• Wed. Apr 17th, 2024
counterfeit revivalcounterfeit revival

I have pasted below the videos and some writing from others on counterfeit revival and deception that I searched out and found on the internet. I do not know what is in all the videos below but they are good to keep us alert to the dangers of deception and the counterfeit.  I believe there are many godly leaders and people in these movements but there is also a lot that is the crooked places and the rough ways that God will make straight and smooth when the church really finally deeply and genuinely repents and there is the end-time revival far greater than the Welsh revival and Azusa street revival. From what I have seen of people like Heidi Baker they are very godly loving people that have literally laid down their lives for the gospel many times and I certainly highly respect them and love them. If I discovered they were teaching serious doctrinal errors that led people away from godliness I would think different but I have not observed this. The Holy Spirit bears witness in our hearts with those that are God’s Holy love slaves. There is the danger here of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Some of these people may have since come out of error and there is also always the danger of some statements of error being taken out of context. In general, these videos are exposing serious error and counterfeit revival. Be who you uniquely really are before God and never conform to what the crowd is doing without the leading of the Holy Spirit and at the same time seek to be of one mind and heart only to the degree that the Holy Spirit bears witness in your heart of integrity before God to do.

To combat the deception that arose during the Welsh revival at the turn of this century, authors Jessie Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts wrote War on the Saints: a disclosure of the deceptive strategies used by evil spirits against God’s people. Both were very involved with the revival and were extremely concerned about the demonic manifestations that began to dominate their meetings. The foreword to War on the Saints warns of “the grave dangers that beset the path of uninformed enthusiasm.”

Watchman Knee in his book Spirit Force vs. Psychic Force

Example 5-Joy

A great number of people desire to have joy in their feeling. The so-called holy laugh is an extreme case in point. It is taught that if a person is filled with the Holy Spirit he invariably will have this holy laugh. He who claims to have this kind of laughing cannot control himself. Without any reason, he will laugh and laugh and laugh as if infected by a certain disease and will appear to be partially insane.

Once in a certain meeting, after the sermon was concluded, it was announced that everybody should seek this holy laugh. All began to beat tables or chairs, jumping and leaping all around, until not long afterward this so-called holy laughing came. People would merely look at one another and break out laughing. The more they thought about it the funnier it became. And so they could not contain themselves and kept on laughing. What is this? Can this possibly be the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Can this be His work? No, this is plainly one of the works of the soul. I mention this extreme case in order to illustrate through an “extreme” how we may fly off on a tangent by just two or three degrees of incorrectness. When Mr. Barlow (a beloved fellow-Christian) was here meeting with us, one particular help I received from him was this observation of his: that in order to see if a thing is right or wrong, one only need magnify it to a hundred degrees, that is, have whatever it is drawn to the extreme. The guiding principle is that if it is wrong at the hundredth degree a person knows it is also wrong at the first or second degree. It is very difficult to judge by the first or second degree alone; in case there is any error such error is bound to be too minute to be discerned. But by lengthening or enlarging the situation or circumstance, everything will become most distinct.

A Chinese proverb runs like this: Missing by a hundredth or a thousandth of an inch will end up in a distance of a thousand miles. You may start with only a mistake of one hundredth or one-thousandth of an inch and find yourself afterward with a discrepancy of one thousand miles. Or conversely stated, by looking at the discrepancy of a thousand miles you can see the mistake at one hundredth or one-thousandth of an inch.

Suppose there are two lines that are not exactly parallel but are off at a slight angle of one or two degrees hardly noticeable to the naked eye. If you lengthen these lines an inch longer the distance between them becomes obviously greater. Who knows how many hundreds of miles apart from each other these will be if these lines were to be extended to the ends of the earth? The distance tens of thousands of miles away from their origin proves the existence of error formed at the starting point.

Now let us apply this rule to the so-called holy laugh. How do people get this laugh? What procedure do they follow, or what condition must they fulfill? It is nothing but simply asking to laugh. There is but one thought, which is, to laugh. Are they seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Their lips may indeed utter such words as “O God, fill me with Your Spirit.” Nevertheless, that is merely a procedure; the aim of asking to be filled with the Spirit is something else than to be so filled. Though they may say so with their mouths, their heart desire is elsewhere. What is their aim? They want to laugh, to be joyful. They do not pray, “O God, I ask You to fill me with Your Spirit. I do not care for external sensation. If You fill me with Your Spirit, I am satisfied with or without feeling.” Whoever wishes to be filled with God’s Spirit ought to assume such an attitude.

Let me relate a true story. A student had repented and believed in the Lord. He had a fellow student who professed to be filled with this holy laugh and seemed to be excessively joyful. This fellow student urged him to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, saying how joyful he himself was from dawn to dusk without any sadness, and stating how helpful this experience would be to spiritual growth. Considering that his fellow student was a believer and already a possessor of this experience, the recently saved student thought he too should have it. Accordingly, he began to pray earnestly to God. He continued in prayer, asking God to give it to him; to such an extent that he lost his appetite and neglected his study.

Later on, he went to see his teacher and asked that he pray for him. The student himself pleaded fervently with God and vowed that he would not get up from prayer that evening if God did not give it to him. He kept on praying till suddenly he leaped up and shouted how joyful he was. He laughed and laughed. The more he laughed the funnier he felt. He laughed and danced and shouted. His teacher thought he must be out of his mind. Acting as though he were a physician, the teacher took hold of him and said, “Brother, be quiet, do not act disorderly.” But the more he was admonished, the fiercer he reacted. His teacher dared not say anything more, being fearful lest he offend the Holy Spirit if this were truly of God. Finally, the student went home and was better the next day. Now this was nothing but a great release of soul power, for he had fulfilled the condition for its release.
John Wesley, Charles Finney & Jonathan Edwards were revival preachers from the 1700 or 1800’s. Wesley said you better watch out for counterfeits after 3 weeks in true revivals & a true revival could be poisoned by the devil or turned into a false revival. During revivals of the 1700’s or 1800’s counterfeits were not at the heart of the revival but only at the fringes. But these modern false revivals are based on counterfeit manifestations. They are at the heart of the revivals not the fringes. The older revival preachers preached heavy intellectual doctrinal preaching. Finney for example preached against Calvinism. Most charismatics or Pentecostals do not preach in this manner. They tend to see themselves as super-spiritual with no need to preach the way Finney, Wesley or Edwards did. The early Pentecostals may have gotten away with this to an extent & had some true revivals among them. But the church has changed. Other forms of false doctrine have come forth. For example, Finney, Edwards & Wesley were all postmillennialism. So were most Christians in their era. But now people are mostly dispensationalists, amillennialists or historic premillennialists. Charles Finney especially would never attempt or expect to start a revival of any kind without getting Christians to stop practicing or believing false doctrines or heresies. He knew belief in false teachings would ruin revivals & quench the Spirit. Any true modern revival would consist in preaching against false doctrines including Calvinism, false millennial positions, false views on justification & sanctification. It would also consist of preaching against the errors, extremes & false teachings of the charismatic movement which is a thing that was not around in the 1700 or 1800s. If John Wesley thought revivals in his day would have counterfeits in three weeks in a true revival in modern times the counterfeits would appear the same day the revival started. This is how decieved the charismatic movement has become. There is simply no such thing as a true revival in modern times that could last longer then a day without an emphasis on doctrinal preaching. There are too many heresies, false doctrines & demonic manifestations for such a revival to occur without an emphasis on doctrinal preaching. It is not possible. The heresies, false doctrines, demonic manifestations or counterfeit anointings would grieve & quench the Holy Spirit. This is self evident to anyone who will take the time to study Charles Finney’s writings & lectures on revivals.

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