Keep sharing good news without ads.
Support Fighting for the Faith
Join Our Crew: http://www.piratechristian.com/join-our-crew
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PirateChristian
Fighting for the Faith Radio Program: http://www.http://fightingforthefaith.com
Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/piratechristian
Twitter: https://twitter.com/piratechristian
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/piratechristian/
Welcome to another video edition of Fighting for the Faith, and with this edition we're gonna be doing, I'm gonna have a conversation with Phil Johnson, not to be confused with Bill Johnson, Phil Johnson who works with John MacArthur, and we're going to be interacting with some of the concepts regarding Michael Brown's latest truth about the NAR and Seven Mountain theology, and talk about kind of the perplexity that is Michael Brown in getting a straight answer regarding certain things, and again I refer to him as the Apostle of Obfuscation, and I think that's a correct title, but let me turn this on.
Hi Phil Johnson, how are you today? I'm good, I'm good, I'm really.
Good, I'm glad to talk to you about this. The Apostle of Obfuscation, that's a good title. Justin Peters calls him the Sergeant.
Schultz of the charismatic movement. I know nothing! I see nothing! You know, years ago we had a conversation, and you had likened somebody to Baghdad Bob. Yeah, I think it was Michael Brown. Yeah, it might have been Michael Brown, and he is exactly like that.
Now what was really funny, I pitched the idea to my son the other day, he's all, who's Baghdad Bob? It's like, we're old Chris, we're old. Yeah, but I mean for those of you who don't know who Baghdad Bob is, I wonder if he's on YouTube, but Baghdad Bob was this fellow while during Desert Storm, while American troops were literally taking Baghdad, he was on television saying, there are no US troops here in Baghdad, that's all a lie, it's a lie, and like while he's talking you can hear the machine gun fire in the background, and like a tank went by with a US flag on it, I mean it was like, it was crazy, you know, so it's like Michael Brown is like the Baghdad Bob of the charismatic movement, and I think he knows a lot more about the NAR than he than he lets on, and I've kind of noted that before, but the other thing is is that he never really seems to want to address the issue straight up using clear definitions, and this latest installment of his Line of Fire program, the Monday episode, I mean he literally lumps everybody who's critiquing the NAR into like the wingnut conspiracy theorists, you know, who are practically Holocaust deniers and who think that 9 -11 was an inside government job, and that which is like not even helpful, it's the best way I can put it, because, you know, I don't consider you to be one of those prone to conspiracy.
Theory types. No, but Michael Brown does, and you need to say it's not just about the NAR, anytime anyone is critical of any kind of charismatic chicanery or extremism, he will come to the defense of whatever charismatic issue is being critiqued, and sometimes he'll pretend to be himself a discernment expert and a critic of charismatic extremism, but he always has this tendency to, whatever he gives you with his left hand, he takes back with.
His right. Right, he seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth. I'll give you an example. I'm holding a copy of his Confronting Critics of Revival, Let No One Deceive You. This was the book that he wrote in response to Hank Hanegraaff's.
Work. Right, this is his defense of the Pensacola thing. Exactly, exactly, and what.
I found fascinating is that chapter 2 of the book, you know, I've read it through several times, chapter 2 of the book, he talks out of both sides of his mouth, you know, he actually is one of these guys who kind of warns people that if you're a critic, you could be blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
So in the beginning part of the chapter, he literally says that, you know, I'm not saying that our critics are blaspheming the Holy Spirit, but by the end of the chapter, he is basically giving a warning that you got to knock it off because you're really treading on thin ice, and in the midst of it, he doesn't give a biblical argument.
His argument is argument ad experientiam, you know, it's total argument from experience. This has to be the the working of God because, you know, I was there, and I saw it, and those people are not there, and they haven't seen it, and so therefore my experience trumps your biblical critique, and he always seems to avoid having any kind of a substantive argument or discussion.
Centered around biblical texts. Yeah, a couple of things about that. He was not only there, he engineered a lot of what was going on in Pensacola, and therefore he defends it, but also, you know, just in fairness to him, I think he really believes that if you're critical of these things, then you are risking blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and he doesn't see the unpardonable sin as one specific form of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
He believes that if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit in any way ever, then you've committed the unpardonable sin, and so that is why I think he takes back with his right hand whatever he gives with his left.
He'll acknowledge, because how can you not, that there are gross extremes and abuses in the charismatic movement, but he doesn't want to say what these are. He'll never be specific about it. And he never wants to say who's doing it.
Right, yeah, because if he singled out one incident or one particular person who's guilty of wrong behavior, he, in his own mind, is risking committing an unpardonable sin. He ultimately concludes that while there's gullibility in the charismatic movement, the skepticism and cynicism that he thinks is behind the critics of charismatic chicanery is, in his mind, more dangerous, because it holds the possibility that you will eternally be damned if you mistakenly condemn something that actually was the work of the Holy Spirit.
And so no matter how bizarre the behavior gets, no matter how weird and way out the stuff is, he's never going to point to any charismatic activity and say that is not of the Holy Spirit, because ultimately, with his worldview, he can't know.
He just can't know whether that's really the Holy Spirit or not. In fact, he looks at stuff like the sneaky squid spirit, as you well know, and says, who's to say God.
Wouldn't do this? Well, since the Bible doesn't forbid it, maybe it's okay to.
Believe in the sneaky squid, you know? And I think given his worldview, he really does believe that. Maybe that's okay. Yeah, you know what I find fascinating is.
That even John Wimber had enough sense to condemn the Toronto so-called blessing, and the Arnotts lost the ability to have the title vineyard attached to the Toronto church there with their so-called outpouring.
Yeah,.
Because it became so abusive, you know, and a lot of those same abuses were translated to Pensacola and practiced in Pensacola, and Michael Brown in his younger years presided over that as sort of their theological advisor, and that's why he's compelled even today to point back to the Pensacola outpouring and claim that this was a great move of the Holy Spirit, when in fact that entire movement ended in disgrace and debt and, you know, disharmony and everything.
It melted down into a huge mess, and he was in it.
Up to his eyeballs. And I've actually, you know, over the past couple of years, and in order to avoid reviewing movie sermons during the summer, I've been spending time for like two years systematically working through and offering sermon reviews from the Brownsville Pensacola Revival.
Yeah, I've.
Heard some of those. You have my sympathies for the amount of time you.
Have to put into that. Yeah, my therapy bill is off the chain, but... Is it the.
Case, my impression is, that somebody has purged a lot of the Pensacola videos off.
Of YouTube? They're harder to find. They are much harder. You know, there was a.
Woman who famously gyrated and shook while she spoke, and the videos of that kind of activity sort of steadily disappeared from YouTube. Yeah, no, they're.
Much tougher to find, and what I find is that people who are believers in the Brownsville Revival and this type of revivalism, which is just emotionalism, and it's not the Holy Spirit, that they will, you know, they have, you know, they purchase videos of this stuff, and they're putting it on YouTube, and as it goes up, you have to kind of grab it quick, because it won't.
Be there for long. So one of the reasons I think that biblical criticism of the charismatic movement is important, even though nobody wants to do it, and it's kind of been a moratorium among evangelicals against any kind of critique of charismatic activity, it's important because, and it is having an impact, it's not just the Pensacola thing, but you can look for old videos of Rodney Howard Brown or Kenneth Hagan.
Those are steadily disappearing, because if you watch those things, watch Kenneth Hagan, for example, in his laughing stage, you know, when he went through the Toronto thing. There used to be some hour-long, hour-and-a-half-long videos of him doing nothing but acting demonic, and as critics have pointed out, that this gives none of the fruit of the Spirit, there's nothing in there that makes you think this is the work of the Holy Spirit.
As critics have pointed those facts out, the videos seem to disappear. Rodney Howard Brown actually had someone threaten me with a lawsuit, because I took one of his videos and made some annotations on it and put it.
Online, and they wanted it taken off. Yeah, I wonder why. Yeah, and what's fascinating here is that, you know, Michael Brown will sit there and say, well, you know, the Bible doesn't forbid this stuff, so it could be the Holy Spirit.
And I keep coming back to the story of Nebuchadnezzar from Daniel chapter 4, and God in judgment gave him the mind of a beast, and it was God's mercy that he came back to his senses and had the mind of a man restored to him.
And so over and again, I don't see any reason why God, the Holy Spirit, the God who is not the author of confusion, and specifically there are passages that talk about the God being a God of order, not a God of confusion.
Why on earth would he give people the mind of an animal? Why would he give them uncontrollable fits of, you know, these.
Weird gyrations and blurbs? Yeah, especially when the claim is this is not a judgment, it's a gift. Yet, it's contrary to all of the actual fruit of the Spirit that are named in Galatians. 5. Self-control.
Whatever happened, if that's a fruit of the Spirit, how can you look at these people who are totally out of control and say, maybe that's the Holy Spirit working there? Right, well in the.
Charismatic Movement, as part of their, you know, the way they kind of set things up, is they'll say that it's arrogant of you to think that somehow you can control the Holy Spirit, so if he shows up and is manifesting in an unexpected way, who are you to judge God and try to put him in a box?
This is part of the way that, you know, the Charismatic Movement talks, and when I was in the Charismatic Movement in the latter reign, you know, this is how we were told. It's like, you know, God's gonna manifest and he's gonna embarrass you when he shows up, and that's probably one of the signs that it's truly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, because you aren't in control, he is.
Yes, speaking of the latter reign, my impression is that the NAR is actually an extension of, and a revival of, many of the same principles that.
Dominated the latter reign movement. Yeah, when I was in the latter reign, I was a Dominionist, I was a post-millennial guy. Now at that time, it was the late 80s, so we had a prophetess who was over our church, but apostles hadn't been restored yet, but this idea that gifts and stuff can be imparted by the laying on of hands, and all of that was a major part of what we were taught, and I see a theological continuity between what I was taught in the latter reign and those who are teaching who are legitimately part of the New Apostolic Reformation, although they don't self-identify as in the NAR, you know, that's not the term they use for themselves.
But what I find fascinating is after I got out of the movement, late 80s, early 90s, the terminology changed from latter reign to third wave, and if I am remembering this correctly, John MacArthur at that time actually had some public criticisms of the third wave, and when they experienced criticism, they oftentimes kind of changed things up, and so it wasn't shortly after MacArthur gave his criticism of the third wave that the name kind of dropped out of vogue, and so all of this discussion of the New Apostolic Reformation, in part this is driven by the critics taking up C. Peter Wagner's terminology and applying it as a descriptive term for the.
Movement itself. Yeah, you know, the third wave was actually a term that Wagner invented as well, so he simply shifted terminology, amalgamated some of the more bizarre claims that arose in that third wave era, and just repackaged it as the.
NAR, it seems to me. Yeah, yeah, with the new addition now that his claim that God has restored in our lifetime the office of Apostle, and so what's fascinating is that C. Peter Wagner was not a continuationist when it came to Apostles and Prophets, he was a restorationist.
Read his books, he's literally arguing that God has restored these offices, not that they've continued it with any kind of continuity from the Apostolic Era, but that God has now, in his grace, restored these offices.
So, you know, interesting stuff. But what I want to do with you, Phil, is I would like to have you and I interact with some of the things that Brown said. Now, some of this we'll be picking up on some of the stuff I critiqued on yesterday's episode, but I do want your feedback on this because, you know, I think Michael Brown is literally doing a disservice to this discussion by lumping everybody into this conspiracy theory, you know, camp, and literally on the one hand acting like, I've never heard of the NAR, who knows what it is?
Well, and then on the back end of his video, openly admitting that C. Peter Wagner coined the phrase and that there are supposedly people who technically are in the NAR, but he doesn't really give specifics.
But here's Michael Brown, and you should be able to hear the audio on this, you know, kind of setting up his.
Program from Monday. Now, I want to talk to you about the NAR and Seventh Mountain Theology, and I want to explain why I'm bringing this up again. A few things happen in the last couple of weeks, last few days, because of which this is on my mind again.
I was talking to a colleague of mine who is responsible for setting up a large meeting taking place, God willing, in April in Toronto, featuring a number of us, a number of leaders who've been involved in recent revival movements, including John Kilpatrick, including Bill Johnson, including John Arnot, and these are allegedly some of the key leaders of the NAR,.
The New Apostolic Reformation. Now, I got to pause right there, because, you know, he says that they are allegedly part of the New Apostolic Reformation. And I noted this on yesterday's program, and people can see it on our YouTube channel from from the video that we posted prior to this one, is that in June of 2008, C. Peter Wagner presided over the Apostolic Alignment Ceremony for Todd Bentley, and it was televised on God TV around the world as a part of their Lakeland revival coverage that they had gone wall-to-wall with, you know, ten years ago.
And at that Apostolic Alignment Ceremony, C. Peter Wagner introduced himself as the head of this apostolic network, and that he is, you know, that he is the the ringleader of over 500 recognized apostles on the earth today, and that there were three apostles, particularly, that were supposed to, that were there for the purpose of aligning Todd Bentley.
And they were Cheyenne of Pasadena, Arnaut from Toronto, and Bill Johnson from Bethel in Redding. They were all there acting in the office of apostle for this apostolic alignment.
That was going on. Yeah, there's actually an organization online called the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders, and I think Wagner had something to do with founding it, or whatever, but as I recall, for like $350 you could sign up and declare yourself an apostle, join the thing.
Yeah. And so if you wonder where the 500 apostles came from, many of them are simply self-appointed. Peter Wagner himself is pretty much self-appointed. Well, I mean,.
He is the guy who says that God has restored the apostles to the church, you know. And so what I find fascinating here is already Michael Brown's rhetoric is designed not to have an honest conversation with actual facts regarding who is involved in the NAR.
Yeah, a couple of things about.
That. Let me just comment before we get too far away from it, and first one's just a minor annoyance, but it goes, I've heard this tape that you're playing, and it goes all the way through it. It annoys me the way he pronounces apostolic as if the word started with the letter O.
It's apostolic. I don't know why he does that, but whatever. Again, that's a minor thing, but like you're saying here, he says things that simply are not credible, and then he gets offended if you suggest he's not being truthful.
You know, on the one hand, he puts himself forward as the great expert on the charismatic movement. He tells critics like me, you can't criticize his movement, you don't know it like I do. Then when specific things are mentioned, like the NAR, he'll invariably say, I've never heard of this, or he'll, just as he did here, describe a tale about some guy who sets up big meetings who claims he's never heard of the NAR.
The NAR has been around and even been discussed in the secular media at least two years ago. Remember Ted Cruz? It came to the forefront, I think, that his dad was involved with the NAR or something like that, and NPR and everybody was doing stories on the NAR.
There's just no way, there's just no way on earth that Michael Brown is as ignorant of this movement as he claims he is.
Right, exactly. And not only that, it's not credible to say that John R. Nott and Bill Johnson are not a part of it. And, you know, the question comes up, how are we to interpret John R. Nott and Bill Johnson's participation in the apostolic alignment ceremony of Todd Bentley at the Lakeland Revival?
Yeah, although in fairness to Michael Brown, doesn't Bill Johnson deny that he is? He does deny that he's part of the NAR. I think he told Christianity Today that he didn't know what it was. Again, it's the same thing.
You know what this reminds me of, Chris? Because you'll remember this, you and I were some of the early critics of the emerging church movement.
Oh yeah, that was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
Yeah, from the 1990s until around 2005, the emerging church movement was promoting itself as the next big thing. And Zonderman even started an imprint called Emergent slash YS. YS stood for Youth Specialties, which was an organization that had sort of pioneered the postmodern approach to youth ministry.
And so this was clearly a movement. They had an annual convention that drew a few hundred people. And Christianity Today wrote a big cover story about the emerging church. It was all the next big thing.
But when voices like you and me began on my blog and on your broadcast began to critique the movement, suddenly everybody said, well, this is not a movement. We're not part of the same thing. I'm not saying what he's saying.
He's not saying what I'm saying. And the whole thing kind of fell apart when the emerging church movement began to realize, the people in it began to realize that this was being examined critically. And this happened around 2004, 2005.
They started using exactly the same kind of argument that Michael Brown is using with regard to the NAR. You know, I'm not sure what this is. We're not a movement. There's no leadership here. In a sense, all those things are true.
With Peter Wagner gone, I'm not sure this is a cohesive movement. But there clearly are people who were tied in with Wagner, who shared some of the same goals, some of the same ideas. Yes, they didn't all agree on everything.
But just like the emerging church people, it's true. They didn't all agree on everything. Their movement was this channel through which all these bad ideas were percolating. And when people began to critique the bad ideas, their defense was, oh, you know, you can't lump us all together.
We're not all the same. And that's really exactly the same argument, same kind of argument that Michael Brown is using here. Yeah, no, I completely.
Agree. And I remember at that time that people began to try to make a distinction between the emergent movement, you know, vis-a-vis Emergent Village, which was one of our favorite websites. Boy, do I miss those guys.
No, I don't. And the so-called emerging movement, which was supposed to be more attractional, seeker-driven in its approach, and intentionally postmodern. But under the hood was the postmodern philosophical and epistemological worldview, which was notoriously difficult to pin down because it was intentionally irrational.
And they would really bristle at you trying to pin them down on what they believed or what they were asserting because they were always trying to be whimsical in their assertions. So they can say, well, I wasn't really asserting that.
We were just having a conversation.
And this was a thought question. It was classically postmodern in that truth was fluid. It was a matter of personal perspective. You couldn't attribute to one member of the movement what the other member said or you couldn't blame him for it or critique that idea because they don't all share it.
So any critique is off limits. And when that started to happen, the movement began to dissolve. That was really a harbinger of the dissolution of that movement. And I think that's going to be the case with the NAR as well.
I'm glad to see all these people sort of disassociating themselves from it because I think a movement that no one wants to be publicly associated with isn't going to stand as a movement. But the problems are the same as with the emerging movement.
The emerging movement dissolved, but the ideas that they had generated spread like so many dandelion seeds throughout evangelicalism and we're still dealing with those bad ideas today. I think the NAR poses exactly the same kind of danger for the larger charismatic movement that they proposed all these notions about apostolic authority and, you know, dominionist theology and that sort of thing that have been adopted and maybe like a smorgasbord for many charismatics.
We're going to be dealing with these issues for years to come. And I just don't think it's helpful for Michael Brown to pretend that, you know, there is no such thing as the NAR. I mean, he hasn't gone that far really, but that's sort of the idea.
I don't know what this movement is. The guys who set up conferences have never heard of it. So in essence, he's saying this is really not something you should worry about. And if you're worried about it, if you're going to be a critic of it, then you're tantamount to a flat-earth.
Conspiracy theorist. Yeah, exactly. And you know, on the program yesterday, I noted that there was a book that came out last year called The Rise of the Network Christians, published by Oxford University Press, and I thought they did an interesting treatment of kind of the overall history of the New Apostolic Reformation, and noted that the big shift that has occurred within the charismatic movement, at least this particular branch of it, is how there is, this isn't a denomination, there isn't a singular theology that everybody subscribes to, and that the movement itself is kind of the outgrowth or the natural thing that happened with the Arnauts and Cheyenne and others being kind of booted out of the vineyard movement, and their desire to not create a denomination, and so instead what ended up happening is that they've created this loose network of kind of like-minded people as far as, in general, ecclesiology as it relates to the restoration of apostles and prophets and hearing directly from God and strategies and things like this, but there's no headquarters to this thing.
And you don't have to sign a doctrinal statement in order to be a part of it, they just all kind of loosely recognize that God's working in your ministry if you recognize that God's working in mine, and from there.
It's kind of like anything goes. I mean... And literally anything does go, because there is an unspoken agreement amongst them, and you see this, I think, perhaps most vividly displayed in Michael Brown himself, that there's sort of an unspoken agreement in those circles that we don't critique one another, we don't challenge one another, and so if Bill Johnson's wife is grave-sucking and he denies there's anything, you know, they all sort of cover for each other.
And so nothing ever actually gets penned down and critiqued biblically, and so in the.
End everything goes. Yeah, it's exactly right. So all Bill Johnson has to do is say, I don't know what the NAR is, and so that means he's not a part of it, but what about his participation at the Apostolic Alignment ceremony for Todd Bentley, with C. Peter Wagner as the MC?
You know, if that's not NAR, I don't know.
What is. That also could go down as the most shameful moment in charismatic history since the beginning of the charismatic movement at the beginning of.
The 20th century. Yeah, well Stephen Kozar, who writes for Pirate Christian, he came out of the NAR. He calls it the charismatic day of infamy, you know, and so, you know, and I really think it is because, I mean, there were so many false prophecies given.
That whole movement, I mean, that whole Lakeland revival blew up in, you know, in scandal and shame, and despite the claims that Todd Bentley was going to provide for everybody, the medical records to prove that the miracles he was claiming took place, he never provided a single medical record to verify a single miraculous.
Claim for healing or anything like that. Right, and Chris, you may, I'm sure you remember, as I do, that before the scandal became public with regard to Todd Bentley, it was very difficult to find any charismatic who would raise any level of concern or warning about this guy, including some of the finest continuationist brothers that we've got.
John Piper, for example, was critical of Todd Bentley after the scandal broke, but prior to that, he was totally silent about it, and people in that sort of continuationist, even the, you know, Reformed camp, men who I would generally agree with most of their theology, they were reluctant or afraid to say anything negative about Todd Bentley, and in fact, when we wrote about it on the Pyromaniacs blog, we were scolded by some of those people for being too eager to criticize, boasting about kicking old women in the stomach, and we're being scolded by, supposedly, the sane and sober continuationists for being too skeptical, too cynical, and to me, that just underscores the danger of that kind of willing gullibility, the notion that I'm afraid to be critical because I might be blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
That is dangerous, and in fact, it leads people to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, because it's a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to look at somebody like Todd Bentley and say, maybe that is God at work in him.
Yeah, I completely agree.
With you. I mean, on its face, it was patently absurd. When you listen to the messages that Todd Bentley preached, he mangled Scripture so badly, there was no reason to believe that the Holy Spirit was involved in any of that, and his over-the-top outlandish claims over and again, I mean, there's no reason to.
Believe any of it. I'll go further, Chris. It's not just Todd Bentley, but those YouTube videos that I mentioned that are disappearing, videos of Rodney Howard Brown when he was at the peak of his Holy Ghost bartender era, and Kenneth Hagan, pretty much any of his videos during the laughing revival thing, Kenneth Copeland, any of these people, you go back and look at those videos from just 10 -15 years ago, and they are patently absurd.
Yep. The reason they're disappearing is because you cannot look at that 15 years later and say, well, maybe the Holy Spirit really is doing something important here, because in the first place, nothing important ever came from it.
Mm-hmm. In the second place, you look at it, and like you said, it's just patently absurd. It's a clown.
Show. Yeah. Now, let me read a quote from your boss, John MacArthur, which I think actually properly sets the tone for criticizing what's going on in the Charismatic Movement. Here's what John MacArthur said, In Jesus's day, the religious leaders of Israel blasphemously attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan.
The modern Charismatic Movement does the inverse, attributing the work of the devil to the Holy Spirit. Satan's armies of false teachers, marching to the beat of their own illicit desires, gladly propagate his errors.
They are spiritual swindlers, conmen, crooks, and charlatans. We can see an endless parade of them simply by turning on the television. Jude called them clouds without water, raging waves, wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
Yet they claim to be angels of light, gaining credibility for their lies by invoking the name of the Holy Spirit, as if there's no penalty to pay for that kind of blasphemy. And I gotta admit that that's a great quote from John MacArthur from The Strange Fire Book, and I completely agree with him.
Yeah, well said. For somebody to sit there and look at what Todd Bentley was doing, and him saying, God told me to take that, you know, to kick that woman with a biker, with my biker boots, in the gut, who was suffering from stomach cancer, that's I mean, to say that the Holy Spirit said that is utter blasphemy beyond belief.
And it's so obvious that is not the God of the Holy Spirit of Scripture that, I mean, why on earth should we believe any of these claims? And yet Michael Brown will talk about, well, we need to test things, we need to verify, and stuff like that.
Where are the people within the charismatic movement scripturally testing prophecies that people are claiming come from the Holy Spirit, and verifying that the miracles that are being claimed on television are actually legitimate, before there's a broadcast?
Exactly. Well,.
In fact, Michael Brown has a very strange view about the false prophecies, where he says, prophesying falsely doesn't make a person a false prophet. Yeah, we've covered that here. It's absurd, that's an absurd statement.
It's not even biblical.
Scripture is extremely clear in Deuteronomy 18. Yeah, you know, how do we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? Answer, if somebody claims that something's gonna happen and it doesn't happen, that person has spoken presumptuously.
And in Deuteronomy 18 makes it clear that the penalty for that in the theocracy of Israel, back in the day, it was the death penalty. You know,.
False prophecies... It's a gauge of how serious that sin is, which is why I don't understand the charismatic superstition, this fear that I might blaspheme the Holy Spirit. It goes only one way. Why wouldn't a charismatic who thinks, as Michael Brown does, that any blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a unpardonable sin, why wouldn't he be just as afraid to attribute something false to the Holy Spirit as he is to discount something that he's not sure about?
Exactly, exactly. And so here's the thing. I've made this point before and I'll make it again. You do not have to be a cessationist to say that Todd Bentley is not hearing from God. You do not have to be a cessationist to say that is not, that wasn't a real miracle.
That's just manipulation. And if you're, if you are a continuationist, which Michael Brown is, Scripture explicitly says to test the prophets. And I see no substantive or systematic testing of any of these prophetic words at all, or any of these miracles.
Well, in fact, if you accept the notion, and we have Wayne Grudem to thank for this, because Wayne Grudem wrote a whole book, and I think it was his doctoral dissertation, or based on his doctoral dissertation, about New Testament prophecy, in which he argues that it's different in the New Testament because prophecies can be fallible now.
And my question is, if, and there's no biblical statement that ever says that, but he builds an entire doctrine out of it, and that's the thing that has dragged so many Reformed people into the continuationist camp, because it's stylish to go with Grudem's view.
My question, though, is if false prophecy doesn't prove, if issuing a false prophecy isn't proof that someone is a false prophet, what test would you use to discern what is a false prophet?
Well, I've heard Michael Brown talk about it in this way. The way he will literally argue is that a false prophet is a hellbound heretic. And so, you know, this is how he's saying it. So, since I don't believe that guy's a hellbound heretic, he may be an erring brother, that means he's not a false prophet, because to prophesy falsely doesn't make you a false prophet.
So, in his way of kind of pitching this, what makes you a false prophet is if you're a hellbound heretic.
Yeah, and you know what? He argues that way all the time. I don't know what criteria he has in his head to decide whether a person is a brother or not, but it seems to me that if he knows a person personally, and he thinks he's a nice guy, he's gonna say, I know him, he's a dear brother in Christ.
Even if a guy never preaches the gospel, even if he's preaching a false gospel, Michael Brown will say, I know him personally, and I'm convinced he's a brother in Christ. He said that about Bill Johnson.
He said it about, what's his name, the antinomian in Singapore.
Oh yeah, yeah, well, what's his name? The guy with the really good hair.
Anyway, the Singaporean antinomian, who's with Joel Osteen and all that. And Michael Brown has been, you know, actually a pretty decent critic, for the most part. I think he gets into legalism, but he said some good things that are critical of what he calls hyper-grace.
Some of the extreme antinomians, like,.
What's his name, Joseph... Joseph Prince, Joseph Prince, that's his name, yeah. It's been a while since I've done a Joseph Prince update.
After having critiqued hyper-grace, he takes the one guy who's probably the most extreme example of hyper-grace, Joseph Prince, has a personal meeting with him, and concludes that he's a dear brother, too.
We might disagree on some stuff, but he's not gonna tolerate any kind of criticism that suggests that Joseph Prince is a charlatan and a fraud.
Right. Which kind of is a great place to segue into one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, and that is, when we talk about what is it that puts a person within orthodoxy, biblical Christian orthodoxy, and what puts somebody outside of biblical Christian orthodoxy.
A friend of ours recently, on his Facebook, had compiled a list that I found to be a little bit wanting, and I'll explain here, you know, this is kind of the laundry list that he had put together, you know, does the person believe in the Trinity, which clearly, the Trinity is non-negotiable.
All aspects of Christology, a proper understanding of true biblical Christology, the virgin birth, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, biblical inspirations, sufficiency of Scripture, and this is something I actually want to talk to you regarding Michael Brown, it does he really truly believe in the sufficiency of Scripture?
He says he does, but words mean things, so we'll have to talk about that. Biblical inerrancy, second coming, final judgment, absolute necessity of God's grace and salvation, substitutionary atonement, and justification by faith alone.
There was one thing in this list that I found to be glaringly missing, and that is something that's actually talked about in 2nd Corinthians 11. I think Scripture has to tell us what our primary doctrines as opposed to secondary doctrine, what is it that puts somebody in the faith, or what is it a denial of, or a teaching that's contrary, that would take you out of the faith.
And so in 2nd Corinthians 11, it says this. The Apostle Paul, who is writing now against the super apostles, he says, I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ, but I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes and proclaims to you another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
And that's a criticism on the part of the Apostle Paul against them. And so I would argue biblically from 2nd Corinthians 11, we're already beginning to see at least a shape of what Christian orthodoxy at least includes.
You got to have the right Jesus, you got to have the right gospel, but you.
Also have to have the right spirit. Yes, and you know what, that's not just 1st Corinthians 11, or was it 2nd Corinthians 11? 2nd Corinthians 11. 2nd Corinthians 11. That theme is also woven throughout the letters of Christ to the churches in Revelation.
Yep. He starts out with the Ephesians, and he says to them, you know, he praises them because they've tested those who claim to be apostles, and they're not. Yep. I mean, this is directly on the NAR. Jesus is commending the Ephesian Church for doing what Michael Brown says he refuses to do.
Right. But throughout those epistles to the churches, he praises those who have fought against false Gospels, false doctrines, and heresies, and he condemns those who have tolerated those things. Yeah.
So, I mean, that is a very important issue. Not to mention the fact that if you say, like, you started out with the Trinity, and you said, that's obvious. Well, I agree, but if you say, look, I believe in the Trinity, and I believe that's a essential doctrine, that you're not a Christian if you deny the Trinity, but then you turn around and say, but let's give a little latitude to T .D. Jakes and other Trinity deniers.
Yep. Then my question is, do you really believe in the Trinity? Do you really believe in the necessity of the Trinity? Do you believe that God is a Trinity in the sense that if you deny the Trinity, you're worshiping a different God?
And I just, I don't see that with Michael Brown. That list is deficient. Not only that, there's a long history of this kind of thing. In the third century, the unofficial list of essential doctrines was the Apostles' Creed, until the Arian controversy came up.
And Arius is, he was the arch-heretic who held to the same doctrine as the Jehovah's Witnesses. He denied the deity of Christ. He said, Christ is like a god, he's the firstborn of all creation, but he is a created being.
It was a time when he didn't exist, and you know, it was Jehovah's Witness doctrine. Yep. And there was a huge century long, in fact, it's longer than a century, but for that entire century, the whole church worldwide was embroiled in controversy over whether Christ was God or not.
And almost the whole church, ultimately, including some of the bishops of Rome, embraced Arianism. And Arius justified himself by claiming, and I think honestly and rightly, that he could affirm every statement in the Apostles' Creed.
That was his defense. Yep. I can affirm everything in the Apostles' Creed. So I'm a little wary of someone who thinks a finite list of essentials is sufficient, you know, sufficient to say, yes, I believe this guy is a Christian.
I'm more likely to say, look, I want to see your love for Christ and your defense of the gospel. It's fine for you to say, this is the creed I adhere to, but if you never.
Preach the gospel, I've got to wonder, do you really believe it? Yeah, no, as a confessional Lutheran, our confessions are important, but my question is always going to be, if somebody claims to be a Lutheran, what do you believe, teach, and confess?
Bob DeWay, years ago, had a great article that he had written about filing cabinet orthodoxy, and the basic idea behind filing cabinet orthodoxy is that somehow people think that it's sufficient that on a church's website or in a filing cabinet somewhere, they say, these are the doctrines we subscribe to,.
But that they're never preached from the pulpit. That is a massive problem throughout the entire evangelical movement. I mean, you can pretty much, everyone that you and I have ever critiqued falls back on that same, everybody from Rick Warren to the emergent people, they would all say, well look at our doctoral statement, it's perfectly sound, but if you never preach those truths, what good is it to say you adhere to that doctrinal.
Statement? Right. Now, this thing kind of, you know, you had brought this up, I'm gonna piggyback on something you said, and then turn this just a little bit. The Apostle Paul, in 2nd Corinthians 11, goes on to say this to the church in Corinth.
He says, what I am doing, I continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who like to claim that they are in their boasted mission, that they work on the same terms that we do. Such men are false apostles.
They are deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, and no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise that if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds.
And I mean, here we learn the real nature of false teachers and false apostles, is that they do everything they can to disguise themselves as true Christians, but when you can look at their doctrine and their fruit, you can't—which, by the way, those are practically synonymous concepts—that nothing is lining up, but they will claim that they are truly part of the truth.
But now, coming back to this idea, pneumatology, according to 2 Corinthians 11, is a non-negotiable. If you have the wrong spirit, you're not a Christian. And I've spent time in the charismatic movement in the latter reign, and the Holy Spirit I believed in, although technically it was third person of the Trinity, is a different spirit altogether than the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit of Scripture, the fruit of Him, is self-control. The Holy Spirit of today's NAR and many charismatics, it's all about being out of control. And the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture and warns us against false teachers.
The Holy Spirit of Michael Brown would warn us to not be too critical or you're gonna blaspheme the.
Holy Spirit. Yeah, exactly. The Holy Spirit of Scripture, the one Christ promised to sin, will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. And those are three themes that you will find assiduously avoided in most.
Charismatic preaching. Yep, exactly. Now, real quick, Michael Brown has publicly claimed that he believes in the sufficiency of Scripture. And I've just got to ask the question, is if he believes in the sufficiency of Scripture, what on earth does the phrase itself mean?
Because this is a fellow who believes in ongoing direct communication from God. Which, I'm sorry, but that's.
Different than saying Scripture is sufficient. Yeah, in fact, let me see if I can find it here. The sufficiency of Scripture is defined in the Westminster Standards this way, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture or, by good and necessary consequence, may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men.
Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of things that are revealed in the Word, but it's the Spirit speaking in the Word that conveys to us the truth.
The classic definition of the sufficiency of Scripture specifically rules out the sort of new, fresh prophecies that charismatics love so much to talk about. It becomes the focus of their preaching, the focus of their discussion.
Scripture actually takes a backseat to fresh prophecies. Right. Now, real quick, real.
Quick, I would point to two things that are just obvious. As far as stuff that Michael Brown has, there's no way to deny that he said it. Go back to last year, May of last year, when I went on his program regarding Jennifer LeClaire's claim that there is a sneaky squid spirit.
And that is an extra biblical revelation that Jennifer LeClaire claims that is true. I mean...
It's not only true, but she says it's important to know this. It's essential to your spiritual health and well-being, which means that what Paul says in 2nd Timothy 3 about Scripture being sufficient to equip us for every good work, that wouldn't be true if there is actually a sneaky squid spirit that you need to know about.
Exactly. And it's not talked about in Scripture. If that's the case, then Scripture really doesn't tell me everything I need to know to be fully equipped for life and godliness. And so I.
Called him, basically challenged Jennifer LeClaire on his program regarding the sneaky squid spirit. A week later, he had Jennifer LeClaire on his program and basically gave cover for her, and basically allowed her to defend herself.
And he didn't challenge the non-biblical nature of the sneaky squid doctrine. Instead, basically gave her free reign to make it say, well yeah, technically it's not biblical, but it's true.
It was unbelievable. But typical too. Don't you think that is where Michael Brown, for at least three or four years, has focused the majority of his energy. He doesn't have time to look into whether Benny Hinn's a heretic or whatever.
But he has all the time in the world to debunk critics of.
Charismatic extremism. Right. We have no credibility. None whatsoever. How dare you? And so I don't think it's overstepping to say, no, Dr. Brown literally gave his stamp of approval for Jennifer LeClaire's extra-biblical doctrine of the sneaky squid.
I don't think that's a mischaracterization at all, which calls into question, does he really believe in the sufficiency of scripture? And on social media, I asked the question, is it a mortal or a venial sin to deny the doctrine of the sneaky squid?
Yeah, it's a good question. I'm certain he's not lying. I mean, I think he thinks he really believes in the sufficiency of scripture. But he doesn't mean the same thing by that that I do. No. And in fact, he isn't using the historic meaning of that expression, the sufficiency of scripture.
And that's why it's misleading. It's like a lot of the stuff he does, just terribly misleading and you called him, I think, what, the apostle of obfuscation? Yep. Obfuscation. Yep. Yeah. He is deliberately sort of crowding.
I mean, he can't be ignorant of the historic meaning of the expression, sufficiency of scripture. He simply redefined the term so that it fits what he does believe, so that he can say, yes, I believe it.
And by his definition, he does.
Yeah. And see, that's kind of his shtick. He basically says, the critics over here, they're not getting it right. No, no, no. They're all Illuminati conspiracy theorists. There's a bunch of hyperbole in there and they're totally getting it wrong.
Here's what I personally believe. And as if somehow that's what's the barometer of orthodoxy. And then he basically makes wiggle room for the real culprits to be let off the hook and not be called heretics or false teachers or false prophets or false apostles.
And it's this weird thing that he always does that is really interesting. Now, I wanted to give an example of this. By the way, the second thing I wanted to talk about on sufficiency of scripture, in his video, he talks about the seven mountain revelation that was given to Bill Bright.
And here's the thing. I don't care who you are. If you believe that the seven mountain mandate, whether it's a dominion mandate or an influence strategy, it doesn't matter. That is extra.
Biblical revelation. Right.
And so, I mean, I don't care if you are a seven mountain dominionist like C. Peter Wagner, who literally called it the dominion mandate. Or if you're like Michael Brown, it's like, well, it's not about taking over.
It's about influencing the different parts of society. On its face, Bill Bright got an extra biblical revelation and it needs to be rejected as basically extra biblical doctrine. If we if we needed to know this, God would have put it in scripture.
Agreed. That's what the sufficiency of scripture means.
Yeah. So, you know, I don't care if it was Bill Bright or Francis Schaeffer. I don't care if it was John MacArthur who got the, you know, the seven mountain revelation. I'd reject it straight up because that's extra biblical.
And that by accepting it, I am literally tacitly denying the sufficiency of scripture. So, you know, just just saying so, you know, it's just strange stuff. But I want to I want to point this out in his video on the truth about the N .A .R.
He quotes a critic of the N .A .R. and their claim regarding how the N .A .R. emphasizes direct revelation. And then later he quotes C. Peter Wagner. And it's like Wagner actually proved that what the critic was saying was right.
But I want to show this to you. So listen in on this part.
The last of six alleged hallmarks of a N .A .R. church. You know the website. I'm not going to bring it up because of credibility issues. N .A .R. denies the sufficiency of scripture. N .A .R. adherents may believe in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, but God's breathed out word is just not enough for them.
Jesus' sacrificial death for our sins is not good enough. The promise of eternal life in heaven is not good enough. That's that's idiocy and nonsense. Idiocy and nonsense. I don't know a single believer in the world that would agree with that.
That would say that's an accurate representation of anything that they believe. This is some of the bogus misinformation circulating about N .A .R. And since it's the supposedly global movement, find me the quotes from recognized leaders in the body that would say anything even anywhere near.
That. Okay, can you stop it there? I want to respond to that. Yeah, please do. Because I understand what the critic is saying. I may not have been the most elegantly worded criticism, but what the critic is saying is, look, if someone never preaches the death, burial, resurrection of Christ and, you know, the forgiveness of sins and human depravity and the major truths of the gospel, but instead he's focusing on health, wealth and prosperity and the sorts of twisted gospels that constantly come out of charismatic sources, I think it's perfectly fair to say that in practical terms that person has shown that the bare truths of the gospel are not really enough, because they preach about other things all the time and they never bring up the gospel.
I think that's a fair criticism. I think it could have been worded a little more clearly if Michael Brown thinks the critic was saying that's what these guys profess, that the death of Christ isn't sufficient.
Of course they would never say that, because they'd be marked as heretics instantly, but that's what they show by the way they preach, by what they do preach and what they don't preach. Yep. And so I think it's a perfectly fair criticism.
Brown is really an expert at that, taking sort of the literal, wooden literal sense of a critic's words and trying to make it sound ridiculous, when in fact the critic is making a very valid point.
Yeah, no, and I've reviewed enough sermons by people in the NAR, whether they self-identify as being part of the NAR or not, that not only do we not hear any substantive exegetical preaching or proclamation preaching of God's law to convict people of their sins, and a bold proclamation of Christ and him crucified for our sins, and a call for repentance and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, I don't ever really hear that.
Over and again I hear these people twist scripture and then preach their direct revelations that they claim that they heard from God or some dream that they had, and or the Lord is saying in this season that there's gonna be a shaking and a shabba-ka-ka-ba-ba-ba.
You know I hear that stuff all the time. You know where I hear the most of it? No. On your radio broadcast, because you critique so much of it, and it amazes me that there's so much of it out there. Yep, yep.
Just, there's a steady stream of that, and it's always fresh material that you're critiquing. I don't have a.
Problem finding bad sermons, I have a really tough time finding good ones. Yeah,.
No, I understand that, I absolutely understand that. If you listen at random, there are a couple of sites on the internet that have really good sermons, but if you just pick, you know, the general sermons that are floating around there on YouTube or whatever, the bad-to-good ratio is stunning.
Yeah, no,.
And the ratio is getting worse in favor of the bad sermons, so. Now, so notice the critic, you know, and I don't know the fuller context, because he doesn't list the site for credibility reasons, I don't know the fuller context of the quote, but one of the things that the person was saying is a hallmark of the NAR is a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.
And what I found fascinating is that later in his, you know, in the same episode, he actually read out something from C. Peter Wagner, and which I thought was hilarious, because C. Peter Wagner ends up, you know, like, making the point that the critic was making, and I wanted to point that out.
So let's listen in, as Michael Brown explains to us what C. Peter Wagner actually himself wrote.
Regarding extra-biblical revelation. In extra-biblical revelation, some object to the notion that God communicates directly with us, supposing that everything that God wanted to reveal, he revealed in the Bible.
This cannot be true, however, because there's nothing in the Bible that says it has 66 books that actually took God a couple of hundred years to reveal to the Church which writings should be included in the Bible which should not.
That is extra-biblical revelation, even so Catholics and Protestants still disagree on the number. Beyond that, I believe that prayer is two-way. We speak to God, expect him to speak with us. We can hear God's voice.
He also reveals new things to prophets, as we've seen. The one major governing, the one major rule governing any new revelation from God is that it cannot contradict what has already been written in the Bible.
It may supplement it, however. Now, a little bit of.
Note here. I mean, that is a direct quote from C. Peter Wagner. The critic said, in the NAR, Scripture is not sufficient. And then later in the same program, he reads out a direct quote from C. Peter Wagner that overtly denies the sufficiency of Scripture, pooh-poohs the concept altogether, and says that God is going to give new revelation that won't contradict the Scripture but supplements it.
Now, watch what, listen to what he ends up doing with this.
I don't like that statement. And that statement is not as exaggerated as some of the critics, excuse me, of the way they put it. But in point of fact, I don't like that statement. I would.
Not say it like that. To me, that was an exaggeration to say that the NAR does not.
Believe in the sufficiency of Scripture. Yeah. But that is a typical Michael Brown statement. He will always accuse the critics of exaggerating, and he exaggerates how much they exaggerate, you know. It is, I'll admit, it's true that if you scoured everything I've written or ever said about the charismatic movement, you're likely to find some hyperbole in there.
But hyperbole is a legitimate literary device. Jesus used it as well. I mean, hyperbole is not, he doesn't seem to get that. But what he had cited about what the critics said about the sufficiency of Scripture wasn't exaggerated at all.
He simply said they.
Don't believe in it. They don't believe Scripture is enough. Right. And C. Peter Wagner, read his books and just read what it is that Michael Brown provided for us from C. Peter Wagner himself. He openly eschews and condemns the idea of the sufficiency of Scripture.
You cannot listen.
To that statement or read it if you have any basic understanding of what theological terms mean. You cannot hear that statement from Peter Wagner and say, well, that's not a challenge to the sufficiency of Scripture.
That is a flat-out denial of sufficiency of Scripture. Yeah. Keep playing, because I want to hear what Michael Brown says. He doesn't like that statement. What.
Doesn't he like about it? Okay, so let's let him figure it out. I disagree with the authority of.
Scripture and does open the door to wrong type of revelatory messages. So I differ with that. Always have differed with that. Never for a split second thought in that particular way. Yes, I believe God communicates with us.
I believe he speaks to us, leads us, guides us. But the way that's said, I find to be loose. And while I agree with him in renouncing theocracy, and while I agree that we should do our best to have a positive influence in society wherever we can for the gospel, right?
You have a local school board, and the school board's corrupt, and you can get on that school board and straighten things out. Great. You've got poor and needy in your society that the government's overlooking, and you can minister to them and help them.
Great. You can take a stand against unrighteousness in the media. Great. We are salt and light. We do those things. But our primary weapon in changing society is the preacher of the.
Gospel. Let's talk about how he is obfuscating there, because he's countering the charge, supposedly, that these NAR figures are dominionists. Dominionism is the idea that it is the duty and the calling of the church to take dominion, basically to wield political influence or whatever, in order to essentially take over authority and the rule of politics, governments, the world, ultimately, and prepare the way for Christ to come and establish a kingdom over which he will rule.
The key idea of dominionism is that this is the duty of the church. This is the calling of the church. And C .P .E .R. Wagoner described it as a mandate. It is the dominion mandate. That's his phrase for it.
Yeah, mandate, right. So if you are an individual Christian who has an opportunity to sit on the school board and have some influence for good in your community, that isn't even the equivalent of dominionism.
You could be a premillennialist who thinks, as I do, actually, that the world is going to get worse and worse until Christ comes and establishes his kingdom. That's his duty to take dominion over the world.
And yet, that wouldn't cause me to shirk the responsibility or the opportunity if I could have a good influence on this local school board and had an opportunity to do that. That has nothing to do with dominionism.
So he's making an argument there that doesn't really even deal with the charge, but he's causing his sort of naive listeners to think, oh, he's dealt with.
That, okay? Yeah, and the other thing I've noticed is that, you know, so he takes a website that, you know, that has some words written by C. Peter Wagner to clarify some things, but what I don't ever see him doing is substantively interacting with, like, any of the major quotes from C. Peter Wagner's books, which, I mean, they're readily available.
Online. Yeah, this is one of the things that mystifies me about Brown. He has a reputation as a scholar, and I know he's capable of scholarship. I've read his book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, and it's well documented.
He does good research in there, so I know he's capable of decent academic research, but he does not do that when he's evaluating charismatic movement, or, and he really does a sloppy job of it when he's answering critics of charismaticism.
His response to John MacArthur's book, Strange Fire, and the conference that we did, Strange Fire, classic example of that. It's been, I think, four years since that happened, and still, he focuses the majority of his ire and criticism about that conference on a single statement that was made extemporaneously in response to a question that came up in a Q &A where John MacArthur pointed out that the fruits of the charismatic movement is known for are not altruism and, you know, social work, hospitals, and things like that, but what the charismatic movement is best known for are these high-profile, well-known, worldwide influential greed mongers who take money from poor people rather than doing acts of charity.
Now, it seems to me that's an unassailable argument that if you just look at what the charismatic movement is known for, what's visible in that movement, what gets all the publicity, and what the charismatics themselves give all the publicity to, the vast majority of weight goes to the greed mongers, not the charitable people.
Yeah, no, exactly. Brown will seize on the idea that John MacArthur used hyperbole in making that statement, and I think MacArthur, I don't remember his exact words, but he did say something like, you know, there are no charismatic hospitals, and obviously that's overstatement.
There is maybe a charismatic hospital here and there, but let's be honest, the charismatic movement is not known for works of charity, but just the opposite, the greed mongers who take money from poor people.
That's the fruit of the charismatic movement. Yeah, and Benny Hinn would be the quintessential example of that. Yeah, or Kenneth Copeland. I mean, Kenneth Copeland,.
I think, outdoes Benny Hinn. Oh yeah, he does. I mean, I think Ken Copeland got a brand new.
Gulfstream jet. There's an interesting video where Copeland says he can't fly on a commercial jet because he has to pray to God, and he has to stand up and do it, and so he has to have a private jet.
If he's going to talk to God on an airplane. Yeah, that was actually Ken Copeland and his buddy Jesse Duplantis who both said that on his program. We actually broke that story over at Pirate, you know.
That may be where I saw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see a lot of that stuff from.
You. I'm glad you do that research because I don't have the time or the inclination to watch that many charismatic television programs and whatnot, but you know, that is what the charismatic movement is known for, not only among those of us who are wary of charismatic theology, but that's the face that is portrayed to the world, and it's been that way for a long time.
The charismatic movement has been racked by scandal after scandal, either sexual or financial scandals or both. Yeah. Back all the way to the very beginning, even to the founder of.
Charismatic movement. Yeah, no, yeah. I mean, you think of people like Amy Semple McPherson and the bizarre things that happen in her life, and William Branham and others. I mean, this is a movement that the moral fruit isn't there.
The theological doctrinal precision that's required by Scripture is not present, and over and again, the people who are threatened with blaspheming the Holy Spirit is the one who sits there and says, whoa, that doesn't line up with Scripture, and you know, I have no credibility.
I have none whatsoever, and I'm just a hater, and I'm anti-charismatic, is apparently how that all works out, but the reality is that I am pro-Holy Spirit, at least the biblical one, and a firm believer in the fruit of the Spirit, and that the Spirit also gives gifts for the building up of the body of Christ, and I don't see any reason to believe that the Church needs ongoing prophets and apostles, because Ephesians 2 makes it clear that apostles and prophets are the foundation of the Church.
You don't relay the foundation, you build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and over and again, when you just do a little bit, and I mean this, a smidge of discernment work in comparing what people are saying to God's Word, and opening up the Scriptures, and taking a look at it, you can realize these people are not actually rightly handling the truth, and they're not really proclaiming Christ.
Over and again, the stories coming out of the charismatic movement are these self-absorbed, fanciful, mythological stories that you can't ever pin down who the person was, and when it really happened, but oh, the Spirit's moving and stuff, it's just...
Agree with all of that, and not only that, but if you truly love Christ, and have in dwelling you the Holy Spirit whom He promised to send, I don't see how you can watch all that stuff, and all the false claims, false prophecies, demonstrably false lies and false doctrines, how can you watch that and see it be attributed to the Holy Spirit in Christ's name, the Spirit of Christ, and sit there passively and say, well, I don't know, but I don't want to be critical.
I just don't see how someone who truly loves Christ and is indwelt by His Spirit can put up.
With that. Yeah, exactly, and how somebody who claims that the Scriptures themselves are inspired by the Holy Spirit ignore the Spirit's warnings against false teachers and false doctrine and how they make merchandise of people.
It's just over and again so clear in the New Testament, and the warnings are practically in every book. It's not like this is a minor theme of the New Testament. It's a major theme of the New Testament.
In fact, the entire epistle of Jude is written against false doctrine and false teachers. You know, you think of 1 John is written against 2 Peter. The whole book of Galatians is written against false teachers.
The entire Olivet Discourse.
Begins with a warning against false prophets and false Christ. You know, in fact, this is not just with regard to the charismatic movement, but the broad evangelical movement today is going to have a lot to answer for for our silence with regard to false teachers, false claims, false doctrines, and all that.
Back to the letters of Christ to those churches in Revelation, he will rebuke the churches of the 20th and 21st centuries so far for just blithely tolerating so much.
Falseness. Yeah, and you think about this is that anybody who would aspire to the pastoral office, Scripture is so clear that we have a stricter judgment to go through, and that idle words are a bad thing on the day of judgment for a pastor.
Pastors are going to be judged by what materials they built on the foundation with, either with true building materials of gold and things like that, and it's all going to be tested by fire, or wood, hay, and stubble.
And I would argue that over and again, I see nothing but wood, hay, stubble, and nonsense coming out from people who claim that they have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit is speaking directly to them and performing signs and wonders in their midst.
And over and again, I don't see any evidence at all that they are substantively proclaiming what Scripture says and actually making disciples by teaching what Christ has commanded, which is only found in Scripture, nowhere else.
Amen. Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir. You sound like you're convinced already, but everybody knows you are a dangerous hypercritic, you know that. You know, I grew up.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, within walking distance of Oral Roberts University, and my closest friend in junior high and high school was the son of a fairly well-known Assemblies of God faith healer who traveled the world doing healing meetings.
And that man who claimed to have healed others about the time I became a Christian. And by the way, I should say, best friends for junior high and high school, and I never heard the Gospel from him. My friend always wanted me to speak in tongues, and he never gave me the Gospel.
And when I did hear the Gospel and came to Christ, it was just a fresh awakening. And I began to question, wait a minute, what is this religion that's all about speaking in tongues, and yet I know the Gospel is about the forgiveness of sins?
And about that same time, my friend's father tragically contracted a serious case of bone cancer that caused him to die a lingering death over probably two years' time with lots of pain. And my friend, who had always believed in faith healing and all of that, abandoned the Lord in the wake of that.
He figured if that was a lie, if healing promise was a lie, then perhaps the.
Whole thing is a lie. Yeah. You know, I think of Tammy Faye Baker. I mean, she—terrible case of cancer. And I mean, weeks before she—just actually days before she died, she did a national interview. And the woman looked like—I mean, seriously, Auschwitz survivors look like they were doing better than she did.
And up to her dying moment, she was still naming and claiming and speaking positive words and expecting her healing. And she ends up going to the grave, and you sit there. You know, what happens to a person who is believing these false promises regarding divine health and wealth, and when the magic formula doesn't work, and then they're told the reason why it's not working is because they don't have enough faith.
You know, I mean, it's the perfect formula to send somebody to hell, because they're not believing in the Gospel promises of reconciliation to God through what Christ has done in His penal substitutionary death on the cross.
They're not trusting in Him for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But instead, they're pulling all of the promises of the eschaton into the present, and believing that they can activate these with their faith-filled words.
And when it doesn't play out, they think.
Christianity is just not true. It's bogus. Yeah. There was a time in, I think in the 1970s, mid -1970s or thereabout, when Katherine Kuhlman was, she contracted a lung disease, which I think she died from.
But she was in the hospital in Tulsa, I think St. John's Hospital, and that same week that she was there, or during, she was there longer than a week, but during the time she was there, Oral Roberts was admitted with heart problems.
And I just thought at the time, it's a.
And do a healing. Right, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, it's funny, you know, I always say, never trust a faith healer wearing glasses. But yeah, no, it's utterly tragic. And they are literally chasing their tails, and they're not actually substantively being discipled in what Scripture reveals and teaches.
And it's very sad and tragic. All of it's in the name of Jesus, and by the way, Jesus warns us in the Olivet Discourse that these false teachers and false prophets are going to come to us in his name.
You know, it's like, you think they're going to show up, you know, wearing a devil's union suit and have a pitchfork in their hand. Hey, I'm the spawn of Satan. I'm here to teach you today. No, they're always going to show up as angels of light and.
Masquerade as true prophets and true anointed ones. Yeah, that's the point I think Michael Brown doesn't get. And in fact, his defense of even the worst charismatic charlatans typically begins with, no, I know that person, and he's a lovely man of God.
He's a great Christian, a really sweet personality. I think he thinks in order for someone to be a false teacher, they'd have to be some kind of drooling miscreant with sharp teeth and horns growing out of their.
Forehead. Yeah, no, I would wonder who could he point to and say, yeah, that person today is an.
Actual false prophet and a heretic. I've asked him that question and he refuses to name any names.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of Brian McLaren's generous orthodoxy, you know, where you have followers of God in the name of Muhammad, you know, and it's this weird thing that, you know, on the one hand he has a category for a heretic, but it's like, okay, give me an example of one of.
Those today. Yeah, you know, probably John MacArthur, you know. Well, honestly, he's devoted far more energy into criticizing John MacArthur, and he gets angry when he talks about John MacArthur. Yeah.
And I often wish, you know, wish I could see a hint of that kind of indignation.
Aimed towards people who are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Yeah, indeed, indeed. Well, Phil, I want to.
Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. It's always a joy to talk to you, and I listen to you and think of you far more often than we talk, but just know I appreciate what you do.
I'm looking forward to seeing you this summer. You've agreed to come to the Pirate Christian Radio Conference for our 10th year anniversary for Pirate Christian Radio, so we're gonna have to figure out what to do, you know.
You're gonna come to Kongsvinger, and you betcha. So, but looking forward to having you speak, and of course, you know, considering all of the, you know, the importance of talking about the charismatic movement, I've actually asked you to speak on that topic this August, so, and I appreciate your willingness to come out and do that, especially on your return trip from Finland, so.
Yeah, looking forward to it. All right. Well, let me go ahead and wrap up here then real quick, and thank you all for watching, and, you know, if you want to support Fighting for the Faith and Pirate Christian Radio and what we're doing here on YouTube, all of the information on how you can support us is down below in the description.
You can support us on Patreon or become a crew member, and, you know, take a look at some of our other videos that we've been putting out regarding the topics pertaining to the charismatic movement and Michael Brown's obfuscation regarding the NAR, and we'll see you next time.
And in the meantime, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins. Thanks for watching.
