July 26, 2018 Show with John Samson on “7 Charismatic Deceptions”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Introduction and the Day’s Guest

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host. Good afternoon Cumberland.

County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 26th day of July 2018 and I'm delighted to have back on the program as a returning guest today a dear friend of mine, Pastor John Sampson, who is a former Word of Faith Pentecostal pastor and former TBN televangelist and talk show host.

He is a convert to Reformed Baptist theology and cessationist pneumatology. He's an author and pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona and a blogger at effectualgrace .com and today we are going to be addressing seven charismatic deceptions and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend Pastor John Sampson.

Great to be with you again Chris, it's always a privilege.

And let me give our listeners our email address right now if you have any questions, it's ChrisArnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please as always give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter at C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Well before we go into the subject at hand, Pastor John, tell us about King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

The Church in Peoria and the 1689 Confession

Yeah, well as you described, I've come out of quite a lot of deception, a whole lot of it, and yet started the new church in our home and it's grown to a good size now. We're actually looking for another building and Reformed Baptist Church here in Peoria, which is part of the Valley.

Of the Sun here in Phoenix, Arizona. And I know that you are a confessional church with some modification on the 1689 London Baptist Confession. Yeah, that's correct. We hold it in.

Very, very high esteem and want everybody to know where we stand very quickly and.

That's the document we point people to. And the website is kingschurchaz .com, kingschurchaz .com. And of course, as I mentioned before, Pastor John also blogs at effectualgrace .com, that's e-f-f-e-c-t-u-a-l-grace .com.

You can find out more about the blog by going to that website. I think it is in high order, before we start actually going through seven charismatic deceptions, that we make it clear, and you and I may not see perfectly eye to eye on this issue, I don't know, maybe we do, but I don't think being a charismatic in and of itself makes one a heretic, I don't think it makes one outside of the parameters of my Christian fellowship.

I have very dear friends who are charismatic and Pentecostal. In fact, some of them, I know that they are a minority right now anyway, but some of them are actually, soteriologically, more in alignment with what I believe is a Reformed Baptist than many of my Baptist brothers.

And some of them, I mean, charismatic means a lot of things to a lot of different people. And there are variations of how charismatic beliefs are expressed, and even what those beliefs are. I have charismatic and Pentecostal friends that, if you were to visit their churches, you would never even know that they are charismatic or Pentecostal, because you don't see anyone in their congregation speaking in tongues during the live worship.

You don't see anything bizarre. In fact, some of their, and of course, this may be a minority, but some of the worship services at some charismatic and Pentecostal churches are even more reserved and traditional than some Calvinistic Baptist churches today.

So, I mean, there is a wide umbrella that this charismatic term encompasses. So why don't you let our listeners know exactly what you're talking about before we go into the theme, because it's a very controversial and explosive theme, title, Charismatic Deceptions.

And along with that, it may be carried the connotation that everybody who is charismatic is intentionally deceiving people, which I know that you don't believe. But if you could, let us know exactly where you're coming from before we go into the actual seven deceptions that you want to list.

Genuine Believers, Real Deceptions, and Why This Matters

Yeah, I'm happy to do that. First of all, I would just absolutely agree with everything you said. I think there are genuine believers amongst the charismatics. I consider myself to have come out of that yet being a true believer at the same time.

You believe that you were a true believer before you left that movement, right? Yeah, exactly. That's the point I'm making, that I believed in the true God, in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, as I understand that now.

I believed in a biblical gospel. I just had a lot of baggage, and it's the baggage we're going to talk about. And I believe that we can be, each of us, deceived in certain areas, but that is not to say that we're outside the Christian faith.

We all are growing in our walk with the misguided on some things and still believe the basics of the faith, which is what we need to do to be genuine Christians. So I would just start by affirming all you've just said.

I have charismatic friends, not so many after today's broadcast, but I consider them my brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we disagree on these very important and vital things, but not to the exclusion of saying this one is no longer my brother or sister because he believes something different in this area.

Right. In fact, I have two very dear friends. One of them is in heaven now, but Al Stein of the Neighborhood Assembly of God, he was the pastor there in Belmore, Long Island, New York. He was not only a pastor there, but he was an overseer, a bishop on Long Island, overseeing all the congregations there in this Assembly of God denomination.

And when I first met Al, he was, for lack of a better term, I don't think he would identify himself as an Arminian, but he was for all intents and purposes an Arminian, but was never anti-Calvinist as long as I've known him.

And by the time, I would say about three to four years before he left the planet Earth and entered into glory with Christ for eternity, after a tragic automobile accident, Al was a full-blown five-point Calvinist.

And Al, and another friend of mine who's still living, Pastor Jim Capo of the Massapequa Church of God, he is a full-blown five-point Calvinist. And both of those men did not have much to complain about or disagree with that took place at the Strange Fire Conference that John MacArthur orchestrated.

Al Stein loved John MacArthur, and I'm sure he still does even though he's in heaven. And Al Stein, when I asked him, what did you think about the conference? And he said, well, I gotta be honest, I hardly disagreed with anything, and I just thought that the only thing that I would have changed is that sometimes the language was a bit broad-brushing.

But other than that, the dangers that they warned against are real dangers within the charismatic and Pentecostal movement that I also warn my flock and others about. So there are good men out there who come under the umbrella.

Of Pentecostal. Absolutely, and in fact, in my training in England at the Bible College or Seminary I went to, there was definitely a Pentecostal charismatic emphasis, but I would say 80 of the lecturers were Reformed, and that was quite something.

So definitely had an openness to understand that they were genuine Christians, but I just thought these Reformed guys were misguided, but they got the charismatic stuff right. Now I've understood that, no, they were right on the Reformed, but it's the charismatic aspects that we need to talk about as brothers.

And sisters in Christ looking to the Scripture. In fact, before we even go through some of the deceptions, perhaps we could just talk a little bit about, for the sake of our Reformed Baptist and cessationist brothers, what you actually applaud that you see within charismatic and Pentecostal circles.

And of course, just as we cannot broad brush with negative things, we can't broad brush with positive things either. But for instance, I could give you a couple of things that come to mind immediately.

I think that we as cessationists can learn from many of our charismatic and Pentecostal brothers with the very open and gregarious and enthusiastic way they in public can demonstrate and just vibrate with a bright light as far as what they believe in regard to the Gospel and Jesus Christ.

They can be walking billboards for the Gospel very often, whereas many people from more traditional and reserved backgrounds aren't necessarily like that in public, at a restaurant, online, at the DMV.

And of course, not all Pentecostals and charismatics are like that either. But I have found that to be perhaps more common amongst our charismatic brethren than I have found with our cessationist brethren.

And the other thing I can mention off the top of my head is that very often charismatic and Pentecostal Christians are more likely to be found with their sleeves rolled up in the dark and dirty nitty-gritty of evangelism on the streets amongst the worst of sinners, those that are considered as a pariah even amongst the unsaved, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the drag queens, the drug addicts, the AIDS patients.

At least where I'm from originally in New York, when you would go into the city and you would have conversations with brothers in Christ who are actually face-to-face ministering to a lot of people from those backgrounds, they are very often, more often than not, charismatic or Pentecostal.

I would agree. There's a vibrancy that they have, and I wouldn't use the word militant, but they're very vibrant in their gospel proclamation, and that's really generally across the board a true statement.

I think another thing I'd add is if you want something prayed for, ask a charismatic. They're going to be someone who will definitely go to the Lord and do battle as they would see it. They would really be in your court to pray for something.

If you've got a challenge in the family, you ask them to pray, they'll be prayers. Oftentimes we would say to someone else, would you pray, and they may or may not. A charismatic will pray. Right. One thing that.

I'd like to ask as a favor to my charismatic and Pentecostal brethren is that when we're praying together, if you could not talk while I'm praying so that you can actually hear what I'm saying, because very often when you're praying with a charismatic or Pentecostal, they're talking and praying while you're praying, which sometimes is annoying because it makes you think that they're not even listening to what you're praying.

You can just hear before you're even in mid-sentence, yes, Lord, thank you, Father God. Now that we have made it clear, as time will allow, that we don't believe that the charismatic and Pentecostal Christians and churches are necessarily a pariah.

There are those that are a pariah, but there are many that are not, and there are many that are a gift to God's church and kingdom, and there are many that we should rightfully envy and covet things about them where they are more clearly manifesting the love of Christ and they're being unashamed of the gospel and that kind of thing.

But if you could now, why did you come up at this time recently, it was just a matter of a week or two ago, that you came up with these seven deceptions that actually got you in some hot water with some charismatic Christians who are complaining about these seven deceptions, but why did you even at this time, what was the thing that provoked you to.

Why the Seven Deceptions Needed to Be Addressed

Post those seven deceptions? I think it's been buzzing around in my head for a while to address this. I have at various times spoken of my involvement in the Word of Faith and some of the most egregious and outlandish doctrines are easy to pull apart, but a growing sense has been rising in me that I need to address this as well, because so many people are basing guidance on a supposed word from the Lord or something that is going on between their ears, and just in that I have, obviously as a pastor, I encounter people who are faced with big decisions, should I take this job or that job, should I marry this person or that person, and what I'm finding is there's a whole complete different worldview and mindset between the charismatic and, say, the quote, reformed believer who's going to scripture.

The charismatic is looking for signs everywhere. Perhaps they've got, let's say the example of a job offer, and they've got a job in their hometown, say they live in Wisconsin, they've got a job offer there, they've got another job offer in Seattle, another one in Texas, and they're praying, Lord, which one is it?

And perhaps it's in the same field, it's a similar sort of pay, and so they're not really sure which one to go for, and they're looking for signs. It's Wisconsin, it's Seattle, it's Texas, and they're looking for signs, they're reading, and they're wondering if they're going to come across the word Texas somewhere, or they're watching the television, and three times in the day they hear of basketball being played in Texas, maybe the Lord speaking, and then they're looking, they're getting a little bit confused because they're seeing a commercial for Seattle because of the coffee made there, and they're wondering which is it, and then they have, within three days, seven other things that speak of Texas, and they're basing their decision on subjective things that are very, very shallow in the sense of making a big life decision regarding what is happening between your ears.

Maybe they're asking the Lord for a dream, maybe they're asking the Lord for a word, and they're dreaming at night, and they're thinking that is God speaking to them, and I'm thinking that's very, very dangerous.

Where I've come to, and which is why people who come to talk to me, they hear this, I say, what does the Bible say about this decision? The Bible says nothing about Seattle, Wisconsin, or Texas. What the Bible says is this is the will of God, your sanctification, and so I believe seeking God's will in the matter will look at this very, very different, and will ask the question, question number one, in each of the three places, where's a good local church?

Far from view in many, many people's thinking, but I remember hearing of a couple who had an older daughter who was going to go to university. They actually flew out to the city to find out if there was a good church, and they checked it out on the Sunday before they would give their approval on whether their daughter should go to that particular university.

In other words, they're thinking biblically. They're thinking this is what I need for my daughter as a father, a good local church where she's going to be prayed for, she can hear the word of God expounded every week.

That is more important than saving a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars by going to this place or that place. They're thinking biblically. They're thinking sanctification rather than for an impression, rather than hearing something between their ears.

They're thinking, what does the Bible say? My sanctification is most important. What will I find in this place rather than that place that will aid my sanctification? I'm taking a long time to answer, but when I'm seeing these people in front of me and realizing I'm giving them a totally different kind of advice than I would as a charismatic, I'm realizing this needs to go further than simply the four walls of the counseling room.

I need to talk about this. I need to talk about this for the sake of misguidance. So many people I've met as charismatics, they say, well, the Lord told me to come here and I don't know why because it's been four months and I haven't got a job and I'm about to be taken out of my apartment because I can't pay the rent.

And there's no fruit. And there's no fruit of it being a wise, godly decision. And here's what the scripture says, the secret things belong to the and the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.

Deuteronomy 29, 29. And a point that Sinclair Ferguson made was the secret things are God's secret by intention. They're his secrets. And we're not responsible for trying to find out the secret will of God.

If God wants to send an angel to us, amen, I'm all for it. If he wants to guide us that way. But what he has given us is what he's revealed. And it's the word of God. And it's those word of God principles upon which we're to make our decisions rather than subjective impression.

So that's the heart behind.

All of this. And just to clarify on what you've just said, and perhaps you will disagree with me, I don't know. I don't think. I don't think you will. But I think there is a difference between a miraculous sign or asking God for one, and asking God for evidence through his providence on what his will is.

When you don't have something clearly spelled out in the Bible, like, do I take the job in Wisconsin or in Philadelphia? You, I would pray as I do daily on certain things. In fact, right now I'm going through some stressful things in my own life.

That involves rescuing the childhood home, where I was raised from an auction and things like that. But I ask God, please, Lord, through your providence, show me what decisions you would like me to make, what decisions would most please you.

Shut doors and make it clear to me. Open doors and make those doors also very clear to me, and that kind of a thing. I don't think that that is wrong. If you're talking about a sign, that is in a sense, a sign that God may give you through providential occurrences that he sovereignly controls.

But at the same time, it's not like a miraculous sign, like seeing the clouds form into the word Wisconsin or something.

I couldn't agree with you more, absolutely. And even in the book of Acts, we're not told how the Holy Spirit made it clear regarding the will of God, but it just says the Spirit did not permit them. They tried to go into Bithynia, and God said no, and we don't know how he said no, and it could well be that the doors were closed.

And they tried to open the door, they would try to get into that place, and they were not able to, and that itself is guidance.

Two-Tiered Christianity and the Spirit

I agree. All right, well, let's start with this list of seven deceptions, and the first one that you have posted is, charismatics proclaim a two-tiered Christianity, those with and those without the Spirit.

And another clarification that might be needed is, whereas Pentecostals, and perhaps you could differentiate between the two, Pentecostals are typically those that are in specific historically formed denominations, and I think that all of them believe in the necessity of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to, or should I say, they all believe in the necessity of the tongues as the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, not for salvation, as the Oneness Pentecostals insist that tongues are required, but that the tongues is the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whereas charismatics, which you may have Baptist charismatics and Presbyterian charismatics and Episcopalian charismatics and Catholic charismatics, they don't all necessarily agree on that kind of an issue.

That's very true, I couldn't have put it better myself, but that's absolutely right. Historically and in general terms, that is correct, the charismatics would not always say that tongues are the sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, though the Pentecostals usually would, although there are even degrees of separation between certain denominations of the Pentecostals, but in a general sense, what I'm trying to say by the phrase that was mentioned just there is charismatics in general, and we have to talk in general terms, but coming out of that, I would say there was this idea that there's two kinds of Christians, those who have the Spirit and those who do not.

Now immediately, people push back and say, well, I don't believe that, that might be specific to you, but in general, that is the case. I remember, this is how it plays out, as a charismatic, seeing a book and enjoying that book, and someone who was a fellow charismatic saying, well, why are you reading that guy?

I said, well, what's your problem with him? Well, he doesn't have the Spirit, and I'm thinking, well, why would you say that? Well, he doesn't speak in tongues, and there's this concept that there is this two tiers of Christianity, those who have received the Holy Spirit and those who have not, and however we might nuance that, it actually leads to two tiers, one who is this kind of first-class Christian and one who's a second-rate Christian who's not enjoying all that is available to them in Christ, and that itself is a problem.

Just going to the book of Romans, if someone doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Romans 8 makes very, very clear. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit. I believe it's good for any of us and all of us as Christians to ask, Lord, fill me afresh today with the Holy Spirit.

Absolutely, that is key. I think we need to pray that more and more every chance we can. We are so dependent on Him, but my point in that, in saying this, is it's the exact opposite of what we see the Holy Spirit do in the book of Acts, and especially when we read some of the epistles like Ephesians.

Ephesians chapter 2 comes to mind. The Holy Spirit has come and has broken down the walls of partition, as it says, between Jew and Gentile. He's knocked them flat on the floor. There is no wall now between Jew and Gentile.

We're united in Christ. The presence of the Holy Spirit and His work has brought the two into one, and what I see happening with the charismatic idea is walls are being built up, not between Jew and Gentile, but between those who speak in tongues and those who don't, those who have the Spirit and those who don't, and I believe that's a big problem.

Right there, there should be a red flag very, very strongly waving in our minds saying, why would that be? Why would someone think that there are two classes of Christians? And I know that this is grievous to some, and even this first point is a problem for some, but for decades I understood that there was a superiority with those who felt they were filled with the Spirit, and they looked down on those who.

Were not speaking in tongues. Yeah, in my early years of journey, my religious journey, where God, I believe, was drawing me, and it's one of those things where it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly when I was saved, but I was raised Roman Catholic, and as a person in my late teens began to explore other faiths because I became convinced that the Catholic Church was a false religion, and one of those very early churches where I was attending the services weekly for months was a Church of God Cleveland, Tennessee congregation on Long Island, New York, and I can remember after morning worship, going out to the diner with one of the pastors and his wife and kids and maybe a couple of the other members of the church, and the pastor said, hey, I got a joke for you, Chris, and I said, what's that?

And he said, why is it that Baptists will go to heaven before we will? And I said, why? And he said, because the dead in Christ shall rise first. And then, of course, I'm sure that joke is told with varying denominations inserted in it, but what you just said was clearly the driving force behind a joke like that.

They really believed that they were superior spiritually to Baptists and anybody else that was not a tongue-talker, as some of them call themselves. But if you want to continue before we go to the break, we're going to a break right now, actually, but if you have anything to say before we go to.

The break. Yeah, I remember a minister in my home church in Somerset, England, for quite some time. He'd gone to a Bible college, and midway, two-thirds of the way through his first year, he was supposedly filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues, and within a few days left the Bible college because now the Holy Spirit was going to be teaching him.

He had something now superior to the seminary training, and that was just the idea that now you have the Holy Spirit, you don't need a teacher, and they have a verse they take out of context in 1 John that they use as the basis for that.

The Holy Spirit is now speaking to me directly. Seminary training, I can find it out, whatever, relationship now with the Holy Spirit because he's speaking to me directly. There was this superiority that was just inbred in this idea.

By the way, John, I don't know what's going on, but sometimes you cut out. I don't know what's happening if you're getting a call or something, but I just wanted you to be aware that sometimes you become inaudible.

It didn't happen all that often just then, but I just wanted you to be aware of it in case there's something that you can correct when we go to the commercial break. Okay, sir. Okay, and we're going through that break right now.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona on seven charismatic deceptions, in fact, if you are a full-blown charismatic or Pentecostal and you vociferously disagree with what's being said, by all means, please state your objection.

But you also can contact us if you agree with John completely or if you're just not certain. In fact, you can contact us even if you're not a Christian at all. We would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Apostles, Prophecy, Tongues, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Great. Well, we are now returning to our discussion on seven charismatic deceptions, and before we move on to the second deception, do you have anything further to say about charismatics proclaiming two-tiered Christianity, those with and those without the Spirit?

I think, just to add, there's really what I see as the use of the same biblical words that we find in the New Testament, but a different dictionary being used to define those things. I'm thinking of, I wrote down four different areas.

There's this, in charismatic circles, there's the idea of apostles, but they're not like New Testament apostles, as the New Testament were commissioned by Christ. They were eyewitnesses of Jesus after the Resurrection.

They were personally appointed by Jesus. They had authentic, miraculous signs. Second Corinthians 12 .12 speaks of the signs of an apostle, and so when charismatics speak of apostles today, none of those things are in play, and the thought came to me, if God is revealing things outside of Scripture, and this goes to the concept of sola scriptura, then logically what we need to be doing is have a lot of blank pages at the back of our Bibles where we recount what goes on between our ears as Scripture.

If God is actually speaking, then we should do no less. So, in the area of apostles, in the area of prophecy, perhaps we'll talk about that, we have fallible, non-authoritative prophecy in charismatic ranks, unlike the Bible, where you get one thing wrong and it's the death sentence.

Thankfully, we're not in the Old Testament, but Deuteronomy makes that clear. You shall not be afraid of the one who's the false prophet. There's 100 accuracy, or else it's not a true prophet. In fact, even if it does come to pass what is said, they're proclaiming a different God.

The Lord is testing you. See all of that in Deuteronomy 13 and 18. And then tongues. It's unfortunate that our Bible, uh, oftentimes, usually all the time, just uses the word tongues rather than languages, which is what the Greek word glosa means.

They spoke in tongues. Well, that means they spoke in languages. And if we had just in our Bibles had seen Acts 2 -4, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in other languages. A lot of the charismatic ideas of what's going on today would fall by the wayside, because there's really, although there are stories about it, and even though there are cell phones everywhere in Africa and India, there's no, all around the world, there's no evidence of someone who doesn't know a language being filled with the Spirit and speaking in a language known to the people that they've never, never learned themselves.

Of course, you hear.

Anecdotal stories about it. Like, I remember the late Chuck Smith of the Calvary Chapel group, which is admittedly even a much more reserved form of the charismatic movement. You might not even ever hear anyone speaking in tongues or doing anything bizarre or dancing or anything like that in the Calvary Chapel.

But I remember reading, I think it might have even been Chuck Smith's own critique of the charismatic movement, where he, in validating some of the experiences, said that someone close to him understood the French language who he had never learned, or either he or she had never learned before when someone was speaking in tongues, or something like that.