Spiritual Abuse / Touch Not the LORDS Anointed (Mark Driscoll & John Lindell) Men's Conference

Hello, and thank you for listening to the

Testing the Spirits podcast. The title of this episode is Touch Not the

Lord's Anointed. And basically, in this podcast, I'm going to be explaining the problem, or at least one of the major problems within charismatic

Christianity, especially the large charismatic ministries, although this could happen in a smaller church setting.

I said I wasn't going to cover the Mark Driscoll, you know, that men's conference,

John Lindell, that whole controversy, and I'm not, but I do want to highlight something that came out of all that.

Just for the sake of context, John Lindell, or maybe James Lindell, I think it's

John Lindell. He's the pastor of one of the largest assemblies of God churches in the country.

He is a charismatic megachurch pastor involved with the NAR, that's the

New Apostolic Reformation, although they claim that that's not real. It is real, because they have associations with Bethel Church and Bill Johnson.

So this is sort of a hypercharismaticism. And basically, he put on this men's conference where to kick off the event, they brought, some people are saying they brought a gay stripper up on the platform.

At least the man was formerly a gay stripper. And he did something, the way it's being described, and I saw the video, and I think this is a fair assessment, the guy did something like a strip tease on a platform where he climbed something that was compared to a stripper's pole.

He swallowed a sword and then he hung there upside down on this pole in sort of the form of like an inverted cross, basically like Jesus hanging upside down on the cross on this pole in this thing that sort of looked like a strip tease.

I mean, the whole thing was outrageous. I mean, if you thought that female pastor kicking the Bible across the stage, what, a month ago, two months ago, if you thought that was extreme, this was much worse.

But basically, yeah, I mean, it's weird to have that happen at a men's conference, but basically what happened after that,

Mark Driscoll, who was the speaker at the event, Mark Driscoll, that's a whole other issue, whole different set of problems with him.

But he was a speaker at the event and he called it out. And then James Lindell or John Lindell pulled

Driscoll off stage and said he was out of line, et cetera, et cetera. And like I said,

I'm not, I'm not here to talk about that story. It's something else that happened.

Basically the next day, I think it was Lindell brought Driscoll out on stage and he said

Okay. So here's where you have this statement.

This is why I'm doing the podcast. He basically pulled the card, you know, touch not the

Lord's anointed. He's basically saying, whether he's referring to himself or to Driscoll, you cannot touch or speak against or correct or criticize a man who has the anointing of God on his life.

And of course he thinks that he has this special anointing and maybe Driscoll has it and other

NAR, you know, hyper charismatic teachers like Bill Johnson and Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and Catherine Crick.

And they all, they all have this special anointing on their lives. So therefore you cannot ever disagree with them or say anything against them.

Of course, that's a total twisting of scripture. And I'm going to explain why.

So basically Lindell is saying, you're not allowed to criticize me, even though I brought this guy on to, you know, hang upside down on the pole after he ripped his shirt off.

And after I did all that, you're not allowed to criticize me because I'm special. I'm anointed.

So yeah, if you thought that female pastor kicking the Bible across the sanctuary was bad, this is so much worse.

But basically he's saying, I can do whatever I want and you're not allowed to say anything because I'm special.

I'm anointed. Now that phrase, touch not the Lord's anointed, even though he didn't use that exact quote, that's, that's what he's saying here.

Many others have used that exact quote. It comes from Psalm 105 verse 15, which says, do not touch.

This is the Lord speaking. Do not touch my anointed ones and do my prophets no harm.

So it sounds like it's physical harm. You're touching someone as in to do physical harm, right?

David also said something similar about King Saul, right? David had the opportunity, his followers, his men wanted

David to kill Saul and David seemingly had every right to do it, but David would not stretch out his hand against the

Lord's anointed. David would not harm King Saul because Saul was in fact anointed by God.

Now you could ask, are these charismatic mega church pastors, are they really anointed by God?

I mean, you can argue that at least, I don't know that much about John Lindell, but I do know about the people that he has associations with and they partner with men like Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland.

I mean, some of these guys are false teachers. They're not anointed by God. They're false teachers and false prophets.

I did a sermon a while back just on this whole subject of the anointing where I preached from 1

John and I explained that in the New Testament, the anointing is upon all of God's people.

Anyone who's saved, who has the Holy Spirit, you are anointed. If you have the

Holy Spirit, you are anointed by the Spirit. There is no elite class of teachers that are specially anointed and you're just a nobody and you're not allowed to say anything because they're special and you're not.

No, all of God's people are anointed by the Holy Spirit. Now, some of these are some of these people, false teachers, and they don't even have the

Holy Spirit. I'll let God judge that. But one thing I can say for certain, these guys,

John Lindell, I mean, he's basically taking that concept. He's twisting the

Word of God. He's taking it out of context. Here's what one commentator said about this idea of touch not the

Lord's anointed. That phrase is often used by evangelicals and charismatics.

And of course, many evangelicals are charismatic. So it's used to mean that you can never correct or critique a pastor.

So touch not the Lord's anointed means you can never correct a pastor. You're never allowed to say anything against a pastor.

Pastors are untouchable. They can do whatever they want. You're not allowed to say anything. Basically, that's how he was using it.

However, the commentator says, when we look back at scripture, which should be our authority, not men, not their opinions.

If we look at scripture, touch not my anointed refers to anyone trying to harm any of God's people.

So you could argue it's more about doing physical harm. And it certainly does not mean you're never allowed to correct a pastor.

I mean, if a pastor brings a gay stripper into hang on a pole upside down, like Jesus upside down on the cross, and he's taking his shirt off and he's, you're, yeah, you, not only can you critique that,

I think people are unfaithful if they don't. So, and by the way,

King David in the Old Testament, he was like, he was God's anointed. He was the anointed of God.

And Nathan called David out in his sin with Bathsheba. So again, total twisting of the word of God.

That's not what it means. John Lindell, Mark Driscoll, you're not allowed to say anything.

And of course, I'm, you know, a lot of people were glad Mark Driscoll called it out, but Mark Driscoll. Well, again, that's a whole other story.

I'm not interested in getting into all that. It's just to point out, this is an abuse that's very common within the charismatic movement.

So the bigger point I want to make, it's not just the twisting of the word of God here. It's not just that these charismatic megachurches are just doing outrageous things like kicking

Bibles and bringing in this guy to hang there on the pole with his shirt off. It's the fact that they are abusing

God's flock. This is spiritual abuse saying you're not allowed to criticize me.

Touch not God's anointed. You also heard John Lindell say that if you, yeah, if you criticize us, you know, we're special, we're anointed.

If you criticize us, you are moving towards unbelief. So this is the real, this is the thing that really gets me.

And of course it's implied since charismatics teach that you can lose your salvation. It's implied.

This is the unspoken threat. Hey, if you disagree with me, if you criticize me, you're moving towards unbelief.

You could lose your salvation. How dare you speak against me? You could lose yourself.

You could end up in hell for speaking against me. My friends, this is the tactic that has been used by false teachers like Benny Hinn for years.

Benny Hinn many times has threatened to curse on anyone who speaks against him, a

Roman Catholic priest who abused children. People knew what was going on, but they were taught in that religion.

If you speak against the priest, you're going to hell. So this is a way to manipulate people and to spiritually abuse the people of God to where these leaders can do whatever they want.

You're not allowed to say anything. This is the worst type of spiritual abuse.

And listen, I love charismatic people enough to tell them this. This is not true. Okay. In the

Apostle John, I don't care what John Lindell says. I care about what the Apostle John says. The Apostle John in his first epistle.

This is what the podcast is named after. 1 John 4, verse 1, the Apostle John instructs

Christians. He tells us to test the spirits, whether or not they are of God. Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Paul tells the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5 .21 to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

Nobody is immune from criticism. It's true. We should be careful in how we go about it.

That's why you don't ever hear me insulting people and using reviling, you know, language against people.

Instead, I take what they say doctrinally and I compare it to what the Bible says.

And let me just say this. Yeah, you shouldn't criticize your pastor just because, you know, some little thing or maybe, you know, you're just picking them apart and you're running down your pastor just because, yeah, that's wrong, of course.

But if somebody does something, if a pastor does something that's unbiblical, if it's wrong, yeah, he needs to be held accountable.

He needs to be corrected. So certainly nobody is immune from criticism and certainly no pastor is immune from correction.

But these guys think they're above it all because, again, they're specially anointed and how dare you speak against me?

And if you do, you're moving towards unbelief. And if you're an unbeliever, you're going to hell.

And if you, yeah, if you speak against me, your salvation is at risk. That's the spiritual abuse here.

So I want you to remember, and this is, like I said, I love Charismatics enough to tell them the truth on this.

This is how many, if not most Pentecostals and Charismatics, this is what they're taught.

If you don't believe what the pastor says, if you don't believe all the claims of signs and wonders, if you don't believe whatever he says about this miracle or I got this word from God, I got this vision and the pastor's going on and on.

If you don't believe that, that's almost the same as denying the faith.

If you speak against the pastor, it's like you're speaking against Jesus. If you deny their claims of miracles or, you know, revelation from God, it's like denying, it's the same as denying the

Bible almost. So to speak against John Lindell, I mean, that's like speaking against the

Lord because he's specially anointed and he's receiving words from God.

And I mean, that's the way these guys operate. It's simply not true.

Okay. There's a big difference between critiquing John Lindell here and critiquing

Jesus Christ or not believing the Bible compared to not believing some claim by a charismatic faith healer.

I mean, it's just not the same thing. And apparently John Lindell is in cahoots with people from Bethel church who minister with Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and just the worst.

And Bethel church has a verifiable false prophet on staff, Chris Vallotton, who's literally made false prophecies.

And yet John Lindell ministers with Bethel church. So let me end with this.

The threat is not, hey, if you speak against John Lindell, you're at risk. No, the real threat is if you follow people like John Lindell.

So it's totally backwards. People who follow these men and listen to them, you're at risk for listening to that.

You're at risk by following them. That's the real danger. So don't let them spiritually abuse the flock.

If they do something unbiblical, which at this men's conference, yeah, that was wrong.

So don't let them abuse the flock. We need to call this out. We need to test the spirits, whether or not they are of God and whatever that sword swallower did at the men's conference.

I mean, that's, yeah, that's not of God, obviously. And if you look at what this guy was into again,

I'm not going to get into that whole story, but there's plenty of people who talked about it. None of this is of the

Lord. So watch out for these charismatic mega church pastors, or even a local church pastor who uses this term touch, not the

Lord's anointed. And that means what he's saying is you can never speak against me. I can do what

I want and you're not allowed to say anything that's spiritual abuse. And it's best to just avoid this people like that in this movement altogether.