Thursday, August 07, 2008
LIke Lion or Lamb?
I recently encountered Mark Daniels sermon from this Pentecost Sunday just past. In it Mark summarizes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives this way:
Before I dig into that question too seriously, I need to recast it a bit. As the headline I have written indicates, the real question has to do with whether the Holy Spirit works miraculously or, as Mark indicates, quietly. Todd Bentley is in no way an example of the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit. He is violent. He actually claims that his voice called people back from God's presence. He is at best grossly misguided and and at worst genuinely deceptive. Either way, ministry of the type he practices leaves in its wake broken hearts, broken bodies, and people permanently bitter towards the genuine gospel of Jesus. He is, I believe, the reason so many people tend to think that the Holy Spirit "never calls attention to Himself;" generally when we think we see Him, we see Todd Bentleys and that is just wrong.
This much I know with certainty - if the Holy Spirit were to work a genuine miracle, the attention would most completely be focused on the Holy Spirit and not on the person the Spirit chose to use as agent. As in all things, our lives are lived in submissions to the working of God in them, and that includes when God works miraculously. Bentley works almost exclusively to attract attention to himself - that is the greatest tip-off that there are problems there that I know of.
You see, in the end, I lie in the middle of the spectrum I have established in this post. The Holy Spirit can and does indeed work miraculously, but He does so in a manner more in line with Mark's presentation than anything Bentley is starring in his own TV show with.
Miracles happen everyday. My cousin Steve lived, productively, years longer than any doctor thought he would with Hodgkin's. So too me friend and co-worker Rick with whom I work to this day. There are no healer intermediaries, there is only the Holy Spirit - there is also no TV, no kicking, no shouting -- just prayer.
We cannot let the Todd Bentley's of the world destroy our genuine desire for and reliance on the miracles performed by the Holy Spirit. Such charlatans must be denounced. And the presumption that comes in the wake of such perfidy must also be combated - we can have a direct encounter with the Holy Spirit, but like Elijah's encounter with the living God at Horeb, He will not be in the wind or earthquake, He will be in a still small voice. Such a voice is equally as powerful, just quieter - but very distinctive. He is recognized and he is known.
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The Spirit never calls attention to Himself. But He showers us with gifts, including the courage to live past our fears and a reason for living, a vocation of pointing others to Christ, serving them in Jesus’ Name and inviting others to follow Christ, a vocation that lasts our whole lives.I encountered this sermon at roughly the same time that the hottest discussion in Godblogging was the "Lakeland Revival" as lead by Todd Bentley. Bunch of YouTube here and Adrian Warnock let others comment on it extensively here. I am not sure there could be two more radically different approaches to the Holy Spirit than those represented by Mark Daniels and Todd Bentley - Which raises an extraordinary question - Which one is right?
Before I dig into that question too seriously, I need to recast it a bit. As the headline I have written indicates, the real question has to do with whether the Holy Spirit works miraculously or, as Mark indicates, quietly. Todd Bentley is in no way an example of the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit. He is violent. He actually claims that his voice called people back from God's presence. He is at best grossly misguided and and at worst genuinely deceptive. Either way, ministry of the type he practices leaves in its wake broken hearts, broken bodies, and people permanently bitter towards the genuine gospel of Jesus. He is, I believe, the reason so many people tend to think that the Holy Spirit "never calls attention to Himself;" generally when we think we see Him, we see Todd Bentleys and that is just wrong.
This much I know with certainty - if the Holy Spirit were to work a genuine miracle, the attention would most completely be focused on the Holy Spirit and not on the person the Spirit chose to use as agent. As in all things, our lives are lived in submissions to the working of God in them, and that includes when God works miraculously. Bentley works almost exclusively to attract attention to himself - that is the greatest tip-off that there are problems there that I know of.
You see, in the end, I lie in the middle of the spectrum I have established in this post. The Holy Spirit can and does indeed work miraculously, but He does so in a manner more in line with Mark's presentation than anything Bentley is starring in his own TV show with.
Miracles happen everyday. My cousin Steve lived, productively, years longer than any doctor thought he would with Hodgkin's. So too me friend and co-worker Rick with whom I work to this day. There are no healer intermediaries, there is only the Holy Spirit - there is also no TV, no kicking, no shouting -- just prayer.
We cannot let the Todd Bentley's of the world destroy our genuine desire for and reliance on the miracles performed by the Holy Spirit. Such charlatans must be denounced. And the presumption that comes in the wake of such perfidy must also be combated - we can have a direct encounter with the Holy Spirit, but like Elijah's encounter with the living God at Horeb, He will not be in the wind or earthquake, He will be in a still small voice. Such a voice is equally as powerful, just quieter - but very distinctive. He is recognized and he is known.
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