The Slain in the Spirit Error

Another error which Charismatic Christians make is the idea that people can be slain in the spirit. This means that the Holy Spirit is supposedly making worshippers fall backwards.

And once again, these people wrench verses light years out of context. John 18:6 (KJV) reads, "As soon then as he had said unto them, 'I am he,' they went backward, and fell to the ground."

What these people don't realise, or want to admit to, is that Jesus said "I am," to the temple guards and soldiers who came to arrest him. Are these "slain in the spirit" adherents aware that those were the enemies of Christ, not his followers?

Worse yet, these folks don't realize that God wants us to be in charge of our faculties. We're warned in 1 Peter 5:8 (KJV) to, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:"

Paul likewise exhorted in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 (KJV), "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."

And we must remember what was written two-thousand years ago in 1 Peter 4:7 (KJV) and that it is even closer today. "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer."

Matthew 24:42 (KJV)  "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."

Furthermore, here's what Jesus said in Matthew 25:13 (KJV). "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."

This "slain in the spirit" idea is obviously nonsense. It's what unstable Christians seek in order to gratify their own lust for spiritual advancement. They forget that God wants humble people who love him and definitely not the sort who want what they think they can get from him. Shame on such shallow people.

These folks will definitely benefit from my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? Our job as followers of Christ is to proclaim the gospel, not to show off how super-spiritual we are. And like humility, it vanishes the second we become proud of it.

Saturday Song: Johnny Cash, "Guess Things Happen That Way"

Life sure can seem unfair. People who we feel ought to drop dead live on for decades while loved ones die young. Worse yet, these departed family members and friends had so much potential which they never had the time to realize.

Hear Johnny Cash's song here.

Unfairness is hard to understand. If God is so loving and kind, goes the argument, why does he allow such horrors as war, famine, disease, and Microsoft Windows? Why can't we live happy and trouble-free lives? And if he lets bad things happen to good people, can we trust him at all?

I wrestled with similar doubts in the 1980s. Elders at a house church drilled into me that I should build up my faith so I could receive full sight. But each failure of my faith, or so they told me, proved that I lacked faith to be healed.

I now know that God is sovereign. He made us and he knows what's best for us. And like our pets fuss whenever we take them to the vet's, we don't realize what God does is for our own eventual good and his glory.

Romans 9:20 (KJV) shows how foolish we are to accuse God of wrongdoing. "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest  against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why 
hast thou made me thus?"

This answer sounds unsatisfying to ears accustomed to egalitarianism. We think we know better but God is God and not us. I don't like it eather but I guess things happen that way.

Did you enjoy the song and what I wrote? Please comment in the box below. But if you'd rather not, have a beautiful weekend anyway.
I'll be blogging on Monday about how some Christians think the Holy Spirit makes them do weird things like falling backward.

The Deliverance Ministry Error

Another presumption on God's sovereignty is the deliverance ministry movement. People get the idea that they can just name the name of Jesus and the demon or demons have to leave.

These Charismatic preachers wrest Matthew 18:18 far out of it's context and use it as a pretext for supposedly driving demons out of people. The verse reads, "Mat 18:18  Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

If they had studied the passage, they'd see that this binding and loosing has to do with church discipline of errant members. And why would anybody want to loose demons?

Many people who have gone to these quacks have never been delivered of anything except of their money. Through hypnotist tricks and autosuggestion, people think they've been delivered of something. The truth is that people can't be delivered from what they should repent of. There are no demons of over-eating or other human failings.

But aren't there real demons occupying real people? It has happen to unsaved individuals. In fact, scripture tells of one deliverance which went horribly wrong. Seven sons tried to cast out a demon and they thought that using Jesus' name  would automatically do the job. Acts 19:15 (KJV) shows what happens when fakes attempt folly. "And the evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?'" The man than tore off the clothes of those fools and beat them severely.

I've written before about what a sham modern-day deliverence preachers are. I'll also touch on that in my next book. People need to know this truth from John 15:13 (KJV), "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

My next post will be about a song regarding accepting God's will for our departed loved ones. Hang in for that one.

The Over-Emphasis of Signs Error

Charismatic Christians become excited when signs and wonders are mentioned in the Bible. They, from what I can gather, forget about everything else. Doctrine is apparently foreign to them. All they appear to care about is getting the spiritual gifts which would let them wield God's power.

So, what is the real purpose of signs? We can see three times in biblical history where a multitude of miracles happened. The first was when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. The second wave of signs and wonders happened at the time of Elija and Elisha. The third and final wave happened when Christ came and his disciples spread the gospel. In all three cases, the miracles happened as a witness to God's power and proclamation of his message.

Furthermore, we can see that miracles dwindled after the end of  The Acts of the Apostles. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:20 (KJV),  "Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." Why didn't Paul heal Trophimus?

Here's another person whom God, through Paul, didn't heal. Philippians 2:27 (KJV) reads, "For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow."

Charismatic believers fixate on First Corinthians chapter twelve but they don't realize what the best gifts are. Verse thirty-one (KJV)says,  "But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way." Then Paul launched into what people call the love chapter.

But James 3:13 (KJV) shows what is more important than doing flashy miracles to boost one's reputation among others. "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom."

The matter of pride is one I'll be dealing with in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? So many Christians are like the lad in that fable called The Sorcerer's Apprentice. They want to use God's power without realizing that it's not an unlimited charge card. In fact, they insult our Lord by treating him that way.

My next post will be about a foolish mistake some Christians make, namely you can't be delivered from what you should repent of.

Saturday Song: Air Kelly, Watch the Stars

A friend of mine gave me an MP3 file of this song and I immediately fell in love with Air Kelly. After listening to a few albums of this music on YouTube, I knew I had to add the band's albums to my wish list.

Hear Air Kelly's song here.

Do you remember the controvercy back in the nineteen-eighties regarding home taping being detrimental to the music business? I've found that much of the music I recorded from library records and friend's LPs resides in my music collection today. I've ended up buying CD copies of the music I loved.

This brings up a thorny subject, namely the command in Exodus 20:15 (KJV) which reads, "Thou shalt not steal." Is recording music and passing copies to friends theft?

I've given this matter much thought and I conclude that it is stealing. Artists work hard to produce their wares. They expect to be paid, just as any other labourer or professional should. By bootlegging copies, it diminishes the amount of sales that creative folks rely upon.

And it isn't just those individuals who end up hurt by illegal copying and trading of MP3 files. Record companies lose out as well. This indirectly hurts up-and-coming bands since companies become cautious about signing up new talent. Independent labels and bands are hit even harder by the theft of their work.

My hope is to purchase all the music which I taped in the past. I've already bought many CDs of my favourite bands and I plan on buying MP3s of the songs which I've liked in the past.

If you would like to comment on this song and what I've written, please do so. But if not, have a nice weekend anyway.

The 'Holy Laughter' Error

Because we have the canon of scripture, we can tell if some new doctrine is of God or not. One of the craziest things to come out of the charismatic movement is what they call "holy laughter." It's similar to being what they call "drunk in the spirit" in that people laugh uncontrollably.

But are we not to be sober-minded and watchful? Paul had to deal with a church in which people figured that the pagan notion of ecstasy in worship was something they should practice too. It resulted in a mad celebration where people let go of their wills and did whatever silliness came into their minds. This included blathering away rather than speaking edifying words. Paul warned the folks in 1 Corinthians 14:33 (KJV), "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints."

Paul also admonished in 1 Corinthians 14:40 KJV)  "Let all things be done decently and in order." What was happening in Corinth happens in some churches today. But unlike those people, we ought to know better.

Likening the ability to be able to chew solid food in a child, the writer of Hebrews 5:14 (KJV) wrote, "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

Sadly, certain charismatic believers live infantile lives where all they seek is signs and wonders. As it says in Hebrews 5:12 (KJV), "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat."

I hope to include these admonitions in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? If we're serious about our faith in Christ, we'll automatically want to learn everything we can about our beloved Lord. A Christian who doesn't want to study Scripture is committing spiritual suicide which will lead to eternal death in hell. I don't want anybody to suffer that fate.

My next post will be about a song from a band recommended to me by a friend. I often find that good music makes me want to buy more from the bands and individuals who produce it.

The Open Canon Error

Before I explain why it's important to believe in a closed canon, I need to describe what it is. The Bible contains sixty-six books which have been examined by scholars and approved as being divinely co-written. And while the Catholic Bible has the seven apocraful books from the time between the book of Malachai and the New Testiment, scholars have questioned the canonicity of those writings.

And with that explanation out of the way, here is why we must never allow supposedly divine writings to be given canonical status. We read in 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV) that, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"

Since this is so, any writing which contradicts any of it is therefore heretical and mustn't be considered as coming from God. Otherwise any crackpot ramblings could be used as justification for all sorts of sinful activities.

In reference to the scriptures, Hebrews 4:12 KJV) explains, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

It alone has that Holy-Spirit-breathed power to convict and convert sinful people. While other writings which people believe to be divine may have profound observations of the human condition, only God's Word possesses the power God breathed into it.

And studying the supposed divine writings of other belief systems shows how absurd they are. The Quran, Book of Mormon, and many others are filled with contradictions whereas the Bible is consistent. Though forty or more authors wrote God's Word down, they all agree with one another. These men lived in different lands and at different times, yet the Bible is consistent. Any assumed contradictions are the misunderstandings of people, not flaws in Holy Scripture.

I'll be writing much more about this in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? If the Bible is a mere book of Jewish history and rambling prophecies, our whole belief system crumbles. This is why we must keep God's Word as the infallible and inerrant source.

My next post will expose the insanity of one form of charismatic lunacy. Please stay tuned for that.

Saturday Song, The Serendipity, Don't Let the Rain Come Down

This is such a good song for children to hear. I used to hear it on the radio and imagine the crooked little man fixing his crooked little house where he lived with a crooked cat and a crooked mouse. It was also fun to sing the chorus.

Hear this fun little ditty here.

Children sure can relate to songs like this. It's like all the stories our parents tell us or read to us. But we soon leave that halcion world of trouble-free play for the disciplin of school and later work.

Jesus said we should come to him like a child and ask for forgiveness. Children are dependent upon their parents and have no skills or resources to fall back on. In this way, we must come to Christ, having no accomplishments or talents to brag of. We all need to trust him no matter what's currently happening.

Of course there's a huge difference between being childlike and being childish. It's a sad fact that many people go to church and Christian gatherings to get what they desire. They want nothing to do with taking up their crosses and following him.

The sixth chapter of John's gospel shows just how fickle people were and still are. He taught in a metaphorical way that they must accept him completely with no exceptions. This was too hard for the crowd to take so they all left him and followed him no more.

Jesus even asked his disciples if they too were going to leave. But Peter asked where else they could go. Only Christ had the words of eternal life.

So, how is it with you? Do you attend church to worship the Lord or because they have good music, or some other reason? If you feel like doing so, please leave me a comment in the box below. And if not, have a great weekend anyway.

On Monday, I'll post about why no new books have been added to the Bible.

The Error of Exaggerating Satan's Power

How sad it is that people either don't believe the Devil exists or that they're obsessed with him. Both ideas are fatally wrong. They're fatal because both lead to discounting the truth and leading people away from God's saving grace.

Charismatic Believers often become fixated on demons and supposed attacks on them by Satan. To us who know our Bibles, these claims are ludicrous. I even heard one guest on TV claim that a demon had taken over his computer printer. Because it suddenly began printing strange characters, this man assumed that the Devil had commandeered it so it couldn't print out his message.

So, how much power does Satan have? The book of Job is a good place to investigate this question. In the first chapter, Satan came in with the angels and God asked him to consider his servant, Job. The Devil claimed that Job would reject the Lord if he lost his possessions and God's protection.

We see that God only allowed the Devil to afflict Job but not to kill him. Job 1:12 (KJV) reads, "And the LORD said unto Satan, 'Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.' So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD."


When Job clung to his trust in the Lord, Satan again challenged God. Job 2:6 (KJV) shows that the Lord restricted his actions against Job. "And the LORD said unto Satan, 'Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.'"

We see in these verses that Satan is, as Hank Hanegraaff aptly put it, a lion on a leash. He can only do what God allows him to do. Imagining such nonsense as printers printing out satanic messages is unbiblical and ridiculous.

I'll be writing much more about just how much or little power Satan actually has in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? Because Many Christians don't bother to study the scriptures, they're led astray by fast-talking preachers who are satanic infiltrators of Christ's body of believers.

My next post will be about a song I heard as a child and how its nursery rhyme lyrics impressed me.

The Lack of Faith Error

In past posts, I've explained how charismatic Christians have hurt me by assuming I didn't have enough faith to be healed. In fact, many disabled folks have been slandered by hard-hearted churchgoers who had zero understanding of God's sovereignty.

One verse thrown at me many times was Matthew 17:20 (KJV) which reads, "And Jesus said unto them, 'Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, "Remove hence to yonder place;" and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.'"

What those teachers, and many of them today, don't understand is that Christ was using hyperbole. He wasn't saying they could literally cause a mountain to be moved. Christ meant that they should trust in him implicitly.

Jesus rebuked his disciples many times for not trusting in him. For example, he fell asleep in the stern of the boat when a storm came up. Matthew 8:26 (KJV) quotes his chiding. "And he saith unto them,  'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm."


Another time, Peter was actually walking on the water with Jesus. Then he got worried about the violent waves and winds. In Matthew 14:31 (KJV), we see what Christ did next. "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, 'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?'"

Charismatic Christians make the mistake of believing that faith is some sort of magical power. Without understanding the purposes of God in doing miracles through his Son and his immediate disciples, they assume they can also do marvellous works. That's like an uneducated person putting on glasses and wondering why he or she can't read books.

I hope to write much more about this subject in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? The whole purpose of what we go through in this life is to build trust in the Lord, not to wield God's power. Sadly, Jesus himself said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that many will say they did all sorts of miracles in his name. But the Lord will say, "I never knew you."

I'll be writing in my next post about how some charismatic believers exaggerate Satan's abilities.

Saturday Song, University of the Air theme

What would appeal to a ten-year-old child in a broadcast for university students? The CTV Network had a show called University of the Air. Beginning each show, they played the most incredible and awesome music I ever heard.

Listen to the show's theme music here.Electronic music, created with Moog and ARP synthesizers, was a new thing back then. I instantly fell in love with this spacey music. It appealed to my nerdish nature.

Ever since the summer of 1967, I have had a passion for electronic music. It was hard to find at first. Apart from a few novelty songs, no radio station played this futuristic music.

Eventually, rock bands began using synthesizers in their songs. Some groups later went on to use these endlessly-flexible  instruments exclusively.

In the same way, I had a passion for apologetics. I gave my life to Christ in 1969 but nobody mentored me. The only teaching I found was on the radio. And since I had some bad church experiences, I didn't attend any of them.

But not all Bible teaching is correct. I became hooked on Garner Ted Armstrong's "World Tomorrow" program. What I thought was deep teaching was actually blasphemy.

Getting back to electronic music, what do you think of it? Please leave me a comment in the box below. Have a wonderful weekend too.

My next post will be about charismatic believers and their misunderstanding of what faith is. It certainly isn't some mystical power we can harnace for our own ends, that's for sure.

The Rejection of Medicine Error

Along with a lot of spiritual error, charismatic preachers and cults teach physically harmful doctrines. One of the worst in this class is the rejection of medicine. Believers are taught to build up their faith so that God will be obliged to heal them.

One badly-abused scripture is Matthew 8:16 (KJV) which reads, "When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:"

What many charismatic teachers do is conflate this with believers today. If somebody suffering from a demon or illness has enough faith, ministers standing in Christ's stead can heal or deliver that victim. What those preachers forget, or choose to ignore, is that God is sovereign.

As I wrote earlier about John 9:2, the man born blind wasn't being punished for his sins. How could he do anything worthy of blindness in any case.

And how could his parents be to blame? The Pharisees and Christ's disciples should have remembered Deuteronomy 24:16 (KJV) which plainly says, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

But there was one man who was put to death for the sins of whoever would follow him. Thanks to Jesus' work on the cross, we are freed from the judgement of God on all sinful humanity.

I'll be writing more about this in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? The most important decision we can ever make is to believe in Christ. But some folks think they're good enough without "religion" and will be horrified on Judgement Day when they're sentenced to eternal torment in hell.

Switching gears, my next post will be about a style of music which captivated my young heart back in 1967. It still thrills me today.

The Error of Suffering Meaning Divine Punishment

This month, I want to explode some more of the erroneous doctrines preached by charismatic preachers. These false servants of Christ are prevalent on TV and radio where they receive much of their funding.

In Luke 13:1 to 5, Jesus was told about some worshipers who were murdered as they sacrificed to God. Did that mean that they were being punished for some sort of sin? This is how Jesus answered that question.

1   Now some people who were there at that time, gave him an account of how the blood of some Galilaeans had been mixed by Pilate with their offerings.
2   And he, in answer, said to them, Are you of the opinion that these Galilaeans were worse than all other Galilaeans, because these things were done to them?
3   I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to the same end.
4   Or those eighteen men who were crushed by the fall of the tower of Siloam, were they worse than all the other men living in Jerusalem?
5   I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to an end in the same way.

Just because some misfortune happens, it doesn't mean that one is being punished by God. The entire story of Job is about a righteous man whom God tested by letting Satan unleash horrendous events upon him. In the end, Job ended up with double the riches he had and the same number of children he fathered before. The Lord also rebuked Job's friends for speaking falsely about him. They certainly were "miserable comforters."

Hebrews chapter eleven is called the saints hall of fame and for good reason, From Abel onward, the writer listed all those who sought the city of God and the Messiah. Not all were rich either. In fact, some preferred to die a martyr's death rather than give into the pleasures of this world by forsaking God.

And who do those judgemental people think they are? Do they know what only God knows? Job never knew that God let Satan test him with trials. Neither did those self-righteous friends know why Job was suffering so many tragedies.

I'll be writing about this in greater detail in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? Many people make the mistake of believing their lives of ease prove their goodness. What a shock they'll get when Christ says, "I never knew you."

On Thursday, I'll post about how some folks believe that taking medicine is a breach of faith. Again, it's a case of people assuming things rather than trusting God's wisdom.