Charismatic Chaos by John F. MacArthur Jr.

From the Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Is Experience a Valid Test of Truth?

• It All Starts with the Baptism of the Spirit
• Was Peter a Charismatic?
• Did Paul rely on Experience
• Keen but Clueless
• The Origins of Experiential Theology ...

Chapter 2 - Does God Still Give Revelation?

• The Canon Is Closed
• How the Biblical Canon was Chosen and Closed ...

Chapter 3 - Prophets, Fanatics or Heretics?

• The Kansas City Prophets
• Roman Catholicism
• From Sola Scriptura to "Something More" ...

Chapter 4 - How Should We Interpret the Bible

• Three Errors to Avoid
• Five Principles for Sound Bible Interpretation
• Four Texts Charismatics Commonly Misinterpret ...

Chapter 5 - Does God Do Miracles Today?

• What Happened to the Age of Miracles
• Are Miracles Necessary Today?
• Does God Promise Miracles for Everyone?
• What Made the Apostles Unique?
• Has God's Power Diminished? ...

Chapter 6 - What is Behind the "Third Wave" and Where is it Going?

• Signs and Wonders?
• Power Evangelism?...

Chapter 7 - How Do Spiritual Gifts Operate?

• Spiritual Gifts or Spiritual Casualties?
• Gifts in the Corinthian Church
• Carried Away with False Gifts ...

Chapter 8 - What was Happening in the Early Church?

• The Charismatic Doctrine of Subsequence
• Seek the Power or Release It
• Is Spirit Baptism a Fact or a Feeling?
• The Difference between the Baptism and the Feeling ...

Chapter 9 - Does God Still Heal?

• What was the Biblical Gift of Miracles?
• A Closer Look at Healers and Healing
• God Does Heal -- His Way
• How Did Jesus Heal?
• The Gift of Healing is Gone, but the Lord Continues to Heal
• What is the Explanation for Charismatic Healings?
• Has God Promised to Heal All Who Have Faith? ...

Chapter 10 - Is the Gift of Tongues for Today?

• The Biblical Gift of Tongues
• Are Tongues a Heavenly Language?
• Counterfeit Tongues
• The Abuse of Tongues at Corinth
• Tongues Will Cease
• What Kind of Tongues are Being Spoken Today? ...

Chapter 11 - What is True Spirituality?

• The Zapped and the Unzapped
• Marks of True Spirituality
• Gifts Do Not Guarantee Spirituality
• How to be Filled with the Spirit
• Peter -- A Pattern for Being Filled ...

Chapter 12 - Does God Promise Health and Wealth?

• False and True Religion
• The Wrong God
• The Wrong Jesus
• The Wrong Faith ...

From the Introduction:

It is not necessarily factious to voice disagreement with someone else's teaching. In fact, we have a moral imperative to examine what is proclaimed in Jesus' name, and to expose and condemn false teaching and unbiblical behaviour...

The biblical challenge is not to avoid truth that is controversial, but to speak the truth in love. (Eph. 4:15)...Scripture is the rule against which we must measure all teaching, and my only desire is to turn the light of God's Word on a movement that has taken the contemporary church by storm...

The most visible and charismatic celebrities barely even give lip service to biblical authority. The few Charismatic leaders who are concerned about biblical truth have been viciously attacked by other charismatics. In effect, they have been shouted down by people who quote 1 Chronicles 16:22 ("Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm") as if that verse silenced all doctrinal discussion -- and as if we were supposed to assume that everyone who claims an anointing from God is speaking the truth. As a result, charismatics as a whole have failed to expose and reject the most obvious, unbiblical and even anti-Christian influences in the movement.

Fantastic encounters with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are reported as common place. Personal messages from God are supposedly routine. Healings of all kinds are claimed. It is not unusual to hear striking testimonies about how God, in response to faith, has corrected spinal injuries, lengthened legs, and removed cancerous tissue. Seemingly omniscient Christian talk-show hosts discern that miracles and healings of various types are happening during their broadcasts. They urge viewers to call in and "claim" healings.

Some of the miracles seem almost bizarre: one dollar bills turn into twenties, washing machines and other appliances are "healed," empty fuel tanks fill up supernaturally and demons are exorcised from vending machines. People are "slain" (knocked flat) in the Spirit; others claim to have been to heaven and back. Several even claim to have been to hell and back!

Some even go so far as to deny the effectiveness of evangelism without such miracles. They argue that the Gospel message is weakened or nullified if not accompanied by great signs and wonders. They believe some people need to see signs and wonders before they will believe. That notion has spawned a whole new movement, grandiosely tagged "the Third Wave of the Holy Spirit," also known as the Signs and Wonders Movement. This recent variation on the old charismatic theme is attracting many evangelicals and others from mainline denominations who were formerly wary of Pentecostal and charismatic influences...

Experience, however, is not the test of biblical truth; rather, biblical truth stands in final judgment on experience. Frederick Dale Bruner has stated it clearly: "The test of anything calling itself Christian is not its significance or its success or its power, though these make the test more imperative. The test is truth."

If you are a Christian who has not experienced some supernatural charismatic phenomenon, perhaps you are feeling left out. You may be wondering whether God views you as a second-class citizen. If He honestly cares about you, why haven't you had a special miracle or manifested some spectacular gift? Why haven't you ascended to a higher level of spiritual bliss? Why haven't you heard Jesus speak to you in an audible voice? Why hasn't He appeared physically to you? Do our charismatic friends really have a closer walk with God, a deeper sense of the Holy Spirit's power, a fuller experience of praise, a stronger motivation to witness, and a greater devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ? Could it be that we non-charismatics just do not measure up? The charismatic movement has separated the Christian community into the spiritual "haves" and "have-nots."...

John F. MacArthur is pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and is heard daily on the radio program "Grace to You." He serves as president of The Master's College and Seminary.

This book can be obtained at the Grace to You website at www.gtycanada.org or www.amazon.com. Your local Christian bookstore will also be able to order it for you.

A Final Outpouring?

Has the gift of tongues resumed in the twentieth century? Pentecostals and charismatics treat that question in one of two ways. Some claim that the gift never ceased -- it just declined -- and therefore the groups who claim to speak in tongues were forerunners of those contemporary Pentecostal and charismatic movements. In taking that position they put themselves in a heretical tradition.

On the other hand, many charismatics concede that tongues did cease after the apostolic era, but they believe the contemporary manifestations of the charismata are a final outpouring of the Spirit and His gifts for the last days.

A key text for Pentecostals and charismatics who take this second view is Joel 2:28: "It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."

According to Joel 2:19-32, before the final Day of the Lord, God's Spirit will be poured out in such a way that there will be wonders in the sky, and on the earth -- blood, fire, and columns of smoke; "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes" (v. 31). That is obviously a prophecy of the coming millennial kingdom and cannot refer to anything earlier. The context of the Joel passage makes this the only plausible interpretation.

For example, Joel 2:20 refers to the defeat of "the northern army" that will attack Israel in the end-time apocalypse. Verse 27 of Joel 2 speaks of the great revival that will bring Israel back to God. That is another feature of the Great Tribulation and is not yet fulfilled. Joel 3 (vv.2, 12, 14) describes the judgment of the nations, an event that comes after Armageddon and in connection with the establishment of the earthly, millennial kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Later in Chapter 3, Joel gives a beautiful description of the millennial kingdom (v. 18). Clearly, Joel 2 is a kingdom prophecy, which was not completely fulfilled at Pentecost. (Acts 2) or on any occasion since. It must refer to an era that is still future.

There is still, however, the question of what Peter meant when he quoted Joel 2:28-32 on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-21). Some Bible teachers say that Peter was pointing to Pentecost as a fulfillment of Joel 2:28. But on the day of Pentecost there were no wonders in the heavens and signs in the earth; no blood and fire and vapours of smoke; the sun did not turn to darkness and the moon to blood and the great and terrible day of the Lord did not come. The prophecy was not fully realized; Pentecost was only a partial fulfillment, or better, a preview of the prophecy's ultimate culmination. The parallel to that is the Transfiguration, in which our Lord's glory was briefly revealed as it will be seen fully throughout the millennial kingdom.

Peter was simply telling those present at Pentecost that they were getting a preliminary glimpse, a projection of the kind of power that the Spirit would release in the millennial kingdom. What they were seeing in Jerusalem among a handful of people was a sign of what God's Spirit would someday do on a world-wide basis.

One of the fine Bible scholars of the nineteenth century, George N. H. Peters, wrote, "The Baptism of Pentecost is a pledge of fulfillment in the future, evidencing what the Holy Ghost will yet perform in the coming age." The miracles that began on the day of Pentecost are light on the horizon, heralding the coming earthly kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Some charismatics spiritualize "the former rain and the latter rain" of Joel 2:23 (KJV). They argue that the former rain refers to Pentecost, when the Spirit came, and the latter rain to His outpouring in the twentieth century.

Throughout the Old Testament, "the former rain" refers to the autumn rains "the latter rain" to the spring rains. Joel was actually saying in the millennial kingdom both rains will come "as before" (v.23). His point was that God will make crops grow profusely in the kingdom. Joel 2:24-26 makes that abundantly clear: "And the threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil. Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you. And you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame."

The "former and latter rain", then, have nothing to do with Pentecost, the twentieth century, or the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals and charismatics cannot use Joel 2:28 as a basis for saying tongues have been poured out a second time. In the first place, Joel did not even mention tongues. In the second place, the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was not the ultimate fulfillment of Joel's prophecy.

Thomas Edgar makes this significant observation:

There is no Biblical evidence that there will be a reoccurrence in the church of the sign gifts or that believers will work miracles near the end of the Church age. However, there is ample evidence that near the end of the age there will be false prophets who perform miracles, prophesy and cast out demons in Jesus' name (cf. Matthew 7:22-23; 24:11, 24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

We do well to be on guard.

(from Charismatic Chaos by John F. MacArthur, Jr.)

John's book is available through http://www.gtycanada.org/ or http://www.amazon.com/ if you are interested.