Avoiding the Hysteria

I fully and enthusiastically agree with this post from J. Lee Grady - Don’t Get Caught Up in Last Days Hysteria 

Everywhere I go today I meet Christians who are wringing their hands and fretting about how dark the world has become. Some are conspiracy theorists who say the world's economy is controlled by dark forces. Others are convinced that recent astronomical phenomena signal the end of the world, and they are stocking their garages with food to prepare for Armageddon. If I suggest that Jesus might want to pour out the Holy Spirit in a fresh way on this generation, some people get angry. They want God to hurry up and judge America!

Why so much pessimism? It's partly because many people have exchanged their passion for God for a misguided fascination with doomsday eschatology. They latch onto Bible prophecy "experts" who make a living speculating about things nobody knows for sure. And this sky-is-falling mindset never produces good fruit. Here are four reasons we should avoid an unhealthy overemphasis on the end times:

1. It's distracting. Nowhere does the Bible give us permission to speculate about when Jesus will return or when the world will end. He gave us one major focus: To reach everybody with the gospel. Evangelism should be our obsession. The healthiest churches I know are those that are winning the lost, discipling new converts and investing their people and money in reaching nations.

Churches that become consumed with eschatology drift into weirdness, and they eventually lose sight of the Great Commission. Jesus' last words to His followers were clear: "You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Yet when He ascended into heaven, the angels rebuked the disciples because they were staring into the clouds. They said: "Why do you stand looking into the sky?" (Acts 1:11). In essence they were saying: "Don't sit around and wait for Jesus to return. Get busy doing what He told you to do."

2. It's depressing. I don't go to church to hear one person's opinions about Islamic terrorists, why weather patterns are changing, or how European bankers plan to manipulate the world economy. Why focus on the negative? Do we believe in the lordship of Christ, or not? I have read the book of Revelation, and it ends with Jesus on the throne! He is the victor—no matter what men conspire to do or how hard they fight against His authority.

Churches that only talk about blood moons, wars in the Middle East, the Antichrist or the date for America's demise leave no room for the joy of the Lord or the hope of His ultimate triumph. My Bible says we have a future and a hope. We have the promise that, as the gospel is preached, "all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord" (Num. 14:21). Why should we be pessimistic about the future when we know Christ will overcome all His enemies? People who focus on doomsday theology are killjoys who derive morbid pleasure from spreading fear and anxiety. A gospel without hope is not the gospel!

3. It's deceptive. A group known as the Adventists predicted that Jesus would return to earth in 1874. When this didn't happen, the group's leaders covered their error by suggesting that Jesus appeared "invisibly" on that date. A theology developed around these ideas that is still accepted by Seventh-day Adventists. In the 1970s, when Americans were so worried about gas shortages and war in Israel, author Hal Lindsey sold millions of copies of his book The Late, Great Planet Earth—and he predicted the world would end in a few years. Many other Christians have made similar predictions—such as the Y2K scare in 1999 or Harold Camping's infamous warning that the world would end on May 21, 2011.

We have no business setting dates for the end of the world. God alone sets His timetable.
Jesus said of His return: "Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only" (Matt. 24:36). If anyone claims to know when the world will end, you can be sure he is a false prophet. What we should be telling people is that Jesus died for them, and that they have been given a chance to receive His forgiveness while they are on this side of eternity.

4. It's divisive. Christians have different views of the end times. Some are post-millenialists while others emphasize the Rapture. This is not something we should be arguing about because no one has the full revelation of the future. I tell people I am a "pan-millenialist." I believe it will all "pan out" in the end! I am not as concerned about how the last days will unfold as I am about how many people I can take to heaven with me. We should all be united in our desire to share Christ with others.

I know Jesus will return one day, and it gives me great comfort to know that all heaven will say of Him: "The kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever" (Rev. 11:15). Let's live our lives as if He were coming back today, but let's work as if He weren't coming for 100 years. Let's stop hoping for judgment and instead pray for mercy for our wayward country. Let's stop being so negative and instead show people the supernatural joy that only Jesus gives.

Revelation in Five Minutes

Can the Book of Revelation be summarized in five minutes or less? This video by Rick Chromey is actually pretty good. I recommend it as worth a view.






Hat Tip: Thinking Out Loud

Need Prophetic Preachers

"Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.... "

   -A. W. Tozer

This is an old quote from Tozer. I do not think he meant the same thing by "prophetic" that most charismatics mean when using the term. However, it's still a good word.

We need leaders who have Spirit guided insight into Scripture and Spirit empowered ability to impart it to others. We need leaders whose understanding of the world scene around them (micro and macro) is controlled by the Word, as opposed to those whose "understanding" of the word is controlled by the zeit geist - the spirit of this age.

Where are we going to find such leaders? More importantly, am I willing to let God make me into one?

Hat Tip: Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet: Quote of the Week for the Tozer quote

A Wise Warning to the Prophetic Movement

I believe in the continuance of both prophetic gifts and the prophetic office in the church. However, that belief has been somewhat theoretical at times, because I have seen such poor example and lack of good modelling of prophetic ministry within the current self-described prophetic movement. The general exaltation of gifting over character and integrity, combined with a downplaying sound Scriptural teaching as a limitation and protection for prophetic ministry (and some general "flakiness" in practice) have concerned and offended me.

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised this week to see the following material in a newsletter from Matt Sorger republished by Charisma Magazine and entitled Just Show Me the 'Stuff'!

It became apparent that what this church wanted was a charismatic show—the "signs following" with no preaching of the Word. I'm sorry, but I am a Word preacher.

I believe their outlook reflects an alarming trend in the prophetic movement. It seems that we are unintentionally cultivating the idea that the truth of the gospel, which emphasizes the power of the cross and blood of Christ, is no longer good enough. We need signs, signs and more signs. A life transformed by the power of God's amazing Word is not enough.

I want you to hear my heart in this. I am all for supernatural encounters. I have had many myself, and I know of others in ministry who have had some beautiful, real, life-changing supernatural encounters with God. But I am not into charismatic hype or manipulation. Just say it like it is. Don't exaggerate, add to or blow something up just to make a good story or to sell a bunch of CDs.

....I am not being negative. I am seeking to bring balance into a movement I am proud to be a part of—a movement that at one time didn't want to hear just empty words but words backed up with real substance, power and glory.I want the real thing! I want the real manifest presence of God. I want the real miracles, the real signs and wonders, the real angelic encounters (as God chooses to give them to me). I don't want a hyped-up version.

And I don't want to hear something new and different just for the sake of hearing something I have never heard before. I want my everyday life encountered in a real way by God's Word and anointing. I want to hear something that I can apply to my life. I want the fullness of God's Word to renew my mind, change me from the inside out and fill my life with real power and glory.

People who want to hear only something they have never heard before are in serious danger of opening themselves up to a gospel that is different from the one we find in Scripture. If you are running around looking for a new revelation without first putting into practice the hundreds of revelations given to us in God's Word, you are looking in the wrong direction. God has not called us to be flakey. He has called us to be solidly grounded in Him, to preach the gospel in season and out, and to impact the world around us as salt and light.

Please follow the link and red the whole thing. Sorger is right on! I think one of the most healthy things that could happen in the prophetic movement is for prophets to either learn how to balance their ministries with sound Gospel preaching and Bible exposition, or to travel with gifted teachers who can provide that balance. And both the prophets and teachers need to listen to and learn from each other. Churches should be led by prophets and teachers (Acts 13:1-3) working together in unity.

I believe that if leaders and followers of the prophetic movement will heed this warning the movement will be much more healthy and useful to the church as a whole and the purposes of God.

Pathetic Or Prophetic

John Paul Jackson, has published a great article at Charisma Magazine on "Taking the Pathetic Out of the Prophetic" This is a great article, and I commend it for your consideration.

...when I look at the broad spectrum of prophetic ministry today, I become concerned. I fear that a lot of us have gone off course, and it is going to take more than a shift in attitude to get us back.

It is going to take sweeping, all-inclusive prophetic reformation—reformation that begins within prophetic individuals, not the church. The way prophetic people view themselves must radically change first, and only then will the church change the way it views prophetic ministry.

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All of us have probably heard about prophetic individuals who are supposedly “essential” to a particular move of God, but when we make any man or woman the foundation for God’s actions, we are coming perilously close to turning the gift into an idol. This belief has resulted in an entire generation of young men and women who base their identity so heavily on their gifts that when they are questioned about their words or behavior, they act as if God Himself is being called on the carpet.

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Make no mistake about it: Our nation views anyone who is on Christian TV as an example of Christianity—as well they should! The problem is that some ministers who appear on television are not good examples because of their ungodly lifestyles. By supporting those who commit adultery, divorce their spouses and engage in sexual immorality, we promote these behaviors and encourage Christians as well as non-Christians to think they are OK.

(The picture above also comes from the Charisma article.)

Hat Tip: CHARISMATICA » “Taking the Pathetic Out of the Prophetic”

Spiritual Gift Series

Adrian Warnock from New Frontiers in Great Britain has recently run a great blog series on spiritual gifts. Here's links to some of his posts. I recommend his teaching as balanced and practical.

• Q and A - Gifts Of The Holy Spirit
• Gifts Of The Holy Spirit - Word of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge
• The Gifts Of The Spirit — Faith, Healings, and Miracles
  
• Gifts of The Spirit —Discerning Spirits, Tongues, and Interpretation

• The Gift Of Prophecy - What Is It For?

• The Gift Of Prophecy – What It Is NOT
  

• The Gift of Prophecy — Dangers to Avoid
• Seeking the Giver and His Gifts

Interpreting Revelation

From Justin at Cross-Eyed: 7 Interpretive Helps for Revelation

1. Revelation focuses on Jesus Christ. The point of this book is to make known the power, might, glory, and victory of the Lamb.

2. Revelation is given to reveal (make known). The purpose of this book is not to confuse, but to reveal. Revelation is not trying to hide something. Its intent is to show something clearly.

3. Revelation must be interpreted in light of the rest of Scripture (particularly the OT). MacArthur says 278 of its 404 verses allude to the OT Scriptures.

4. Revelation must be interpreted with humility. Godly scholars vary in their interpretations on this book. Being dogmatic about something that is not clear is unwise. Humility demands that we use words like, “most likely,” “possibly,” “sometimes,” “could,” “may,” and “probably.”

5. Revelation has an original audience (like every other Biblical book). Revelation is a letter written to real churches. Real original readers were supposed to hear the content of this book and be encouraged. Thus, interpretations that neglect the original readers should be suspect.

6. Revelation was written to suffering Christians. The purpose of this letter is to encourage persecuted Christians to hold fast to the gospel. It is written so that Christians could know with certainty that the Lamb will triumph. “God gave us Revelation not to tickle our fancy, but to strengthen our hearts." - Poythress


7. Revelation is about Jesus Christ. Since this is Revelation, I had to have a list of "7." So, I just restated the first one to make the most important point again.

Very well said. I could not say it better. I agree with every single point.

MySpace Prophesies?

From the Christian comedy/spoof site LarkNews.com comes this gem: "MySpace gives pastor ‘prophetic’ edge" It's a joke, but I almost wonder how close to reality this is in some places and ministries.

PEORIA, Ariz. — Last Sunday, pastor Irwin Alton, 62, preached against several specific sins during his sermon. Some people in the audience gasped with recognition.

"When he talked about skipping mid-week service to go to the lake, and buying a new boat when you haven’t tithed, I felt nailed to my pew," said one man. "It was like the Holy Spirit was speaking right to me."

But it wasn’t the Holy Spirit — it was the man’s own blog where he had posted photos of himself and his buddies on his new boat on a Wednesday evening.

Pastor Alton, who cultivates a reputation as a computer illiterate techno-phobe, is actually an avid reader of MySpace pages, blogs and personal websites of the people in his congregation. "I appear, shall we say, un-hip," he says. "Therein lies my advantage."

Though he publicly refers to the Worldwide Web as the "Worldwide Waste" and e-mail as "sin-mail," in his home office is a bank of computer screens with more than 170 bookmarked sites — personal web pages, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr and more. Each week Alton surfs the sites for hours to find evidence of questionable behavior by people in his church. He jots offenses down and incorporates them into his Sunday sermons.

He even checks the blogs of friends of people in his church. That’s where he found photos of Emily Dotson, 31, at a local sports bar. During the service last week Alton paused mid-sermon to say, "Some of you have been visiting places you shouldn’t be seen in as a Christian, drinking establishments and the like." Emily was taken aback.

"He was speaking right to me," she says.

She came forward and repented for being at the sports bar, even though she’d been celebrating a girlfriend’s birthday.

"I knew I shouldn’t have lingered in that environment," Emily says. "I could have gone in, said hi and left."

When mentioning sinful behavior Alton sometimes intentionally gets small details wrong, or remains vague. "If I bat a thousand they might get suspicious," he says.

He never claims his messages are Holy Spirit-inspired, but many in the church believe they are.

"He’s right so often, it has to be God," says one man. "We all come to church because God is using Pastor Alton to address our particular situations. It’s phenomenal."

One family, the Bixbys, was tolerating their daughter’s college partying. Alton watched the girl’s MySpace for weeks before mentioning from the pulpit that "some parents need to get a lasso around their college-age children — and fast, before they do some real damage."

That week, the Bixbys called their daughter home to "re-establish patterns of good behavior." "We felt that if God was merciful enough to speak prophetically through our pastor like that, we should take action," says the father.

For his part, Alton has no problem not revealing his sources. "If they can’t make the connection between what I’m saying and what they’re putting on the Internet, then maybe God really is speaking to them," he says. "And they sure treat me with a lot more respect now."

Lark News is sort of a Christian copy of "The Onion." What makes their stuff so funny is that it is close enough to reality that you can almost recognize yourself and your church friends in so much of their material - to the point of "ouch!" I've never faked a prophecy, but the temptation to put on airs to look good in front of a congregation is a problem for anyone in church leadership. Ouch, indeed.

Itching Ears Report

Earlier this week Bob at In the Clearing posted this Itching Ears Report.

This quote from Lee Grady, editor of Charisma, is in the That's-What-I'm-Talkin-About category:

A prophet stays biblical. So much of what is passed off as prophecy today resembles what you might find in a daily horoscope. The so-called “prophetic movement” in the contemporary church has been tainted by silly fads and charismatic witchcraft. One prophetic e-mail list sent out a word recently saying that dormant angels were being awakened out of the walls of our churches. (That’s not remotely scriptural.) Another predicted that God would begin to speak to people through the names of candy bars and blue jeans.

So much of our prophetic verbiage sounds like warm and fuzzy fortunetelling. This type of “imitation prophecy” can titillate and thrill those with itching ears, but it is pablum designed for babies who don’t want to grow up. What we need is a word we can sink our teeth into—true meat that is the Word of God.

Well, somebody had to say it.

Yeah, somebody needed to say it, and J. Lee Grady is just the guy to do so.

Many years ago now I heard a speaker who was known as a prophet. I'm not gong to give his name; I do think he was and is prophetic, but he also taught clearly from the Scriptures. After his sermon, a woman approached him begging him for a personal word from the Lord. He asked her if she had a Bible. Taking her Bible, he looked at it, then handed it back to her saying; "here is your Word from the Lord." That's keeping the priorities straight.