have majored on programs and committee-spawned ideas for growth which have little to do with the blind seeing, the deaf hearing and the lame leaping.

Our musicals, our programs, our carefully crafted sermons have done little if anything to stem the growing tide of evil all around us.

Because of our ineffectiveness, we have built a theology to accommodate our failure.

We point out that “evil must increase in the end times” in order to explain decreasing interest in the things of God.

We dogmatically state that “darkness will increase until there’s almost no light left in the earth.” to rationalize losing the battle against a rising tide of iniquity.

How do these statements square with biblical mandates that declare, “the whole earth is filled with God’s glory?”

What about the promise that “the glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former?”

And finally, what about Jesus’ own promises that “greater works than these shall you do because I go to the Father” and “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Somehow, somewhere, we have lost something essential in the church. Somehow, we must retrieve those lost things if we are to fulfill the promises of God for our generation. And while we retrieve the essentials, we must leave behind the non-essentials: The things contained in the word “religion.”

Purity, Power, Purpose

Contrary to the pitiful preaching of some, God is not going to send Jesus to rescue a discouraged, desolate and defeated Bride. The church Jesus will return for is a church of purity, power, and of purpose, a church that is transforming the earth, confronting evil, and conquering societies with His grace, mercy and love.

But the big question is “How?” How can we change anything of significance? How can we become truly effective for God? How can we reach billions of lives with the love of Jesus, even as a rising tide of resentment and persecution and hatred for Christians and for Christianity threatens to overwhelm us and to drown our voices and extinguish the flickering flame of faith? I’ll address these issues and others in my next discourse.

Christianity is indeed currently experiencing the most convulsive, unsettled moment of change since the birth of the Church more than two thousand years ago. And in this moment of unsettled discomfort, God is wooing us, calling softly and thundering when necessary, bidding and urging us to return to Him and to His ways. The responsibility we share is to hear Him, to answer Him and to follow Him.

Most of us have entertained the thought, experienced the chill, the unnerving contemplation of being shipwrecked, cast alone into the shallows of some tiny, unnamed, uncharted, uninhabited island. Whether in our child’s mind’s eye or in mature consideration of what we might do, how we might survive, most of us have given at least some thought to the feelings of aloneness, isolation, the maddening emptiness of life separated from everybody, anybody, any human contact.
There are words that speak eloquently. What images do these expressions conjure for you?

Abandoned
Deserted
Discarded
Rejected
Forsaken
Alone

Whatever impressions emerge or pictures are drawn in your mind as you consider these words, it is likely that you have also experienced in your journey through life the feelings, the emotions, indeed, the hurt and pain of abandonment or rejection.
Perhaps it was a parent – a mother or a father who abandoned you. It may have been a spouse or a child or a brother or sister who rejected you. 

One of the most profound pains of life occurs when those you believed were your friends, your faithful, true and honest friends forsook you and you found yourself suddenly and silently alone and in your aloneness, you shivered uncontrollably in the icy chill of your isolation.

Rejection and abandonment can come in a thousand costumes and speak with myriad voices. The effect, the result produced is always the same:
Rejection brings injury and deep damage to the soul. The mind is anguished and wounded and in its bruising the mind seeks to protect itself, to counter hurt with defensiveness and anguish with a shield of aloofness and distance from the thing that caused the insult of soul and heart.

Abandonment makes the heart grow weak, but more; desertion destroys self-worth. We learn early in life to discard what we do not need; what we do not want; what is not essential or profitable or useful or even acceptable.
Garbage is disposed of; trash is discarded. We keep only that to which we attach value

An abandoned soul feels valueless, worthless, insignificant, useless.
A forsaken heart is more than empty and crushed and bruised and injured; it is a playground for devils, a gymnasium for unprofitable imagination, a ready abode for the citizens of hell.

From the soil of rejection flourish the sour fruits of bitterness, resentment and, dark, brewing rage. Implacable, stone-hearted and pitiless wrath proceed from hearts that have known the frigid winds of torment spawned by the uncaring, the unfeeling and the unaware.

From such renunciation Americans have become familiar with Columbine in Colorado and Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. But other, unreported and destructive events happen every day in homes and among families as mental, spiritual rejection and careless, flippant treatment of others produce the death of relationships and the breaking of hearts.

Most rejected and broken-hearted people never pick up a gun or seek to lash out at others. There is no need and no desire. The slow, grinding suicide begun by the deadly injection of aloneness and friendlessness is as deadly as any bullet that ever roared in tortured anguish.

We cannot control if and when or by whom we will feel the lethal claws of abandonment.

What we can do, what we wield control over is our response to rejection. Options exist for the heart that was crushed. Brokenness may come, but annihilation is not inevitable. No soul that was crushed was ever beyond repair.

And there is Someone who knows…..feels….. empathizes…..understands….. cares and Who also possesses the power to heal even the most trodden and crushed heart. It was foretold of Him; “I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice…He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.”

Who is this shining Knight; this Rescuer of offended hearts? Who is this Champion of the soul Who comes to right wrongs and to heal those whose destruction seemed certain?
He came forth of misinterpreted illegitimacy and was raised in humble anonymity; He came forth from obscurity and moved about in lonely exile. He left His home country and renounced his nobility, He was self-effacing and pointedly unassuming. He sought nothing for Himself and was content by Himself.

He was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
It is He Who “will bring forth justice for truth,” and God will hold His hand; “He will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.”
And to the One Who promised, “I will hold Your hand” hear the anguished cry from the central cross on that Crucifixion Day of all Days when Innocence was fixed to the Tree of Final Death: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him….” because He saw your face and knew your brokenness and He anticipated through forsaking Him, your wholeness.
This Man above men, “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” so that He might see you, find you, know you, touch you, heal you, a bruised and hapless reed, tender, delicate, nearly too far gone to be repaired, but repairable in the Hands of a Master Physician.
And when we – you and I – accept and receive healing and restoration and the comfort of friendship with Him, we then carry within ourselves the knowledge, the ability and the sympathy to carry Him to another abandoned, rejected, forgotten heart, “that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
So, we reach to the “least of these.” We find ourselves among “orphans and widows.” We observe pure religion and undefiled before God because we become what He has always been; a Father to the fatherless; a Lover of the unlovely; a Friend to the friendless. A visitor of prisoners and a provider of a cloak, a meal, a home…a heart that knows, that feels, that sees, that understands.
Our Abandonment was essential for another’s Recovery
We were
Deserted so that we might learn to Salvage
Discarded so we could Recapture
Rejected so we could Receive
Forsaken that we might Comprehend
Alone that we might find the true Companion

What images are conjured in your heart at the hearing of these words? What scenes play before your mindscreen? Someone has been abandoned, deserted, discarded, rejected, forsaken. And who will notice? Who will go? Who will touch them in their brokenness and in their loneliness and Who will bring them to the Forsaken One Who alone has the antidote for this poison of the soul?

In the Shelter of His Grace,

Greg

I often reflect on the revelation received a few years ago: “I was doing just fine in Jesus until the “church” got hold of me.” My mentors, who had been immersed in a systematized “Christian” religion not unlike those victims of the First Century Judaizers, taught a works-based Christianity. Most displays of liberation and joy were sharply forbidden by the “mature” and “holy” elders around me.

Life in Jesus was presented as being a nice, compact, confining corral with strong, high rails. I could run and play to my heart’s desire, so long as I remained inside the corral. I could stand at the fence and gaze out onto vast panoramas of open space, but I could never leave the confines (the safety and limitations) of the corral.

What I was not told in those early days of my life in Christ, what I was not taught about the corral was that the fence posts had been set and the rails nailed by men and not by God. Religion has its own concept of dimension and breadth. When our starting point is limitation itself (the law), our construction will be limited to the parameters provided by law. When our starting point is immeasurable, uncontainable, limitless (grace), the dimensions of our corral expand infinitely.

Christianity, I was taught, was intended to provide freedom within severe limitation. So “grace” became a scary, forbidden, untouchable, improbable landscape, while the law and religion formed a safe, secure but gray and lifeless “protection” “for my own good,” I was enthusiastically assured.

The joy of my salvation was replaced by the drudgery of labor and self-denial and the not-so-veiled threat of imminent judgment should I stray from the “straight and narrow.”

I learned the critical expressions of Christianity, “Thou shalt not,” and “No” and I learned about the dreaded cancer we called “worldliness,” which The Free Dictionary defines as “Of, relating to, or devoted to the temporal world. 2. Experienced in human affairs.” God forbid that any follower of Jesus should relate to the temporal world or become experienced in human affairs! As a beloved Seminary Professor was wont to say, “Horror of horrors!” (The preceding spoken in a tone of mock astonishment).

And so we young believers were counseled to “come out from among them and be separate.” We understood this to mean that Christians were not to be much like their Leader, Jesus, Who was labeled a sinner for consorting with Publicans – tax collectors for the Roman government. He even ate with them, a practice much more dangerous than merely speaking with them. He sat at table with them. He ate their food, drank their wine, heard their stories and perhaps chuckled at their jokes. And He liked them! Some might infer that He went so far as to love them as well!

In my earliest days as a believer, before “the church” got hold of me, I listened to an internal Voice. The Voice would regularly and reliably steer me towards and away from. The Voice would counsel me to speak and to be silent, to join myself to and to disengage from. Before “the church” got hold of me, I had only the Word of God, both in Book form and in Spirit form to guide me. I discovered that spending the first portion of each new day with both the Book and the Spirit brought direction and purpose to the remainder of the day.

In those early days, I witnessed manifold miracles. I saw lives transformed. I watched bodies, souls, spirits, minds, lives healed. I saw prostitutes become priests in the household of faith. I watched thieves become givers and druggies become disciples of Jesus. All this, before the “church” got hold of me.

And I knew about grace. After all, I had just been transformed myself. I had undergone a translation – I had been recently “delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.” Grace was perhaps my first, concrete observation about my new position in the earth. I didn’t yet know I was a “Christian.” I had no knowledge of the special category called, “Believer.” I wasn’t yet anybody’s “disciple,” wasn’t a proponent of Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, Arminianism, Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism . . . . case made.

I was doing just fine until the “church” got hold of me – The “church” of rules and regulations. The “church” of works and labors and adherence to laws long ago fulfilled but never released into the graveyard of the unproductive and the useless, the invalidated and the nullified.

If by now you are sensing the need to intercede for the poor, deluded grace people, don’t worry about those who refuse to be regulated by religion but instead revel in the of virtues of a grace created by and intended for all who follow Jesus.

And do not misunderstand or fret; the “grace folks” aren’t getting away with sin under an imagined umbrella of grace that allows anything “worldly” to invade their lives. Life in Christ is not without restraint. There can be no true freedom without restriction. Liberty requires limitation. The key, however is to understand that any restriction vital to our spiritual life must be established by heaven’s direction and not by man’s. God’s concept of liberty is far, more expansive than man’s puny at best, notion. There is a “yoke” constructed to fit each of us; a yoke connected to the Son of God that He declared is “easy, and (His) burden is light.” Heaven needs no assistance from man in designing or building the corral of our freedom.

Our safety in the wide-open space of grace is that our Mentor, Guide, Director and Friend is Himself holy, pure, righteous, altogether good, without sin, spot, wrinkle, without fault. Grace is neither an adjective nor an adverb. Grace is a Person, and the identity of that Person is Jesus, Himself. The difference between law and grace is that law designs the corral that only grace can measure and establish.

Jesus informed us of the poison of the Pharisees who He said would travel sea and land to make one convert, and turn him into twice the son of hell as they had become. Beware the adjutants of religion, who have inherited and who transmit the “generational curse” of a man-made religion of restriction.

The Son of God could not have been clearer than when He announced, “Whom the Son has set free is free, indeed.”

May God raise up a true, “Grace People” in our generation. Not those who abuse Christ’s cross by their unrestrained and fleshly liberty, but a People who live near the cross, consciously reveling in the benefits of His sacrifice, a People living in His freedom, inexorably drawn to His wounded side so that we may be made whole, and “enter into the joys of (our) Lord.”