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A FINAL WORD.

I was thinking the other day about how things have progressed through the decades. The Pentecostal movement may have had its problems, but Pentecostals, in the main, tried to prove everything they did by Scriptures. You could disagree, and of course many still do, and some with good reason, but they would take their stand on a certain interpretation of Scripture, and link that to an experience.

The charismatic movement moved more into the experiential realm. Scripture was not king any longer, though lip service was given to it. In the charismatic world, feelings reign, and a Bible verse may be sought to back up the feeling. Or not.

Enter now the apostolic movement. Restructuring is the word of the day. A shift from standard elder/pastor run congregations to entire zones being run by "the man of God", the apostle. And woe to that man who counters the word of the apostolic leader, be he male or female. "Do not touch my anointed" becomes the rallying cry. Up with signs and wonders, down with sound teaching.

As was predicted, the time has come when most will not endure the soundness of the Scripture. They crave new ideas, new interpretations of Scripture, new experiences, new stories to tell. Thrills. Chills.

In all of these movements, praise is a plus factor. Oh that all of God's people would learn how to give themselves to Spirit-led worship! It is the coldness in the praise life of the church that has helped lead to the downfall of standard evangelical Christianity. A void is there in the song service. Enter contemporary praise and the new teachers that follow it.

May God help us to find a way to prepare people's hearts with true worship, then, when their hearts are open and receptive, to fill them with Sacred Truth from God's only inspired apostles, the Scripture writers. Not from the sometimes entertaining views of "new apostles."

As for the man before us, I seriously question him, and have as yet no reason to believe even one of his claims. I have asked for those reasons, and they have been denied me. Perhaps someone who is reading this will be able to take it a step further. I'd appreciate knowing how your search came out.

Now, I have proved nothing, either. I have not proved his claims or even his teachings are false. I can hope to have raised, in court terminology, a reasonable doubt about what he is saying and doing. For it's a serious matter to stand before God's people and say things you can't back up. And even if the miracles are valid, we must deal with the message too. Deuteronomy 13 comes to mind. There, a man who works a true miracle but speaks a false message is to be killed.

I'm not advocating violence here! Except that we be violently correct in our approach to the Holy of Holies and the Holy people of God. It is to those people, by the way, that the prophet was referring when he said not to touch God's anointed. Don't mess with the people of God! You do so at your own peril!