WesleyGospel Ministries

This article by Bobby Scott is originally titled: “Does Struggling with Pornography Disqualify a Pastor from Ministry?”

I have bold-texted in red the parts I strongly agree with…
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It seemed like just another picture perfect fall day. My grandfather called my teenage cousin and me to go with him for a ride. We loved to spend time with him—especially on road trips. As it turned out, this would be a very different kind of trip. Coughing all along the way, he drove straight to the hospital. While my cousin and I waited for hours, my grandfather was admitted. That was our final road trip. My grandfather died after a brief stay in the hospital.

I loved my grandfather. It ached my heart to think: what if he had gone in sooner? Would his doctors have discovered the cancer in time? But men don’t like to go the doctor, do they? We don’t like to admit that we have problems, and we certainly hate confessing that we need help. But acquiescing to the fear of vulnerability and to our culture’s false standard of masculinity (i.e., “I’m a man, I can handle it”) often makes for tragic endings. There’s a lesson in this for all pastors. Living by the motto, “I don’t need help, and I can’t expose my vulnerabilities,” can lead to ministerial death, even when Christ offers abundantly abounding grace to rescue us.

In his classic essay on the dangers of ministry, “The Almost Inevitable Ruin of Every Minister,” Donald Whitney writes that:

Almost everyone knows someone who used to be in the ministry. Almost everyone knows someone who shouldn’t be in the ministry. And every minister knows another minister—if not several—he does not want to be like….So I think it’s important to address the subject of the almost inevitable ruin of every minister…and how to avoid it. Once when a Southern Baptist denominational executive was on the Midwestern Seminary campus in the late 1990s, he asserted that statistics show that for every twenty men who enter the ministry, by the time those men reach age sixty-five, only one will still be in the ministry.

Doesn’t your experience confirm Whitney’s warning—too many pastors don’t make it to the finish line (1 Corinthians 9:27)? With the pastoral canvas already strewn with landmines, another lethal one has appeared. Porn, to a staggering degree, is infesting the lives of pastors. Churches and denominations are being forced to implement policies to handle this growing problem. The determinative factor regarding how to respond to pastors who struggle with porn must be found in the Word of God.

It is, therefore, my aim in this chapter to provide an exegetical/theological study of critical passages in order to answer the question—“Does struggling with pornography disqualify a pastor from ministry?”

Can a Genuinely Godly Pastor Struggle with Porn?

The Word of God has much to say to pastors who struggle with porn as well as to their churches. In the highly disputed verses of Romans 7:14-25, the apostle Paul speaks of a person—“I”—who can readily identify with any pastor in a battle against a besetting sin. The fact that this “I” loved the law and hated sin, strongly suggests that “I” is a believer; and because Paul wrote Romans, the “I” most likely is no one less than the apostle himself.

In his brilliant Th.M. thesis, Steve Black persuasively argues that the use of “I” in Romans 7:7–25 is simply too definite, too sustained, and too passionate and personal to allow anything other than the autobiographical sense.¹ Perhaps more stunning is the observation that Paul is writing about his present condition as the author of the book of Romans and as evangelizer of all of ancient Europe.² If these conclusions are true, then the Word of God in Romans 7:14-25 offers a candid look into the ongoing war against sin fought by one of the greatest leaders God has ever given to the church. Therefore, there is much to be learned about a leader’s battle against sin from this passage.

Openly confessing his lapses in his war against the flesh, Paul provides an illustrative example of the principle that until our “corruptible will have put on the incorruptible” all Christians, godly leaders included, will lose periodic struggles against sin. According to Paul, the moment any believer fails to yield to the Spirit, in some way he yields to the flesh, allowing himself for that duration to be a slave of sin (Romans 6:12; 7:14, 23b).

While this is the painful experience of every believer, including every pastor, “doing things that we hate and failing to do things that we want to do,” this must not be the normative pattern for any Christian’s life (Romans 8:13). Christ’s gift of the Spirit enables believers to deny the flesh and to resist the temptation of sin (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16). So although Christians will experience episodic defeats, victorious living by the Spirit, as described in Romans 8, must become the pattern of their lives. This is true because of the reality of the believer’s death to sin and resurrection with Christ, described in chapter 6.

Pastors then, like all believers, rest in the hope-giving promise of the gospel to forgive all of their sins. They must also exemplify the powerful transforming work of the gospel, which instructs believers to deny and to not indulge in sin (Romans 6:1, 15; Titus 2:11-12). Thus the difference between pastors and other Christians isn’t the complete absence of sin in pastors’ lives but the consistent pattern of living by the power of the Spirit.

So yes, sadly, at times pastors, like all believers, will be defeated by sin and cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). Like all true believers, by faith they must allow God’s grace to fill their hearts with the exclamation, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25), rejoicing that one day they will be completely liberated from the presence of sin (Jude 24).

However, since that day has not arrived yet, and since some pastors will struggle with lust, the question that remains is, “Does the lustful sin of viewing pornography rise to a level of disqualifying him from the ministry?” In order to answer that question, we must determine at what level, and under what circumstances, such a sin could render a pastor reproachable.

Can a Pastor Struggle with Porn and be “Blameless”?

According to the Word of God in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, pastors must live by the highest moral standards. Written with the force of the moral imperative “must be” these passages delineate, without exception, the moral qualifications which God requires of every man whom He deems fit for the office of pastor/elder/bishop. A classic example in Scripture of a man who lived a blameless life is Daniel. When his opponents sought to discredit him by finding something in his life that they could use to scandalize his name, they found nothing (Daniel 6:4). Likewise, in the New Testament the standard “above reproach” is an honor conferred upon a man because he lives by God’s standards in his public and private life. So if or when a pastor’s life is fully exposed, it must be scandal-free.

The conclusions drawn from Romans 7 add another clue to understanding the meaning of “above reproach.” No pastor will perfectly keep all of these moral demands all of the time. Luther was correct when he coined the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator—the Christian is “simultaneously righteous and sinner.” Being above reproach therefore demands that all pastors consistently exemplify mature lives but not perfection.

This also means that there is something inherently relative about the moral standards in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. For instance, a congregation’s overall maturity level can affect what it means to be an exemplary model of maturity for others. A man considered to be mature in a newly planted church in a mission field deprived of biblical resources may be noticeably different from a man in a church in which even the children’s pastor has a Master’s of Divinity degree.

In the greatly debated phrase “husband of one wife” there is another clue that can help answer the question, “Is a pastor who struggles with lust not above approach?” If the phrase is interpreted as a moral quality, and it seems that it should be because it is placed in a list of moral qualifications, the phrase means a pastor must be a faithful “one woman kind of man.” For single and married pastors alike, this qualification requires that pastors cannot be womanizers and must be the kind of men who are and who will be loyal to one woman in every sense—body, heart, mind, and eyes.

By way of application, this means that since pornography is a sin where the viewer is intimately engaging women with whom he is not married (Matthew 5:27-31) then succumbing to the sin of pornography can plummet a pastor below the point of being an above reproach, faithful, one woman kind of man. And since being blameless is an honor that a church/denomination confers upon a man based upon what they see, that title is illegitimate when a pastor involved in porn maintains that reputation by wearing a façade of being a “one woman kind of man.”

Obviously, using tech-savvy skills to clear a computer’s history and cookies in order to give the impression of being “blameless” does not qualify a man as being above reproach. Conversely, the affirmation that comes from transparent accountability with other leaders of one’s church/denomination confirms before God and his congregation that a leader, although not sinless, is living above reproach and is worthy of the honored title “Pastor” (1 Timothy 5:17, 22).

Should a Pastor’s Response to His Sin Influence a Church’s Decision to Counsel or Disqualify Him?

A little over a year ago, I was a guest on a radio show of a very prominent Christian host to discuss what I thought would be a dialogue regarding what Christian men can do to resist sexual temptation. On live air, he asked me if I thought genuine Christians could struggle with pornography. Having no idea where he was going with that question, I simply answered “yes.” He emphatically replied, “no,” citing 1 John 3:8-9 as his proof text. At first, I gently tried to correct his misunderstanding of these verses. I explained that without exception, the apostle John identifies unsaved professing Christians as those who indulge in lifestyles of unbroken sin.³ However, he does acknowledge that genuine Christians do sin. In distinction from the professing unsaved though, John describes Christians’ sins as acts and not indulging unrepentant patterns (1 John 1:9; 2:1-3).⁴

His position was that real Christian men live sinlessly in the area of lust. I argued that the statements in 1 John 1:8-10⁵ could be understood to be exposing the real spiritual state of those who did and those who did not have genuine fellowship with God (cp., 1 John 5:13). According to 1 John 1:7 and 1:9, the hallmark of godly Christians is not sinlessness but a habitual pattern of obedience accompanied with a continuous habit of confession of sins.

Here’s my application to pastors. Pastors will sin, therefore, a pastor’s sin that has the potential of affecting his blameless status must be confessed to God and to those who are responsible for affirming that he is maintaining an above reproach reputation. Otherwise, how can a congregation be assured that they are being led by men who are blamelessly following Christ (1 Timothy 5:17; Acts 20:28)?

When men refuse to allow the true fruit of their lives to be inspected, they prove that they are not qualified to lead God’s church (Matthew 7:16, 20). Such men, who are dangers to the church, indulge in sin, and contrary to living in the light of a thrice holy God, they deny the guilt of their sin and the acts of sin that they commit (1:8, 10, respectively). Whereas God’s posture towards the habitual confessor⁶ is forgiveness, which John attests God faithfully does (1 John 1:9; 2:1), John gives no such good news to professing Christians who do not consistently and humbly confess their sins (1 John 1:8, 10).

These truths have a profound impact on understanding how pastors need to respond to their battle with sin and how churches and denominations can respond to their pastors who are struggling with lust. Pastors are privileged to preach the wonders of God’s forgiving grace, and therefore carry a greater responsibility of modeling God’s holy hatred of sin by confessing it (James 5:16). Pastors, who preach to others to refresh their souls from the sweet fountain of God’s grace, must themselves drink from that same fountain of forgiveness (Hebrews 4:16).

If you are a pastor struggling with pornography, after reading this you will respond in only one of two ways. One, you will trust God and confess your sin by bringing it out into the light of God’s grace, or two, you will try to hide your sin from God who is omniscient. If you confess your sin, then God will forgive you. That is a wonderful thing! Depending upon the depth of your involvement, our loving God, who grants grace upon grace, will measure your discipline. The means by which He applies discipline for pastors is through the leaders charged with oversight of the congregation (Acts 20:28-31). Church/denomination leadership must not be a good ol’ boys club who cover up each others’ sins. They are responsible before God to help each other live blamelessly (Titus 1:5-6). Therefore, whatever discipline they prescribe—a warning, assigned counseling, increased accountability, or time off—a pastor must accept by faith.

God is holy, and through discipline He enables us to share in His holiness, for without holiness no one—including preachers—will see God (Matthew 5:29; Hebrews 12:14b). This is how He grants all of His children His full aid to live a life of repentance. However, you can choose to not confess your sin (Psalm 32:1-4). If you do, know that your non-confession actually is a confession that you do not believe Psalm 130:4, “there is forgiveness with [God].” To hide our sin is to add sin upon our sin, and is to proclaim that “God cannot see and He does not require anything” (Psalm 10:11, 13). I plead with you not to respond this way. It will only grease your slide further into the abyss of sin. This is what the wicked do (Psalm 10:4). These two radically different options will lead to two radically different outcomes. For every pastor who refuses to confess his sin, who will not repent, and who plumbs the depths of the darkest recesses of porn, remember 1 Timothy 5:20, “Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.” Such a life is not the way of an above reproach faithful “one woman kind of man,” and therefore does not qualify that man for pastoral ministry.

How Should Churches and Denominations Respond to Pastors Who Confess Struggles with Pornography and Pastors Who Won’t Confess?

Developing policies to help pastors struggling with lust is not an easy task. Many pastors are guilty on some level of violating Jesus’ admonish of not looking lustfully (Matt 5:27-28). However, the Word of God gives ample truth to guide us. Here are some general principles based on these biblical conclusions that can be used to develop specific guidelines for your church/denomination:

Before you discipline, teach. Approach writing your policies with the same intent that Paul gave to Titus. He left Titus in Crete to raise men up to the moral standards he outlined, and not just to discard everyone who fell short.

Make it your aim to help your pastors. Apply the words of our Lord, “A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out” (Matthew 12:20, NASB).

Strive to always restore whenever possible. Remember how Christ mended the sin-inflicted wounds of a broken shepherd called Peter and how He restored him to feed His sheep (John 21:15-17). And don’t forget the story of John Mark. After Paul rejected him, Barnabas worked with him and brought about spiritual growth. In the end, he became useful to Paul.

Clearly identify the problem. What are the triggers, the patterns, the lies being believed, the status of his marriage, the dangers of his work environment, his level of spiritual maturity and health, etc.?

Get to the root of the problem. In other words, dig as deep as the problem goes. How does he respond to accountability? Is he transparent? Did he ignore previous warnings? How often does he engage in pornography? Is he looking at soft or hardcore porn? Does he masturbate? Does he involve live persons? To what extent does he go to hide it? Does his behavior become reckless and endanger others? Does his sin include illegal behavior, etc.?

Make a clear distinction between the pastors who humbly confess their struggle and submit to help versus pastors who persist in denying their sin, hiding it, and rejecting accountability. God often exposes sins to uncover wolves among His flock.

Measure your discipline to the degree of the sin. God always disciplines his children in love and with the most gracious means that will bring about repentance. Is a warning and the taking of further preventive steps, e.g., Covenant Eyes accountability software, enough? How about counseling and accountability only? Is an administrative leave necessary? Is permanent disqualification or a criminal investigation required?

Take a clear stance that pornography is a serious breach for any man, especially a pastor. In other words, make sure your policy is specific. For example, if a pastor intentionally looks at soft porn then your policy might prescribe automatic accountability. Try to make sure your policy aims to put out a fire before it turns into a blaze. Or in the case where a pastor initially looks at what you define as unquestionably pornographic, then your policy might prescribe mandatory counseling, and if repeated (once, twice, three times), a mandatory suspension. My point is not to write your policy, but to encourage you to make it specific enough that the pastor’s conscience can be strengthened to draw clear lines that he can not cross without incurring disciplinary consequences (Hebrews 12:6).

Do not be a respecter of persons! Remember God’s warning to Aaron, “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored” (Leviticus 10:3 NASB). If a pastor must be removed, then the church must remove him. We must be jealous for the name of Jesus and be convinced that we do great harm to the church and even to the leaders themselves when we leave men in ministries when God has made it obvious that He wants them removed.

Pray! Consistently make it a point to pray for the purity of your pastors and for the Lord to lead them not into temptation but to deliver them from evil. As you pray, remember Jesus is a High Priest who can empathize with all of our weakness. He Himself prayed for Peter knowing that he would fall. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32 NASB).

In closing, let me offer two final words of advice.

First, intervention is a process that will vary from situation to situation. Therefore, leave room in your policy for case by case discretion. Be wise.

Second, removing a pastor for disciplinary reasons is always hard. So after intense prayer and a careful application of Scripture, if your situation requires dismissal of a pastor because of egregious or unrepentant porn use, then fearing God, do it with great courage and resolve.

May God help our pastors to be and remain blameless, “one woman kind of men” and grant His church the discernment to guard against those who refuse to be.

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¹For a full and excellent exegetical treatment of the interpretive challenges in Romans 7 cf. “The Spiritual Condition of ΕΓΩ and His Relationship to the Law in Romans 7:14-25” (Th.M. thesis, The Master’s Seminary, 2005).

²The exclusive use of present tense verbs in vv. 14-25 (in contrast to the aorist in vv. 7-13) leads to this conclusion.

³Without exception, John uses the continuous present tense throughout 1 John to mark out the apostatized unsaved professing believer (1 John 2:18-19). This conclusion as well as the ones reached in notes 8 and 9 are based on the contextual uses of the present and aorist tenses throughout 1 John as well as the aspectual senses of these tenses.

⁴Again, without exception, John distinguishes the sins of genuine believers in 1 John by denoting their sin with the ingressive aorist tense.

⁵John uses these if then conditional statements to assert that when the if part of the conditional statement is true, what is discovered about that person’s profession of faith is revealed in the then part of the statement.

⁶This is a syntactically significant use of the present continuous tense describing the one confessing as one who does this habitually.

CHAPTER XIV
Of Repentance and the Conversion of Man

The doctrine of repentance is joined with the Gospel. For so has the Lord said in the Gospel: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in My name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).

WHAT IS REPENTANCE? By repentance we understand (1) the recovery of a right mind in sinful man awakened by the Word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, and received by true faith, by which the sinner immediately acknowledges his innate corruption and all his sins accused by the Word of God; and (2) grieves for them from his heart, and not only bewails and frankly confesses them before God with a feeling of shame, but also (3) with indignation abominates them; and (4) now zealously considers the amendment of his ways and constantly strives for innocence and virtue in which conscientiously to exercise himself all the rest of his life.

TRUE REPENTANCE IS CONVERSION TO GOD. And this is true repentance, namely, a sincere turning to God and all good, and earnest turning away from the devil and all evil.

1. REPENTANCE IS A GIFT OF GOD. Now we expressly say that this repentance is a sheer gift of God and not a work of our strength. For the apostle commands a faithful minister diligently to instruct those who oppose the truth, if “God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth”  (2 Tim. 2:25).

2. LAMENTS SINS COMMITTED. Now that sinful woman who washed the feet of the Lord with her tears, and Peter who wept bitterly and bewailed his denial of the Lord (Luke 7:38; 22:62) show clearly how the mind of a penitent man ought to be seriously lamenting the sins he has committed.

3. CONFESSES SINS TO GOD. Moreover, the prodigal son and the publican in the Gospel, when compared with the Pharisee, present us with the most suitable pattern of how our sins are to be confessed to God. The former said: “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:8ff). And the latter, not daring to raise his eyes to Heaven, beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). And we do not doubt that they were accepted by God into grace. For the apostle John says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us” (1 John 1:9ff).

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CHAPTER XV
Of the True Justification of the Faithful

WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION? According to the apostle in his treatment of justification, to justify means to remit sins, to absolve from guilt and punishment, to receive into favor, and to pronounce a man just. For in his epistle to the Romans the apostle says: “It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” (Rom. 8:33). To justify and to condemn are opposed. And in the Acts of the Apostles the apostle states: “Through Christ forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38).  For in the Law and also in the Prophets we read: “If there is a dispute between men, and they come into court…the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty” (Deut. 25:1). And in Isaiah chapter 5: “Woe to those…who acquit the guilty for a bribe.”

WE ARE JUSTIFIED ON ACCOUNT OF CHRIST. Now it is most certain that all of us are by nature sinners and godless, and before God’s judgment seat are convicted of godlessness and are guilty of death, but that, solely by the grace of Christ and not from any merit of ours or consideration for us, we are justified, that is, absolved from sin and death by God the Judge. For what is clearer than what Paul said: “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23).

IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. For Christ took upon Himself and bore the sins of the world, and satisfied divine justice. Therefore, solely on account of Christ’s sufferings and resurrection God is propitious with respect to our sins and does not impute them to us, but imputes Christ’s righteousness to us as our own (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 4:25), so that now we are not only cleansed and purged from sins or are holy, but also, granted the righteousness of Christ, and so absolved from sin, death and condemnation, are at last righteous and heirs of eternal life. Properly speaking, therefore, God alone justifies us, and justifies only on account of Christ, not imputing sins to us but imputing His righteousness to us.

WE ARE JUSFIFIED BY FAITH ALONE. But because we receive this justification, not through any works, but through faith in the mercy of God and in Christ, we therefore teach and believe with the apostle that sinful man is justified by faith alone in Christ, not by the law or any works. For the apostle says: “We hold that a man  is justified by faith apart from works of law” (Rom. 3:28). Also: “If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness….And to one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is reckoned as righteousness” (Rom. 4:2; Gen. 15:6). And again: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God–not because of works, lest any man should boast,” etc. (Eph. 2:8).  Therefore, because faith receives Christ our righteousness and attributes everything to the grace of God in Christ, on that account justification is attributed to faith, chiefly because of Christ and not therefore because it is our work. For it is the gift of God.

WE RECEIVE CHRIST BY FAITH. Moreover, the Lord abundantly shows that we receive Christ by faith, in John chapter 6, where he puts eating for believing, and believing for eating. For as we receive food by eating, so we participate in Christ by believing.

JUSTIFICATION IS NOT ATTRIBUTED PARTLY TO CHRIST OR TO FAITH, PARTLY TO US. Therefore, we do not share in the benefit of justification partly because of the grace of God or Christ, and partly because of ourselves, our love, works or merit, but we attribute it wholly to the grace of God in Christ through  faith. For our love and our works could not please God in Christ through  faith. For our love and our works could not please God if performed by unrighteous men. Therefore, it is necessary for us to be righteous before we may love and do good works. We are made truly righteous, as we have said, by faith in Christ purely by the grace of God, who does not impute to us our sins, but the righteousness of Christ, or rather, he imputes faith in Christ to us for righteousness. Moreover, the apostle very clearly derives love from faith when he says: “The aim of our command is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).

JAMES COMPARED WITH PAUL. Wherefore, in this matter we are not speaking of a fictitious, empty, lazy and dead faith, but of a living, quickening faith. It is and is called a living faith because it apprehends Christ who is life and makes alive, and shows that it is alive by living works. And so James does not contradict anything in this doctrine of ours. For he speaks of an empty, dead faith of which some boasted but who did not have Christ living in them by faith (James 2:14). James said that works justify, yet without contradicting the apostle (otherwise he would have to be rejected) but showing that Abraham proved his living and justifying faith by works. This all the pious do, but they trust in Christ alone and not in their own works. For again the apostle said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, [The Latin reads: “by the faith of the Son of God.”] who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not reject the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose,” etc. (Gal. 2:20).

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CHAPTER XVI
Of Faith and Good Works, and of Their Reward, and of Man’s Merit

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FAITH EFFICACIOUS AND ACTIVE. The same apostle calls faith efficacious and active through love (Gal. 5:6). It also quiets the conscience and opens a free access to God, so that we may draw near to Him with confidence and may obtain from Him what is useful and necessary. The same faith keeps us in the service we owe to God and our neighbor, strengthens our patience in adversity, fashions and makes a true confession, and in a word brings forth good fruit of all kinds, and good works.

CONCERNING GOOD WORKS. For we teach that truly good works grow out of a living faith by the Holy Spirit and are done by the faithful according to the will or rule of God’s Word. Now the apostle Peter says: “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control,” etc. (2 Peter 1:5). But we have said above that the law of God, which is His will, prescribes for us the pattern of good works. And the apostle says: “This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain form immorality…that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in business” (1 Thess. 4:3).

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WE TEACH TRUE, NOT FALSE AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIRTUES. And so we diligently teach true, not false and philosophical virtues, truly good works, and the genuine service of a Christian. And as much as we can we diligently and zealously press them upon all men, while censuring the sloth and hypocrisy of all those who praise and profess the Gospel with their lips and dishonor it by their disgraceful lives. In this matter we place before them God’s terrible threats and then His rich promises and generous rewards:—exhorting, consoling and rebuking.

GOD GIVES A REWARD FOR GOOD WORKS. For we teach that God gives a rich reward to those who do good works, according to that saying of the prophet: “keep your voice from weeping…for your work shall be rewarded” (Jer. 31:16; Isa. 4). The Lord also said in the Gospel: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven” (Matt. 5:12), and, “Whoever gives to one of these my little ones a cup of cold water, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Matt. 10:42). However, we do not ascribe this reward, which the Lord gives, to the merit of the man who receives it, but to the goodness, generosity and truthfulness of God who promises and gives it, and who, although He owes nothing to anyone, nevertheless promises that He will give a reward to His faithful worshippers; meanwhile He also gives them that they may honor Him. Moreover, in the works even of the saints there is much that is unworthy of God and very much that is imperfect. But because God receives into favor and embraces those who do works for Christ’s sake, He grants to them the promised reward. For in other respects our righteousnesses are compared to a filthy rag (Isa. 64:6). And the Lord says in the Gospel: “When you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’ (Luke 17:10).

I just read the following in what is an otherwise excellent sermon on Hell, Jonathan Edwards’ “Natural Men in a Dreadful Condition”–where he makes one of the clearest anti-prophetic, anti-visionary, anti-Charismatic statements I have ever read in Edwards:

“Take heed that you do not entertain a wrong notion of what it is spiritually to see Christ. If you do, you may seek that which God never bestows. Do not think that spiritually to see Christ is to have a vision of Him as the prophets had, to see Him in some bodily shape, to see the features of His countenance. Do not pray or seek for any such thing as this” (The Wrath of Almighty God, p. 60).

By this statement, Edwards is basically saying that praying or receiving a dream or, in this case, an open vision of Jesus is completely impossible nowadays. The only kind of “vision” allowable for Edwards, the Puritans, and Reformed, Presbyterian, and Baptists who follow his tradition, are to be the sort of inner vision of the heart in the mind. Nothing too supernatural or visionary: to speak like that is too Catholic saint like. Are you a Charismatic? a Pentecostal? Are you in any way influenced by the Prophetic Movement and the Kansas City Prophets? Then do not allow the Reformed tradition, the Puritan tradition that Edwards is from, to guide you in any sort of Charismatic or prophetic sense. Instead, look to Catholic saints (St. Patrick, St. Benedict, Hildegard of Bingen, St. Teresa of Avila), Catholic mystical theology, The Scots Worthies, John Wesley (early Methodists, Wesleyan Arminian), Charles G. Finney and William J. Seymour and Smith Wigglesworth (early Methodists, holiness, early Pentecostals), etc.

However, in the non-Charismatic sense, the Puritan-Reformed tradition needs to be upheld for its theology on Hell, salvation, holiness, and soteriology. (But I disagree with them about “once saved, always saved” and their usual rejection of miracles, or cessationism.)

If I were to chart a “history of the prophetic” (of visions, dreams, God’s voice, miracles, and prophets), then at this point, it would look like this:–traveling the course of church history from various Catholic saints, and then into the Arminian saints within the Protestant churches, and avoiding the Reformed and Puritan saints (not because they were not saints), but because they were not “prophets” in the visions and dreams sense, as Scripture says: “If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream” (Numbers 12:6). With the exception of John Bunyan (Visions of Heaven and Hell), I can’t think of any Puritan who ever made claims to prophetic visions, and accepted them as coming from God. Martin Luther was a reformer who prophesied the future, and prayed for healing, and exorcism. George Wishart and John Knox were also prophesiers of future events [see Thomas Boys’ The Suppressed Evidence.] Catholic and Arminian saints, however, have usually really no problem with such supernatural experiences, but pray for and usually accept them, according to 1 Corinthians 14.

My current Bible, Catholic, and Arminian saint-prophet listing:

Noah

Abraham

Jacob

Joseph

Moses

Samuel

Elijah

Elisha

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Daniel

John the Baptist

The Lord Jesus Christ

The Twelve Apostles

The Apostolic Fathers

St. Antony of Egypt

St. Patrick of Ireland (The Confession)

St. Benedict of Nursia (The Rule)

St. Francis of Assisi

Hildegard of Bingen (Scivias)

St. Ignatius of Loyola (Spiritual Exercises)

St. Teresa of Avila (Interior Castle, etc.)

St. John of the Cross (The Ascent of Mount Carmel)

Martin Luther (a reformer, but not a Puritan)

George Wishart

John Knox

John Bunyan (Visions of Heaven and Hell)

The Scots Worthies

John Wesley

Charles Finney

William J. Seymour

Smith Wigglesworth

David Wilkerson (The Vision)

John Wimber (Power Evangelism, etc.)

Mike Bickle (Growing in the Prophetic)

Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.   –Jude 1:7

On the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all.    –Luke 17:29

In this text we see three elements referred to:

1. Going after “strange flesh”:–a reference to homosexual practice, which is strange, and is not a natural sexual practice.

2. These were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, referred to in Genesis 18 and 19.

3. God’s response to the homosexual movement in those cities, was to cause “fire and brimstone” to rain down from Heaven, and destroy all who lived there.

Homosexuality, in thought, word, and action is referred to in the law of God as an “abomination” to Him. That it is a hated, despised thing, so repulsive to a holy God, that the only thing He can think to do, after grace has been all used up, is to KILL the homosexuals by natural disasters, or other means. Under the Old Covenant, Moses was commanded by God to have homosexuals executed for their crime, for their abomination (Lev. 20:13). Under the Christian dispensation, the New Testament era—God does not sanction the killing of homosexuals by other men, but instead “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). The church of Corinth had been established by Paul’s preaching of the Gospel, and some of his converts were ex-gays (1 Cor. 6:11). “Such some of you were,” he says, making reference to their past gay lifestyles, but now “you are washed, you are clean.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is anything but “hate speech”; if anything it is “holy speech” and is “love speech.” “God is not willing that any should perish” (2 Pet. 3:9), in the flames of Hell forever, “but that all should” come to repent and have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17).

But gays are “condemned already” if they do not believe in “God’s one and only Son,” Jesus Christ (John 3:18). And this is the case with every single gay person. There are many among them who claim to believe in Jesus, and even claim to be Christians. But they are very deceived; they have believed in “another gospel” and “another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:4). The Apostle Paul warns: “Do not be deceived…homosexuals”, among others who persist in particular sins, “will not inherit the kingdom of God”, or be able to go to Heaven after they die (1 Cor. 6:9-10); but if they persist in their sin, they will “die in their sins” (John 8:24), receive the judgment of God, and be “thrown into Hell” according to the law of God (Rev. 20:14). Again, Paul said, “Do not be deceived…homosexuals…will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!” (Mark 1:15). In the everlasting and unquenchable flames of Hell, the impenitent gays who died, and who now dwell with the ancient Sodomites, will experience FOREVER what the Sodomites only experienced for a bit when “fire and brimstone fell from Heaven” upon them (Luke 17:29). Because they have been thrown into “the lake of fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21:8), and “the smoke of their torment will ascend forever and ever,” and “they will have NO REST day or night” from their torments (Rev. 14:11). The wrath of God abides on them forever, because their unrepentant hearts remain. As their homosexual lust burns within them, so also will the wrath of God in those holy flames of revenge. It is in Hell that God will take REVENGE on His enemies, including His gay enemies, who scoffed at the holy Gospel, which was designed by Him to save their souls by the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor. 1:21). Stark memories will haunt them in Hell of the times they heard street preachers at gay pride parades, or at the gay nightclubs, or a preacher on TV, or read some Christian literature critiquing homosexuality:–they will remember this and more, for they are the reasons why they are in Hell. The evangelists, missionaries, and Christians who tried as hard as they could to get these people to repent from homosexuality, and all the times they refuted and heckled back at them, pleading that they were “born that way” and that “God made me gay”—all those times will be remembered in Hell, and the just condemnation of their sin will lay over their heads for all ETERNITY!

“Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). The law of God plainly condemns homosexuality in no uncertain terms: “You shall not lay with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22). Those who do such things bring the wrath of God upon themselves. It is sexual perversion, for sure; but how is it condemned? In the Ten Commandments, from which virtually all other laws in Scripture can be related, it says, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). It commands against illicit, illegal, unlawful sexual relations that people commit as adults with their adult bodies. With their “adult books”, “adult movies”, and “adult toys”, and “adult porn stores” they prove themselves to be ADULTERERS! They commit ADULTERY! It is not simply having an affair with someone not your spouse. ADULTERY is any unlawful sex. Period. Any sexual thought, feeling, look, or sexual action outside of the marriage bed of HOLY MATRIMONY. For this cause a “MAN shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his WIFE; and the TWO shall become ONE FLESH” (Gen. 2:24). But it is “STRANGE FLESH” to think of sex in any other way (Jude 1:7). It is strange flesh for a man to have sex with a man, or a woman with a woman. That is STRANGE SEX! And it goes against the invention of God. The male sexual organs are created by God to be used with the female sexual organs, for reproduction and pleasure, within HOLY MATRIMONY, initiated by a holy wedding ceremony, conducted by a godly minister. “Gay marriage” is a complete distortion, an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms, and a wicked, unclean mockery of godly, holy marriage, between two committed Christian heterosexuals: a man and woman, just as Adam and Eve were, and just as God intended mankind to appear on the Earth. But homosexuality is the devil’s work; a spirit of perverted sexual immorality; it totally confounds the image of God in mankind. It confuses the genders; and creates all manner of confused thinking, and behaviors:–so a man doesn’t know if he is a woman or a man; and a woman doesn’t know if she is a man or a woman. This may be one of homosexuality’s greatest abominations: that IT COMPLETELY CONFUSES AND DISTORTS GOD’S CREATION OF MAN, and makes a total MOCKERY OF WHAT IS MALE AND FEMALE, and REBELS AGAINST THE GENDER DISTINCTIONS GOD LAID DOWN IN CREATION. It is a SHAME! A degradation of the dignity of humanity. A beastlike, fallen, deterioration of the mind of man, into that of a depraved “reprobate mind” (Rom. 1:28), which is bent on satisfying its perverse sexual lusts, and rebelling against the law of God, the Bible.

“Do not be deceived” (1 Cor. 6:9) into thinking that God rained “fire and brimstone from Heaven” (Luke 17:29) on Sodom and Gomorrah for any other reason than that of massive amounts of unrepentant homosexuality. This is the reason why Scripture generally assigns condemnation to those cities. Even to this day, because of the Bible references, “sodomites” and “sodomy” refer to gays and homosexual practices. Those gays who try to compromise their sinful, anti-Scriptural, selfish, strange sexual lust with the Christian faith do several things to butcher the Scriptures:

(1) They ignore all Old Testament condemnations of homosexuality, by declaring that the Old Testament law is obsolete. That goes against The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which is an impeccably orthodox statement of Christian faith. It says of the Old Testament, “No Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.” And when this is pressed on a “gay Christian”, he replies, then “The commandments against homosexuality are not moral commandments, but ceremonial ones.” That is totally absurd! Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, clearly condemn homosexuality as well, and are therefore evidence that the Apostle Paul and the early church leaders saw this as a moral law that continued to bind New Testament Christians. No early church leader was more emphatic than Paul about keeping Christians away from the Jewish ceremonial law, as is evident in the circumcision controversy, mentioned in Galatians and Acts 15. Yet Paul urges the moral law on all Christians who claim to be “justified by faith” (Rom. 5:1; 6:1-2); he says this is so that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the FLESH but according to the SPIRIT” (Rom. 8:4). To walk after the same sex, after a homosexual, is strange flesh; it is to walk after the flesh, and not after the Spirit of God.

(2) They dismiss any New Testament translations of “homosexual” or “homosexuality” as a translation error; and try to maintain that Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 are not condemning homosexuality, but something else; and that it is the bias of the Bible translators, not the original Biblical Greek. That might be easier to argue for 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, because some say a “catamite” was a male prostitute, not a homosexual. Well enough. But the narrative in Romans 1 simply cannot be excused, no matter what Bible translation you are reading. It is a narrative that undeniably condemns homosexual behavior. And the “strange flesh” reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in Jude 1:7 is obviously a hint at the homosexuals in Genesis 19.

(3) So-called “gay Christians” claim that God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, was not on their homosexuality, but instead because they were a rough, uncivilized, and inhospitable people. They quote Ezekiel 16:49: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” True, the homosexual abusers of the two angels added insult to injury, but before they ever showed inhospitality to them, they were considered “sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (Gen. 13:13). This was because of their homosexuality, as Jude 1:7 testifies in my opening text: THEIR “GOING AFTER STRANGE FLESH” was the reason why God’s judgment of “FIRE AND BRIMSTONE FROM HEAVEN” came upon them so severely (Luke 17:29). Jude, in fact, makes no reference to the inhospitality of the Sodomites, though that was another sin they were certainly guilty of…and to the very angels that God sent to destroy the two cities…angels of great power. When Abraham and his people rescued Lot and the Sodomites during battle, and the king of Sodom wanted to give a token of money to him, God told him to say, “I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich’” (Gen. 14:23). No strings attached to the homosexual king of that homosexual city. No strings attached to a people who so resist the power of the Holy Spirit, the moral law, and the angels of God.

(4) “God made me gay” is a common objection of so-called “gay Christians.” They listen to the voice of secular, agnostic psychologists, who do not view Scripture as their authority; and then, through the un-Biblical lens of liberal Christian theology, try to reinterpret the faith in terms of sentimental “love”. But the Biblical love of God is holy, righteous, keeps the commandments, and “does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices in good” (1 Cor. 13:6). The Bible declares, God declares, that HOMOSEXUALITY IS EVIL; therefore, it is not the love of God to embrace it. God’s love is pure and holy; homosexuality is impure, unclean, and a perverted form of fornication. Romans 1 declares the divine revelation on the cause of homosexual lust. It is NOT caused by God’s creation. It is caused by man’s choice. Especially, by man’s choice to embrace atheism, worship of creation, plants, animals, created things, and the human body especially. This obsession with the material world, and with the human body, leads to inordinate sexual passions, even of the same sex. Homosexuality is a man-made sin caused by IGNORING GOD and FOCUSING ON THE HUMAN BODY, particularly other person’s bodies of the SAME SEX. Anyone, therefore, has the potential to make themselves feel “gay” lusts, if they dwell upon the nakedness of another person of the same sex. It is an inordinate sexual lust created by lusting on purpose, a person of the wrong gender. God does not “make” people gay. People make themselves gay—it says so in Romans 1. Gay pornography is probably largely to blame for this. When men begin to contemplate naked male bodies, they will begin to feel homosexual lust; the same with lesbians. It is the fall and perversion of human nature. But the choice to sin is what God finds inexcusable and worthy of judgment. This is why God is so angry at homosexuality, because He sees gays as fully responsible for their denial of His existence (the real Biblical God), His authority, and the gender He created them to be. Homosexuality is spiritual and sexual rebellion against God the Creator. Homosexuals or “gays” are NOT a special breed or race of people, determined by their genes to commit these acts. God does NOT create gay people. Straight people create gay people when they start contemplating the nakedness of people of the same sex. That’s what Scripture says; believe it!

AIDS is the “fire and brimstone” for today’s Sodom and Gomorrahs, San Franciscos, gay clubs, etc: Scripture says, “They receive in their bodies the due penalty for their perversion” (Rom. 1:27). But there is also a “fire that burns to the lowest Hell” (Deut. 32:22). God hates the sin of homosexuality so much, that He expresses a temporary punishment on it with AIDS, and an eternal punishment on it with “fire and brimstone” in Hell (Rev. 14:10), which is, as Jude says, foreshadowed to us by the first appearance of “fire and brimstone from Heaven”, that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah long ago.

Gays Must Repent or Go to Hell: It’s Their Choice

“The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). The sins of mankind, if they could be compared to work, will receive their proper wages: DEATH. For the work of homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah, a “work of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19), “strange flesh” (Jude 1:7), the wages God paid them with was “fire and brimstone from Heaven” which destroyed them all (Luke 17:29). For this reason, God has “appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the JUDGMENT” (Heb. 9:27). There is an immediate judgment of men’s lives and a final judgment of all men at the end of the world. The immediate judgment of God on men’s lives occurs directly after death: when the souls of men are translated to Heaven or Hell. So the wicked gays of Sodom and Gomorrah, after seeing the meteorites fall from the sky upon them, and being hit in the heads by brimstones from Heaven, and being burnt and killed, came out of their bodies, and were “thrown into Hell” where there is “unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:17; 12:5). The wages of homosexuality is Hellfire. But this is the love of God: “in that, while gays are yet sinners, Christ died for them” (Rom. 5:8) in a spirit of preaching repentance: “go, and think straightly, and commit homosexual acts no more” (John 8:11). If a gay man repents of his sinful lifestyle, he may become a straight-laced Christian man, and gain Heaven! Due to the grace of God in the cross of Christ, and the blood He shed for them.

If I were to write a book on Biblical creationism, as means by which to refute Darwinism while doing open air evangelistic outreach, then I would use the following books as the basis for that bibliography:

Discovery Institute Recommends:
Intelligent Design Movement

Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial
Jonathan Wells’ Icons of Evolution
Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

Young Earth Creationists:
Creation Science; Institute for Creation Research; Answers in Genesis

Henry Morris and John Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood
Henry Morris’ Scientific Creationism
Jonathan Sarfati’s Refuting Evolution
Duane Gish’s Evolution: The Fossils Say No!
Ken Ham’s The Lie: Evolution

Noah—God told him the world would flood in 120 years (Gen. 6:3); he preached repentance and righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5), but nobody believed him except his family.

Abraham—God told him in a vision, a son would be miraculously born to his old wife Sarah; they failed the test with Ishmael (Gen. 16:1-6), but eventually the promised son, Isaac came (Gen. 21:1-7). God then told him to sacrifice Isaac on an altar, but then intervened to prevent the killing (Gen. 22:1-19).

Jacob—for 14 years he had to slave and work for his beloved wife Rachel (Gen. 29:30); and their son, Joseph, a spiritually gifted young man, was sold into slavery by his brothers (Gen. 37:28).

Joseph—God told him in a dream that he would rule over his brothers (Gen. 37:5-8). This was followed by a long period of hardship and slavery in Egypt; and finally a position of rule in Egypt (Gen. 45:1-15).

Moses—after discovering he was a Hebrew, God sent him into the Arabian desert for a period of 40 years, tending sheep…and this after living like a prince in Egypt! Then God gave him marvelous visions, the burning bush (Acts 7:30), nature miracles, etc…many of which both the Egyptians and the Hebrews had a hard time believing were from God (Exod. 14:11)!

Samuel—after leading Israel as the political-prophetic judge, the people cried out for a king, like the pagan nations around them. God said, “It is not you they have rejected, but Me” (1 Sam. 8:7). From there on out, Samuel and the “Sons of the Prophets” were basically considered to be a group of madmen and religious fanatics by the general population (2 Kings 9:1, 11).

Elijah—this powerful prophetic leader of the “Sons of the Prophets,” was also considered an insane religious fanatic by popular opinion, and a “troublemaker” by Israel’s political leaders (1 Kings 18:17). During his time, the Israelite government was controlled by Queen Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, and pagan priestess of Baalism. She had 400 state employed fortune-tellers to give “spiritual guidance” to Israel’s leaders (1 Kings 18:19). Elijah and his prophets were probably even more disrespected and persecuted than in the time of Samuel. They had to hide out in caves and basically survive in “underground” or “invisible” house church environments. After confronting the prophets of Baal, with an incredible nature miracle of fire from Heaven, and the coming of rain from a drought of three years, and after having the people moved to kill the prophets of Baal according to the law of Moses (1 Kings 18)—Elijah ran for his life, because Jezebel threatened to have him killed. Elijah had come to believe that he was the only true prophet left in Israel, even though there were many others in hiding. God rebuked him with a still small voice: “I have 7,000 others in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (1 Kings 19:18).

Elisha—the powerful successor of Elijah was mocked by a gang of young men as “bald head”, yet when he called down the curse of the Lord upon them, two bears came out of the woods and mauled them (2 Kings 2:23-24). Gehazi was Elisha’s disciple, but he was corrupted by the love of money, and came under the curse of leprosy (2 Kings 5:27). An army pursued Elisha once to have him killed, but by the power of God, he diverted them to another town (2 Kings 6:8-23).

Isaiah—this 8^th century B.C. prophet, who is most known for Isaiah chapter 53, the famed prophecy of penal substitutionary atonement that Christ accomplished for us on the cross, is also known for his majestic vision of God on the throne in Isaiah chapter 6, and for his many prophecies against the nation of Israel for their rebellion against God, and how imminent judgment is near. Isaiah was sawn in half by the word of King Manasseh, because he dared to say he saw a vision of God (The Babylonian Talmud, Yebamoth 49b; Sanhedrin 10).

Jeremiah—this 8^th century B.C. prophet, who is known for continually prophesying to the nation of Israel, the coming of the Babylonian army, to destroy and conquer Israel, and take away the Jews to Babylon. For this reason, he was called the “weeping prophet.” The king had Jeremiah put into a poopy well, into stocks, into prison, etc (Jer. 38:6). And very few of the people believed any of his prophecies. They called him a false prophet, because he did not speak favorably of “God’s chosen nation” (Jer. 37:12-13). But he was faithful to preach against the apostasy and hypocrisy of the paganized Judaism he saw around him. After he was done prophesying, and suffering, the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem, conquered the Jews, and led most of them away to Babylon. Only a few loyal subjects were allowed to remain in their homeland, including Jeremiah, albeit, in a ravaged, ruined homeland (Jer. 39-40).

Daniel—this exiled Jewish prophet, in Babylon, was exalted as a court employee for the king (Dan. 1:3-7). Because an edict went forth under the influence of the king’s advisors, who were jealous of Daniel, he was snatched away for praying to God in his house near his window. Then he was thrown into a lion’s den as punishment, where it was expected he would be eaten alive. However, God intervened by sending angels to tame the lions, and Daniel came out alive, and God was glorified throughout the whole Babylonian empire (Dan. 6).

John the Baptist—of whom Christ said, “There is no one born of women greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11), he was the forerunning prophet to Christ’s ministry among the Jews. The common people believed that John was a prophet (Mark 11:32), but the religious leaders believed he was a false prophet, because he preached God’s forgiveness of sins was available by repentance from sin and water baptism—a total departure from the normal method of Old Testament animal sacrifice at the temple. To have the disapproval of the religious leaders, Biblical scholars, rabbis, and priests would have been a great hardship, since his father Zechariah was a priest (Luke 1:5, 13)…this may account for why John lived as a solitary hermit in the desert (Matt. 3:1-5). John also preached against King Herod’s adultery, which earned him a prison sentence, and the loss of his head (Matt. 14:1-10).

The Lord Jesus Christ—truly man and truly God, the Son of God, was also “the Prophet” predicted to come by Moses (John 6:14). While little is known of His boyhood, we know that His family was not wealthy, that Herod tried to have him killed when he was a baby (Matt. 2:16), but angelic intervention helped His parents know where to go to avoid detection (Matt. 2:13). Throughout His three year itinerant ministry, like John the Baptist, most of the religious leaders rejected Him as a demonized false prophet (Matt. 9:34). At one point, even His “mother and brothers said He was mentally ill” (Mark 3:21, 31-35). He was betrayed by Judas, abandoned by the twelve apostles (Matt. 26:56), and had to endure the mockery, torment, and death on the cross…but three days later He rose from the dead, and then ascended into Heaven!

The Twelve Apostles—Judas betrayed Christ to the Pharisees, and after becoming so guilt-ridden, killed himself (Matt. 27:1-10). The other eleven apostles returned back to their Christian faith, having witnessed the resurrection. All of them went into various countries preaching the Gospel, and were eventually martyred for their faith, except for the apostle John, who died of old age—but for many years had to live in a prison cell on the Isle of Patmos (see John Foxe’s The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, pp. 4-10).

The Apostolic Fathers had prophets among their ranks; and many were persecuted by the Roman emperor and martyred for their faith (see John Foxe’s The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, pp. 11-21).

St. Antony of Egypt, the leader of the Desert Fathers, lived in the desert. Need I say more? The desert is hardship. It is not a pleasant place to live. It is hot. It is dry. It has serpents, scorpions, etc. There are no stores and no entertainments. It is lonely. Antony and the Desert Fathers, sought solitary lives of prayer and contemplation, during the last century of systematic persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors. In this way, they lived similar lives to Elijah and the “Sons of the Prophets” in hiding during the time of apostasy in Israel. Also, St. Antony experienced endless spiritual attacks, and suffered warfare with demons during prayer, as told in Athanasius’ The Life of Antony.

St. Patrick of Ireland and his missionary monks endured hardship and persecution from the Druids. See “The Life of Patrick by Muirchu” in Celtic Spirituality..

St. Benedict of Nursia endured the hardship of solitude and asceticism. See Gregory the Great’s Life and Miracles of St. Benedict.

St. Francis of Assisi endured a materialistic father, who verbally and physically abused him, after he was born of the Spirit to a new life in Christ. St. Francis and his friars were also persecuted for leading of life of strict “evangelical poverty.” See Bonaventure’s The Life of St. Francis.

Hildegard of Bingen, the German visionary, was almost continually sick, bedridden, and attacked by demons. She always viewed her sickness as a “thorn in the flesh to keep her from getting puffed up on account of her great revelations.” She also viewed the sickness as a punishment, or discipline from God, for not following His call to the ministry more precisely. See Gottfried and Theoderic’s The Life of the Holy Hildegard.

St. Ignatius of Loyola was humbled by a cannon blast to the leg during battle. While receiving treatment for this in a hospital, he read Jacobus de Voragine’s The Golden Legend, and became determined to imitate the saints, even to outdo them. See his Autobiography.

St. Teresa of Avila, the great Catholic mystical theologian and saint, author of The Interior Castle, The Way of Perfection, and her Autobiography, had many experiences of spiritual warfare and attacks upon her. She also came under the watchful eye of the Spanish Inquisition for teaching Christian mysticism, which was unusual in the 16^th century, except among a widespread heretical group called Alumbrados. She was also given a hard time by various Catholic priests, who said she was merely oppressed of the devil, and her visions were demonic. She fought for a strict reform in the Carmelite Order, which many of the leaders did not like.

St. John of the Cross, friend of St. Teresa, and fellow Catholic reformer, was put into prison for a long time by an ungodly Carmelite leader, in order to wear down his will, and make him recant his rigid asceticism and mysticism. St. John eventually levitated while in a state of prayer and contemplation (as did St. Teresa), and he wrote a powerful prophetic book on prayer and spiritual gifts called The Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran Church, igniter of the Protestant Reformation, had a very hard life. For the rest of his life, after his posted the “95 Theses”, he was under the condemnation of the pope as a heretic, and was sought out to be burned at the stake. However, nobody caught him. See Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther.

John Wesley, the 18^th century evangelist, and founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was persecuted his whole life in England by all sorts of people (including the Anglican priests), as were his Methodist preachers. They were not allowed to preach sermons in Anglican churches, because they were considered too “enthusiastic” or “experiential.” So, the Methodists resorted to street preaching, field preaching, and other open air preaching locations. See Thomas Jackson’s The Life of the Rev. John Wesley.

Charles Finney, the leading evangelist of the 19^th century Second Great Awakening, was called a “heretic” by the Presbyterian clergy in his day. Mainly on account of his “New Measures” that he introduced in his revival meetings, but also (and understandably so), because he rejected certain articles in the Westminster Confession of Faith, one of which was the doctrine of original sin. Finney also saw three wives die before he married his fourth. See A. M. Hills’ The Life of Charles G. Finney.

William J. Seymour, founder of the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission, the “Azusa Street Revival,” and the Pentecostal Movement:–was raised as a son of slaves in Louisiana; and after his parents were freed, lived in extreme poverty. He worked as a waiter in various hotel restaurants; and eventually became a holiness preacher with Church of God (Anderson, IN). He learned the doctrine of speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4) from Charles Parham’s temporary “Apostolic Faith Movement” Bible school, in which, because he was African-American, had to sit outside the classroom, away from the whites. During the “Azusa Street Revival” Seymour was often mocked by the press because he was black, and because the Pentecostals spoke in tongues (it sounded funny), and often did not speak with proper grammar due to lack of education; they shook, and danced, and rolled all over the floor in a crazy, undignified manner, and for this, more than anything else, they were mocked. See Larry Martin’s The Life and Ministry of William J. Seymour.

John G. Lake, the missionary, Pentecostal preacher, and divine healer and founder of the “Healing Rooms” in Spokane, Washington, experienced the loss of several family members in his younger years due to much sickness. His wife was also deathly ill, and cured by prayer for healing, at a John Alexander Dowie meeting. See Wilford Reidt’s John G. Lake: A Man Without Compromise.

John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard churches, finished his last days with a bout of cancer, and unfortunately did not live a very long life. He had given his life to restoring the ministry of divine healing, by teaching “Signs and Wonders” conferences, and publishing books like Power Evangelism and Power Healing. He was certainly mocked and ridiculed by non-Charismatic theologians, even labeled a New Ager. See Carol Wimber’s John Wimber: The Way it Was.

Dr. Jack Deere.

“Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality.”—Romans 13:13, NASB

Carousing is that sin which many of you are committing right now:–roaming around the night with friends from bar to bar, seeking a one night stand, seeking an immediate sexual fix, that you may gratify your intense hormonal impulses. I know it’s tough, but I urge you not to commit fornication (if you’re not married, don’t have sex), because it goes directly against the commandment of God: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:4). Which means, not only sex with someone else’s spouse, but sex with anyone unmarried: adultery is unlawful, unholy sex—sex outside of marriage, sex outside of holy matrimony. When God says, “You shall not commit adultery,” He commands it for your good, to keep you clean, and undefiled, to keep you safe and protected from sexually transmitted diseases (or STDs):–for no condom will give you 100% protection from the ravages of an insidious STD. And once the STD has conceived, it gives birth to death, destruction, herpes, rashes, sores, bumps, discharges, bleeding, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV, AIDS, and all manner of defilement, for which there is often no cure! Scripture says, “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel” (Deut. 23:17). So, “save yourselves from this crooked and perverted generation!” (Acts 2:40). Do not commit adultery! Christ said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to [feel sexual] lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28)…“Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts…adulteries, fornications…blasphemies…these are the things which defile a man” (Matt. 15:19-20). The consequences are far too severe to enjoy the pleasures of that sin for a short while (Heb. 11:25). God created sex so people can make babies! God created sex so married couples can be closer! (Gen. 1:28; Prov. 5:19). Are you planning on making babies!? Are you sex lovers planning on becoming mommies and daddies!? Think of your responsibility! Think of what will happen if your condom leaks tonight! And your lover becomes pregnant! You men:–are you ready to be faithful husbands, and fathers, and providers? And you women:–are you ready to be wives and mothers? Are you ready to cook, and clean house, and take care of the kids!? (1 Tim. 5:8; Titus 2:4-5).

If you have sex tonight, consider the cost! No act of sex is without consequences. Suppose you have sex tonight. Suppose your condom works; and you get by Scot-free without getting pregnant. Do you consider that a success? That’s a pretty messy, spotty form of success. But that is not success. You will permanently feel attached to the person you have sex with. Do you really love that person? Or do you just feel sexual urges? Where will those urges go when you’re all spent? Will you lie down in bed; and feel no real love for the person you had sex with? You enjoyed your orgasm; but do you two have nothing in common!? If you’re honest, I doubt most of you would dare to marry each other! WHY WASTE YOUR SEMEN, YOUR ORGASM, ON A STRANGER YOU WON’T MARRY!? YOUR BODY IS SUPPOSED TO BE A TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT A FILTHY PILE OF POOP? A DUNGEON OF UNCLEAN SPIRITS? A DWELLING PLACE FOR SATAN?[1] NO! “GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY!” (1 Cor. 6:20). “If we are temples of the Holy Spirit, then how wrong it is to drive the Holy Spirit away from us through fornication, prostitution, and in His place allow wicked spirits of uncleanness and fornication to come in!”[2] “You shall not commit adultery” is a good commandment (Exod. 20:4), and God means it for your own good; it is meant to prevent babies from being aborted, to prevent men from becoming negligent fathers, to prevent young women from getting hurt, from feeling like they’ve been taken advantage of, or being date raped. Beware of date rape drugs! Watch out for your drinks! Ladies–don’t let any man put “Spanish flies” in your drinks! Watch out for yourselves! Beware of STDs! They can ruin your life! Ask Jesus to protect you from prowling, sex-hungry wolves! Seeking to gratify themselves for a moment, and then leave you all alone. Leave this place! Leave these bars right now! These are evil places! Go forth and “serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of your life!” (Luke 1:74-75).

Drunkenness is that sin which, is not the forbidding of all alcohol, but of all “strong drinks” (Prov. 20:1)—those drinks which, upon gulping down their bitter and burning drafts, make you soon mentally hazy, sleepy, and out of touch with your surroundings. It is an alcohol-induced state of an impaired mind. It will last for one, two, three hours; and in the morning, you will have a hangover—a queasy, ungodly headache, that will not let up. Will you go to work with that hangover? Or to church? No! You will sleep in. You will sleep in with your so-called “lover,” guilty of your sins, asking yourself, “What have I done? I don’t even love this person!” Such is the result of impaired judgment, an impaired mind, a drunken mind. Then there’s drinking and driving. With all the talk of “designated drivers” these days, it almost sounds like there are some responsible nightlifers out here. But it’s all a sham. The beer companies just say that, to evade their responsibilities, from those who will get into car crashes, or kill people in hit-and-runs, caused by drunk drivers. Everyone wants to have their so-called “fun,” especially when they’re not making decisions based on the Bible, which says, “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime” (Rom. 13:13). If you killed someone by drunk driving…you will wake up from your drunk state, and realize that you’re standing before a judge in court, on trial, looking at several years in prison, or even the death penalty. And if soon executed for your crime, you will stand before God, the Judge of Heaven, and be cast into Hell: “Do not be deceived,” Scripture says, “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God…FORNICATORS, homosexuals, DRUNKARDS…will not inherit the kingdom of God!” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). “In the days of Noah they were eating and drinking…then the flood came and destroyed them all”…so it was with the days of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, until “it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all!” (Luke 17:26-29). “The cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, SEXUALLY IMMORAL, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in THE LAKE WHICH BURNS WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). Wesley preached, long ago:

Do you drink for the sake of company? Do you do it to make your friends happy? “For company” you say? Why is this!? Will you take a dose of rat poison for your friends’ company? If twenty men were to do that in front of you, wouldn’t you say, “Excuse me” and leave? How much more would you want to leave their company if they were all going to Hell!? You say, “To make my friends happy:” What kind of friends are these who are happy to see you destroying yourself?:–who entice you to do so? THESE ARE YOUR WORST ENEMIES, NOT YOUR FRIENDS! These are the kind of friends, who may smile in your face, and just as well stab you in the heart![3]

A Final Call to Fornicators and Drunkards

“Hell has enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure” (Isa. 5:14). God will say to His angels, “Cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 24:51). Jesus warned, “Fear Him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5). FEAR GOD, AND HIS HOLY JUDGMENTS! Change your lives! God loves you! Jesus wants to save you from Hell! But “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. 7:11). He considers this wicked–drunkenness, fornication, sex outside of a godly Christian marriage–it’s all wicked in His sight. It rouses Him to fierce anger; and every moment His wrath increases. Like a boiling hot cauldron, God’s anger is about to tip over, and pour on top of you, except you repent (Jer. 1:13), make a u-turn to Jesus, and abandon your sinful practices, and seek God’s forgiveness for these evil things, while there is still time. Soon you will die, and it will be too late to repent! Time is running out! “If we confess our sins,” God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Come before Him in faith and acknowledge your sins, pray, and confess your sins to Him; and hear His voice say, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). Abandon this! Run away from this! Live for God! Live for Christ! This way of life is not for you! You are meant to be a Christian! You are meant to glorify God with your life! Let us “keep our hearts pure and clean from all evil thoughts and carnal lusts.”[4] “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). This bar does not bring any glory to God; it is shameful and degrading, putrid, and nauseating! You are trillions of times more valuable than this! You are of great worth in the sight of God, a precious pearl to your Creator, a piece of fine gold, a brilliant red ruby that no one can price. So, turn away from this sinful, ungodly place! “Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). Wesley said:

Oh repent! See and feel what a wretch you are! Pray to God, to convince you of it within your soul. How often you have crucified the Son of God all over again, and put Him to an open shame! Pray that you may see yourself, inwardly and outwardly, all sin, all guilt, all helpless. Cry out: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Lamb of God, take away my sins! Give me Your peace. “Justify the ungodly.” Sprinkle me with Your blood, that I may “go, and sin no more,” that “I may love much, having had so much forgiven!”[5]

Repent from this cesspool! “Repent” means change your heart; change your mind; change your life; turn your life around for good; give your life to God; turn away from your drunken sex-outside-of-marriage ways, and turn to righteousness by faith in Christ; forsake evil and be holy! God will forgive your sins if you put your faith in Jesus. RUN AWAY FROM EVIL, and TURN TO RIGHTEOUSNESS; enter into the “new life” in Christ you’ve heard about (Rom. 6:4). When it comes, the Holy Spirit will enter your heart, and will “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). “The old things will pass away” (2 Cor. 5:17). You can be made a “new creature in Christ Jesus.” So, go home and repent from your sin. Read your Bible. Repent. Go to a good church. Repent. Become a Christian. Repent! Live your life in loving, humble obedience to God. Obey the words of Jesus, because it is He who will judge the world. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). “I meditate on Your law day and night” (Ps. 1:2).

You say, “You can’t judge me; only God can judge me.” Do you realize what you’re saying? If “only God can judge you,” which is true (Rom. 14:10), then you should be all the more serious to obey His commandments; because it will be by that law, that Jesus will “judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31); that law which requires love for God and man, repentance from all sin, and faith in the cross of Christ as the only sacrifice for sin before an angry God, that you may have FORGIVENESS FOR YOUR SINS (Eph. 1:7). “All who do not know God and obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8) will be cast into the “lake of fire and brimstone” (Rev. 20:10); on the “day of His wrath” (Rev. 6:17). So, turn to Christ before it’s too late! TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

Some say, “God is love, not judgment.” But that’s only half true. While God is love, God is also holy, perfect, just, and righteous, and He will judge the whole world through Jesus Christ, and execute His justice and power, against all His enemies with flaming fire, on the day He avenges the saints. So, the question is: Whose side are you on? The devil’s side or God’s side? The side of good or evil? Are you God’s friend or God’s enemy? “Choose this day whom you will serve!” (Josh. 24:15).

Shortly after the Fall of Adam, there were a few prophets such as Enoch or Noah, who had such close walks with God, that they were either taken up into Heaven (Gen. 5:24), or spared from the destruction of the world (Gen. 7:23):–on account of God’s revealing “secrets to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

Noah, a prophet, who was told 120 years beforehand that God would flood the world in judgment, was also commanded to build a large ark to house his family, and animals of all species, by which the world would be repopulated from the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 6-8). Noah was called “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5).

Abraham, a prophet, was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, a town in Babylonia. From a totally pagan background, he was called to serve the Lord, and would become the “father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5). He “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). There are interesting stories of dreams and visions from God that Abraham had in the Book of Genesis.

Jacob, the son of Isaac, experienced the well-known dream of “Jacob’s Ladder” where it is believed he saw into a heavenly portal, with angels and ascending and descending, with God at the top of the staircase! (Gen. 28:10-19). He prophesied several things to his twelve sons, of the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen. 49).

Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a dreamer and dream interpreter; for this, and for being godly, and held in favor by his father, he was persecuted by his brothers, sold into slavery, but being humbled “was exalted” to the vice regent of Egypt (Gen. 37-41).

Moses, the son of Amram, of whom Josephus says, had a dream that his son would deliver the Israelites from their 400 years of slavery in Egypt, for constructing the pyramids and other things, in totally miserable conditions (Antiquities Book 2, Chapter 9). Moses is clearly the greatest prophet in the history of the world, other than the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. God revealed Himself to Moses in such a great degree that he even “saw the form of the Lord” (Num. 12:8), and not only mysterious dreams and visions, as normal prophets have. By the revelation and power of God, Moses worked the most astounding nature miracles ever recorded. The ten plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the striking of the rock at Marah, etc. However, Moses had a self-centered anger problem, and for this, the Lord did not allow him to enter the Promised Land, after wandering in the desert for 40 years (Num. 20:12).

It would be amiss for me to exclude Joshua from the prophetic hall of fame. He walked in levels of revelation as well, being the right hand man of Moses; during a battle, by faith God empowered him to command the sun to stand still, and it did so for one day! (Josh. 10:13).

In the period of the Judges, there were several political-prophet leaders over Israel, of which one was Deborah, a female prophetess (Judges 4).

Samson, far from being a model prophet, was yet a man who experienced miraculous strength, and was sort of an Israelite “Hercules” figure. With the jawbone of a donkey, it is said, God empowered him in wartime, to slaughter thousands of the enemies of Israel (Judges 15:15). His weak point was Delilah, a pagan woman, who eventually betrayed him, by getting him to reveal the secret of his strength: his long hair of the Nazirite vow, which he had kept from his birth, by the command of an angel to his parents (Judges 16:19).

Samuel, who is considered the last of the judges, is the first we know to start a prophetic order in Israel, called “the Sons of the Prophets” (1 Sam. 10:5). Although very little is written of Samuel and his prophets, the rest of Scripture looks back to him as one of the shining prophetic figures in the history of Israel, along with Moses, Elijah, Elisha, etc. A. B. Davidson’s Old Testament Prophecy says that his prophets were “cenobites” or groups of monks who lived together, perhaps in something like dormitories, or monasteries. There were no solitary hermits among them that we know of. It is said that this provides a basis for the practice of monks and monasteries in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Samuel probably trained and disciplined his prophets to be strict followers of the Law of Moses, scribes of the Scriptures, preachers of righteousness, “revivalists” in Israel, examples of godliness, and holiness. But on the mystical side, no doubt, he taught them to value dreams, visions, and listening to the voice of the Lord in meditation, contemplation, and prayer. It is probable they regularly prayed for healing, and perhaps cast out demons. They knew of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, through ecstatic praise and worship, similar to that of Pentecostals and Charismatics. Samuel’s prophets, and not Samuel only, but others of his community (for example: Gad the seer, and Nathan the prophet), also served as spiritual advisors to the royal court. Gad was even called “David’s seer” (1 Chron. 21:9); and we know that Samuel anointed both King Saul and King David as the divinely appointed rulers over Israel.

Elijah, in the prophetic hall of fame, came to be regarded as second in rank to Moses, because of the level of righteousness and miraculous power he attained in his life. This is evident in the transfiguration of Christ, when Moses and Elijah appeared to Him on the mount, typifying the Law and the Prophets, putting their stamp of approval on Christ. Elijah had either taken charge of “the Sons of the Prophets” group that Samuel had started hundreds of years earlier, or had started a new group by that same name. But here we see the same monk-like cenobite principle. Before Elijah is taken up into Heaven at the end of his life by a chariot of fire, he goes on a circuit, with Elisha his right hand man, and visits all of the prophetic communities scattered throughout the land of Israel. Elijah’s greatest claim to fame is in 1 Kings 18, when he confronted the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and in a great act of faith and obedience to God, prays that God would send down fire from Heaven to burn up his sacrifice in front of all the pagan Israelites, that they would be converted. After the people convert, a three year drought was quenched by the intercession of Elijah, which, three years earlier, he had been told by God to warn King Ahab that his paganism was cursing the country, and only at the word of Elijah would the drought be stopped.

Elisha, the prophet who was second in succession to Elijah, became the leader of “the Sons of the Prophets” after the departure of his mentor. Before Elijah was taken in up the whirlwind and fiery chariot—truly an astounding sight—his spiritual son asked him if he could be imparted a “double portion of his spirit” (2 Kings 2:9). Elijah told him, “If you see me taken up, then will have what you ask.” He saw it happen; and after this, he took Elijah’s mantle, which might have been a prayer shawl, and whipped it on the river, which then split in half (like the Red Sea did with Moses), and this miracle being witnessed by a group of prophets, said, “The spirit of Elijah is upon Elisha!” Elisha performed many miracles, which are recorded in the Bible. He rose the dead, healed a man with leprosy, multiplied food, made an axe head float in water, cursed a gang in the name of Lord which made two bears instantly come out of the woods to attack them, saw an army of angels, gave words of knowledge to the captain of Israel, and many other supernatural exploits. It’s clear that many of the miracles performed by Jesus, were foreshadowed by Elisha; the greatest of which, is the power of resurrection.

In the eighth century B.C., there were many writing prophets who either directly wrote down their dreams and visions, or interpreted and put them to poetry, perhaps a “dream poem” style. Much of this content had to do with how Israel was being unfaithful to the Lord’s covenant that Moses had made with them, and that God was calling them to repentance, and He would threaten various judgments upon the people if they remained unrepentant. A judgment that would often be mentioned would be the rise of the Assyrians or Babylonians to come and raid them, or destroy them, and carry them away to slavery in a faraway land. There would also be prophecies and “judgment poems” against the other pagan nations of the near East, for all of their sins. To this category of prophets would be the “major prophets”: Isaiah, Jeremiah (of whom we have the most biographical information among the prophets), Ezekiel, and Daniel; and the “minor prophets”: Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Hezekiah, Malachi, etc. In later Christian revelation and theology, the prophecy of Isaiah 53 would play a major role in understanding the cross of Christ as penal substitutionary atonement, Jeremiah 31:33 would be looked on as a prophecy of the New Testament that Christ established, and Daniel’s prophetic dream of the “Son of Man” was a figure that Jesus Himself frequently identified with (Dan. 7:13-14).

John the Baptist, a prophet who preached by the Jordan River, it is said after 400 years without prophetic light, appeared with a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). It is debatable about there being no prophets in Israel for 400 years. Actually, that was known as the Intertestamental Period, in which many apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books were written, which included visionary books. (1 Enoch is one of these books that even the apostles Peter and Jude quoted in their letters; and which the church father Tertullian held to be Scripture.) But with regard to what can regarded as the “canon of Scripture,” John the Baptist appears as the first prophet in the New Testament, and a bridge between the Old and the New, the “forerunner” of Christ. Malachi prophesied that “Elijah would come before the great terrible day of the Lord” (4:5). Christ said that John was this Elijah (Matt. 11:14); the angel that appeared to his father Zechariah, said that John would have “the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17):–that is, his ministry would be similar, although “John did no miracle” (John 10:41); he preached repentance to the apostate leaders of Israel (as Elijah did), he led a prophetic movement (as Elijah did), he wore a camel hair shirt to mortify his flesh (as Elijah did), etc. Jesus said, “Of all men born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11).

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to launch His ministry under the endorsement of John the Baptist. One day, while John was baptizing people, Jesus came to be baptized too. When John was reluctant to do this, Christ said, “It must be done to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). That is, far be it from Christ to need repentance from sin, He came to be publicly baptized by John to receive his anointing, his approval, his imprimatur, and for John to point his people to Christ. So, John said, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). The Gospel message that God was revealing in those days would find its completion in Christ. John preached water baptism, repentance, and forgiveness of sins; Jesus would make the soteriology of the Gospel complete after His death and resurrection were complete: turning away from sin (repentance), faith in the cross (penal substitutionary atonement), forgiveness of sins (justification), being born again to a new Christian life of righteousness (regeneration), and continuing to grow in faith and loving obedience to God’s commandments (sanctification). John could point to Christ as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), but only after His death on the cross was accomplished, could Christ say, “It is finished” (John 19:30):–that is, the atonement for the sins of all mankind. It is hard for Christians to think of Jesus as a prophet, because we worship Him as God, the Second Person of the Trinity:–but it is also true that in His very humanity, He was “the Prophet” spoken of by Moses centuries before (Deut. 18:18). This means Jesus “saw the form of the Lord” like Moses did, because Moses said “the Prophet” would be like him; but also, we may assume our Lord had many divine dreams and visions and voices from the Holy Spirit and angels, during His lifetime. He said once, “I only do what I see My Father doing” (John 5:19):–some understand this to mean, what Christ saw His Father doing in visions. Many of the parables of Jesus, which many did not understand, because they were spiritual lessons, could have come from symbolic dreams and their interpretation.

The apostles of Christ could be put into the category of “prophets,” although such language is sparse in the New Testament. However, Christ said to the Pharisees, “I am sending you prophets and teachers, many of whom you will reject and kill” (Matt. 23:34). By this He meant the apostles and disciples. Peter, James, and John saw the transfiguration of Christ, perhaps one of the most profound prophetic revelations in the history of the world, since Moses! They saw Moses and Elijah; they heard the audible voice of God; the glory of the Lord surrounded them; they fell into trances of the Spirit! (Matt. 17:1-9). Their religion was not made up, it was the result of their spiritual experiences and encounters with God:–prophetic encounters. Peter, in Acts 2:17 quotes the prophecy of Joel which attributes visions, dreams, and prophecy to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church at Pentecost; in Acts 10, after a time of fasting and prayer, he “fell into a trance” and saw a vision that led him to preach the Gospel to Gentiles. Paul was slain in the Spirit, knocked off his high horse supernaturally by the risen Christ, and appointed “the apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13). In 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, Paul indicates he was taken up to Heaven in an out-of-body experience; he was so experienced with the gift of prophecy, that he was able to give directives to the church of Corinth, “concerning spiritual gifts” in 1 Corinthians 12-14. John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10), and saw a vision of the glorified Christ, while he was in prayer. All the visions of the Book of Revelation were given to him; and he gave directives for spiritual discernment in 1 John 4. Philip the Evangelist was a prophet who also had four daughters who were prophetesses (Acts 21:9); he moved in power evangelism with healings, slayings in the Spirit, signs, and wonders; and was even transported by the Spirit from one town to another! (Acts 8).

The apostolic fathers, in the 2^nd century A.D., were the next generation of church leaders after the apostles. Many Christians in these times were martyred for their faith; they were very hard times. But the persecutions enabled stronger faith to develop, and countless are the stories of miracles, healings, and references to visions during these times.

St. Antony of Egypt, in the third to fourth centuries, led a community of ascetics and mystics in the northern deserts of Egypt, called the Desert Fathers. Although for much of his life he was a hermit, a solitary saint, who meditated and prayed and encountered demons and gained victory over them. Many flocked to Antony over the years seeking spiritual guidance or healing. There was a short period of time in his older years where he went into Alexandria, Egypt and did some open air preaching, working miracles, and debated with philosophers and Neoplatonists. Athanasius’ The Life of Antony is a veritable manual on supernatural spiritual warfare with demons.

St. Patrick of Ireland, in the 5^th century, was the first of a series of Celtic or Scotch-Irish saints who were on the same spiritual par with the Desert Fathers. They looked to the stories of St. Antony and his cohorts for spiritual guidance. The Celtic saints saw themselves as missionaries sent by God to bring the Gospel to the pagans of Ireland and Scotland. The religion of those times was that of the Druids, and they had wizard priests and witch priestesses, demonized with occult power, leading their religion for centuries. St. Patrick came in, as a Moses of Ireland, confronting the wizardry with the power of God, much like Moses did when he confronted Pharaoh’s magicians. On one occasion, Patrick successfully prayed for particularly hostile wizard to be flung up into the air, and for his head to be dashed on a large rock!

St. Benedict of Nursia, who lived at the same time as St. Patrick, was over in Italy forming the Benedictine Order. If you read Gregory the Great’s Life of St. Benedict, it becomes obvious that his life paralleled that of Elisha’s very closely. For centuries throughout the Dark Ages, the Benedictines came to define monasticism, Catholic mysticism, and sainthood.

St. Francis of Assisi, an Italian saint of the twelfth century, formed the Franciscan Order. They embraced “evangelical poverty,” practiced open air preaching, contemplative prayer, and other spiritual practices. St. Francis, it may be argued, was the mightiest of all the Catholic saints; it is generally thought that he is the model saint, the one who imitated Christ the most. Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis is filled with visions, dreams, out-of-body experiences, and other prophetic experiences. His climactic experience happened near the end of his life, while he was in prayer on a mountain; during this retreat it is said he received the “stigmata”:–the supernaturally inflicted wounds of Christ in his body by a seraph angel! By this, he was made as completely Christlike as a man could be made in this life.

Hildegard of Bingen, a 13^th century German leader of a Benedictine nunnery, was a profound visionary, healer, and exorcist. But because of this, she understood the continual sickness she had to be the devil’s attack, and God’s “thorn in the flesh” to check her pride, on account of all the revelations she had, and eventually recorded in her book of visions called Scivias. Gottfried and Theoderic’s The Life of the Holy Hildegard is definitely exciting and insightful spiritual reading!

St. Vincent Ferrer was a 15^th century Dominican power evangelist in Spain.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, during 16^th century Spain, founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), who started off as a mystical group who followed The Spiritual Exercises, and sought to encounter Christ through meditation. Later on, the order would be known for its mystical theologians (G. B. Scaramelli, Augustin Poulain, Albert Farges, etc), and its loyalty the pope.

St. Teresa of Avila, during 16^th century Spain, along with St. John of the Cross, revived strict mystical piety through a monastic movement of Discalced Carmelites. She not only practiced contemplative prayer, saw visions, fell into trances, heard voices, and the like:–but wrote very much about her experiences, and guided her nuns to experience the same things. St. Teresa’s Interior Castle and St. John’s The Ascent of Mount Carmel are priceless books, on the prophetic experiences available to all Christians, yearning for a life of prayer and spiritual gifts! These and other of their works, would have a heavy impact on later Catholic mystical theology; and in a sense, would become the standard by which all Catholic theologians would judge spiritual experiences found among the saints.

Martin Luther, during 16^th century Germany, received the revelation of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, as he was reading the Book of Romans. This caused him to break with the Catholic Church, start the Protestant Reformation, and found the Lutheran Church. Not much is known about the role of the supernatural in Luther’s life. For this interesting information, see Thomas Boys’ The Suppressed Evidence; and for other valuable evidence of the supernatural among Protestant reformers, see Jeff Doles’ Miracles and Manifestations.

John Wesley, the 18^th century evangelist, open air street preacher, Arminian theologian, revivalist, and founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church (the Methodists)—is arguably the most prophetically accurate reformer to appear since Luther. (I understand this is a personal bias, because his theology and experience generally lines up with how my personal Christian life has been lived out.) Nevertheless, it is a historical fact, that his theology had a great influence on: (1) the Great Awakening through George Whitefield, (2) the Second Great Awakening through Charles Finney, (3) the Holiness Movement through Phoebe Palmer, and (4) the Pentecostal Movement through William J. Seymour. Wesley was preoccupied with itinerant evangelism and soteriology, so he was very intellectual and theological. But he was also an experiential Christian, and held some level of respect for “Enthusiasm”: or direct inspiration from God through visions, dreams, miracles, etc:–all of which he experienced, and are documented carefully in Daniel Jennings’ The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley. But Wesley was critical of the 1700s Quakers, in his day. He believed they had strayed from Anglican and Puritan orthodoxy, and exalted personal spiritual experiences over the authority of the Bible, rather than allowing it to be the standard by which spiritual experiences should be tested. Wesley’s soteriology is very sophisticated; over the course of his lifetime he developed an “order of salvation” for preaching the Gospel:–repentance, faith, justification, and regeneration (see Kenneth J. Collins’ Wesley on Salvation). In rare cases, he even believed that very mature Christians could experience “entire sanctification” or “Christian perfection,” in which the Holy Spirit is supposed to extinguish all inbred or original sin in the Christian. (I however, side with Luther, the Puritans, and Reformed theologians in that sanctification is only a growing process of love and righteousness, a continual fight with temptations, and that there is no perfection of holiness in this life; on just about every other soteriology issue, though, I agree with Wesley: of which another distinctive was, and which he agreed with Luther on, was that it is possible for a truly saved Christian to lose his salvation (apostasy): if he chooses to give into temptation, and live his life in persistent unbelief and rebellion, against the moral law and the Gospel. In this way, my view of salvation is similar, or even identical, to Assemblies of God, the Free Will Baptist Church, and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.) To me, it is clear that Wesley and his circuit rider Methodist evangelists, had done a lot to restore apostolic 1^st century evangelism: to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel” and “with signs following”! (Mark 16:15, 20).

Charles Finney, the 19^th century upstate New York evangelist and revivalist, and leading preacher in the Second Great Awakening, proposed innovations or “New Measures” necessary for promoting revival meetings in the churches. After years of experience doing this, preaching the Gospel, with signs, and outpourings of Holy Spirit conviction following, he wrote down his ideas in Lectures on Revivals of Religion, which, when paired with Wesley’s Sermons on Several Occasions, became the theological and practical foundation of “modern revivalism”: 19^th and 20^th century revivalism ideas for revival meetings, street meetings, camp meetings, and evangelistic meetings which were practiced by holiness, Pentecostal, and fundamentalist churches. One of the distinguishing teachings of Finney was that of the “protracted meetings” concept. He taught, that if pastors wanted their congregations to experience true conversion and revival, then they would have to organize a series of revival meetings, lasting anywhere between one to two weeks or more (depending on the effectiveness of the sermons of the revivalist or evangelist). He also solidified the concept of a “revivalist”:–who, in his gift and calling, is technically an itinerant evangelist, but as a revivalist, his focus is on the conversion of hypocrites or false converts in the churches (not lost people in the world, as in the open air setting). He is to preach the moral law thoroughly (especially on those sins where the unsaved church members are most likely entrenched in), Heaven and Hell, repentance from sin, faith in the cross, justification (forgiveness of sins), and holy living (obedience to the moral law of God in Scripture and conscience). Finney was open to the supernatural, and Daniel Jennings’ The Supernatural Occurrences of Charles G. Finney catalog his spiritual experiences, and demonstrate that he was prophetic, and like Wesley, a forerunner to William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival (Pentecostalism). However, BE WARNED that Finney accepted Wesley’s “Christian perfection” idea; and even rejected original sin (which makes him a Pelagian with regard to human nature). However, Finney can be tricky about grace and free will; sometimes he definitely makes appeals to the “influence of the Holy Spirit” in man’s salvation and sanctification, which is basically a Wesleyan synergism doctrine.

Faith Cure or the Divine Healing Movement, also in the 19^th century, was an interdenominational Charismatic movement that was shared between holiness Methodists, Baptists, and Reformed alike. A. J. Gordon, the Baptist minister, published The Ministry of Healing, in which he argued from Scripture, reason, church history (Waldensians, Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Irvingites, etc), and experience, that prayers of faith for the sick through the laying on of hands, according to James 5:14-15, can expected to have miraculous answers from God:–IN MODERN TIMES! It was the first serious attack on Cessationist theology from an Evangelical viewpoint. There had been other “Charismatic books” published prior to it, but this one gained such notoriety in the Evangelical community, that Cessationist B. B. Warfield felt it necessary attack in his Counterfeit Miracles. Others predated Gordon or ran alongside him in the teaching on divine healing, such as Carrie Judd Montgomery, Dr. Charles Cullis, Dorothea Trudel (who is considered the founder of the movement), Maria Woodworth-Etter, A. B. Simpson (author of The Gospel of Healing and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance), and Andrew Murray (Divine Healing, etc). Pentecostals, and especially John G. Lake (see Roberts Liardon’s collection of his works), would advance the doctrine and practice of divine healing into the 20^th century.

Evan Roberts, the young revivalist of the Welsh Revival (1904), was a Calvinistic Methodist who while at college, became obsessed with praying to be filled with the Spirit. Throughout the 1800s, there had been much talk about “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” as a second work of grace for entire sanctification, and spiritual power. After a few years of persistently praying for the baptism in the Holy Spirit (as a baptism of holiness—not as speaking in tongues), he received the answer to his prayers. For a series of nights, while he was sleeping in bed, he would suddenly be awakened in the middle of the night:–and the Lord Jesus would be standing at the foot of his bed! And the Holy Spirit would be hovering over him in waves; and many times, these waves of the Spirit were so overwhelming, that Roberts prayed for God to stop giving him so much of the Spirit, for fear he would die. The time came when he started to receive visions that directed him to churches for preaching. And eventually at one church in particular which became the center of a revival in Wales, called the Welsh Revival. The meetings at this church were prayer meetings, with times of singing, and preaching. Roberts, however, would be so filled with the Spirit, that there were many times, he would get into the pulpit and not preach at all. All he would do is pray or say a few words, and weeping and praying and confession of sins would sweep over the entire congregation for hours! There were also times when Roberts read hearts by receiving words of knowledge; the press writing of him as a “mind-reader.” These meetings that Roberts held in that church were so populated and frequent that the entire county of Wales was morally transformed; one significant sign was that bars closed down, and that donkeys didn’t understand their masters because they didn’t cuss anymore. The Welsh revival was one of prayer, the presence of God, holiness, and prophetic revelations.

William J. Seymour, pastor of the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission in Los Angeles, CA, which housed the Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909), and founder of true Pentecostalism; he was the son of slaves in Louisiana, but after the “Emancipation Proclamation,” he moved to Indianapolis, IN to find work as a waiter in some posh hotels. During this time he attended an A.M.E. Church and a Church of God (Anderson, IN), then called the “Evening Light Saints”:–where he was exposed to holiness preaching and learned Wesleyan theology. Shortly after that, he attended “God’s Bible School” in Cincinnati, Ohio, and sat at the feet of holiness preacher Martin Wells Knapp, who wrote several books Seymour was probably exposed to, one of which was called Impressions, and dealt with spiritual discernment, and direct revelations through visions and dreams and voices and signs. After spending a short time there, he accepted preaching opportunities in various black holiness churches. Eventually, he became an assistant pastor to the elder Mrs. Lucy Farrow in Texas. While living there, Seymour had learned of a new Bible teacher traveling around the county, giving temporary Bible schools on “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” and “speaking in tongues”—the man was Charles Parham. The godliness of Parham was questionable in several areas, but the idea of tongues that Parham was pursuing interested Seymour and Farrow. Seymour learned from Parham’s “Apostolic Faith Movement” that Acts 2:4 and many other places in the book of Acts, show that speaking in tongues is the Biblical evidence, or sign, of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Seymour accepted Parham’s teaching that there are three works of the Holy Spirit: (1) Regeneration/Salvation, (2) Sanctification/Christian Perfection, and (3) The Baptism in the Holy Spirit/Speaking in Tongues. To accept such a teaching was to break with the Wesleyan theological tradition, and the Holiness Movement, to which Seymour and Farrow were accustomed. But both of them pressed through in prayer, for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and eventually received it, with the Bible evidence of speaking in tongues. Eventually, Seymour would be called out to pastor a black holiness mission in Los Angeles, but when he taught from Acts 2:4, he was kicked out of the mission. However, some of the people from that mission came with him to form a new Pentecostal mission: the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission on Azusa Street, which would be the center of the international Pentecostal Movement from 1906-1909. Tongues were so strange, as were the physical manifestations of rolling, jumping, shouting, flailing, and dancing of the Pentecostal worshipers:–that these received most attention from The Los Angeles Daily Times, and were mocked in the most obscene and blasphemous ways: “Weird Babel of Tongues” was the first article they ran on the Azusa Street Revival. But tongues and physical manifestations were not all that could been seen at Azusa. There were dreams, visions, the voice of God, angels, demons cast out of Spiritualists, prayer for divine healing, miracles, street meetings, open air preaching on the street corners and at the railway stations. Frank Bartleman’s Azusa Street is the classic text on the revival, written by a firsthand participant, preacher, and observer.

Smith Wigglesworth, a Pentecostal evangelist from England who is a legend even to this day. He is most known for being a healer, even raising people from the dead, and having mastered the experience of spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. He is usually looked at as the model Pentecostal: what is possible for a Christian when he experiences the spiritual gifts. Stanley Frodsham’s Ever Increasing Faith is the classic collection of Wigglesworth’s teachings on various subjects ranging from righteousness, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discerning of spirits, gifts of healings, tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc. If there could be anything, however, that Wigglesworth was not a good example in:–it was that he was sometimes rough with the laying on of hands, and would thrust his hand at people, and even “punch” the devil out of them when praying for their deliverance! Truly, that should not be imitated. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Cor. 10:4). However, much can be learned by reading his biography: Jack Hywel-Davies’ The Life of Smith Wigglesworth.

The Healing Revival (late 1940s-early 1950s), was a post-World War II movement of Pentecostal tent evangelists, traveling around America, praying for the sick, casting out demons, and giving words of knowledge. It was televised—obviously for its entertainment value. William Branham, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, and A. A. Allen were the most popular among them, but there were many other “healing evangelists” whose “healing crusades” were carefully organized, and followed by Gordon Lindsay’s Voice of Healing magazine, and his Christ for the Nations ministry. The influence of John G. Lake and Smith Wigglesworth on this revival are worthy of note. But, the MORALITY of these men, such as Coe, Allen, and Roberts proved to be rather poor. Branham, on the other hand, seemed to have more integrity than the rest, but towards the end of his life, “went off the deep end” and claimed to be the prophet Elijah! Assemblies of God and Church of God (Cleveland, TN), once ardent supporters of the revival, eventually withdrew their support, and spoke against it, because of the emergence of “positive confession” and “prosperity gospel” teachings. Such teachings began to appear with Roberts and Demos Shakarian’s Full Gospel Business Man’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI) in 1951. These teachings were seen as not only heretical, but Roberts’ “seed-faith” teaching was seen as a ploy to rob congregations of their money, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” are prone to do (Matt. 7:15). In the 1980s, Kenneth Hagin, who played a small part in the revival, would popularize the Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel/Positive Confession teaching throughout Pentecostalism even more so. To me:–that makes these men FALSE PROPHETS! Although one must wonder about Branham, who had such a ministry in words of knowledge (and seems to not have jumped on the “prosperity” bandwagon):–could he just have been misunderstood? Could it have been that he claimed the “spirit and power of Elijah” had come upon him in the same manner as it did upon Elisha or John the Baptist? If that is the way we can understand Branham’s “Elijah” statements, as hyperboles, then it would seem to vindicate his ministry.

Dennis Bennett, the Episcopal priest, who in 1960, began the Charismatic Movement in Van Nuys, CA. At nine in the morning in his study room, Bennett was suddenly baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues! As far as I know, he had no connection to Pentecostals! What was alternately called the “Charismatic Renewal,” was a movement of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10:–only this time it was in the mainline liberal churches (e.g., Episcopal, United Methodist, ELCA, etc) as well as conservative Evangelical churches (e.g., Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Church of the Nazarene, etc):–and even spilled into the Catholic Church! Books that were popular during the Charismatic Movement usually encouraged people to pray for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, to speak in tongues, or to use the spiritual gifts properly:–Dennis Bennett’s The Holy Spirit and You, John and Elizabeth Sherrill’s They Speak with Other Tongues, Larry Christensen’s Answering Your Questions about Speaking in Tongues, Don Basham’s A Handbook on Holy Spirit Baptism, etc. See the bibliography in the back of Robert Culpepper’s Evaluating the Charismatic Movement.

There was some difference of opinion over the meaning of the phrase “baptism in the Holy Spirit”—as there always has been, since the phrase started to reappear in the 1800s, during the Holiness Movement. Less people in the Charismatic Movement were willing to accept Seymour’s “three works of grace” teaching from Acts 2:4. Many did not see why it was necessary to believe speaking in tongues is the only necessary evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They reasoned, “Why can’t the fruit of the Spirit, or godliness, or love, or humility, be enough evidence of the baptism?” “Why can’t words of knowledge or healing be evidence—after all, the Bible asks, ‘Do all speak in tongues?’” “Didn’t we receive the Holy Spirit when we first got saved? Why then would we need the Holy Spirit a second time?” “And why would speaking in tongues have to be proof of the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life?” Others thought that speaking in tongues was just “too weird” for them, but they were open to feeling God’s presence in worship, or experiencing the spiritual gifts, like words of knowledge or healing. (Personally, I side with Seymour’s “three works” teaching on Acts 2:4, because I see regeneration as the indwelling of the Spirit in salvation, but the baptism in the Holy Spirit as an external experience of being “clothed with power from on high.” But those who disagree with Seymour’s view see the phrases “regeneration” and “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” as meaning the same thing in the Bible.)

Pros and Cons of the Charismatic Movement

THE PROS: (1) It exposed Christians to supernatural experiences of the Holy Spirit, who otherwise may never had the opportunity, due to their church’s traditions and doctrines. (2) It created a lot of literature on spiritual gifts, which now provide us with a very solid basis for Pentecostal/Charismatic theology; this was because many of the church leaders in the Charismatic Movement were highly educated seminary graduates, unlike those involved in the first Pentecostal Movement. (3) Because the outpouring of the Spirit was upon much of the sophisticated church crowd, they were more willing to be reserved, and follow Paul’s directives for “decency and order” in 1 Corinthians 14:40.

THE CONS: (1-2) The outpouring of the Spirit upon liberal Christian universalists, and on carnal church goers:–created the problem of a Gnostic New Age “Charismatic” Christianity on the one hand, and carnal Charismatics on the other, so that the Corinthian problem was renewed.

John Wimber, a musician formerly from the band called The Righteous Brothers, was converted to the faith in the 70s, and rose to a position of leadership in an Evangelical Friends church (Quaker); and then eventually in the Vineyard Movement, which was started by Kenn Gulliksen, in various home-based Bible study groups. Wimber had some connection with Calvary Chapel as well, but shortly crossed over to the Vineyard, because they were more open to the experiential aspects of Charismatic Christianity, and he had developed a strong interest in the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, desiring to see them appear in his congregation. In the 80s, he had the opportunity to teach an unusual class at Fuller Theological Seminary called “Signs, Wonders, and Church Growth”:–which caused a big stir, a Charismatic revival if you will, in both the Evangelical and Charismatic communities. This became Wimber’s launch into the spotlight of leadership in the Vineyard, which became the Association of Vineyard Churches, and the primary vehicle of the Third Wave Movement or the “Signs and Wonders” Movement. C. Peter Wagner, a professor at Fuller, maintained that the Pentecostal Movement, the Charismatic Movement, and the Third Wave Movement were “three waves” of the Holy Spirit’s work in the 20th century, and are all part of the same ongoing work. Theological aspects of the Vineyard, and of other independent Charismatic churches, that were influenced by Wimber are: (1) Evangelical/Charismatic Theology; unlike in the Charismatic Movement, which spread to all denominations, even liberals. The Third Wave was Biblically grounded, Evangelically minded, but Charismatically driven. In my opinion, this provided a healthy basis for a balanced approach to Charismatic Christian living, based on the Bible and experience of the Holy Spirit, so Biblical spiritual discernment can test and judge spiritual experiences. In this way, it was like Azusa Street Pentecostalism, grounded in Scripture. However, the difference between them, is that Azusa Street was more Wesleyan-Arminian, and the Third Wave is more Reformed-Calvinistic (as can be seen in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology). Also, the Third Wave doesn’t insist on Seymour’s “three works” teaching on Acts 2:4, either. (2) Charismatic worship: raising hands, closing eyes, concentration on Christ, feeling God’s presence, speaking in tongues, dancing, shouting, and singing contemporary worship music, usually to a guitar and a “rock band” worship team. (3) Divine healing: although Wimber was aware of the various traditions of Christian healing, from Faith Cure/Divine Healing (1800s), the Healing Revival (1950s), Catholic Charismatic healing (1970s), etc. He synthesized and experimented with praying for the sick by the laying on of hands, and came up with the phrase Power Healing, which he believed was necessary for Power Evangelism, or preaching the Word “with signs following”:–these were the titles of Wimber’s two most popular books. (4) Words of knowledge through God’s voice and mental images (visions). Wimber did not go too far in this direction, however; his forte was in divine healing. The issue of prophecies and revelations would be passed on to Mike Bickle.

Mike Bickle, now the pastor of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOP-KC), around 1983, was visited by a man named Bob Jones. Jones was an unusual character, difficult to understand at times, because of his often mysterious and symbolic expressions. Eventually he told Bickle, “Before the first rain of Spring, you will acknowledge that I am a prophet.” This was the beginning of the Prophetic Movement, which would eventually spread into the Vineyard churches, and come under John Wimber’s oversight. The primary characteristic of the prophetic movement were words of knowledge demonstrated as a supernatural reality to Bickle, who had come from a Cessationist Presbyterian church background. Bob Jones and another man–a former healing evangelist named Paul Cain–from the Healing Revival, were the two most popularized and gifted in the words of knowledge during the 80s. Both Jones and Cain had been influenced at one point in their lives by the word of knowledge gifting operating in William Branham, during the Healing Revival; in a way, and even to this day, some in the Prophetic Movement see themselves as carrying on Branham’s prophetic anointing to the next generation. The reality came home clearly to Bickle and others in his connection that words of knowledge are frequently received by means of visions (open or closed eyes), dreams, and internal voices. Very rarely is there an audible voice of God or a trance. And seldom can intuitive “impressions” be trusted. There are such things as “signs” that confirm by a meaningful coincidence, or even a series of such events, that firmly establish a spiritual experience like a prophetic dream, to in fact be a divine revelation received and believed and obeyed in faith, provided it lines up with Scripture; for extra careful Biblical exegesis on prophecy and personal application, Wayne Grudem’s The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today was used often by Vineyard pastors. Eventually Jones and Cain fell into sexual sin, and were disciplined, by Wimber and Bickle; Cain, however, had a hard time accepting the discipline, because he claimed the accusations were totally wrong, and that he was not gay, just celibate (homosexuality was the sin he was disciplined for). Cain left the church and rarely showed his face again. Wimber, in order not to bring shame on the Vineyard, decided to disband Bickle’s church, and stop involving himself in the Prophetic Movement. Instead, Wimber returned to his original emphasis of divine healing. On the other hand, Mike Bickle’s Growing in the Prophetic (1996) was written to help seers, prophets, dreamers, and visionaries in the Charismatic churches to hone in on their gift, or to pray for the gift, or have sharper spiritual discernment, avoid pitfalls, and misinterpretations of revelations, and how to implement words of knowledge into a church service, all the while maintaining “decency and order.” It wasn’t the first book of its kind, but was certainly at the top of the list in priority, because Bickle himself wrote it, based on his personal experiences of pastoring and prophetic ministry.

John Arnott, pastor of Toronto Airport Vineyard Church, in 1994, invited minister Randy Clark to speak, who had attended a revival meeting by Rodney Howard-Browne. Clark, after speaking, prayed for the people to be filled with the Spirit, and many were slain in the Spirit at the same time! This came to be called the “Toronto Blessing,” and like the Azusa Street Revival, it had people traveling from all over the world to experience the power of God. There were physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence like shaking, shouting, rolling, quaking, “drunkenness,” crying, and yes—hysterical “holy laughter.” All these things were justified by Dr. Guy Chevreau’s Catch the Fire, which makes the case that these manifestations appeared under the ministries of Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield, during the Great Awakening, and Methodist Revival in the 18^th century. There were also strange ecstatic “animal sounds” which caused much controversy, and stirred suspicion that the revival was demonic; such animal sounds were imitated by Spiritualists who had tried to cause trouble at Azusa Street. Arnott, however, interpreted them in his church, as prophetic and symbolic—from the Holy Spirit. (Personally, I think ecstatic animal sounds have more of an occult root than anything else: in my assessment, instead of being called the “Toronto Blessing,” it should have been called the “Mixed Blessing”; but John Arnott’s The Father’s Blessing defends all of the revival’s experiences.)

Kris Vallotton, in the early 2000s, was appointed to be the director of the “School of Supernatural Ministry” at Bethel Church in Redding, CA. This church was founded by Pastor Bill Johnson, and was originally an Assemblies of God church. In 1995, Johnson had attended the Toronto Blessing revival meetings, in search for the experience of God’s power. Johnson experienced nothing during the meetings, but he was impressed enough by what he saw to devote the rest of his life to cultivating the supernatural in the church and the body of Christ at large. Bethel Church started off with a strong emphasis on divine healing after Johnson’s new vision for supernatural ministry; and then, eventually words of knowledge and prophetic ministry, became a focus. This is when Johnson brought Kris Vallotton, who wrote Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry, to Bethel’s Bible school of “Supernatural Ministry” to train and equip ministers to receive words of knowledge and prophesy them to people on the streets for witnessing, or in church services for divine healing purposes!

Pros and Cons of the “Signs and Wonders” Movement

In my view, there are plusses and minuses, positives and negatives, pros and cons of the present-day “Signs and Wonders” Movement (aka. Third Wave/Neocharismatic), which began in the 80s, through John Wimber and the Vineyard churches.

THE PROS: (1) Books on prophecy have been produced by Biblical exegetes to show Christians just exactly, and specifically how the Holy Spirit directly speaks to man: by visions, dreams, and the still small voice, and this is developed through various forms of prayer and contemplation. (2) Books on healing have been produced for our generation which point us to sound, practical, useable principles, that can be implemented to pray for the sick by laying on of hands, and expect miracles, and increase our faith in the God of the All-Possible. (3) The reality of God, angels, and demons are things that cannot be replaced by book learning and sermons. They have to be EXPERIENCED; and because the faith of the people in this movement is so high in the supernatural, their spiritual experiences and prophetic revelations are abundant; and this is something like the Book of Acts, which is wonderful. We need all the Charismatic experiences, spiritual gifts, and miracles we can get in this atheistic and secular age, that tends to think of everything in the world by means of a “natural” scientific explanation (naturalism). To experience God and the spirit world, as this movement allows, is to truly open the way up to genuine, authentic, EXPERIENTIAL FAITH in the truth of Scripture!

THE CONS: (1) Carnality, or moral laxity, has been present since the Charismatic Movement began in 1960. “Charismatics” have been known for their loose morals, compared to the “legalistic” Wesleyan Pentecostal “holy rollers” at Azusa Street. This “carnal Charismatic” mentality passed over into the Vineyard, the Third Wave, and the “Signs and Wonders” Movement as well. Examples of Carnality among Charismatics: Having Bible studies in a pub, pints of beer at Vineyard church leaders meetings, speaking in tongues in church, smoking in the church parking lot, women dressing “sexy” at church and elsewhere, or going public swimming, and wearing bikinis, showing off skin, or wearing tight clothing during church services; cussing is something I once witnessed a Charismatic youth pastor, not only do, but philosophically defend; watching ungodly movies, TV shows, and listening to music with ungodly lyrics, fornication, adultery, and homosexuality among church leaders, covetousness based on the Prosperity Gospel, stealing from church treasuries among high-level church leaders, false prophecy, false healings, false slain in the Spirit (courtesy falls), etc. There’s less of a willingness to practice self-denial, or have a prayer life and fast; and almost a self-gratifying, selfish, entertainment-worshiping Americanism that hasn’t been shaken off; and a lot of this, I think is due to “cheap grace” theology—dead faith without works. And it just so happens these carnal Christians, which according to strict soteriology, means they’re not in the way of salvation, still yet received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and so, they fall prey to speaking in tongues with pride, and making others feel inferior they too don’t speak in tongues or experience visions and dreams and miracles, rather than encouraging them to pray for them. “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and work miracles?…and He will say, ‘Depart from Me you who practice lawlessness, I never knew you!” (Matt. 7:22-23). (2) Selling Charismatic books and tapes for high prices seems to have been going on since the first “Charismatic conferences” in the 60s. It is a Charismatic spin-off of the New Age seminar format; sometimes these conferences, even today, can cost hundreds of dollars to attend for a two-day weekend retreat; and that’s not including the hundreds of dollars of books and tapes that might be purchased. This is the sin of SIMONY, trying to buy the power of the Holy Spirit for a price like Simon the Sorcerer did; pagan, pagan, pagan! New Age seminar influence. (3) New Age theology influence (sometimes) is a problem with some Charismatic or modern “Signs and Wonders” teachers. Some of this is an accident, because some of these teachers who receive these gifts of the Spirit, like Patricia King, were formerly practicing psychics in the New Age Movement. After they came to Jesus, and repented of their witchcraft, they were left open to the gifts of the Spirit. They began to receive words of knowledge and easily move in faith for healing and miracles, only in the name of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit. But even after all this, there is sometimes a residue of New Age doctrines that remain with Charismatics, and you need to be careful about this. Read Clifford Wilson and John Weldon’s Occult Shock and Psychic Forces, Douglas Groothuis’ Unmasking the New Age and Confronting the New Age, Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon’s The Seduction of Christianity, and Josh McDowell’s Handbook of Today’s Religions, Part 2: “Understanding the Occult”—these five books should provide you with plenty of spiritual discernment about New Age doctrines, that still might be floating around teachers in the Charismatic Movement, the “Signs and Wonders” Movement, the Prophetic Movement, the Third Wave, and the Vineyard churches. I say, this is usually an accidental thing, because most New Age thought is based in Hinduism; and no serious Charismatic Christian would knowingly accept a Hindu belief. But the New Age Movement is very popular, and very subtle, and a lot of its ideas creep in without notice sometimes. But then there are intentionally universalist, pluralistic New Age “Charismatics” like Morton Kelsey (supports yoga meditation for Christians), or various authors published by Paulist Press—the Catholic Charismatic publisher, who knowingly allow a melding between Buddhist meditation, Hindu spirituality, and Charismatic Christianity—these people usually follow the lead of Thomas Merton and the “Centering Prayer” Movement in the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict XVI called heretical.

30 Books to Glean from Charismatic Church History

1. Athanasius’ The Life of Antony
2. Gregory the Great’s Life of St. Benedict
3. Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis
4. Gottfried and Theoderic’s The Life of the Holy Hildegard
5. Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias
6. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
7. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle
8. John of the Cross’ The Ascent of Mount Carmel
9. The Suppressed Evidence
10. The Scots Worthies
    
11. G. B. Scaramelli’s A Handbook of Mystical Theology
13. Daniel Jennings’ The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley
14. Daniel Jennings’ The Supernatural Occurrences of Charles G. Finney
15. A. J. Gordon’s The Ministry of Healing
16. Augustin Poulain’s The Graces of Interior Prayer
17. Albert Farges’ Mystical Phenomena
18. Frank Bartleman’s Azusa Street
19. Stanley Frodsham’s Ever Increasing Faith
20. Dennis Bennett’s The Holy Spirit and You
21. John and Elizabeth Sherrill’s They Speak with Other Tongues
22. Larry Christensen’s Answering Your Questions about Speaking in Tongues
23. Don Basham’s A Handbook on Holy Spirit Baptism
24. John Wimber’s Power Evangelism
25. John Wimber’s Power Healing
26. Wayne Grudem’s The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today
27. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology
28. Mike Bickle’s Growing in the Prophetic
29. Guy Chevreau’s Catch the Fire
30. Kris Vallotton’s Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry

Bibliography for This Article

Aumann, Jordan. Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition.
Davidson, A. B. Old Testament Prophecy.
De Voragine, Jacobus. The Golden Legend.
Doles, Jeff. Miracles and Manifestations.
Farges, Albert. Mystical Phenomena.
Holt, Bradley. Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality.
Hyatt, Eddie. 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity.
Jackson, Bill. The Quest for the Radical Middle: A History of the Vineyard.
Loren, Julia. Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power.
Robeck, Cecil. The Azusa Street Mission and Revival.
Synan, Vinson. In the Latter Days.
——–. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition.
——–. Century of the Holy Spirit.
Wikipedia.com. “Apostolic-Prophetic Movement.”

The following are my most developed thoughts on the ministry that I can come up with at the present. But I want to emphasize “at the present,” because I still have much to learn by way of books and experience. However, I would maintain, that if the following rules are kept closely, and prayerfully, and conscientiously, then they may result in a godly and fruitful ministry.

1. A Godly Pastor: Serious, Puritanical Preacher. Most of what we call “ministry” in a church on Sunday morning, has to do with the subjects that the pastor chooses to preach about in his sermon. Ever since the days of the Protestant Reformation, the church has always been understood as a “preaching house” and in some cases a “Gospel hall.” There can be no godly sermons, and no godly preaching, without a godly pastor. He must definitely be a true Christian, a sin-hating, temptation-resisting, devil-conquering, flesh-denying, world-opposing, Christian soldier. When it comes to sin, death, Hell, and judgment:–he’s serious. When it comes to preaching holiness and righteousness, and living godly lives:–he’s utterly serious. He is evangelistic; he’s a missionary and an evangelist at heart. His love for the lost and perishing constrains him to preach the Gospel and testify of God’s saving grace. He’s not a false gospeller or a cheap gracer; he stands in the Puritan tradition of preaching on the holy things of God. His heroes are holy and godly men from the past.

2. Independent; Non-Denominational: “Free Pulpit”. Since the times of the Reformers and Puritans, to be a “Nonconformist” has proven to be the usual ministry setting in which true men of God arrive at (Matthew Henry, John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, etc). That is, being independent from the carnal church establishment which has currently hijacked the ministry world. So it was with the Church of England establishment in the times of the Puritans and Methodists; and I say, so it shall be with us today, with most of the denominations which are caught up in the Seeker-Sensitive establishment (Willow Creek Association). Ever since this carnal “ministry manifestation” has occurred, with its business management marketing approach to the ministry, and its countless church entertainments, God has still left us a remnant of Elijahs and Elishas to lead the godly into what true ministry looks like (Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, Paul Washer, etc). However, I’ll admit that A. W. Tozer is an exception to this, as he was a pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Other than that, it seems that fiery and godly preaching of the moral Law and the statutes of God and the “showing to Israel their transgressions” (Isa. 58:1; godly Puritanical preaching) is mostly going to thrive in an independent church environment. I think it was Finney who said that a “free pulpit” is more helpful in the promotion of revivals than a controlled one:–that is, a pulpit in which there are no strings attached; no carnal church board controlling the pastor’s preaching by playing with his salary or his job security; but no, in a pastor-run “free pulpit” he is free indeed to PREACH REPENTANCE and MIRACULOUS GIFTS as the Spirit gives him utterance! A free pulpit is a prophet’s pulpit; a pulpit where words of knowledge can manifest without scandal.

3. Repentance Focused. A godly ministry is always focused on repentance. You might as well call it “Repent and Believe Ministries.” But really: what I mean is that the pastor and the laity are living out the Christian life. They are steered away from easy believism on a regular basis, and are frequently exhorted to “examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5) and to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling” before God (Php. 2:12). This pastor and this church do not play around with sin, even the smallest kinds. They are a very conscientious people; they want to be good, godly, holy, and righteous people, who “shine as lights in the world” (Php. 2:15). They are of the understanding that God demands obedience to His Word and expects His people to be saints who are growing in that obedience from an attitude of fear, to that of reverence, to that of pure love for God and man. The church is not a “lovey-dovey, squishy, mushy” congregation; and neither is the pastor namby-pamby, full of jokes (not to say that all joking is bad; just to say that the general demeanor is serious and reverent in ministry activities). There is a “church militant” kind of an air about it; sort of like the Salvation Army was in the late 1800s. The ministry’s focus is to secure men’s salvation by repentance from sin and faith in the Savior; which is the only sure evidence of justification from sin, Hell, and eternal damnation.

4. Evangelistic and Charismatic Ministry among the Laity. In order for the Holy Spirit to gain full control over the congregation, it is important that the people in the church, after experiencing the born again experience, and after demonstrating that they are truly living out the basic principles of the Christian life:–that they be trained and equipped to do evangelistic street preaching and witnessing. Traditionally, “street meetings” in urban centers are the place for this. What’s more, is if the pastor is charismatically gifted, and knowledgeable of such matters, he should pray for and teach his evangelistic church members how to receive and give words of knowledge, and how to pray for the sick by the prayer of faith till results are achieved, for the glory of Christ and the Gospel. That the Gospel may be preached with the “accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). On street meetings and evangelistic outreach, I encourage reading about the lives of William Booth and John Wesley. For insight into words of knowledge and divine healing, read all of John Wimber’s books: Power Evangelism, Power Healing, Power Points, and Power Encounters. [Bibliography on Street Meetings:–Londa Duncan’s Touching Lives, ch. 3: “Street Meetings and Building Congregations”; Cecil Robeck’s The Azusa Street Mission and Revival, p. 109; W. C. Dunlap’s Life of S. Miller Willis, “The Holiness Meetings and the Street Meetings”, p. 91; Beth Scgweiger’s Religion in the American South, p. 228; “The street meetings are attended by crowds. Last Sunday night, many had to be turned away. Bro. McCauley has charge of the work. He says, ‘The Lord has wonderfully planted the seed of salvation in Long Beach in street meetings every Sunday afternoon. O how I praise Him for the outpouring of His Spirit. A baby that had been sick all its life was wonderfully healed in answer to prayer'” (Roberts Liardon’s The Azusa Street Revival, p. 139); Mother Beulah Turner-Brown’s From Rags to Riches, p. 6; “Elder Benjamin gave leadership to the church’s evangelistic ministry by conducting street meetings and tent meetings throughout the city, sometimes featuring guest evangelists” (Cheryl Sanders’ Saints in Exile, p. 37); James R. Goff’s Portraits of a Generation, p. 131–on William Durham; “My mother was born in Falcon, North Carolina on February 7, 1914…she and her sisters also held ‘Street Meetings’ on Saturdays in North Carolina towns like Dunn and Fayetteville” (Jeraldine T. Posey’s Let My Handmaid Speak, p. 159); Good example of how weekly street meetings can lead to the formation of a church:–“In 1885 five holiness workers in Philadelphia, who for three years had been holding street meetings, rented a hall and organized the Heavenly Recruit Association of Philadelphia. Spreading to other Pennsylvania towns and eventually to Indiana and Illinois, the Heavenly Recruits re-organized in 1894 as the Holiness Christian Association; three years later, as the Holiness Christian Church” (Charles Edwin Jones’ Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1867-1936, p. 91); Shows that the Salvation Army gave up on street meetings around the year 1900:–Lillian Taiz’s Hallelujah Lads & Lasses: Remaking the Salvation Army in America, 1880-1930, p. 142)…probably because William Booth died in 1912: James Goll’s Compassion, p. 59)]
   

5. Prayer Meetings. Every Wednesday, there should be a prayer meeting where repentance-focused intercession and evangelistically-focused prayers are offered up to God by the congregation in concerted prayer. Prayers for missionaries, evangelists, and lost loved ones should be offered; also, personal confessions and repentances, if so led: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that ye may be healed” (Jas. 5:16). These meetings should last one hour at least; and 4 hours at most.