
The Vineyard Movement's 'Toronto Blessing' (Part 1b)
CONTENTS:
THE VINEYARD TODAY (continued)
- Fruit
- Heretics!
- Holy Spirit
- How God Speaks
- How God Works
- Intellect Versus Experience
- Jesus - One Person, or All of Us?
- Jonathan Edwards
- Judging Others
- Judgement Coming
Fruit
Most pastors who support this movement appeal to the good fruit that
results as evidence that it is a move of God. So let's look at some
of the fruits that you don't hear about at most Vineyards:
And then I made a mistake. I went down to Dallas, Texas, and there's
a guy that looked a little bit at that time like Kenny Rogers and Santa
Claus and a Teddy Bear all rolled into one, and he read my mail and
reached his steady little hand out and touched my forehead and I felt
a zzzzzzzz and I fell on the floor. Well, I didn't really fall on the
floor yet because he said "Hold him up, I'm not done yet," and then
finally the guy caught me.
....Now, while God is using Jeff, I know, at this point of the conversation,
I know this is not an accident.....I know that God has told my friend
Jeff, who I hadn't seen in years...to call me. I know it's God. [Jeff
continues how he went to a church then where he saw healing, people
falling down, etc. when an evangelist visited the church. Randy wants
to go]
.....so I called office of the headquarters of this particular evangelist
and said "where are you going to be at next week?" and she said "well,
he's going to be in Tulsa.
Now, you have to know, one of the things I like about, really appreciate
in John Wimber, is the ecumenical spirit of loving the whole church.
Charisma misquoted me. There wasn't other groups I had to get reconciled
with, there was only one group. There was only one group that I was
bitter towards, and I don't even know why I was bitter. There was only
one group that I'd publicly get up in my church and say "If you come
here today to name it and claim it and confess it, blab it and grab
it, you're in the wrong place. You need to go down to this place." And
my wife would say "you should not say that." I'd say "I know, I repent" and then I'd say it again. So, you know, it gives you a flavour for
where I was coming from. (Randy Clark, Let The Fire Fall Conference,
Anaheim Vineyard, July 1994)
Is Randy Clark saying that we should not use discernment, that we should
not weed out and expose blatantly false teaching, and that we should not
avoid those who are preaching false teaching?
Rodney Howard-Browne becomes downright vicious in the following comment.
Also, if he believes we should not judge at all, isn't he guilty of judging
here?:
....So the next morning I come back to the meeting and Rodney gets
up and he says "you know, sometimes people, out of hurt and immaturity,
and maybe they need attention and they're really just hurting people,
sometimes they get over in the flesh and they're laughing. It's just
the flesh but it's weak flesh, and it's immature flesh, and it's just
because of the need of attention. And you know, if that gets too bad
we've got a laughing room. We just take them into the laughing room
and if it's really the Holy Spirit they'll keep laughing. They don't
care who's watching. But if it's in the flesh, they'll stop eventually.
But I want to say something to some of you who got angry last night
because of what was happening, and if you move into anger and judgement,
that's your flesh. And from God's perspective, your flesh stinks more
than that flesh because yours is the flesh of superiority and judgement." (Randy Clark, Let The Fire Fall Conference, Anaheim Vineyard, July 1994)
....So the next night we go back and this time I felt something in
my hands. "Oh, gosh, I'm going to get to go up too." 'Cause I was going
to be honest and not cheat like some of you. So I got up and got in
line and got prayed for.....I didn't feel any electricity. I felt none.
And I'm sitting there thinking this is all in the flesh. It must be
psychological because I'm not shaking. There's no electricity here.
And I'm really confused. But I'm going to press in. And then, all of
a sudden these people start laughing around me. And I've got one person
about two people down that had the "anoinking." The anoinking, and I
explained this the other night, you know when you [sound of a pig grunting].
....And I start laughing. I'm just laughing in the natural at that person.
But before I knew it I was laughing and I couldn't stop laughing. And
then I was drunk, and so was my worship leader. You have to understand,
I've only been drunk -- this happened almost a year ago now -- I've
only been drunk two or three times, because I think it's my Baptist
background. We took these covenants we'd never drink and there's this
thing about drunkenness and so I'd almost never drunk in my whole life,
and I think subconsciously it's really hard for me to enter into that
level, but my worship leader's a recovering alcoholic. Man, he can
get right in there. (Randy Clark, Let The Fire Fall Conference,
Anaheim Vineyard, July 1994)
What does it say for the Holy Spirit when someone who is a recovering
alcoholic can take part in what's going on easier than others?
Questioner: Hi. I'm Ron Riff. I'm a pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio. I've
been trying to put this myself, a historical perspective on all this
and I don't know if you have an answer or not, but in all the past revivals
other than the Welsh Revival, and I truly do believe that we're on the
verge of revival here. I'm totally convinced of that. But the one
thing I haven't seen in this revival that you see in history is a very,
a strong anointed preaching the point of very much an emphasis on holiness
of God and depravity of man. If you look at some of these things by
Edwards or Finney or you look at some of Seymour and different things,
the words were brought out were very much an emphasis on a big gap between
the holiness of God and the depravity of man and a very much a strong,
what I call, strong message preached from the pulpit. And I haven't
seen that in this here and do you think God is doing something different,
in a different way, or do you think it's going to come or what's your
perspective on that?
Randy Clark: I can't say I'm an authority on the messages that were
preached in the revival eras. One of the reasons, particularly about
the depravity of men -- the aspect of the holiness of God and the aspect
of called to holiness is happening now. God threw a party first, and
if we had got the heavy message of holiness to start with -- I think
one of the problems is most of the people in church already feel so
icky about themselves that they feel like they can't, they're kind of
out in the bunkhouse anyway, and first there's been a major message
of grace and the love of God, and it's not so much His wrath but His
goodness that brings us to repentance, and as we respond to His message
of His grace and mercy, it will provoke a repentance on the part of
the church in the sense of change. You know?
...So I think it's, in the early days you could have looked at it
and said "I don't see that here." And John and I talked about it, John
Arnott and I, and we felt like it was coming, but if it would have came
-- in God's wisdom, if it would have came first, the church couldn't
even have responded because it was already feeling so "Okay, we can't
even come close to You because of our"....
So, you know, in the midst of it, it's kind of hard to know what's
really being said if you only hear one or two messages. You need to
hear, more or less, the bulk of what is being said. And so it's trying
to avoid extremes and at the same time looking for the truth that's
there. God does want us to be different from the world, but it's so
much easier to be different from the world in outward ways when the
more important thing is the things of the heart. How we spend ourselves
and spend our money is root issues, 'cause, you know. And I don't
want to say anything negative about any group 'cause I don't think God's
pleased with it, so...But you know when you're with someone who's
holy, it's not necessarily the way they look, but it's the way in their
eyes when they talk about Jesus. (Randy Clark, Run With The Fire,
1 Year Anniversary Message, Toronto Airport Vineyard, January 20,
1995)
Having communicated with him several times, I have no doubt that Randy
Clark sincerely believes the things he says, but I firmly believe he is
sincerely wrong. The problem with the church today is not that
people already feel so bad about themselves, but just the opposite, that
they have very little conviction of sin. If people really felt
so icky, as he says, there would have been repentance and a turn-around
in the church long ago. Instead, statistically, divorce rates, abuse statistics,
etc., are almost the same today in the North American church as they are
in the secular world. It's very revealing that there has been little sign,
if any, of people falling on the floor and -- rather than laughing, growling,
barking, etc., -- weeping in total repentance of the unholy things they
do.
Again we see a Vineyard/Toronto Blessing Pastor (Clark, above) refusing
to reveal serious doctrinal errors in the Word-Faith movement, but permitting
the wolves to invade the flock.
So we don't believe things based on whether they're weird or not.
It's not a criteria of truth. Jonathan Edwards says "I know it's weird
when a man falls down and he doesn't move for 24 hours. But I'll tell
you something about the man who fell down. When he fell down he was
a drunkard, a wife-beater, and a God-hater. Twenty-four hours later,
when he got up, he never touched his wife again in anger, he never went
into the tavern again, and he loved God and His Word." He said, "Last
time I checked, that's not a work of the devil." The devil's into producing
addictions, not delivering people from them. So it's what's been said
around here all week long, sometimes a little apologetically; don't
look at the package, look at the fruit. Look at the fruit. Put our attention
on the fruit. (Jack Deere, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November 20, 1994)
Well, people, this is 1994, if you haven't noticed. That's 12 years
ago. And so if you ask me, Todd, what's happening, I think God is refreshing
the refreshed. I pressed Randy Clark very hard about this last week.
I said, Randy, who's being touched in Toronto? And I pressed John when
he came home from England. Who's being touched? 'Cause I just have the
need to figure this out. And Randy says that in his estimation, and
this is not scientific, but in his estimation, about 80 percent of the
people who are being touched are people just like you, who have been
touched once before. (Todd Hunter, Revival In Focus, Mission
Vieto Vineyard, October 23, 1994)
Are these the fruits of the revival that we're supposed to be seeing,
that 80 percent of those being affected by this "move of the Holy Spirit" have been affected before? What about salvations? Most Vineyard/Toronto
Blessing pastors will admit that there have been comparatively few people
saved so far, but that that is supposed to happen later.
We must keep in mind that not only do many non-Christians exhibit the
fruits of the Spirit, but there are other types of fruit that should be
produced. Correct doctrine, rather than false, should be a fruit of someone
being touched by God. What about the fruit of the prophets? Wouldn't it
make sense that good fruit from a prophet of God would be accurate
prophecies? As we will see later, there has been more than a little false
prophecy given in the name of God.
.....This is all about Jesus, and in the time that I was there, I
have to tell you, I heard not one mention of the devil, I heard not
one word about spiritual warfare, nobody mentioned a principality or
a power, and I cannot tell you how refreshing that was. And the
truth is, that the people there, and I of a sense, have been so consumed
with the Person of Jesus and with the work of the Kingdom that, quite
honestly, there is no time to give any attention to the enemy or to
all his works. Because the power of Jesus is great and the Person of
Jesus is so preoccupying, and our passion for Jesus is on the increase
to such a degree that it is a wonderful thing. (Eleanor Mumford, Holy
Trinity Brompton, London, England, May 29, 1994) v
Eleanor Mumford, who was giving a report to her church about her trip
to the Toronto Airport Vineyard, was delighted that there was no mention
at the Vineyard of the devil, spiritual warfare, or principalities and
powers. If there was no deception taking place in a church that didn't
mention those topics, that would be a real miracle, considering
the emphasis the New Testament puts on those subjects. Does omitting those
topics fit into the category of good fruit?
Now, close your Bible and I'm going to take you to Luke, Chapter Two,
but I'm not going to read the Scripture. And I'm going to share some
things that are pertinent to renewal in the nineties. I want to talk
to you about renewal, what I think God is doing, what is happening from
a prophetic perspective. Now this will not be hermeneutically balanced
or hermeneutically perfect, but it's just inspired thoughts.
I have about six to seven thoughts of inspiration out of Luke, Chapter
Two, and what I'm going to do is talk to you about some circumstances
that related to the birth of Jesus Christ and parallel them with what
I see happening in the church today.
.....Now let me say, before I begin, there are two groups of people
in the church today. I categorize them. Those that are affected by what
God's doing and those that are offended by what God is doing. There
is not a lot of neutral ground. The neutral ground is dissipating by
the hour. You can't stand in the middle any more and say "Well, I don't
know. Maybe it's God, maybe it's not." You're going to get rolled over.
Remember the song "I'm a Steam Roller, Baby, And I'm Going To Roll Right
Over You?" Well, I think the Holy Spirit is singing that song. There
is no middle ground. You're either affected or offended by what God
is doing. And if you're offended, you may continue to get offended 'cause
you haven't seen nothing yet. If you haven't been able to run, walk
with a footman, what are you going to do when the horses come? The horses
aren't here. (Larry Randolph, Renewal and Revival Today, Toronto
Airport Vineyard, November 18, 1994)
Larry Randolph here is about to give an inspired, that is, God-breathed,
word which, he says, may not be hermeneutically balanced or hermeneutically
perfect. So if what he is about to say is inspired, then we'd better listen
to him, as it is directly from God Himself! BUT, what God is about to
say may not be correct! This is more good fruit?
John MacArthur recently made this comment: "Satan's not going to
announce error. He's going to come in and sing your songs and hum the
tunes that Christians hum, and he's going to be there, you know, right
in the midst of all that little worship time, and he's happy as he can
possibly be, and so are all of his emissaries, to let people sing songs
about Jesus and then engage in what is absolutely and utterly unbiblical,
and may well be satanic." (John MacArthur, Songtime USA Radio
Interview)
Heretics!
William DeArteaga is about to tell us who the real heretics are in the
church today.
The present revival, this laughing revival or refreshment -- and I
think it's turning from a refreshment into a revival -- is being challenged
on the grounds that in the background there's a fear of heresy -- will
this revival drift into heresy? -- which is the traditional question
of all revivals. So at the present moment we really need a special anointing
of discernment and empowerment of discernment. Then we really need to
answer the question, What really is heresy? (William DeArteaga, Toronto
Airport Vineyard, October 13, 1994)
My first conclusion was totally wrong. Don't follow it. There is no
such thing as heresy. I got into trouble with that, but it led me to
a further question which the Lord has dealt with me. You see, if you
come to wrong the conclusion that there is no heresy, then you do just
what the liberals do. Everything is up for grabs, and Buddha and Christ
are all the same. As an Episcopalian I must confess our denomination
is among the worst of that. The last presiding bishop in his inaugural
speech says We are open to everyone -- So what is the biblical meaning
of heresy, and this will solve the question for what this revival is
all about. And it is wrong to think that heresy is just an incorrect
idea or idea that disagrees with you, because the Bible has provisions
for how to solve incorrect ideas or disputes among brethren, and it's
in James 3:13 and 18 and you amiably discuss it and let the Holy Spirit
solve it. That's how your wrong ideas are corrected.
But a heresy is something more serious. It's like a cluster, not just
a single, a whole cluster of incorrect ideas and lifestyles. Like the
Branch Davidian, that's really what the biblical meaning of heresy is.
It's a group, a lifestyle and a cluster stuck together, you see. And
if you examine where the Branch Davidians came from, they came from
just perfectly normal Seventh-Day Adventists, you know. They were just
slightly crazy, I mean, just like all of us. But slowly they got more
and more involved in extremism, etc., and -- I see we have some Seventh-Day
Adventists here. They're a wonderful denomination, I mean just like
all of us, you know, just a little crazy like all of us -- but what
really heresy is is a focus on certain things that get worse and worse
and worse, not just a simple idea.
I was clarified in this by a wonderful book that I would recommend
to you pastors, Harold O. J. Brown, a wonderful, evangelical scholar
called Heresies. And he points out that the critical thing was,
in the late middle ages the Catholic church began defining heresy as
any single deviation from normative theology. So that if you, if you
deviated or disagreed with any single point of the whole bag of Catholic
doctrine, you were a heretic. Tragically, the reformers took this definition,
basically took this definition, except they changed the context. If
you deviate from the Westminster Confession and all these little points
instead of the Catholic Catechism, then you are a heretic. And again,
that's really not what a heretic really is.
The most tragic example, for instance, Calvinism established its principles
and is focused on the sovereignty of God, which is perfectly fine, but
when Armenius started discussing the issue of what's mans' role in appropriating
the graces of God and salvation, a perfectly legitimate point, he was
a heretic! Armenianism is, if you're into reform theology, that's a
fighting word, Armenianism. Most of you are probably Armenic. You didn't
realize that, you know. If you follow in the Wesleyan tradition you
are a heretic according to Calvin. Which goes back to the Full Gospel
Businessmen's thing of the Holy Spirit doesn't believe in these categories.
Isn't that true?
Okay, but what is, again, biblical heresies. I believe there are three
primary biblical heresies defined in the New Testament. Three conjunct
lifestyles, clusters of ideas, not just single, erroneous ideas, three
clusters and lifestyles.
The first is Gnosticism. Many of you went to Bible school and seminary
and were taught that Gnosticism developed in the second and third century
and you had the major gnostic churches and heresies at that time. The
latest scholarship, and thankfully to a man called Walter Schmathal,
a German scholar, who wrote a book called Gnosticism In Corinth,
shows very cleverly, with wonderful research, that Gnosticism already
existed, and in fact, the opponents that Paul had to battle in his churches
were Jewish gnostics. Gnosticism is the perennial heresy that
occurs in all ages of the church. It is basically believing that experience
overcomes and nullifies Scripture, and it's very subjective.
You can call it New Age, you can call it spiritualism, because Gnosticism
always ends up in spiritualism, in whatever manifestation that may be.
So Gnosticism has always been with us and will probably always be with
us until the Lord comes back. And it is one of those perennial heresies,
a real heresy.
The second heresy is Sadduceeism. Those religious folks who basically
don't believe in religious phenomena or the spiritual world, but love
religious institutions. We don't have too many of them, except in Seminaries.
But they're always around. They're always around. It's a perennial heresy,
Sadduceeism.
And the last one, which is the one I want to talk about tonight, er,
this morning, is Phariseeism. And in Phariseeism, tradition is equated
with Scripture, and confused with Scripture, so that if you do something
against their tradition you think -- they can't separate -- you're already
doing something unscriptural and ultimately sinful, because you have
sinned against one of our traditions. The funny thing about Phariseeism
-- now think, a popular conception of heresy, heresy is a wrong idea,
that's the popular, it's actually Catholic, ancient medieval Catholic
idea, heresy is a wrong idea about theology. But, biblically, the Phariseeism
-- let's take a look at Matthew 23:1.
.....And Jesus spoke to the multitude and to His disciples, saying, "The Scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of
Moses. Therefore, all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not
do according to their deeds, for they say things and do not do them."
.....They sit themselves in the chair of Moses and they have right
doctrine. Their ideas are okay. But don't follow their examples. Phariseeism
is the heresy of orthodoxy which is basically correct ideas, and Christianity
got a lot of good things from the Pharisees. Number One, like the resurrection
of the body. Many of our core Christian doctrines comes from the Pharisees
which Jesus incorporates and knew as the Son of God that these things
were true. So the Pharisees didn't have wrong theological ideas. Something
else was wrong. And interestingly enough, the Pharisees were also the
hearer of the earlier generation. They had preserved Judaism from being
incorporated into the Hellenistic New Age or Gnostic religions of the
period, and they had resisted that at the cost of blood and their martyrdom.
They were the evangelicals who, like our own evangelical brethren, resisted
the liberals in the modern America and Canada, and they resisted all
that liberal corruption that the Bible is mythology, etc. Well, the
Pharisees similarly resisted the Hellenistic influences, saying, you
know, Yahweh is just one of the many gods. Why don't you just put another
statue up next to our Jupiter and everybody will be happy. And they
said no, and they died for that. But the problem with having succeeded
in one generation is you idolatrize, you make an idol out of your victories
and of your traditions and out of your theology.
So, ironically, the core problem with the Pharisee is that he cannot
recognize the present work of the Holy Spirit because he's so enthraled
with his past victories and past doctrine. He can't see something new
because he has what was good and old.
And every age of, every great revival of the church has always
had a wave of Pharisees. Clergymen who say "What are you doing, there's
this new stuff. It can't be true, it must be a heresy because we haven't
done it this way and we've got great holiness in our congregation and
we didn't do any of these new measures. So this must be wrong because
we've already got it basically right." And that's the great heresy of
Phariseeism. (William DeArteaga, Toronto Airport Vineyard, October
13, 1994)
Now that's a serious accusation, calling all who disagree with what
is going on Pharisees, and then calling those Pharisees heretics! That
leaves virtually no place for discussion between the two factions and,
if it was believed by most Vineyard/Toronto Blessing supporters, would
set the stage for the physical warfare that Wes Campbell mentions later
in this article. Making a statement like DeArteaga did is the height of
irresponsibility!
Notice DeArteaga's description of Gnosticism: "It is basically believing
that experience overcomes and nullifies Scripture, and it's very subjective."
Doesn't this sound amazingly like the entire Toronto Blessing
experience? (My thanks to Compuserve's Alex Zuroff for pointing this out.)
Holy Spirit
"What we learned from Wimber and the Vineyard was, all of us could
flow in the gifts of the Spirit. The Bible encourages us to desire to
prophesy, you know, to desire spiritual gifts, desire the best gifts.
What does that mean? Earnestly desire them. And that's what we began
to do, and so when I went to Argentina last November, which would be
eleven months ago now, Carol and I both got powerfully touched in meetings
led by Klaudio Freesan, who's a Pentecostal leader in Argentina and
a wonderful man of God. He prayed for us, but as he did he asked me
a question.
"He said, 'Do you want it?'
"And I said, 'oh, yeah, I want it all right!'
"He said, 'then take it.'
"Boom, he hits my hands and something clicked in my heart. I said,
'Yeah, I will, too, I'll take it,' and it was just a click of faith.
I don't know how else to describe it to you. (John Arnott, Pastor of
the Toronto Airport Vineyard, Pastor's Meeting, October 19, 1994)
"The greatest blessing -- I mean, it would be enough, in one sense,
if God would have come and visited our church and we would have had
a great time of refreshing. And it would have been wonderful if other
people such as you guys could come in and see it, at least, let alone
partake of it. Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere you could
go and just get really filled up with power and love, the love of God?
-- But it doesn't stop there. What happens is, there's a transference
of His anointing where, not only do you see it, not only do you experience
it for yourself, but you're going to take it home to your people. And
that is the thrilling thing for me, because I spent a year and a half
trying to find some anointed evangelist -- and they are out there, and
one of them was Jill. Jill Austin is with us and Jill's been going around
the country doing this for several years. But it wasn't transferring
to people in every case. There were examples of it, but it was still
hard to get, wasn't it? It's not anymore, though, I bet. No.
..."And so we would have loved to have had Jill come and spend three
or four days with us, and we would have had a great time in the Spirit
of God. But then, Jill would have left, and in all probability the Holy
Spirit would have gone with her. But what happens now is, He doesn't,
I mean He goes with you and with her, so the thing that I want you to
understand is, the greatest blessing for us is to see you and your wife,
as the pastors of that church, be the ones that bring the fire of God
home to the people. It's wonderful to have an evangelist visit and bring
the fire of God. Particularly if they left it behind. (John Arnott,
Pastor of the Toronto Airport Vineyard, Pastor's Meeting, October 19,
1994)
Now another, from a [secular] paper, it's talking about this particular
church, it says "this was, after all, an Anglican church which had just
given over ?4000 in the collection bag the previous Sunday for Rwandan
relief." It talks about another church. "St. Pauls and a number of other
London churches over the past three years have been started and have
led enthusiasts to believe that a real religious revival is underway."
He said "the phenomena spread apparently in Toronto in a small evangelical
church called the Airport Vineyard Fellowship. They have spread" said
Mr. Lee, "like the Bejing flu, by contact from person to person." Lord,
make us carriers! Make us carriers of the Holy Ghost virus, from person
to person. It was brought to London by Sandy Miller, the Vicar at Holy
Trinity of Brompton. H.T.B. has always been known as the largest evangelical
Anglican church in London. They are clean-cut, energetically and enormously
successful people. It said some evenings people had to be helped from
the church. They were laughing so hard. One guy had his eyes on the
floor for about two hours and could not walk. (Randy Clark, Evidence
Of This Present Move, Toronto Airport Vineyard, October 15, 1994)
One of the more noticeable aspects of this movement is the very frequent
reduction of the Holy Spirit to an it, rather than the third
Person of the Trinity. It takes on more the aspect of a force, a fire,
or some other description. Notice also that it can be transferred from
one person to another, like a contagious disease, and that it can leave
when a pastor or speaker carrying it leaves. Does this sound like the
work of the Holy Spirit or a communicable disease?
Now, it's interesting. I always like how secular papers would put
it, and this is from, I think, the Times, London Times, June 1994, by
Ruth Glydhill [?] and this shows a picture of them standing there, hands
raised up, and I just want to read an excerpt. It's funny how secular
people write. (Randy Clark, Evidence Of This Present Move, Toronto
Airport Vineyard, October 15, 1994)
....."After his sermon, Mr. Mumford prayed for 'The tornado to visit
the church.' The band struck up with a song, Pour Out Your Spirit. Outside,
it was calm, but suddenly the curtain shielding an open door blew in
and over my face a huge wind rushed in, scattering service sheets and
papers. Alarmed, I started singing along with the band." Yes, Lord!
Big God!! "Alarmed, I started singing along with the band, while nearly
everyone else fell over, stood rigid or shaking, sobbing, clutching
their faces or waving their hands before them. I looked back beyond
the empty chairs and bodies strewn over the floor to see many who were
not affected, were chattering calmly over coffee as if nothing was happening,
while bodies lay splayed at their feet bearing beatific smiles and looks
of tremendous peace. I clamoured over a couple of prostrate bodies for
tea and coffee and found myself giggling uncontrollably. Turning to
look back to the band, the hall took on a bizarrely infinite perspective. I felt dizzy, grasped the chair in order not to collapse and recalled
that I still had a days work to do at the office. Recognizing I could
not at this time afford to be slain by the Spirit, I opted instead for
a spiritual sobriety and a hasty exit. My hand shaking only slightly
as I downed the coffee and ran."
London Times! Secular people know how to write about spiritual things
in their innocence. (Randy Clark, Evidence Of This Present Move,
Toronto Airport Vineyard, October 15, 1994)
It is revealing here that an unsaved person in the secular media
was affected by what was going on. It seems unlikely that God's Spirit
would have that effect (particularly when many Vineyard/Toronto Blessing
pastors have said that if you have an aversion to the experience, it probably
won't happen to you.) However, if this phenomena was of the flesh or of
Satan, one would expect that an unsaved person could be affected.
Larry Thomas gives this revealing comment on the working of the Holy
Spirit at these Vineyard meetings:
I was in Canada one time and we just about, I thought we'd talk Benny
Hinn into the ground outside the church, every bit of his false doctrine
with everybody, and one gentleman got up after an hour of this and he
said, "well, you may disagree with his teaching, but you got to admit
that the Spirit of God really works in his service." And I wanted to
say, "didn't you listen to what I just said?" If the man gets up and
preaches that he's messiah of the earth today, which he does, that God's
plan is for everybody to be skinny, good-looking and rich, that Jesus
was a demoniac, He became demon-possessed on the cross and had to go
into hell and be born again of the Spirit Himself, He was just a man
and not God, when he preaches lies and heresies like that, do you believe
for a moment that the Spirit of God comes into the service and blesses
people and blows people over, and ministers to people. If that's the
Spirit of God, we have no chance. If the Spirit of God honours lies
as well as truth, how will we ever know what's true? But the Holy Spirit
is the Spirit of Truth Who will lead us into all truth and He will not
for one instant condone the preaching of such heresy. (Pastor Larry
Thomas, No Laughing Matter, Audiotape, October 10, 1994)
...I say this to people, "Listen we're going to have a ministry time,
we're going to stack the chairs, we're going to get in rows and the
ministry team is going to come and what I want you to do is I want you
to begin to give your hear to Him in love. I want you take that worship
song and just write it right into the throne of God, just press into
Him as open and sincerely as you can. Those of you who need to watch,
you can watch. We are not going to pray for the spectators, you can
just watch because the chances are you're not going to receive anything.
There's no magic to this, people desiring God, God comes and meets them."
Another thing that hinders is people pray all the time.
Praying in English or even praying in tongues. Mention the Holy Spirit
and they start praying in tongues, you know. Our experience
is that that will hinder substantially your ability to receive. And
so I say to people, "Look don't pray. It's hard to pour out
and to pour in at the same time. It's like a bucket that's got a hole
in it because you are pouring out in prayer. Stop and receive and let
the Holy Spirit fill you. Be like a sponge and desire the Lord with
everything that's within you. Every case that does that, they are on
the floor receiving. People pray for you, that's your time to receive.
Pray on the way out, you can pray later. Don't take control, you
can take control later. The whole deal is, you lose control, He takes
control. He gets you out of your comfort zone, makes you feel vulnerable,
right? You can analyze it later can't you?" (John Arnott, at
Holy Trinity Brompton, England, February 14, 1995)
Isn't it incredible that here we have the leader of the Toronto Airport
Vineyard suggesting a situation in which it is not a good thing
to pray; that praying hinders your ability to receive? I would ask, to
receive what? Certainly, if people were receiving demonic spirits, praying
definitely would hinder ones' ability to receive those spirits!
Does he honestly believe that praying would hinder the Holy Spirit?
Note also that he says that it has been their experience that
praying hinders the Holy Spirit. They are not judging everything by the
Word of God. They are judging the Word of God by their experiences! This
is typical of the entire movement.
I have discovered something I believe to be very revealing, and which
should cause people to wonder which Holy Spirit many Vineyard/Toronto
Blessing spokesmen are talking about.
Jesus said in John 15:26, "When the Counsellor comes, Whom I will send
to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth Who goes out from the Father,
He will testify about Me." He also said in John 14:26, "But the Counsellor,
the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you
all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
The job of the Holy Spirit is to point us to Jesus Christ. The New Testament,
in the King James Version, refers by name to Jesus 1230 times, refers
to the Holy Spirit 324 times, and refers to prophecy or prophets 203 times.
From these statistics alone we can see that the Holy Spirit speaks about
Himself or is referred to in the New Testament roughly once for every
four references to Jesus Christ.
However, in doing over 30 transcripts of various Vineyard/Toronto Blessing
audiotapes thusfar, Jesus is referred to 143 times, the Holy Spirit 383
times and prophets or prophecy 372 times. We can see from these statistics
that the Holy Spirit is referred to roughly three times as often as the
Person the Holy Spirit is to point us to, Jesus Christ, and the subject
of prophets or prophecy is referred to roughly three times as often as
Jesus Christ. Jesus runs a distant third. These statistics show where
the emphasis is in the Vineyard/Toronto Blessing Movement!
How God Speaks
...'Surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His
plan to His servants, the prophets.' Now I'll read that again. 'Surely
the sovereign Lord does' what? 'nothing without revealing His plan to
His servants, the prophets.' Now, that either means up until the
last apostle died or it means nothing, at anytime, whenever. And that
would preclude then, that there are still prophets around who hear the
word of the Lord. Okay? So that's an issue for some of you coming from
a cessationist background. But, of course, we don't believe that. (John
Arnott, Pastor of the Toronto Airport Vineyard, Pastor's Meeting, October
19, 1994)
According to John Arnott, this seems to still be God's main means of
communications today. By contrast, Hebrews says,
Heb 1:1,2 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets
at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken
to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom
he made the universe. (NIV)
Time after time after time God has spoken to the prophets and He's
told the church before it happened so that we will believe it when it
happens. He said "I'll even give you the dates and I'll give you signs
in the natural that will point, before it happens, to what I'm going
to do in the spiritual." And all of these things have come to pass,
but there are things in that that has not yet come to pass, because
my eyes are not yet seeing greater things than I have read about in
church history. We're not yet seeing 50,000 people saved in a month,
yet. We're not yet seeing the healings of the magnitude of the great
Healing Revival of 1948 up until around 1957, in that period of time.
We're not seeing that yet, but God says we will not see that, we will
see greater than that, and this today is a call to uh, but I believe
that we may, I don't know when this will come, but I believe it will
be in this time of ebb and flow that we'll see high water marks and
there'll be times when there will be a time of purification, there'll
be a time of persecution, there'll be a time of testiness, and having
walked through that time of purification that we will be vessels that
can be trusted and He'll pour out His Spirit in a major, like we have
never seen before. (Randy Clark, Evidence Of This Present Move,
Toronto Airport Vineyard, October 15, 1994)
Keep in mind that most, if not all cults claim extra-biblical
revelation, usually through a prophet. This is a way for cult leaders
to disregard what the Scriptures say and impose their own doctrines. It
would not do for most of them to rely on the Scriptures, as they wouldn't
be as free to twist them for their own purposes. I'm not saying that the
Vineyard/Toronto Blessing Movement is a cult (at least not yet,) but as
we will see, they possess many characteristics common to cults, and that
puts them on a dangerous path.
How God Works
There was a period, a window -- remember the anthropic principle, the
little windows of opportunity? -- there was a spiritual window of opportunity
in the 1890s in which, can you imagine? -- I'm sure this is God's Plan
A -- you know, God always works Plan A, B, C, D -- God's Plan A for
the 1890s was that all the evangelical churches would have accepted
the ministry of healing. A lot of the journals in the 1890s, Lutheran
journals, Presbyterian journals were discussing this strange revival,
and it was like pro and con, can healing really be for today again,
do we buy this cessationism idea that the gifts stopped with the death
of the Apostles, or not, etc. It was really touch and go, and it went
the wrong direction. (William DeArteaga, Toronto Airport Vineyard, October
13, 1994)
You mean, God doesn't know how His people are going to react, so He
always has several backup plans?
Intellect Versus Experience
[Stacy Campbell comes up and gives a prophecy]:
In this visitation of the Lord, the Lord is setting out to do many
things. And the primary thing that the Lord is setting out to do is
to humble the wise man, for knowledge puffs up and brings pride, but
love edifies. And God is destroying the wisdom of this world that the
power of God might be revealed unto salvation. For, think of it, to
the Jews the thought of a dead Messiah was ridiculous, but the dead
Messiah was their salvation. And the Lord is setting out to destroy
the wisdom of man, because the wisdom of man works against the
power of His Spirit. For the natural man does not understand the things
of God, for they are appraised only by the Spirit of God. And the Lord
is running around the world and He is touching His people, and He is
humbling, He is humbling, I tell you, He is humbling those who, like
Paul, are Hebrews of the Hebrews, Pharisees, blameless in many, many
respects. But they can't understand the power of God, and the wisdom
of God, for it is but foolishness to them. But the Lord, through
His foolishness, is bringing salvation to the earth, for He is coming
in a visitation to fill His people with His power, to stretch forth
His power, to fill His people, to give them passion for the Son of God.
And with this passion they will go out and they will bring salvation.
And just as the dead Messiah brought salvation to the whole world,
the power of God and the foolishness of God will bring salvation through
empowering of His people to send them out into the world. And when His
power touches you it will heal you, and when His power touches you it
will empower you, and when His power touches you it will refresh you,
and you will love the Son all the more. And your love for the Son will
result in love for your fellow man and you will go out and you will
bring in the lost and the glory of God will be revealed and the salvation
of God will be revealed to the world. So open yourselves. Open yourselves.
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and tell Him that you
will take whatever He gives you. You will take His power. You will take
His healing. You will take His empassioning and His empowering. And
with that He will take you and He will send you to the nations of the
world. (Wes Campbell, Manifestations Of The Holy Spirit, July
1994, Anaheim Vineyard)
When Stacy Campbell (a "prophetess") talks about the wisdom of man,
she is talking about the wisdom of those who are not part of this movement.
There are some Vineyard/Toronto Blessing pastors who say, in essence,
that those who are not part of this movement are not Christians at all,
but are of the world, that the only true Christians are those who favour
this movement. Several other pastors also make a point of denouncing intelligence
and playing up experience and feelings, as we shall see next.
...And one young man, wealthy young man, went to this university,
and I forgot if it was the university of Hal or what it was now, but
he was touched, because these groups talked, these professors talked
about having small groups where lay people would be accountable to each
other, and where it wasn't enough to know the right things about God,
but you needed to experience the living God yourself -- that Christianity
should be experiential, that if your experience with Christ is not enough
to give you peace facing death, then it's not enough, and that the lay
people should be involved.
I want to contend by that illustration that it is not enough to have
the right doctrine. It is not enough to have our heads full and rightly
ordered, because full heads will never advance the kingdom. Full hearts
will. (Randy Clark, Toronto Airport Vineyard, October 13, 1994)
As Christians, we know so much now about spiritual warfare. You
really can't preach to the intellectuals.
.....For instance, the problem of evil. Now, my favourite book on
demonology and Charismatics is Pigs In The Parlour, a very sophisticated
book. It has a wonderful chapter on schizophrenia, etc. You hand that
to an intellectual and, plah. Give 'em F. Scott Peck's The People
of The Lie. Scott Peck starts discussing -- he's a psychologist
many years -- the problem of evil. He comes to the conclusion that there
probably is a demonic kingdom. You see? In between there, you're getting
your intellectual from where he is to the possibilities? And then, a
couple of years later hand him Pigs In The Parlour. [Laughter]
But not at the beginning. (William DeArteaga, Pastor's Meeting, Toronto
Airport Vineyard, October 12, 1994)
Note that The People of The Lie is a New Age book and that F.
Scott Peck is a New Age author whose books circulate in Christian bookstores.
That is the book William DeArteaga is recommending! Knowingly, by the
way, as he mentions the fact that it is New Age.
.....Okay. So some of you are living near clusters of intellectuals,
near universities. A few of you may even be university chaplains or
you may be living in a place where it's high-tech, etc., and you have
a special desire to do this, you can set your church to be friendly
towards the intellectuals just like Wimber [got] his church to be friendly
to the California folk and lifestyle. There are certain things you can
do without changing the essence of Christian doctrine and the foundational
truths, just to make it more friendly so that intellectuals can come
in. (William DeArteaga, Pastor's Meeting, Toronto Airport Vineyard,
October 12, 1994)
.....Lastly, this has to be done with great delicacy. Intellectuals
just love to talk and to fellowship at their level. How can the church
accommodate that? I'm not a pastor. I don't know. Maybe you could set
up a C.S. Lewis club or a coffee clutch that will discuss book reviews,
etc. Not in an exclusive way, but if you're going to discuss the cosmic
and ontological principle, you know that the less-educated people are
not going to show up. Somewhere to cultivate this, so that they interact
with each other. (William DeArteaga, Pastor's Meeting, Toronto Airport
Vineyard, October 12, 1994)
.....John Arnott: Just share your hearts for a couple of minutes,
Byron. Tell us what happened to you and what God's doing with you.
Byron Mode of Dallas, Texas: Thank you, John. It really was just such
a marvellous thing. I was listening to Brother DeArteaga share even
on the area of the, uh, -- I'm not sure if I'll be able to share --
sharing on the area of intellectuals. One of the things that happened
-- there's just been so much that has happened -- the Dallas area, of
course, is considered the Bible belt, and so many people think of that
as a positive thing. And yet, we don't see anything positive about it.
It's extremely intellectual and extremely religious in almost every
way, and therefore it's like, anybody comes to town, it's kind of, you
know, show me or put on a show of some kind, and the true things of
the Holy Spirit are oftentimes rejected. (Byron Mode, Pastor's Meeting,
Toronto Airport Vineyard, October 12, 1994)
[Speaking of all the various manifestations]:
.....Why does God do or permit stuff like this and other things we've
seen this week? Why does He do that?
1 Corinthians 1:26. "For you see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,
are called. Because God hath chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise."
Just try explaining some of this. I used to try to do that out of
the Bible. I used to try to say well, people fell down in the presence
of Jesus and Daniel vibrated and got sick after his visions in Daniel
7 and 8, and there's John falling down in the Revelation. It's not the
same thing as we see tonight.
You can't explain this out of the Bible. He's chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and the
base things of the world, and the things which are despised.
The world despises it when we lose control. The world loves intelligence.
The world worships intelligence. And God is in the business today of
bypassing our minds and doing something that cannot be explained in
rational terms. And it offends the mind. It offends the mind when
He does that. (Jack Deere, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November 20, 1994)
During the time of John the Baptist, it was very difficult for
people to intellectually or theologically understand what was happening. John the Baptist was like the first New Testament "punker." He was a
crazy man! And he was so far outside the system. He didn't fit (Marc
Dupont, The Father's Heart And The Prophetic, Toronto Airport
Vineyard, November 16, 1994)
And his wife, Michal, she was Saul's daughter, she was the last remnant
of, in one way we could say, a spirit of control, of Phariseeism, of
wanting to control and, you know, grasp and greediness and all these
things. She looked down from the palace window and she despised him.
And that spirit of religion contends with the people of God. It says, "Yeah, you're saved, you're going to heaven, but don't get too radical,
you know. You've changed your ethic, you've changed your morals, but
don't really rock the boat." But see, when the Spirit of God begins
to move, He moves. And He moves on His terms and not on our terms. You
can read through the Bible backwards and forwards, and the only place
it says to get your comfort from is from the peace of God, from the
comfort of the Holy Comforter. Too much of the body of Christ is trying
to derive our comfort from feeling comfortable, from controlling the
outward situation. And that goes back to Phariseeism, all the way
back in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve wanted to eat of the tree
of good and knowledge, they wanted to be as God, they wanted to be like
God and to be intellectually in control of the deal. And the price
they paid was, they lost their transparency with God, and they had to
cover up. They did gain knowledge, but they lost their intimacy with
God, and from that time on, mankind has been covering up.
.....There is a barrenness that is upon much of the church today.
There is a barrenness because we've been clinging to ourselves, we've
been trying to control the situation. It's as if, with our continual
focus on teaching, teaching, teaching, preaching, preaching, preaching,
filling ourselves up. (Marc Dupont, The Father's Heart And The Prophetic,
Toronto Airport Vineyard, November 16, 1994)
Again, intellectualism is slammed, even blamed, for the fall of man
in the first place. It wasn't intellectualism that caused the fall. The
serpent caused Eve to doubt God's Word and placed three temptations in
front of her -- good for food...pleasing to the eye...desirable for gaining
wisdom. Adam and Eve abandoned themselves to their feelings of temptation
and doubt and disobeyed God. Even Marc Dupont said they "wanted." Want
is an emotion. They doubted God and paid the price.
Jesus Christ - One Person Or Us?
Remember the Manifest Sons of God teaching talked about earlier in this
article? Here we see it resurfacing again.
.....Let me say this to you before I move on. You really want to [unintelligible]
some typology, Revelation 12. Of course, that's interpreted as Jesus,
Mary, mother Mary and Jesus. I interpret it as the church through the
ages. Revelation 12 said "I saw a sign in the heavens and a woman clothed
with the sun and twelve stars upon her head. Standing up on the moon,
she travailed to be in birth, and behold she brought forth the man-
child and the Satan, the red dragon, was standing there to devour her
seed."
Now, in once sense of interpretation, I believe the twelve stars.
Twelve is the number of government. It's speaking of the covering of
government, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles. You're
seeing the church through the ages. Clothed with the sun is Jesus. Jesus
is the Son. Malachi. The Son of righteousness shall arise with healing
in his wings. The moon, I believe, in one sense, represents demonic
powers. The moon, if you look at Genesis 1, typifies Satan. It has no
light of its own. It's a lesser light. It only reflects the light of
the sun. As a matter of fact, Genesis 1 calls the moon a lesser light.
The rendering there is "to cut short or to be abbreviated." So you see
the church standing on principalities and powers, but she's pregnant
with the seed of God. And the interesting thing is, as the enemy watches
this, he is waiting to devour the seed.
Now, here's my point. The enemy is not frightened of you or me. He
is neither threatened by you or me. The thing he is threatened by is
that that we're carrying in the womb of our spirit. The seed of God.
You're not that big of a deal, I'm sorry to inform you. I am not that
big of a deal. I found out that a long time ago. I thought I was Super,
Duper Christian. But I'm not that big of a deal. You're not that big
of a deal. But Jesus is a big deal. "Satan is after me." No, Satan is
not after you. He got you. A number of days ago. Satan's after the seed
that is in you. If he can steal the seed, then he has you. So I'm telling
you, protect the seed of God that's in you and resist the devil, he
will flee from you. Hey, we're just getting wound up. (Larry Randolph, Renewal and Revival Today, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November
18, 1994)
.....Purpose is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. It's
lifting Him up and Him only. That is purpose. And the warning I have
for renewal people, the warning I have for anybody moving in this decade
is beware of process. Don't let the process bring you down. Don't get
caught up in the bickering of politics of the process. Keep your eye
on the purpose. We're going somewhere. When God processes this thing
and we come out on the other end, we are going to be a people, one new
man in the earth, that are going to exhibit the showcase the Kingdom
of God in such a degree that the nations, kings are going to come to
our feet and ask of us of the things of God. We are literally going
to raise not only dead, but nations and cities, heal those that are
sick, open blind eyes, cast out devils. We are going to do greater works
than He has done. There's a purpose for renewal, and that's revival.
(Larry Randolph, Renewal and Revival Today, Toronto Airport Vineyard,
November 18, 1994)
Jonathan Edwards
William DeArteaga: I want to share one insight that I had not planned,
but the Lord has put on my heart about -- yesterday I was looking at
the books that were coming in on revival. Some hot off the press. And
every revival has a predominant theologian, you know. Historians say,
well in this revival, Charles Finney was the predominant figure here
and theologian of that revival, etc., etc. And the Lord has already
chosen the predominant theologian of this revival. It's not me! It's
Jonathan Edwards. And every book on revival out there, including my
book does central chapters on what did Jonathan Edwards say about revival.
Which is great, because it takes the pressure off us, you know, the
swelled head and all the stuff. We're commentators on Jonathan Edwards.
That's really true. (William DeArteaga, Toronto Airport Vineyard, October
13, 1994)
Virtually every leader of this movement points to Jonathan Edwards for
support of the various manifestations. They are very selective about what
is quoted, however. Here are some quotes you don't see them using:
"Why cannot we be contented with the divine oracles, that holy, pure
word of God, which we have in such abundance and clearness, now since
the canon of Scripture is completed? Why should we desire to have any
thing added to them by impulses from above? Why should we not rest in
that standing rule that God has given to his church, which the apostles
teaches us, is surer than a voice from heaven? And why should we desire
to make the Scripture speak more to us than it does?" [Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts, p.404]
"They who leave the sure word of prophecy--which God has given us
as a light shining in a dark place--to follow such impressions and impulses,
leave the guidance of the polar star to follow a Jack with a lantern.
No wonder therefore that sometimes they are led into woeful extravagances." [Jonathan Edwards, On Revival, p.14]
"An erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved more mischievous
to the present glorious work of God, is a notion that it is God's manner
in these days to guide His saints by inspiration, or immediate revelation....As
long as a person has a notion that he is guided by immediate direction
from heaven, it makes him incorrigible and impregnable in all his misconduct." (Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of
Religion in New England, p.1:404)
"Many godly persons have undoubtedly in this and other ages, exposed
themselves to woeful delusions, by an aptness to lay too much weight
on impulses and impressions, as if they were immediate revelations from
God, to signify something future, or to direct them where to go, and
what to do."
"I would therefore entreat the people of God to be very cautious how
they give heed to such things. I have seen them fail in very many instances,
and know by experience that impressions being made with great power,
and upon the mind...are no sure sign of their being revelations from
heaven." (Jonathan Edwards, On Revival, pp. 104, 141)
Debra Bouey, who has done much research on the subject, has this to
say about Jonathan Edwards:
If DeArteaga is one of the historians for the Toronto Airport Vineyard,
it is very difficult to believe he does not know Jonathan Edwards was
a cessationist. Edwards believed prophecy ceased along with the other
charismatic gifts after the completion of the canon of Scripture. Surely
DeArteaga, a historian, could not have missed Edwards account of his cessationist
views and the reasons he notes in detail for holding them in the following
works?:
- Jonathan Edwards, "Charity and Its Fruits", pp.38, 44-47.
- Jonathan Edwards, "On Revival", pp.137-.
Consider carefully his words which follow and contrast them with where
the focus and emphasis are placed, evidenced in the teachings coming out
of Toronto Vineyard, and determine for yourself what Jonathan Edwards
would have to say about all of this alleged "Toronto blessing", "season
of refreshing" and "revival" if he were here with us today:
"The spirit that causes people to have a greater regard for the Holy
Scriptures and establishes them more in the truth and divinity of God's
Word is certainly the Spirit of God.
"The devil never would attempt to beget in persons a regard to the
divine Word. A spirit of delusion will not incline persons to seek direction
at the mouth of God. 'To the law and to the testimony: If they speak
not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them!'is
never the cry of evil spirits who have no light in them. On the contrary,
it is God's own direction to discover their delusions.
Would the spirit of error, in order to deceive men, beget in them
a high opinion of the infallible Word? Would the prince of darkness,
in order to promote his kingdom of darkness, lead men to the sun?
"The devil has always shown a mortal spite and hatred towards that
holy book, the Bible. He has done all in his power to extinguish that
light, or else draw men off from it. He knows it to be that light by
which his kingdom of darkness is to be overthrown. He has long experienced
its power to defeat his purposes and battle his designs. It is his constant
plague. It is the sword of the Spirit that pierces him and conquers
him. It is that sharp sword that we read of in Revelation 19:15, which
proceeds out of the mouth of Him that sat on the horse, with which He
smites His enemies. Every text is a dart to torment the old serpent.
He has felt the stinging smart thousands of times.
"Therefore the devil is engaged against the Bible and hates every
word in it. We may be sure that he never will attempt to raise anyone's
esteem of it." (Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work
of the Spirit of God)
Judging Others
..."In March a number of us were interviewed by Charisma magazine.
They had heard about things and were writing an initial report. The
woman conducting the interview asked me if we were seeing fleshly excess
at the Airport Vineyard. I had to give myself a moment because there
is in me an inclination that springs up at times {?}. I studied Mad
Magazine's Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions and it doesn't serve me
really well sometimes. I said, 'Yes, we see fleshly excess at the Airport
Vineyard. The Church of Jesus Christ is a welded piece of flesh and
spirit, wheat and weed. It'll be sometime yet before we see pure God
in one another. But under the place of pastoral ministry I'd far rather
work with a fleshly zeal and exuberance for the things of God than a
carnal faultfinding and judgmentalism.' She said 'Point taken.' (Guy
Chevreau, Toronto Airport Vineyard, Pastor's Meeting, October 19, 1994)
....Are they looking in the wrong way? Obviously they're looking in
the wrong way. The sin is not the issue. What is the issue is God's
heart for the lost and the hurting. I'm not saying that means we should
bless sin, but what I'm saying is it's typical of Phariseeism to very
quickly want to point out the rights and the wrongs, you know. It's
kind of like, you know, Jesus and the woman that the Pharisees dragged
up who was caught in adultery, and they said, you know, we all know
they were trying to trap Jesus because if He said "Forgive her" they
would have said... (Marc Dupont, Prayer of The Prophetic, Part 2,
Toronto Airport Vineyard, Catch The Fire Conference, October 14, 1994)
Well, it can't be God!" Well, who are you? The standard for the world?
Who put you in charge of this? "Those people are weird." They're not
as weird as you are! At least they're responding. (Larry Randolph, Renewal
and Revival Today, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November 18, 1994)
.....In the First Great Awakening, one of those who hated it was a
pastor named Charles Chauncey. He looked at the worst case, the excess,
the weeds, and concluded that revival was nothing more than an emotional
orgy run riot. It was not the Great Awakening for Chauncey, but the
Great Clamour. He wrote several books. One of them, Overheated Passions,
the other, Enthusiasm Described And Cautioned Against. Enthusiasm
was Chauncey's word for this religious fanaticism. Unfortunate choice
of words. Enthusiasm is from the Greek, enthaos, it means to
be in God. I don't mind being tagged an enthusiast.
Anyway, in Enthusiasm Described And Cautioned Against, Chauncey
declares this: "The work of the Spirit is different now from what it
was in the first days of Christianity. Men were then favoured with the
extraordinary presence of the Spirit. It came upon them with miraculous
gifts and powers, the gift of prophecy, knowledge, revelation, tongues,
miracles. But the Spirit is not now to be expected in these ways. His
grand business lies in preparing men's minds for the grace of God. The
Spirit calls up faith and repentance by the Word and by prayer."
You read Chauncey's stuff and what he's working with is a Trinity
of Father, Son and Holy Book. Later in life Chauncey leaves the Congregationalist
Church and gives leadership to the Unitarians. (Guy Chevreau, Pastor's
Conference, December 7, 1994, Toronto Airport Vineyard)
It is typical in many Vineyard/Toronto Blessing circles to find them
accusing people of dividing the brethren, being fault-finding, etc., while
failing to see that they themselves are guilty of the very things they
accuse others of doing.
If the point in mentioning Chauncey's opposition to what was happening
in his time and then to his founding the Unitarian cult is to show what
can happen to those who oppose various phenomena, they have failed miserably.
William Branham is frequently referred to favourably by people in this
movement, and yet Branham said that the doctrine of the Trinity was of
the devil (Footprints on the Sands of Time, pg. 606) See
Discernment, above.
Judgement Coming
There is a judgement that's coming against many leaders and against
the church that despises what God is doing in the nineties. (Marc Dupont,
The Father's Heart And The Prophetic, Toronto Airport Vineyard,
November 16, 1994)
And so, at the same time that churches that are responding to the
Spirit are going to get more and more filled up with freedom and liberty
and anointing and the joy, and the peace, and everything in the Kingdom,
I believe that there's also going to come stricter and stricter judgement.
I believe judgement this year is radically increasing, especially leaders
that are going to stand in a strong Pharisaical stance and are going
to attack what God is doing. (Marc Dupont, Prophetic School - Part
3, Pastor's Meeting, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November 16, 1994)
But by the late nineties, I believe things are just really going to
really, dramatically be breaking out more than we can understand, but
also judgement is very, very much going to increase to the point where
I believe that many leaders who are fighting what the Spirit of God
is doing and saying, God is going to take them out of ministry. I believe
some of them, I know this isn't a new revelation, other people have
said this, but I do believe that it's true, that God is actually
going to be taking some leaders home to heaven, rather than to continue
to allow them to mislead God's people. (Marc Dupont, Prophetic
School - Part 3, Pastor's Meeting, Toronto Airport Vineyard, November
16, 1994)
Now let me say, before I begin, there are two groups of people in
the church today. I categorize them. Those that are affected by what
God's doing and those that are offended by what God is doing. There
is not a lot of neutral ground. The neutral ground is dissipating by
the hour. You can't stand in the middle any more and say "Well, I don't
know. Maybe it's God, maybe it's not." You're going to get rolled over.
Remember the song "I'm a Steam Roller, Baby, And I'm Going To Roll Right
Over You?" Well, I think the Holy Spirit is singing that song. There
is no middle ground. You're either affected or offended by what God
is doing. And if you're offended, you may continue to get offended 'cause
you haven't seen nothing yet. If you haven't been able to run, walk
with a footman, what are you going to do when the horses come? The horses
aren't here. (Larry Randolph, Renewal and Revival Today, Toronto
Airport Vineyard, November 18, 1994)
What He had shown me was first the darkness that has come on the Canadian
church, and to see it was to be scared out of one's tree. I know seeing
the dark doesn't sound scary, but it was very, very scary. There it
was that He revealed to me in that brief time-space that God was going
to deal with leaders in judgement across Canada and beginning in the
Canadian church. (John White, What Is God Doing Today?, October
14, 1994, Toronto Airport Vineyard)
.....I don't know to what extent the judgement is a two-staged thing.
The absence of repentance that some have already displayed is part of
that judgement, but I believe a far more terrible judgement is coming
on the church, particularly in Ontario, and I don't know what form that
will take. I only know that I have seen it and it frightened me out
of my tree. (John White, What Is God Doing Today?, October
14, 1994, Toronto Airport Vineyard)
Obviously, according to Vineyard/Toronto Blessing teaching, anyone who
rejects this "move of God" is in very serious trouble and will be killed,
presumably by God, if they continue to oppose this movement. This is an
extremely serious statement to make when they basically say "either
agree with us or face God's wrath."
GO TO PART TWO: Click Here
Written by Bob Hunter, Contenders. Revised August, 1995
Copyright 1995 by Bob Hunter
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