Hearing from God through the prophet Ezekiel: An introduction

How should Israel respond?

Living under alien rule

Frances Rabbitts reviews two different critiques of the New Apostolic Reformation

The Prophet’s appeal to common sense.

Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “When men fall down, do they not get up? When a man turns away, does he not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right.

No-one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”’ (Jeremiah 8:4-7)

In this passage Jeremiah makes an appeal to common sense. He says: when someone stumbles and falls over, if they are a normal, healthy human being, they don’t stay lying on the ground bemoaning their plight - they get up. In the same way, if someone finds he is going in the wrong direction, he doesn’t just increase his speed hoping that he will get to the right place in the end! He recognises that he has to turn around and go in the right direction – it’s plain common sense!

Jeremiah then makes an appeal to nature, saying that even the birds in the air know the times and seasons, observing their times of migration so that they are not caught in the wrong place in wintertime. When they see the signs of winter approaching, they fly away to warmer places. If they did not observe the signs of approaching danger, they would not live to survive the winter storms.

The citizens of Jerusalem and the general population of Judah were so stupid, they were not even exercising ordinary common sense and recognising the danger that was plainly to be seen, if only they would open their eyes. If the birds were able to see the signs of approaching winter, the people of Israel and Judah ought to have had no difficulty in perceiving the signs of danger on the international horizon. There was plenty of news from travelling merchants that the Babylonian army was actually on the move and heading towards the land of Judah.

Jeremiah appeals to the people of Jerusalem and Judah to exercise plain common sense and open their eyes to the obvious danger ahead.

God’s Conditional Promises

Of course, Jeremiah knew that the major responsibility for this national blindness lay firmly with the priests and prophets. They proclaimed publicly that the Temple was a holy place where the Lord God of Israel had his presence. God would divinely protect the building that Solomon had created and dedicated - he would never allow it to fall into enemy hands.

But Jeremiah knew that when Solomon had prayed at the opening of the Temple, he had recognised that God’s presence and blessings were conditional upon the obedience of the nation, that they should have no other God than Yahweh the God of Israel.

Idolatry was everywhere to be seen: not only at countryside shrines and high places up in the hills, but even in the streets of Jerusalem, where the people baked cakes to Astarte, the goddess of the Assyrian Empire who was also worshipped by the Babylonians. She had obviously blessed the Babylonians greatly, so the people of Judah thought that she might do the same for them.

Common Sense Ignored

Jeremiah was horrified at the extent of spiritual idolatry right across the nation and while he primarily blamed the priests and prophets, there was really no excuse for the people, because from infancy each one was taught the Shema:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… (Deut 6:4-7)

The first of the Ten Commandments was “You shall have no other gods before me.” Everyone in Judah should have known this, so there was really no excuse for spiritual ignorance. If the people simply exercised basic common sense, they should have known that God would not protect an unrighteous city and a land full of idolatry. They should have known the basic ‘requirements of the Lord’.

It was the responsibility of the priests to teach the people the terms of the covenant between God and the people of Israel that had been agreed by Moses when he called the assembly at Mount Sinai. But it was the responsibility of the prophets to look for signs of danger to the nation, including on the international scene. Both priests and prophets were failing in their duty, which is the reason why the people did not know the requirements of the Lord.

Jeremiah blamed the priests and prophets for the idolatry in the nation – but there was no excuse for the people either.

Disaster Ahead

Jeremiah was a lone voice on the streets of Jerusalem; banned from the Temple and even threatened by his own family. “Beware of your friends: do not trust your brothers,” he was warned. “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie” (Jer 9:4-5).

Jeremiah wept much for the people of Jerusalem because he could see what was going to happen to them: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (Jer 9:1).

If there was no excuse for not knowing the requirements of the Lord in Jeremiah’s time, there is surely even less excuse for us today. We not only have the teaching given to Moses by God; we also have the Gospel in the New Testament and the revelation of truth in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus our Messiah. Our generation has rejected truth and does not even have the common sense to recognise that we are heading for disaster. Will we stop and turn around before we reach the edge of the precipice?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.

Discerning the signs.

“Announce this to the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah: ‘Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear: Should you not fear me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Should you not tremble in my presence?’” (Jeremiah 5:20-22)

Jeremiah was outraged by the unbelief that he saw among the people, both in the city of Jerusalem and across the land of Judah. It was almost unbelievable that they should be so foolish with their great heritage embedded in the history of the nation. “Hear this!” he proclaimed; but he knew that it was useless - because although they had eyes to see and ears to hear, they did not use them.

The words are reminiscent of those used by Isaiah at the time of his call to ministry when God told him that he would be ministering among a people who were “ever hearing, but never understanding; ever seeing, but never perceiving” (Isa 6:9). It was just the same in Jeremiah’s time some 200 years after Isaiah. And in another 500 years Jesus would be saying exactly the same thing of the generation in his lifetime. He spoke to them with simple stories because of their lack of understanding. He said “This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (Matt 13:13).

The spiritual blockage among the people of Israel was seemingly endemic. Jeremiah struggled to understand it. He saw that the people had lost respect for God; they had no sense of awe: “‘Should you not fear me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Should you not tremble in my presence?’” This message was not only to the people, but to their leaders and teachers.

“Hear this!” Jeremiah proclaimed; but he knew that it was useless - because although the people had eyes to see and ears to hear, they did not use them.

Spiritual Vacuum

Jeremiah accounted for this disrespect of God as stemming from the loss of recognition that the God of Israel was actually the God of Creation, who had created the universe, measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and weighed the mountains on his scales (Isa 40:12). The people had turned aside from the truth of the word of God, which resulted in a total lack of spiritual discernment.

They couldn’t even recognise what God was saying to them through the failure of the spring and autumn rains, which were causing havoc with the harvest and meant that there would be food shortages in the near future. God had withheld the rain because of the sins of the people; but they were so foolish they could not discern the signs of his activity.

When people fail to acknowledge the God of Creation, they create a spiritual vacuum that makes them insensitive to the activity of God. It leads to every kind of wickedness that affects the whole of society, which was the teaching of Paul in Romans 1. Jeremiah pointed to the social sins that had produced great inequalities in the nation. The rich had become powerful and had “grown fat and sleek” (Jer 5:27). These greedy men did not care for the poor or give justice to the powerless (Jer 5:28), which was abhorrent to God. “‘Should I not punish them for this?’ declares the Lord” (Jer 5:29).

The Reason for Indifference to God

It was at this point that Jeremiah exploded with indignation. He knew that all these social aberrations were due to a lack of spiritual truth in the nation. The people had turned away from truth; they had abandoned any thought of God in their daily lives – God was an irrelevance. This led them to worship the local Baals in the countryside, and to careless indifference to God in the city where they were intent upon making their fortunes, or struggling with poverty.

But Jeremiah went to the heart of the matter – to the reason why there was such indifference to God. It was surely due to the priests and prophets, the religious leaders of the nation, who had the word of God but did not rightly use it to teach the people: “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way” (Jer 5:31).

Why was there such indifference to God? Surely it was because the priests and prophets had the word of God but did not rightly use it to teach the people.

The prophets made up their own visions and prophecies. Their major objective was to be popular with the people – to tell them things they wanted to hear. They weren’t bothered with the truth. Jeremiah said, “The prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly” (Jer 23:10). “They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord” (Jer 23:16). “Both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness, declares the Lord” (Jer 23:11).

It was the priests who were most responsible for the state of the nation, according to Jeremiah; they ruled by their own authority. Instead of faithfully teaching the word of God as given to Moses and delivered to the people at Mount Sinai (Deut 4:10), the priests made up their own teaching, misusing the divine authority they had been given. Their teaching was popular, no doubt reinforcing their own authority and ensuring gifts from the people which kept them well fed.

No Excuse

There was no excuse for the priests because the scroll of the Torah had been discovered during the repairs to the Temple ordered by King Josiah just a few years earlier. The priests were the ones who had access to the scrolls that were being copied by the scribes, so they knew the truth, but they did not handle it righteously. They did not declare the word of the Lord that would establish truth in the nation.

The consequence was that the people could not even discern the reason why the autumn and spring rains had not fallen. The whole nation was lacking in spiritual understanding. They had eyes to see and ears to hear, but they had no discernment.

Could this be said of our own generation in the 21^st Century? If God still holds the religious leaders responsible for the state of the nation, we have to ask: do we have church leaders who have eyes but do not see, and ears but do not hear? If so, we must conclude that God is saying the same thing to our leaders today: Should you not fear me? declares the Lord. Should you not tremble in my presence?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here for previous instalments.

The limits to God's patience.

“This is the word of the Lord to Jeremiah concerning the drought: ‘Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and the cry goes out from Jerusalem. The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads.

The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads. Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights and pant like jackals; their eyesight fails for lack of pasture.’” (Jeremiah 14:1-6)

Jeremiah presents a terrible picture of a prolonged drought covering the whole land of Judah during the reign of Jehoiakim the ungodly king (son of godly king Josiah), in the final decade of the 7th Century BC. The drought was not confined to Judah; it covered the whole region of what we now know as the Middle East.

Climatologists say that this was a period of ‘global warming’ and historians note that it was probably one of the reasons why Nebuchadnezzar conquered neighbouring countries: to recruit an army of labourers to dig canals around the rivers Tigris and Euphrates to irrigate the land.

Jeremiah knew nothing of global warming, but he certainly saw the hand of God, the Creator of the Universe, in what was happening to the people among whom God had called him to minister. The Hebrew word for ‘drought’ used in this passage is plural, indicating a series of droughts that had now become so severe that all life was being threatened.

Rich and poor, young and old, city-dwellers and farmers were all suffering; even the wild animals were dying of thirst: “wild donkeys stand on the barren heights and pant like jackals”. In the cities the wells had run dry and in the countryside the streams and river beds were cracked and empty. It was a scene of desolation and death.

Jeremiah knew nothing of global warming, but he certainly saw the hand of God, the Creator of the Universe, in the drought around him.

God’s Rebuke

Jeremiah had been told to remind the people of the terms of the covenant (Jer 11:1), but they had not listened or heeded his words. The consequences of breaking the terms of the covenant were perfectly clear: “The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron” (Deut 28:23).

No doubt Jeremiah also was suffering and his vivid description of the effects of the drought led him to pray for the nation – one of the rare occasions when Jeremiah interceded on behalf of the whole nation and the land of Israel: “Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name” (Jer 14:7).

His pleading with the Lord was met by a fierce rebuke: “This is what the Lord says about this people: they greatly love to wander; they do not restrain their feet. So the Lord does not accept them; he will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins” (14:10).

In order to stop him asking the Lord to break the drought and send rain upon the land, Jeremiah was told to stop praying for the wellbeing of the people because God would no longer listen to their pleas. In fact, he was told, “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go!” (Jer 15:1). This is an exact reversal of the message given to Moses when he was told to go to Pharaoh with a call to bring the people out of Egypt into the presence of the Lord.

Limits to God’s Patience

The reason for this harsh rebuttal of Jeremiah’s request on behalf of the nation was that God had forgiven the people time after time, but they had never kept their promises of faithfulness. The discovery of the ‘Book of the Law’ during the repairs to the Temple ordered by Josiah had led the king to rededicate the nation to God, re-affirming the terms of the covenant. But his son, Jehoiakim, had reversed all that and the people had rapidly returned to worshipping the Baals.

God’s patience had reached its limits after all the warnings had been ignored. The God of Israel was now exercising his power over Creation. The drought was the consequence of breaking the covenant in turning away from the Lord. The teaching that had been given to Moses was, “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands…blessings will come upon you” (Deut 28:1). But, conversely, disobedience would bring terrible curses on the land and on all its inhabitants.

Jeremiah’s pleading with the Lord was met by a fierce rebuke.

It is a serious thing to enter into a covenant with God. It carries awesome responsibilities. Once we acknowledge him as our God, we belong to him: we are his servants, as well as his beloved children.

There are wonderful blessings and benefits from the love and protection the Father gives to his children, but there are also responsibilities. Jeremiah was well aware of this and although prophecies of peace and prosperity were being given to the people by some of the official prophets linked with the Temple priests, Jeremiah knew that the nation thoroughly deserved judgment.

Declaration of Faith

Jeremiah ended this time of intercession with a declaration of faith in God: “Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O Lord our God. Therefore, our hope is in you. For you are the one who does all this” (Jer 14:22).

Surely this is a timely reminder to all the Western nations who have had the Gospel for centuries that there are inevitable consequences of turning away from the truth.

This article is part of a teaching series on the life and ministry of Jeremiah. Click here for previous instalments.

From hyper-grace to healing vibrations: how the NAR is leading charismatics astray.

*Longer article*

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” (Psalm 143:10)

At Prophecy Today UK, we believe that the Pentecostal movement of the early 20^th Century and the charismatic renewal movement of the 1960s and 70s were moves of God to equip his people with a greater understanding and appreciation of the Holy Spirit. We have often said that this equipping was intended for a specific purpose: to prepare the Church for effective witness in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, during which time the global population has boomed and the religious map has changed dramatically.

However, we recognise the danger of such moves of God being hijacked and corrupted by human sin and satanic deception, and that this danger is no less today than it was in the days of the early Church. Then, the infiltration of the new-born Christian community by false teachers and false prophets led Paul and the other Apostles to speak often and passionately about the importance of guarding against deception.

It is in this context, and with regard for recent concerns surrounding David Hathaway’s January prayer day at Wembley Arena, that we feel a broader statement (perhaps the first of several) is also necessary on a particular movement infiltrating the Western charismatic Church.

We believe that this cluster of ministries, teachings, practices and attitudes, often referred to through the short-hand phrase ‘the New Apostolic Reformation’ or ‘NAR’, has the potential to steer charismatics completely off course. But what is the NAR, and how can we combat its teachings with biblical truth?

A Brief History

The NAR is today’s expression of the same teachings that birthed the Latter Rain Movement of the 1940s, the subsequent ‘Manifest Sons of God’ movement, the Kansas City Prophets, the Toronto Blessing (1994 on), events at Brownsville/Pensacola (1995-2000) and the Lakeland Florida ‘outpouring’ (2008).

During the mid-1990s, Dr Clifford Hill together with several other British church leaders joined to sound the alarm about events in Toronto, the outcome of which was the 1995 book ‘Blessing the Church?’, serialised in 2018 on Prophecy Today UK.¹ But though the alarm was sounded, the NAR movement has since only grown in reach and influence. Through the 2000s and 2010s, teachings that were once the domain of fringe itinerant revivalists filtered into the mainstream charismatic world.

The NAR today encompasses a loose collection of charismatic ministries, leaders and teachings without a central organising body or statement of beliefs, and defying traditional denominational categories. Many within it do not recognise the term ‘NAR’, though it was coined by one of the movement’s core founders, C. Peter Wagner.² It has also been termed ‘network Christianity’³ because of its nebulous, relational nature.

Today, NAR power-houses include Bill and Beni Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding, California (formerly AOG, now independent), Hillsong Church in Australia (also formerly AOG, now independent), Catch the Fire in Toronto (formerly Toronto Airport Vineyard, now independent), Heidi Baker’s Iris Ministries and Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Ministries, amongst many others. You will find songs, teachings, books and events connected with these and other NAR ministries being promoted in most charismatic churches in Britain, at inter-denominational conferences, in Christian bookshops and on Christian TV and radio.

This ‘networking’ has been accomplished through a combination of music, literature, sympathetic publishing houses and media platforms,⁴ training programmes, social media use and platform-sharing/collaborations with well-respected ministries and leaders. The NAR now also has its own Bible ‘translation’ to boot.⁵

The global reach of this movement and the endurance of its core beliefs through time seem all the more insidious because of its lack of official organisation, prompting many to see a spiritual driving force behind it. So, what exactly do NAR proponents believe?

What are NAR Beliefs?

In many ways, the NAR borrows from biblical Christianity and most within the movement would still accept the basic tenets of the Gospel. It is evangelistic and charismatic; it believes the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. It also usually takes a conservative stance on moral issues, values prophecy, promotes social action and can encourage support for Israel. However, there are important aspects of the NAR which are inescapably unbiblical, which pollute and redirect genuinely-felt love for God.

Indeed, while we are not disputing the sincerity of ordinary believers caught up in the NAR movement, we believe that, followed thoroughly and consistently, it promotes ‘a different Jesus, a different spirit and a different Gospel’ (2 Cor 11:4).

The US General Council of the Assemblies of God wrote in their official denunciation of the Latter Rain Movement in 1949 that its theology “claims prerogatives to human agency which belong only to Christ”.⁶ This remains a good summary of the NAR movement today which, though now evolved beyond these roots, still bears similar hallmarks.

In short, the NAR movement encourages believers to claim for themselves things that belong only to our sovereign God and remain His to bestow as He wills: things such as power and authority, control and dominion, supernatural ability, blessing and success, health and prosperity. It is a Christianity that doesn’t know when or where to stop: an over-zealous movement of theological and spiritual excess characterised by a lack of biblical checks and balances.

With the caveat that the NAR is a loose movement that encompasses a lot of internal variation, and to which proponents may only subscribe partially or inconsistently, core NAR beliefs include:

1. The leadership of modern-day ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’
   
2. Dominionism: the teaching that ahead of Jesus’ return, the Church will become all-powerful on earth and make it ready for the Lord⁷
   
3. The belief that unlimited divine power and blessing is available to believers to equip them for this task
   
4. An over-emphasis on the supernatural and extra-biblical revelation
   
5. An over-emphasis on power and human agency
   

In the remainder of this article, I will take these five NAR creeds and discuss briefly why each is attractive, deceptive and contrary to Scripture.

1. The leadership of modern-day ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’

The NAR movement distorts Ephesians 2:20 to claim that God is raising up end times ‘super-apostles’ and prophets – equal to or greater than the original Apostles commissioned by Christ - who will lead the Church to this-worldly victory. The appeal of strong, charismatic leadership in an increasingly uncertain world, particularly to young people, should not be underestimated.

While Christians disagree about whether the biblical offices of Apostle and Prophet are still current today, what is certain is that an elitist movement of self-appointed, celebrity leaders claiming divine authority is thoroughly dangerous, as well as antithetical to Scripture.⁸ The cult-like focus on personality in the NAR has led some believers to travel the world in order to sit under the teaching of specific people, desperate to receive some personal blessing and accepting their words unquestioningly.

The highly concentrated power of this relatively small group of men and women – now commanding global influence and millions of dollars every year, while being treated as infallible superstars - can easily be (and has been) abused, as with the well-documented examples of Paul Cain and, more recently, Todd Bentley. Both of these men fell from grace spectacularly but were quickly ‘restored’ with a conspicuous absence of deep grieving and true repentance.

All this is a world away from the New Testament ekklesia, the community of faith built on one name alone: that of Jesus Christ. The original Apostles were team-playing ambassadors of the Gospel who placed high premiums on humility and servant leadership, not self-promotion and gaining a following (e.g. 1 Cor 3:4; 15:9). Their teaching emphasised the importance of weighing and testing all things (e.g. 1 Thess 5:21) and watching keenly for false teachers and prophets, as Jesus commanded (Matt 7:15-20). Those in positions of leadership knew they would be held to a higher standard because of their greater influence (James 3:1).

“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power. Though I am less than the least of all the saints…” Apostle Paul, Ephesians 3:7-8

“He must become greater; I must become less…the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.” John the Baptist, John 3:30-31

2. Dominionism: the teaching that ahead of Jesus’ return, the Church will become all-powerful on earth and make it ready for the Lord

Popular within the NAR movement are teachings like the Seven Mountain Mandate (the idea that Christians are supposed to take over the ‘seven mountains’ of culture in order to transform the world) and the concept of ‘bringing heaven to earth’, reclaiming society and Creation for the Kingdom.⁹

The biblical hope that believers will become bearers of light and blessing to their communities and nations through the transformative power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, and the understandable desire for revival, are extrapolated to such a degree that the responsibility for establishing a physical Kingdom of God on earth is transferred from Christ onto the shoulders of the Church.

The goal of re-establishing Christendom has obvious appeal to Christians in the West, who have hitherto watched their nations despise God and spin into terminal decline. But dig a little deeper and NAR Dominionism usurps Christ’s Lordship, wresting from him the mandate to redeem, restore and judge.

Indeed, the ‘Kingdom Now’ culture promises the victory of Christ’s return and the blessings of Heaven to believers in this life, creating false expectations that ‘things can only get better’ and that the next big revival is just around the corner. This stops people from truly seeking the Lord and understanding his purposes. It also blinds them to vast swathes of Scripture which speak of dreadful days of deception and persecution ahead of the Lord’s return.

When difficult times do come, or when wild predictions of revival don’t come true, expectations are disappointed and believers can be driven either into denial, or away from faith altogether.

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” Jesus, Matthew 24:12-13

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:20

3. The belief that unlimited divine power and blessing is available to believers to equip them for this task

Taking its cue from the Manifest Sons of God movement, NAR teachers emphasise that as God’s children destined to do great things in the world, believers can claim in faith lives of abundant blessing, health, supernatural power and infinite grace from God.¹⁰ Some, notoriously, have even argued that believers are ‘little gods’ who can attain to divinity and physical immortality.¹¹

The fleshly appeal of such promises of abundance is obvious (cf. Genesis 3:5). Deceptively, they take truths about the love, goodness, grace and blessing of God and blow them out of all proportion, well beyond scriptural boundaries. The life of faith is reworked around pursuing and ‘claiming’ this promised abundance, more than around growing in maturity and holiness. As such, NAR teaching de-emphasises concepts like discipline, judgment, sin and human weakness. It blurs the fundamental differences between God and humanity, exalting believers far above their given place.

Believers are told that illness and suffering are always consequences either of a lack of faith or of spiritual attack (rather than for any other reasons) while concepts such as repentance and denying one’s flesh are side-lined, as are scriptural injunctions to admonish, discern and warn.

The result is an entitled, spoilt Church culture – congruent with the consumeristic West at large. The NAR is known for its insatiable cry of ‘more!’

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus, Matthew 16:24

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

4. Strong emphasis on the supernatural and extra-biblical revelation

The NAR movement puts a premium emphasis on an experiential relationship with God, including miraculous healings, the imparting of spiritual gifts/anointing through the laying on of hands, tangible experiences of God’s glory, words of knowledge, angelic visitations, supernatural manifestations and miscellaneous signs and wonders (notorious examples of the latter include the appearance of gold dust, gold teeth and feathers).

Biblical accounts of Jesus and the Apostles speak of miracles which are rarely seen in today’s unbelieving, hyper-materialist West. Ordinary Christians are understandably hungry for the supernatural – not only for proof of God’s existence but in order to ‘walk as Jesus walked’. However, this biblical desire for authentic New Testament Christianity is taken too far by the NAR, with cries of ‘relationship not religion’ quickly becoming a reaction against all forms of biblical authority, order and structure (save for the authority of the ‘anointed’ apostles and prophets!) and a privileging instead of the spontaneous, the ‘reckless’, even the ‘out of control’.

Such a postmodern theology of experience fits right in with millennials, but comes with a low regard for Scripture and the basic tenets of the Gospel, as somehow insufficient. Instead, a gnostic pursuit of the spiritual and of ‘new’ knowledge opens believers up to spiritual influences and grand prophetic claims that are simply not of God. In the name of faith, discernment is abandoned and thinking is suspended.

Unsurprisingly, the NAR movement has been marked from the start by strange manifestations, esoteric experiences and an abundance of provably false ‘prophetic’ words – all encouraged by a church culture predisposed to unquestioning acceptance, with criticism shut down as ‘judgmentalism’.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Apostle John, 1 John 4:1

“…there has emerged a famine of the Word of God…[which] has left large numbers of Christians without the capacity to judge for themselves from Scripture whether a thing is from God or not. They are defenceless from error, both in the form of doctrine and practice…” Peter Fenwick¹²

5. Therefore, given the above, the NAR places a strong emphasis on power and human agency

NAR-influenced church culture today emphasises the spiritual ‘authority’ of believers and NAR teaching often purports to help people ‘trigger’, ‘activate’ or ‘awaken’ blessing, revival and supernatural experience. NAR language is suffused with authoritative terminology such as ‘releasing’, ‘imparting’, ‘anointing’, ‘activating’, ‘breaking’, ‘declaring’ and ‘pronouncing’.

Being clear on the nature and limits of our authority in Christ is vital if we are to avoid usurping his role and claiming power for ourselves that is not ours to claim. In the NAR, this desire to wield spiritual power sometimes fosters a militant emphasis on spiritual warfare, particularly the practice of ‘taking’ territories for the Kingdom in prayer by engaging with territorial demonic spirits.¹³ Faithful proclamation of the Gospel is superseded by a dangerous desire to engage with spiritual principalities, while a concern to deal with sin is replaced by a pre-occupation with enemy activity.

Without discernment, these kinds of attitudes can worsen the ‘name it and claim it’ culture described previously and lead to all sorts of self-interested, unwise actions. Bethel Church in California provides plentiful examples of such behaviour: e.g. pacing around Temple Mount declaring ‘victory’ over the enemy, praying for a friend who fell down a cliff instead of calling the emergency services, and trying to stop the California fires by prophesying rain and commanding the wind.

We are not in any way denying the possibility of Holy Spirit-inspired declarations, or divinely-prompted acts of faith, or the power of intercessory prayer. However, NAR teaching wrests these things away from God and puts them solely in the hands of humans, as if the Holy Spirit is a force that man can learn to wield and bend to his will. This unhealthy attitude towards control, combined with the aforementioned preoccupation with the supernatural, opens a door for the New Age.

New Age terminology like ‘shifts’, ‘alignment’ and ‘destiny’ are common within the NAR, as are hypnotic music and mystical practices borrowed from the occult. One well-known example is The Physics of Heaven, a 2012 book by authors including Kansas City Prophets Bob Jones and Larry Randolph, with contributions from widely-followed NAR personalities Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton.

The book purports to ‘reclaim’ practices from the New Age like vibrations, healing energies, ‘dolphin therapy’ and ‘quantum mysticism’ to reveal secrets about how to achieve ‘personal transcendence’.¹⁴

“Many who had believed now came forward, confessing and disclosing their deeds. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them in front of everyone.” Acts 19:18-19

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Jesus, Matthew 7:21-23

Conclusions

The above overview is not comprehensive, as anyone who has looked into these matters will know. However, it is intended to clarify Prophecy Today’s position on this movement. Our assessment is that it ducks and weaves through biblical Christianity, blending truth with dangerous distortions and downright falsities.

It is thus a prime example of a movement of ‘mixture’. Nobody is saying that NAR teachers don’t ever say anything true or worthwhile – that’s precisely the point. They sometimes do. It is extremely difficult to critique their material without appearing uncharitable towards the truth contained within it. More discerning Christians have therefore tended to be divided by the influence of the NAR - some see the good and are unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Others reject it completely as outright deception (2 Cor 11:4). Many are simply fearful of speaking out against a movement that may include things ‘of God’, in case they accidentally blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

As I said at the start of this article, we are not disputing the sincerity of believers caught up in the NAR movement. However, broadly speaking, when NAR teaching and culture is held up to the light of Scripture, it fails virtually every single test. The problem is that it has intermingled with and now suffuses mainstream charismatic Christianity in Britain, which is one reason why so many faithful charismatics find themselves unable to find a sound church fellowship.

The growth of the NAR must be weighed before the Lord, especially in the light of scriptures forecasting deception during the times of the end. I do not believe, however, that ‘retreat’ is the only option left for faithful believers. A systematic critique is desperately needed and we must search the scriptures carefully to find out the truth, and be ready to defend it, contending earnestly for the faith (Jude 3). If the NAR really is as deceptive as it appears, the future of the Western Church and its witness may just hang in the balance.

Paul’s instruction to Timothy is particularly pertinent for us today:

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

Our thanks to the many readers who have raised this issue with us.

References

1 Click here to read our serialised version, which provides a useful history of the whole movement.

2 Wagner, CP, 1998. The New Apostolic Churches. Regal, CA, p18.

3 See Christerson, B and Flory, R, 2017. The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape. OUP USA.

4 E.g. Destiny Image, Charisma Media, God TV and TBN.

5 The ‘Passion Translation’, though it is really a paraphrase. Read critiques here and here and note its NAR connections here.

6 See chapter by David Forbes in Blessing the Church?

7 There are other streams of Dominionist theology that transcend charismatic circles. Not all have the same perspective on the end times.

8 Some, like Bill Johnson, do not claim these things overtly. But neither does he stop people from claiming them for him.

9 This end goal of subduing the whole earth can precipitate some strange alliances, at great doctrinal cost.

10 This overlaps considerably with the ‘Word of Faith’ movement/the idea of ‘positive confession’ and has synergy with the prosperity gospel, also secular psychology.

11 This is a misappropriation of Psalm 82:6/John 10:34 and stems especially from Manifest Sons of God teaching. It can shade into New Age assertions about ‘the divine within’ and be coupled with a down-playing of Christ as the first of many sons, or as a human endowed with divine power, rather than THE only begotten Son of God, fully human but also fully divine.

12 Blessing the Church? p50.

13 We are not saying that prayer is not important or spiritually significant, nor that believers cannot be led by God to pray strategically – but this must be led by God and not assumed.

14 Bethel Church in California recently hit the news for supporting the use of Christianised tarot cards as a form of outreach, and are known for the practice of ‘grave-soaking’: visiting the graves of Christian heroes and physically trying to ‘soak up’ some of the ‘anointing’.

Simon Pease reviews ‘A New Apostolic Reformation?’ by RD Geivett and H Pivec (Weaver Book Company, 2014).

Geivett’s and Pivec’s book, investigating the teachings of the so-called ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (NAR), has already garnered widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers asserting that this work provides a much-needed service to the Church. This reviewer concurs.

The ‘NAR’ is a short-hand term for a loose, unofficial collection of ministries, individuals and teachings, largely emanating from the USA, which have combined over the last 30 years to become a highly pervasive influence in the worldwide Church. However, as the authors point out, many Christians who are influenced by the NAR are not even aware of its existence.

In this helpful and balanced book, Geivett and Pivec draw together the various strands of this movement and systematically review its core beliefs, which owe significantly to the 1930s Latter Rain Movement and associated ‘revivals’ such as the Toronto ‘Blessing’.

Hyper-Dominionism

The authors acknowledge that they faced a challenging task researching the NAR as a whole. In contrast to a denomination, it is harder to pin down a formal set of beliefs within this nebulous-yet-influential movement.
In essence, NAR teaching asserts that God is raising up an end times generation of apostles and prophets, to whom the Holy Spirit is revealing ‘new truth’. These apostles and prophets will lead a massive revival, demonstrate extraordinary miraculous powers, and assume worldly positions of power in spheres such as Government, education, the media, arts, etc in order to bring the Kingdom of God on earth.¹

Geivett’s and Pivec’s book, investigating the teachings of the so-called ‘New Apostolic Reformation’, provides a much-needed service to the Church.

In traversing NAR beliefs, which can be summed up as hyper-dominionism (though Geivett and Pivec do not use this term), the authors reference and quote a variety of sources, most frequently C Peter Wagner. The most extreme example provided is of Bill Hamon, who teaches that end times apostles and prophets will attain immortality and perfect health before Jesus returns. Although some within the NAR reject these ideas, they nevertheless align with the overall direction of the movement.

Systematic Comparison with Scripture

Geivett and Pivec have written a clear and accessible work. Their respective backgrounds as university professor and investigative journalist are clearly visible in the book’s neatly arranged structure and evidence-based approach.

The impetus for writing the book arose from an enquiry by an ordinary Christian directed to Holly Pivec when she was a university magazine editor. The book itself is simply dedicated ‘To the Church, the Bride of Christ’, though it is probably geared more towards church leaders, being quite an academic work. Seemingly recognising this, the authors have written a complementary book entitled ‘God’s Super-Apostles’, together with a study guide, which provide a brief introduction to the NAR, with personal stories and recommendations for responding to the movement’s teachings – evidently aimed at a broader readership than the one currently reviewed.

The first three chapters of ‘A New Apostolic Reformation?’ are devoted to explaining what the NAR is, its extraordinary influence (both within the worldwide Church and as a political force in the USA) and the highly organised strategies it has adopted to become so powerful within mainstream Christianity.

The book then systematically examines key NAR teachings, following each with a summary of biblical teaching and a comparison between the two. Invariably NAR teaching is revealed to fail the crucial litmus test of Scripture.

The book systematically examines key NAR teachings, which invariably are revealed to fail the crucial litmus test of Scripture.

The authors also counteract NAR teachings by referring to other commentators within mainstream Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement – presumably because their belief in modern-day gifts of the Spirit makes them the closest Church streams to the NAR and their views might therefore carry greater weight with the reader.

In so doing, Geivett and Pivec ensure that the book’s powerful critique is not damaged by getting side-tracked into debates such as cessationism. They also work to ensure that believers caught up in the NAR movement will not be alienated by the book, stating clearly that they consider NAR leaders to be genuinely committed believers, though never beyond reproach.

Opportunities Missed

Despite its excellence, the book does miss a couple of good opportunities. For example, the authors point out that the NAR now has its own Bible, the ‘Passion Translation’, written deliberately to promote their theology. So brazen is this ‘translation’ in its re-writing of Scripture that at least an appendix with some choice quotations would have been valuable.

In the same way, there is the occasional passing comment regarding the similarity of NAR practices to the New Age movement - but this theme is never developed. To their credit, however, an appendix is devoted to Todd Bentley’s commissioning by ‘apostolic decree’ and his rapid demise, highlighting spectacularly why NAR leaders’ claim to speak authoritatively for God is flawed.

Unlike other books on this topic, which tend to focus on the bizarre spiritual practices and unorthodox teachings of one particular ministry or leader (e.g. Bill Johnson and Bethel Church), here is a comprehensive overview of the entire movement that is highly recommended to help counteract NAR teachings within the Church.

‘A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement’ (272pp, paperback) is available from ICM Books for £12.99. Also on Amazon Kindle.

Notes

1 The clearest theological expression of this teaching is found in the ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’, in which mountains represent these spheres of cultural influence.

Conclusions (Pt 1 of 2): is the charismatic movement a move of God?

This article is part of a series. Please see the base of the page for more details.

A Move of God?

Having reached this point in the review of the development of the charismatic movement we may return to the question posed much earlier in the series: is the charismatic movement a move of God? Was it initiated by the Lord Jesus? Despite all the strange aberrations we have noted, I would still want to affirm very positively its divine origins. I could not deny the work of the Holy Spirit in my own life or in the many hundreds of churches of which I have personal experience.

Through what we call the charismatic movement, the Holy Spirit has brought new life, joy, liberty and a more intimate personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and the Father into the lives of millions of believers. This has to be the work of God. It is certainly not anything that satan would want to do.

The fact that the charismatic movement had no clear-cut beginning causes me to doubt that God has moved in a series of 'waves' at different points during the 20^th Century. I see a continuous process in the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the century. On the first day of 1900, Charles Parnham's students began speaking in tongues, this was followed in 1906 by the stirring events in Azusa Street resulting in the formation of Pentecostal assemblies.

The fact that the charismatic movement had no clear-cut beginning causes me to doubt that God has moved in a series of 'waves' at different points during the 20^th Century.

Gradually throughout the century the recognition of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit has spread across the world. This has brought spiritual awakening in lands where the Gospel had never previously been heard, with vast numbers of new-born believers. It has also brought spiritual renewal in nations that had had the Gospel for centuries and where the Church had become largely inactive due to the onslaught of secularisation.

It was clearly God's intention to reap a mighty harvest during this century in lands which had never before been reached by the Gospel and it was also clearly his intention to renew the flagging belief and spiritual power of the Church where institutionalism and traditionalism had sapped its strength. What we see as fresh 'waves' of the Spirit have in fact been part of the on-going work of the Spirit of God working out his purposes and preparing a great company of believers to withstand the stormy days that lie ahead.

Using Human Strength

The great failing of the charismatic movement has not been in a lack of enthusiasm but in taking over the work of God and trying to do that work in our own strength. It is recorded that Frank Bartlemann, the Azusa Street leader, said that within a few years of the 1906 experience the flesh had taken over from the Spirit. This is really what also happened to the charismatic movement in the latter part of the 20^th Century. Paul's warning to the church in Galatia needs to be heeded today, “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” (Gal 3:3).

There are many indications that we have done something similar to the offence caused by Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who put unauthorised fire ('strange fire' AV) in their censers which they then offered before the Lord with disastrous results (Lev 10:1). When we do such things we are showing a lack of trust in the Lord. We are trying to force the pace and direct the work of God.

Once we begin to move in the flesh and not under the direction and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we open the door to all kinds of alien influences as well as to the things of the flesh such as pride and arrogance. When we take over the work of God we are, in fact, rebelling against him and we grieve the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 63:10 speaks of the terrible consequences of such action, “In his love and mercy he redeemed them...Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.”

This needs to be taken as a serious warning by all who are part of the charismatic movement. If we seriously step outside the will of the Lord he is against us, not for us. It is essential that we should understand both the will of God and his ways because all the evidence points to the fact that the world is moving closer and closer into days of international turmoil and conflict. The moral and spiritual plight of the nations, especially in the West, is desperate.

If we seriously step outside the will of the Lord he is against us, not for us.

But God is actually using this social situation to prepare the way for the Gospel. Never has there been a greater need for the Word of God to be clearly heard among the nations. Never has there been a greater need for the establishment of biblical principles as the guidelines for healthy living, both for individuals and at a corporate level. Yet the influence of the Church in the western nations has never been so weak.

In Britain the Church is under continuous attack from the media who delight to scorn the Gospel and seize every opportunity to mock the faith. The Church of England, as the established Church, holds a unique position which is rapidly being eroded by unbelief and by spiritual and moral corruption from within.

It was obvious to all those who were aware of the tactics of the enemy that as soon as the issue of women priests was over, the next battle would be over the acceptance of homosexual priests, both men and women. When that battle is over the way will be prepared for the ultimate onslaught on biblical belief from the multi-faith lobby.

Battle for the Bible

As Peter Fenwick has rightly said earlier in this series, the real battle today is a battle for the Bible; it is a battle for the soul of Britain. Alongside the battle within the Church and the attacks of a secular media, there is the growing power of Islam. The Muslims are determined to make Britain the first Islamic state in Europe. By the mid-1990s, they had been planting mosques in all the towns and cities of Britain at the rate of one per month for a decade.

During the 1990s Britain celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the war in Europe. That was a battle for physical survival. The battle today is for spiritual survival. The Holy Spirit whom God began to pour out upon all believers on the Day of Pentecost is still active in the world today. As the battle against the enemies of the Gospel intensifies there is a new urgency that the Church should recognise the nature of the battle and understand the reasons why Jesus, shortly before his ascension, told the disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:4-8).

Jesus knew that without the power of the Holy Spirit his followers would not be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy. They had to learn not to rush out in human enthusiasm or to seek after exciting signs and wonders, but faithfully to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus, declaring the way of salvation to all those around them and trusting the Lord of the harvest to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit and enlarge his Kingdom until the Day of the Lord dawned.

Where Tomorrow?

We began this series by saying that the charismatic movement had reached a point beyond crisis and was already beginning to crumble. In Britain by the mid-1990s there was a significant number of ministers who had once exercised charismatic ministries but who later repudiated that term.

There were thousands of church members who left charismatic churches because they had been sickened by the behaviour of leaders who, under the influence of Toronto, each time they began to read Scripture or preach the Word became doubled up as with stomach cramp and fell to the ground in a helpless heap. They were sickened by being told that uncontrollable laughter, barking, roaring, mooing, crowing like a cockerel, shouting, screaming, vomiting, pogo dancing and shadow boxing were all signs of the activity of the Holy Spirit.

They remembered that these same leaders who encouraged these things were saying, only a few years ago, that such activities were clear evidence of the presence of demonic spirits and required deliverance. They had been saddened to see the Holy Spirit ridiculed in TV programmes and tabloid press reports by displays of bizarre activity. They had been dismayed to see the name of the Lord Jesus mocked in the media through the activities of some charismatics.

Jesus knew that without the power of the Holy Spirit his followers would not be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy.

There are those who, like the authors of this book, still hold fast to their belief in the charismata. They believe that the Holy Spirit is present and active among believers today as he was in the days of the early Church and that the gifts of the Spirit are available to all believers. They nevertheless believe that it is high time to ask some fundamental questions concerning our response to the work of the Spirit among us in the British charismatic movement.

If, as we believe, it was God's purpose to renew the Church and revive the nation, has that purpose been achieved? There is no evidence to suggest that the spiritual life of the whole Church has been revitalised and neither is there any evidence of moral or spiritual revival in the nation. Indeed, the moral and spiritual life of both Church and nation are infinitely worse. Scandals concerning adultery, homosexuality and child abuse are regularly revealed and that's only within the Church! In the nation all these things occur plus violence, murder and all kinds of corruption.

So what has gone wrong? The plain and simple answer is that we have turned our back upon the word of God. We have neglected to study the word, we have relegated it to a secondary place in the life of the Church and we have substituted experience, false prophecies, strange revelations, our own opinions and teachings. We have thereby abandoned the truth for the myths and fantasies and teachings of men.

Since 1990, we have been reaping the inevitable reward of the tares that have been sown among us. Although many people are still enjoying the exciting experiences of the latest waves of charismatic chaos, I believe the outlook for the future of the charismatic movement is bleak; the writing is already upon the wall.

1990: A Turning Point

I believe future Church historians will see 1990 as the major turning point in the apostatising of the charismatic movement. This was the time when all the strange, unbiblical teachings which had been current among Pentecostal/charismatics since the Latter Rain Revival of the 1940s were gathered into a complete package and swallowed uncritically by the Church in Britain.

Foremost in the body of this teaching was the expectation of a great revival brought about by signs and wonders. There is no scriptural foundation for such a belief. Indeed, Jesus did not use signs and wonders to astound the crowds and draw them into Kingdom. Quite the reverse, he instructed people whom he had healed to keep quiet about it, not to 'noise it abroad'.

God's purpose to renew the Church and revive the nation has not been achieved because we have turned our backs on the word of God.

The New Testament teaches that signs and wonders follow the preaching of the Word, but once we start making the miraculous the chief object of desire - once we start running after signs and wonders - we take the focus away from the centrality of the word of God and the glorifying of the Lord Jesus.

A major problem for us in the West has been the amazing growth of the Church in the poor, non-industrialised nations of the world. In these days of easy travel and rapid communications, many church leaders have been to the poorer nations and seen at first-hand what is happening. They have returned with accounts of multitudes being saved at great open-air meetings with amazing miracles - the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking and even the dead being raised.

I myself have seen evidence of all these things in my preaching travels across Africa, China, South East Asia and other parts of the world. I too have brought these stories back and used them to make Westerners jealous by saying that the same things could and should be happening here. These stories have fuelled the longing for revival.

What has happened in Britain has also happened in other Western nations; the deep desire for revival has caused us to run ahead of the timing of the Lord. God has been telling us for many years that he is 'shaking the nations' and that his purpose is to turn the hearts of men and women away from their trust in material things, which is idolatry, to seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

In the highly secularised, materialistic Western industrialised nations, our whole culture revolves around the acquisition of wealth and the accumulation of material possessions. These things largely determine our position in society and they therefore have a far greater influence upon our values and our minds etc than most of us realise. It is almost impossible to divorce ourselves from the culture of the society in which we live.

A Culture of Idolatry

There is no place in our culture for the God of the Bible; the God who demands our total loyalty and our absolute trust. Western culture is a culture of idolatry and we are adherents, willingly or unwillingly, of that culture. There will be no revival until that idolatrous mindset is broken in the servants of God.

That is why revivals and great spiritual awakenings have always occurred among the poor and the underprivileged - from the days of the early Church to the impoverished nations of today. Soon after the Day of Pentecost, as revival swept through the city of Jerusalem, the rich and the powerful noted with scorn that the apostles were unlearned men, they “realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Western culture is a culture of idolatry: there is no place in it for the God of the Bible.

The same is true of those who came to Christ in the Wesleyan revival, of the blacks and poor whites who flocked to Azusa Street in 1906 and of the revival that swept through the Welsh mining communities in the same decade.

In the rich Western nations evangelicals have become obsessed with revival and the desire to reproduce what is happening in the poorer nations. What we fail to realise is the vast cultural difference. We cannot compensate for this simply by greater enthusiasm or by turning up the volume of our praise and worship, or even by more earnest intercession. Even confession, repentance, weeping and crying out to God at our meetings will not provide the quick-fix answer for which we are looking and which our quick-fix culture moulds our mindset to expect.

The Key to Revival

The key to revival is in Philippians 3:7-10 where Paul describes how he has renounced the world for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus as his Lord. He considers all worldly values as rubbish so that he may gain not the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or supernatural power to confound unbelievers, but simply that he may “gain Christ and be found in him”. He says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” In case anyone should interpret this to mean an exciting experience of having the power to raise the dead, Paul's next words should be noted! He adds, “and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

The way to life is through death; death to self and the renunciation of the world. There is no other way for the Church in the Western nations to see revival. It may be part of God's plan to allow the Church in the rich industrial nations to die in order to raise a new and purified Church.

The great spiritual awakenings in the poorer nations are not being seen in the West because we are unwilling to meet the cost. We want the excitement of revival without paying the price of the pain and suffering and travail that goes with it. In the poorer nations the great spiritual awakenings are occurring because the Gospel of salvation is being preached, the good news that Christ died for our sins. Multitudes are being saved and the signs and wonders follow. This has been the pattern in past revivals.

But in the Western charismatic churches we are not motivated by the desire to save multitudes going to hell but to have the multitudes come and join us in the excitement of a spiritual spectacular! If they won't come and join us, then we'll have it on our own! Furthermore, if God won't do it for us, then we'll do it ourselves!

This is the tragedy of the Western charismatic movement. We are children of the world rather than the children of God. Our lifestyle is very little different from our unbelieving neighbours; our values are similar to theirs; we read the same newspapers, watch the same TV programmes, follow the same fashions in clothes, food and music; even our charismatic worship sometimes sounds more like a pop concert. We justify this by saying that it helps modern people to feel comfortable and at home in our midst; in other words, that they haven't had to leave the world in order to come into the Church! How different from New Testament teaching! How different from the teaching of the Reformers and the great revivalist preachers.

The great spiritual awakenings in the poorer nations are not being seen in the West because we are unwilling to meet the cost.

The Church in the poor non-industrialised nations is presently thriving and expanding rapidly but there is great danger of spiritual pollution from the West. In these days of worldwide travel and communications the materialistic values of the West may be easily transmitted, especially in the context of the Western nations' economic power and dominance.

Here is a parable. In the early 1980s a West African preacher of extraordinary gifting arose out of a background of grinding poverty. He had an anointed ministry of evangelism and began drawing crowds of up to half a million at his rallies. Thousands responded to the Gospel, giving their lives to Christ, and as they did so there were miraculous healings and many other signs and wonders which were reported in the secular press.

Soon some Westerners got to hear of his ministry and took him on a tour around the rich nations. They poured money into his lap. They taught him the 'prosperity gospel' by which they lived and convinced him that God wanted him rich as a sign to the poor Africans among whom he ministered. He built a great church building; he also built himself a fine home and rode around in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. He became a great man in his community but he lost his anointing. His ministry of evangelism disappeared.

Next week: Likely consequences if the true and full word of God is not restored to the charismatic movement. Our final article in the series.

Series Information

This article is part of a series, re-publishing the 1995 book ‘Blessing the Church?’, an analysis of the ‘Toronto Blessing’ and a wider critique of the charismatic movement in the late 20^th Century. Click here for previous instalments and to read the editorial background to the series.