Paul James

I have a question: How many healing meetings have you been to where you have seen a person with terminal cancer, or a blind person, or someone in a wheelchair, actually been healed? Or have you observed the talk, quoting of Scripture, and prayer for the sick, but with no actual observable results? If there are no observable results, then has actual healing taken place along with the talk and claims of healing through the prayer of the healing evangelist? If not, why not? I went to healing meetings during my 12 years of actual involvement with Pentecostal churches, and saw not one person actually being healed, although I saw multitudes of sick and disabled people go up for prayer, some fell down "in the Spirit". But none of them got healed, including the ones who fell down. If a sick person was "slain in the Spirit" you would think that the person would get up healed, wouldn't you? I have heard all the excuses why the people are not being healed. None of them wash with me, because when Jesus and the Apostles ministered healing, the power was there and people got healed on the spot. Would Dorcas had been healed if she was prayed for by a modern healing evangelist to rise from the dead? Not likely. Yet Peter told her to get up and she came to life and got up. So what was the difference? I will tell you. God honoured Peter's ministry because Jesus had directly appointed him to be His Apostle, and validated it through signs and wonders. So, my view is that these prominent healing ministries are self-appointed and because they are not appointed by the Holy Spirit, they are merely pretending and play acting, and then making excuses for their lack of real power. So my attitude towards the healing ministry in most Charismatic churches is "The Emperor ain't got no clothes on!"

Jesus spoke in parables to the general unconverted Jews, but He always gave the clear meaning to His disciples. After He went to the Father, He sent us the Holy Spirit who clearly teaches us the things we need to know. None of the Apostles spoke in parables in their letters to the churches. A lot of times when someone says that God speaks to us in parables, it is because the clear message of Scripture isn't acceptable to them and they try to muddy the waters by saying it is a parable and not the plain truth that is being presented to them.

But why do you need dreams to guide you when you have the Bible? God has said it in all in the pages of Scripture, therefore any revelation that comes through a dream is heresy if it doesn't comply with Scripture, or superfluous if it does. But having said that, if during a dream there is someone that I know, I take it as a signal to pray for them that their faith fails not. This is because God can insert someone who needs prayer into a dream to prompt me that the person needs my prayer for them.

I think your comment about priming the pump is sort of directed at me, because I was the one who used the expression. I want to make it quite clear that Jesus is the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and the giver of tongues. No one can speak or pray in tongues unless they are filled with the Spirit and have been endowed with the ability by the Holy Spirit. No one can "teach" a person to speak in tongues. But there is nothing wrong with taking a person through the steps of faith in order to allow the Spirit to flow out of them: 1. They must be absolutely certain it is God's will for them. If they are unsure, then they will not receive the gift, because it is received according to their faith, and if they are unsure or as James says, double-minded, they will not receive anything from the Lord. Therefore, getting a candidate and surrounding him and trying the push tongues into him by laying hands on him will not achieve the result. This is Scriptural and is in line with the Scripture: "Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of God is." 2. He needs to ask God for the gift. The Scripture says that if we ask for anything according to the will of God, we will receive it. The key is knowing the will of God. This links with point 1. 3. Asking is one thing, and receiving it by faith is another. If we know God's will, and we ask according to His will, then we know that God hands the gift out to us and al we have to do is take it from Him. It involves the simple prayer of: "I receive your gift right now." If I am assisting someone to receive the gift of tongues, I tell them that they are now baptised with the Spirit and has the ability to speak in tongues. All they need to do is to activate their faith and start speaking in a language they have never learned. Many people that I have assisted have launched out and spoken a clear, articulate language. None of this "ba ba sha ba ra ma" type babbling. But I have encountered some who have had a mental block and have needed a further encouragement to use their faith. This is where I have "primed the pump". I have got them to copy my tongues language. I have been very careful to tell them they they are not speaking in their own tongue but are copying mine. This is just to give them the idea of what speaking in tongues is like. Once they get used to speaking a few words in my language, I tell them to launch out in faith starting with my words, but not to stop speaking. What has happened is that they have started to speak in a totally different language than mind as they Holy Spirit expression has flowed out of them as their faith has strengthened. I had one event with a guy where this did not work and no matter how hard I tried, he couldn't get the flow going. In the end I said to the Lord, "You are the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and so I give him up to You." Immediately he said, "Oh!" and then launched right out in a beautiful language that had no relation to mine. The Lord showed me that it wasn't the method that achieved the results, it was the Holy Spirit honouring the person's faith. So this is not "teaching" a person to speak in tongues, but increasing the person's faith to release the flow of the Holy Spirit through them. Of course the Holy Spirit can give someone the gift of tongues without anyone assisting them, just the same as He can save a sinner without the involvement of anyone else to show him the way. But it is an added blessing for someone leading a sinner to the Lord and seeing him get saved. It is no different to leading someone to develop the faith to be baptized with the Spirit and receive a spiritual gift. I know that there are those who try and get people to speak in tongues by copying some words, but in my opinion, it won't work unless the first three steps of faith that I have outlined are made first; and it is best done is a cool, calm environment, away from the hype of a rowdy meeting where the person can think clearly without being forced or hyped up by the emotional atmosphere of people yelling at them like Commanche Indians, half of them yelling, "Hold on", and the other half yelling, "Let go!"

In the 12 years I was a member of Pentecostal churches I was fortunate to experience a good range of different church groups where some were the out of control types that you experienced, and others where very little was seen and the service was little different to an ordinary Baptist service. I was fortunate to be trained by a strict traditional Methodist Holiness based Pentecostal pastor who taught me what I know about the ministry of the Spirit. He said that anyone who desired to move in the gifts needed to be a man of prayer and of the Word. He never allowed kundalini, out of control behaviour in his services, and if anyone started up like that, he would stop them and would not hesitate to tell them that what they were doing was not of God. The trouble with independent Charismatic churches like Bethel, Hillsong, Copeland's, and others like them, is they have departed from sound Reformed doctrine based on written Scripture, which was the foundation of Traditional and Historical Pentecostalism. In these independent groups, the lunatic fringe which used to be in the minority, has become the norm. This is because they have put the written Scriptures aside as "the dead letter" in favour of the "voice" of the Spirit (whatever that spirit may be), and "new" revelation not found in the New Testament. Recently, I have been involved in a prophetic ministry, where the gifts are properly taught according to Scripture, and prophecies given are recorded for accountability purposes. A recorded prophecy can be studied along with Scripture to verify that the prophecy is consistent with the Scripture and therefore true and not false. On a Prophetic Day, the morning is taken up with sound teaching from experienced and mature men and women in the ministry of the Spirit, and the afternoon is taken up in supervised workshops. This is not teaching people to manifest the gifts, but to monitor the manifestations and to correct any errors. Often we have had the Holy Spirit become involved and these workshops have been a learning experience and a blessing for those who would have been frightened to just launch out in a public service. I am in favour of a Spirit-controlled service being conducted decently and in order, with the leader giving opportunity for the gifts to function by welcoming anyone who has a prophetic word to write it down and submit it to the leadership before the meeting, and to have a section of the service set aside for those who wish to give a tongues message and interpretation, and a prophetic word, with someone standing by with a recording device to get a record of what is being said. When people go up for prayer at the end of the service, the music should be quiet, and no one speaking through the microphone. Having someone yelling though the mike like a Commanche Indian along with loud electrified music just doesn't mix with trying to hear prayer requests at the altar. Personal Words of Knowledge and Prophecies should always be recorded, and only those recognised in the church as having those ministries (usually elders) should be permitted to give them. I believe that the "Mr Spock" approach to manifesting the gifts of the Spirit, using calm, collected self-controlled faith, is the best way of ensuring that the true gift is being manifested. Actually, I have written a book that describes all this, and if you want to PM me, I will attach a copy.

I agree. The miracles that happen are not usually in the public eye, and not always spectacular. The greatest miracle is a pagan, deeply caught in the occult, receiving the light of the Gospel, turning to Christ and being totally transformed by the Holy Spirit. Often it is a healing miracle witnessed that shows the pagans that Jesus Christ is more powerful than their own idols. Smith Wigglesworth was used by the Holy Spirit to bring miracles of healing to people in their own homes, as much as in his meetings. This shows that the miracles are not recorded on Youtube, and therefore most people never know about them save those close to the person who was healed. It is not always spectacular either. My work supervisor developed arthritis in her knee. She is not a Christian. She knew I was, and believed in divine healing, and I asked her if she would like me to pray for her knee. She agreed. Three weeks later, she went to the doctor, and although the arthritis was originally diagnosed through Xray, the subsequent Xray showed no sign of it. The doctor concluded that it was a "temporary" arthritis. Arthritis is certainly not temporary, but that was the only conclusion that the puzzled doctor could come up with. All I did when I prayed was to get her to put her own hand on her knee, and I put my hand on hers and said, "Jesus heals this knee". Then we went back to our work. The prayer took 5 seconds.

I would qualify your first sentence with "Some Charismatics", etc., because the definition of a "charismatic" (small c) is one who is certainly Spirit-filled and who believes that the nine supernatural gifts of the Spirit are the Spirit's "tools" for building up the body of Christ and strengthening believers' faith in Christ. The charismatic is found in many denominational churches, and the rules of those churches are faithfully followed. This makes a Baptist, Anglican, or Presbyterian charismatic quite different to a charismatic in a Pentecostal or an independent Charismatic church. It is quite true that there are some churches that label themselves as "Charismatic" (with a capital C) that set their own rules contrary to the Scriptures according to the "new" revelation that their leaders receive. This is why there are Hindu mind-control and occult spiritualism practices, along with out-of-control trance-like and kundalini manifestations, none of which are found, let alone supported by the New Testament. But even then, this is not true of all Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. There are those who have strict rules based on the New Testament, and are quick to correct any of the lunatic fringe who break them. So, we must be careful not to generalize about the Charismatic movement, because one day we will all have to stand before Christ at the Judgment and give account concerning what we do and teach others to do or not to do.

There are charismatic groups within the non-Pentecostal churches that you mention, and they don't follow the same line as Parnham and other historical Pentecostals. Where the minister and elders of, say a Baptist church embraces the charismatic in their midst, the church becomes identified as a "charismatic" Baptist church. The charisma there is a combination of the Baptist tradition, doctrine, and the use of the gifts of the Spirit. In this way, they are practiced in quite different ways in services than in Pentecostal services.

The Holy Spirit dwells in us, not outside of us. The way He moves is dependent on us. This is how the Lord chose to do it, because it is a partnership of fellowship between us and Him, and He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us so that the partnership in ministry can continue. Those who desire to do the will of God in their lives and ministries, will seek Him and receive wisdom from the Spirit on how He wants them to work in cooperation with Him to fulfill His mission, which is to save sinners. If we want to know the will of God, we need to read the Bible and see what the Spirit wants to tell us out of it. Then to do the will of God, we need to do the Bible. We can cooperate with the Holy Spirit by seeking for and using the best gifts that suit the will of God for us. Or we can quench the Spirit by deciding not to participate in actions which we believe are not relevant for today. The Holy Spirit will not force us to do what we don't want to do. But we will be required to give an account before the judgment seat of Christ for the way we cooperated or didn't cooperate with the Spirit during the span of our lives and ministry. There are those who have decided that it is not the will of God for them to exercise the supernatural gifts of the Spirit; mainly through the teaching of man's opinions to try and justify to themselves why the gifts ceased after the 4th Century. The Holy Spirit won't force them to use the gifts, but when they come up before the Lord at the judgment, He will ask them why they subscribed to the opinions of man instead of what He showed them in the written Word. Those who cooperated with the Holy Spirit on the basis of what He showed them in the Word will receive rewards from the Lord. It won't matter if their cooperation is imperfect, because we have the treasure in earthen vessels, and we are limited by our restricted vision and knowledge. But He will see that we have a heart to cooperate with the Spirit even though others around us limit what we can do, especially if we are in a non-Charismatic church where the leadership and others believe that the gifts have ceased.

I thought about your comment here. From what I understand about the working of the Holy Spirit, He is not a "mist" that hovers over meetings. He works through believers. It is because the Holy Spirit indwells us, and He builds and matures the Lord's Body (the church) through us. Therefore if we do nothing, the Holy Spirit cannot do anything. This is why Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 12 about the ministries and gifts. The Holy Spirit has given us the tools to do His work, and we have the responsibility to use the tools He has given us. When we listen to and hear the Holy Spirit's voice through the Scriptures and "do" the Bible, we will see the Holy Spirit working through us to build up and mature the Body of Christ. When the Apostles were faced with persecution from the Jewish authorities, they gathered for prayer and they were filled with the Spirit and went out and they spoke the word with boldness, and the Holy Spirit followed them with signs and wonders following.

I am in a bit of a quandary. I believe in the continuation of the gifts, but don't see much evidence of the genuine gifts happening in the churches I have belonged to, even in the Charismatic churches I was with in the 1960s-70s. I went to all the healing meetings run by some of the prominent healing evangelists who came to our city, and I never saw one actual healing. I saw the same people going up for healing meeting after meeting, but nothing happened to them in spite of repeated prayer over them. As a result, I became a skeptic concerning the modern healing ministry. I had no doubt that the gifts of healing were Scriptural, but there seemed to be something wrong with the it was being presented in the Charismatic meetings I attended throughout the 1970s. I was invited to part of the ministry team for a Reinard Bonnke crusade in Auckland around three years ago. Many came up for healing, but I saw no one actually being healed. This puzzled me, because the man had an international reputation for conducting meetings where miraculous healings took place. I am presently part of a Methodist/Presbyterian Union church which is non-Charismatic, so there is little opportunity for the manifestation of the gifts in the services. So, unless the Holy Spirit did something special with those people, I don't see any manifestation of the gifts in the foreseeable future. The truth is that I can't make the Holy Spirit do anything, even though I fully believe that He can, and the Spiritual gifts are vitally needed in our churches to fulfill their ministry in our neo-pagan society. I have talked with the Lord on quite a number of occasions about it, but that's about all I can do. Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite in many ways because although I strongly advocate the continuance of the gifts in our churches, I don't see it happening, and I don't want to leave my church and attend at Pentecostal one, because in the light of the invasion of Hindu mind-control and occult spiritalism, I cannot trust that the gifts that are manifesting are genuine, and I don't want to be mixed up with something that is not of God.

The ministry of Jesus to Israel was set as an example for all subsequent Christian ministry. This is shown in His statement: "The works that I do, you shall do also". This was proved through the ministry of the Apostles and others throughout the Book of Acts. What we saw in the ministry of Jesus and the Book of Acts were: Sick people healed by the power of God demons cast out The Gospel of Christ preached The Spiritual gifts operating in the churches At the turn of the 20th Century during the Pentecostal revival, we saw the same things happening. In the 1960s during the Charismatic revival also the same. The teaching was firmly Gospel-based in that Jesus came to save sinners, and everything that happened revolved around it. But in subsequent years we have seen a trend toward personal spirituality, the desire for the "deeper life", physical manifestations, all changing direction from Christ and His finished work on the Cross, to people's personal sensory experiences. When I first came to Christ in 1966 in an AOG church, the music was a piano and an organ and people sang the choruses and hymns with great joy and enthusiasm. The preaching was Christ-centred, straight from God's Word. But over the last 40 years, the music has changed to "professional" music groups and singers giving a performance from the stage and "leading" the congregation in worship. The worship changed from heart-felt praise and worship to the Lord, to worshiping according to the "professional" musicians singers on the stage. It now has become, in Hillsong, music that is designed to hype up people's emotions and senses to almost a fever pitch where many actually go into trances, and when the pastor comes on the stage to calm people down, he can't, because the trance-like state of the people is out of control, and to stop it is like trying to stop a speeding train. The preaching and teaching how now developed from Christ-centred and Gospel-based, to "God will bless you and be your friend. He will heal you on demand, and increase your prosperity". Instead of faith being rooted in God's promises, it has became a naming, claiming form of sorcery to get what the person desires for him or herself. Prayer has gone from making requests to God and trust Him for the outcome, to using it as a type of power to achieve outcomes, as if prayer has a power in itself. Using prayer like this is sorcery and witchcraft. People have used the gift of tongues in the same way by laying hands on someone and praying over them in tongues. This is using tongues as a form of sorcery, when the true use of tongues is to convey the mind of the Spirit in a prayer language to God. Not all Charismatic churches have gone this way, but the corruption has got so ingrained that these things are now seen as part of the mainstream and an integral part of the nature of the Charismatic. To boil the whole thing down to the simplest, the basic definition of "Charismatic" is the position that the Spiritual gifts as described in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 are available to the church today, and the Charismatic revival happened when groups of believers accepted that and God honoured their faith as they sought Him that the Holy Spirit would activate the gifts in their groups. The tragedy is that the true Charismatic movement has been hijacked by the false teachers, religious empire builders, practioners of Hindu Mind-Control and occult New Age spirituality, charlatans with "new" revelations, false prophets - all labelling themselves as "Charismatics". When my Windows computer becomes corrupted and I can't fix it, I do a total new install of Windows and start again from the basics without the added software that has introduced the virus or the corruption. Maybe we need to do that with the Charismatic movement. Treat it like a virus - put it into quarantine to prevent it doing more damage to the church, and get right back to the basics of the Gospel that we see in the Book of Acts.

I very rarely put money in the plate at church. I give my time and energy to it. Anyhow when the plate came around, the guy who held it used to give me a stern look when I put nothing in it. So one day I told him that next Sunday I would put a photograph of a forgery of a $50 note in the plate. He never bothered me again. In a conference I quipped that as a Presbyterian I have to watch my wallet so the moth doesn't fly out. After the conference the pastor of the church gave me a stern lecture about tithing. I felt guilty for all of 30 seconds!! However, in another conference, I felt the Holy Spirit wanted me to put my $10 lunch money into the love offering. I obeyed, and as a result was offered two lunches, given a gift of $400 for my part in the ministry of that conference, and my Victim Advisor District Court salary went up $12,000 per year. It shows that when the Holy Spirit gives direction in your heart to give, then He pays back abundantly. Of course there is the temptation to start tithing with the expectation that the blessing will be repeated, and there is the deception where the devil comes in and corrupts the blessing by turning a one-time blessing into something expected on a regular basis.

What caused me to see through the theatrical manifestations such as jerking, shaking, babbling in public tongues, and falling down, was when I decided to observe the pastor and church elders to see if they joined in. I found that although the pastor encouraged the manifestations, he never manifested any of it himself, nor did the church elders. This showed me that there was manipulation going on, a type of hypnotic suggestion that triggered people to do the extreme manifestations. A good example from a pastor with a sense of humour and a realistic view of spurious manifestations was when he told the congregation that after a five second countdown a wave of glory would sweep through the church. He did the countdown and as soon as he said, "Zero!" pandemonium broke out all through the congregation with all sorts of manifestation and emotional outbursts. When it all died down, the pastor said, "Did you feel that?" Many cried out, "Yes we sure did!" The pastor then said, "Funny...I never felt a thing!" What he did was to show how hypnotic suggestion works with a crowd of people. This is what happens when Benny Hinn waves his hands at a group and they all fall down. A hypnotist does the same thing to a group when he says, "Sleep!" and waves his hands at the group and they all fall asleep. Hillsong music does the same. The particular nature of it causes people to go into trances, increasing in intensity and at the climax manifestations happen. I saw a video where the pastor wanted to calm the people down to go to the next part of the meeting, but he couldn't get control of the people for around 15 minutes, because the people had been hypnotised by the music to such a state that it took all that time for people to come back down to earth. But if you observe the pastor and leadership team in these meetings, you will see that they remain cool as cucumbers. They are the ones manipulating the people while they themselves don't allow themselves to enter into the hypnotic suggestion and manifestations. Not all Charismatic churches are like that, but if you find yourself in a meeting where these things are happening, watch the leadership team and how they manipulate the people into the sensory and emotional trance states. You will also find that the true Gospel of Christ is never preached in those meetings. It will always be God will bless you and make you prosperous, healthy, and that Jesus will be your friend and will give you what you claim for.

Although I never had the negative experience in churches as a child as you did. I attended a Presbyterian Sunday School and enjoyed it. I kept going until I had to leave because I got too old for it (13). They didn't have a youth group. I went to one family service in the church and found it incredibly boring. At the age of 19 I was introduced to a Pentecostal church nd attended a number of such churches for around 12 years. I too experienced the good, bad and ugly. I saw the theatrical performances, as well as the solid Bible believing Christians among them. What saved me from total disillusionment was being discipled by a strict friend who introduced me to English 17th Century Puritan literature, and a very strict provincial Pentecostal pastor whose background was Methodist Holiness. I served under him from 1970 to 1973, and all these years later, his ministry and teaching has stood the test of time while all the teaching of my other Charismatic mentors have faded away. In my last Charismatic church I became so wearied with the false shepherding doctrine, gossiping, church politics and nepotism where opportunities for leadership was given to the socially accepted and family members of the "senior pastor", I decided to leave that church and the movement as a whole. I joined the local Anglican church and met a group of Anglican charismatics, and was pleasantly surprised that they were a totally different kettle of fish. They accepted me straight away as a core member of their group and encouraged my guitar music. They set a new refreshing standard of joyful, loving, self-controlled believers who just enjoyed loving and worshiping the Lord. No theatrics or judgmentalism with them. When I moved cities, I joined a non-Charismatic Baptist church and served as a deacon for three years, then moved again to a non-Charismatic Baptist church in another city where I started my first school teaching position. When I arrived in Auckland to a new teaching job I joined a non-Charismatic Presbyterian church where I served as an elder and treasurer for 23 years. In all those churches I made no secret of my Pentecostal background, and they accepted me without question or discrimination. As an elder of the Presbyterian church I was given opportunities to take services and to preach, and I was free to preach what I felt the Holy Spirit gave me. I preached the Gospel of Christ and emphasis faith and trust in the finished work of Christ according to my Puritan theology. it is interesting that one of the reasons why I was passed over in my last Charismatic church was that I made no secret that my theology was 17th Century Calvinist Puritan. I think there was a strong Arminian "saved today, lost tomorrow" mentality in that church and they didn't like my insistence on total assurance of salvation for the believer involving no condemnation, and that all guilt and punishment for sin was dealt with on the Cross. This went right against the very legalistic influences from the prominent group who came into the Charismatic from the Open and Exclusive Brethren churches. My grace-based approach to Christian faith went right against their performance-based Pharisaical religious mentality. It was a relief to me to join the Anglican church and mixed with Reformed grace-based people in that church. The interesting thing for me was that when I left the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement I didn't stop praying in tongues. I then realised that my gift was not church-based, but securely founded in the New Testament which is not corrupted or affected by any church I might attend. Since then, I have been involved in a Prophetic ministry, and met some fine Baptist charismatics. Totally different from the Pentecostal system which disillusioned me. These were non-judgmental, grace-based, self-controlled in their approach to the Gospel, forgiveness of sin, use of the Spiritual gifts, and praise and worship. The last AOG church I attended was around three years ago, and there was so much spooky stuff in the service that when the service was over, I decided never to go back to a Pentecostal church. I was so glad to get back to my normal Presbyterian church where there were real people who simply loved the Lord without trying to get emotional or sensory experiences. Actually the Lord warned me the night before I went to that service. He told me, "If people are seeking sensory or emotional experiences, the devil is always there to give them one." When I was in that AOG service, I was so glad that I was forewarned because I was able to resist attempts from the pastor to get me to jerk, shake, or fall over. So that is my experience for what it is worth. All the gifts are exercised by straight faith and trust in God's Word, and not motivated by ecstatic emotional states. When I pray in tongues I speak the language to God in a cool calm deliberate manner, trusting that the Lord understands what I am saying in the Spirit. It is always good to be like "Mr Spock" when it comes to exercising the gifts, because then if there is joy and laughter resulting, it is real and not forced.

For years I was programmed with the AOG doctrine that the baptism with the Spirit is an event subsequent to conversion to Christ and that the initial evidence is tongues. But in later years, having not being influenced by that doctrine for around 30 years, I took another look at the New Testament examples of being baptised with the Spirit and Paul's teaching in Galatians. What I found was that Scripturally there is strong evidence that the baptism with the Spirit and conversion to Christ are essentially the same thing. The transformation that came with the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was full conversion to Christ. The 120 in the upper room were believers, but were not yet converted to Christ. This was a one-off transition stage between Jesus breathing into each of them the seal of the promise of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit coming to indwell them fully converting them to Christ. Cornelius and his household were baptised with the Spirit as soon as they heard and believed the Gospel. They were converted to Christ on the spot, and then Peter had them baptised in water. The Samaritans believed the Gospel that Philip preached, but were fully converted to Christ when Peter and John arrived to lay hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit. The 12 disciples of John the Baptizer were believers but not converted to Christ. When Paul shared the Gospel with them, the Holy Spirit fell on them and they were converted to Christ. Paul asked the Galatians if they had received the Spirit through the works of the Law or through faith. He clearly implied that being converted to Christ by grace through faith was exactly the same as receiving the Spirit, and they received the Spirit through the baptism with the Spirit. So the initial evidence of the baptism with the Spirit is the total transformation that comes through being converted to Christ. Saying the sinners prayer does not cause conversion. Being baptised with the Spirit does and that comes through earnestly seeking God for it. The Apostle John says that the evidence that we have the Spirit is that we love God with all our hearts and love others as we love ourselves. The Scripture also says that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ, that is the Holy Spirit sent from the glorified Christ, are none of His. Therefore unless a person is baptised and filled with the Spirit they don't belong to Christ. The key to this is that anyone turning to Christ must do it with all his heart and mean real business with God. They are the ones represented by the seed falling on good ground. The ones falling on shallow ground are those who make an initial profession for Christianity but don't follow through to make their calling and election sure. They join a church and make their profession of Christianity for status or cultural reasons instead of having a true heart for Christ Himself. These are the ones who fall short of being really filled with the Spirit and having the full transformation that comes with a genuine conversion to Christ. These "shallow ground" Christians can speak in tongues, prophesy, take up ministry roles in churches, even become pastors. But it is all of the flesh and not the Spirit, and before long they show their true colours. Therefore, speaking in tongues is not the reliable indication that one is indwelled by the Spirit. There are many who speak in tongues during meetings, but fail to show real love to others, or demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit. The gift of tongues is just another tool in the Spiritual toolbox, and just like a fake mechanic using a socket set to do a repair on a car, the truly qualified A grade mechanic can use the same tools. Being able to use a set of tools doesn't make a mechanic, but having the appropriate trade qualifications enables the mechanic to use the tools effectively. In the same way, speaking in tongues and prophesying doesn't prove a person is truly converted to Christ and filled with the Spirit. But a truly converted believer, baptised and filled with the Spirit can use the gifts of tongues and prophecy to great effect for the building up of the body of Christ.

You are not derailing the thread. Some have a very narrow view of depression. They think it always has to come from the devil. Such is definitely not the case. There are three main causes: a series of traumatic events causing undue stress, a medical condition causing an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, or a spiritual cause. Each requires a different therapy. The first would require counselling, the second may require medical intervention, and the third may require spiritual intervention. A good book to read that shows all three causes is Neil Anderson's "Finding Hope Again". My daughter at the age of 17 went through two years of clinical depression through being bullied at school and having six of her classmates and a teacher at another school lose their lives through a flash flood while on an outdoor education expedition. We went through the counselling process, and she is still taking anti-depressants as preventative medication. I found Neil Anderson's book a great help to understanding what she went through and taught me to be totally positive toward her and to emphasize her positive attributes. This was a very effective part of the healing process. If you can get that book, then you would be doing yourself a great favour by reading it.

In my time with the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, I have seen people falling backward and getting up as if nothing has happened to them. I have also seen people being rocked off balance so they have fallen backwards. I saw in one meeting where all the ones who came forward for prayer were lined up and the preacher went from one to the other, laid hands on their heads, and they fell backwards like dominoes. That made me see that it was all theatre and no Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit causes a person to fall down it is usually on their faces under conviction of sin in the presence of God, and when they get up they are radically changed. It is usually a one-time event never to be repeated. Certainly not to be repeated every Sunday at the altar call. The other genuine way was in Kathryn Kuhlman meetings where people came up to the stage to testify of healing that took place in the meeting (these healings took place spontaneously either in the meeting or with people on the way to the meeting, and most often of incurable medical conditions verified later by medical professionals). What happened was that when Kathryn touched them, not on the head, to convey a blessing to them, their knees buckled and they fell downward and not backward. It was only when they had fallen slowly to the floor that they were supported to lie in a comfortable position until they recovered. The ones who went down testified to having such a sense of peace and relaxation that they couldn't stay on their feet. But what I saw in the "theatrical" performances was that those who fell backward went stiff like a statue and fell directly backward. This did not have the characteristic of peace and relaxation in the Spirit. The only time that people fell backward in the New Testament was when Jesus identified who He was, and the whole crowd who came to arrest him fell backward to the ground. This was an act of power to show that no one could force Jesus to be arrested, and that His arrest was totally voluntary on His part.

I wonder what type of Charismatic who told you that you were denying the power of Christ and tried to cast demons out of you? If it was a Bethel or Hillsong type, I am not surprised at all. But these are pseudo-christian cults and not representative of the genuine Charismatic movement. I have mixed with Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Baptist charismatics and have never heard any of them accusing others of denying Christ's power or trying to cast demons out of those who don't have the same views. While I was in the Pentecostal movement (1966-1978) none of the pastors I served with ever tried to do what those so-called Charismatics did to you. If I met someone who didn't have the experience of manifesting the gifts and had doubts about them, I would encourage them to believe according to Scripture that as soon as they were converted to Christ, they were baptised and filled with the Spirit and have the potential to manifest any of the gifts according to their faith. If they didn't have the faith to manifest any of the gifts, it certainly doesn't mean that they are denying the power of Christ, or they are demon possessed. It would be total arrogance on my part to treat others in that way.

Well said. Most anti-Charismatic comments are made by people who have a very narrow view of Charismatics. They think that Bethel and Hillsong are representative of all Charismatics. They don't realise that there are Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian charismatics who never go to insane extrmemes, pagan mysticism and misinterpretations of Scripture.

Today I have been part of a spirited discussion in the John MacArthur Facebook group concerning his quote that the Charismatic Movement is dangerous. Some of the commenters have accused Charismatics of being demon possessed. I referred to 1 John by way of challenge to say that accusing brothers and sisters in Christ of being heretical, demon-possessed and therefore dangerous to the body of Christ, is expressing a form of hatred for Charismatics in general and therefore falling well below what the Lord requires of the standard of love toward our brothers and sisters in Christ that show evidence of being truly filled with the Spirit. Jesus said that having even negative and resentful thoughts about others is equivalent to hating them. Of course, the anti-Charismatic folk on the Facebook page accused me of being hypocritical, even though I'm not even a Charismatic, but a Presbyterian in a Union Methodist/Presbyterian church. So, I asked them how they defined "Charismatic", and so far they have not answered me. I wonder, what is your definition of "Charismatic"? It would be interested to know what people thought of Charismatics and who they actually are.

OK, but that doesn't prove or disprove a Pretrib rapture. It is just a general one-verse statement that Jesus is coming again one day.

Means no more to me than Gary Bayliss who owns the sheep farm down the road. You need to give details.

Where do you get your stats from? Can you cite any sources?