The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama 
City, California, By John MacArthur Jr.  It was transcribed from the tape,
GC 90-62, titled "Charismatic Chaos" Part 11.  A copy of the tape can be 
obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.

I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the 
original tape was made.  Please note that at times sentence structure may 
appear to vary from accepted English conventions.  This is due primarily to 
the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in 
placing the correct punctuation in the article.

It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this transcription 
of the sermon, "Charismatic Chaos" Part 11, to strengthen and encourage the 
true Church of Jesus Christ.



                         Charismatic Chaos - Part 11

                        "What is True Spirituality?"
                                     by
                               John MacArthur


Now we come to the next in our series that we have been studying on the 
Charismatic movement.  Tonight we want to talk about the subject, "What is 
True Spirituality?"  In Romans 12:2 we find a good starting point for our 
thinking tonight, and that is this statement by the Apostle Paul, "Do not be 
conformed to this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."  
Transformed by the renewing of your mind. 

Many Charismatics believe that you can renew your mind and achieve holiness 
without any conscious effort.  They would say (some of them), that 
sanctification can come to you through an experience, effortlessly; sometimes 
even through subliminal conditioning.  My first exposure to the notion of 
subliminal spirituality came a few years ago when I received a flyer 
advertising subliminal neckties.  They were fairly stylish paisley ties; 
normal looking at a casual glance.  But the ad copy informed the prospective 
buyer, 

      Hidden in the fabric, almost totally undetectable to the human 
      eye are the words "Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves."  The ties are made 
      from anointed cloth offered by a Charismatic enterprise [and] 
      can be yours for a tax deductible love gift of $30.  You could 
      also buy seven for a tax deductible gift of $200 to help us feed 
      the hungry.

We are not sure who the hungry are but I am sure that would help.  Quoting 
the ad further,

      For years Russian and Communist scientists have experimented 
      with subliminal advertising designed to influence unsuspecting 
      consumers to their ideology and propaganda.  Now, the Lord has 
      revealed to His people how to use it for His glory.  

A magnified picture of one of the ties revealed that indeed the words "Jesus 
Saves, Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves," were over and over again woven 
through the fabric.  "When worn," the leaflet promised, "The words 'Jesus 
Saves' are actually being planted in the subconscious minds of everyone who 
sees it."  In other words, you can do your witnessing without ever having to 
say a word to anybody.  At the time it frankly struck me as a bizarre, 
somewhat atypical oddity, but in retrospect I see that it was something of a 
harbinger of one of the latest fads in the Charismatic movement: this idea of 
subliminal messaging.  Despite having some occult overtones and some New Age 
involvement, and for all intents and purposes being absolutely useless, it 
has quickly become a popular means of addressing spiritual, emotional, and 
health problems among Charismatics.  

I mentioned earlier in our study the subliminal word therapy tapes offered by 
the Raffa Ranch (sp.) as a means of healing cancer patients.  Raffa offers 
the subliminal messaging cassette tapes for $14.95 each, and although the 
price seems high, thousands of people desperately seeking cure for cancer 
have evidently been willing to pay the price.  Linda Fell (sp.) explains how 
the tapes were born; she says,

      In 1983, God healed me of Breast Cancer and called me to raise 
      up a place where cancer victims can come and be healed.  In 
      obedience to that call, our family of four moved to 70 acres of 
      land in a small rural community in Northwest Florida, and there 
      we began construction on the 5,000 square foot Raffa Ranch 
      lodge.  After almost two years we had received our first cancer 
      patient and quickly realized that our commission would not be an 
      easy one.  Over the next two years we learned much, but 
      continued to see the majority of our guests die.  We continually 
      cried out to God to show us how to get the Word in His precious 
      people in their crisis situation, and one day we stumbled on to 
      a television program describing how the subliminal process was 
      helping masses of people use positive affirmation.  

      The idea came--could the pure Word of God be used in a similar 
      fashion?  After two months of some research and much prayer we 
      knew we had not only a creative idea but a mandate from God to 
      produce a tool that would help heal the sick.  The Lord said 
      that I was to be the voice since He could trust my spirit, and 
      use Christian musicians, engineers and studios to create this 
      tape.  In June of '88 "The Word Therapy Healing" tape was 
      released and healing reports were immediate; within two weeks a 
      woman was healed of cancer.  

To those who, by the way, might have fears that subliminal therapy is of the 
Devil, Mrs. Fells writes, 

      Your cautions are justified as you approach subliminal tapes; be 
      assured of this, there is no need to fear our tapes.  They are 
      holy and have the blessing of the Lord on them; we use no 
      hypnosis, no relaxation technique, no New Age, or deceptive 
      practices; simply a modern technological method of multi-track 
      duplication of the pure Word of God.  Your first tape will 
      convince you as the anointing will destroy the yoke.  If the 
      Apostles were alive today, they would consider "Word Therapy" a 
      scroll of the 90's.  

Several Charismatic ministries offer these subliminal tapes; one group called 
"Renew Ministries" offer continuous play tapes for $20 (a continuous play 
means you don't have to rewind them); they promise you freedom from doubt, 
fear, failure, fear of death, guilt, grief, depression, temper, pride, lust, 
temptation, pornography, procrastination, unforgiveness, rejection, drugs, 
alcohol, smoking, anger, rebellion, anxiety, panic, judging, homosexuality, 
scars from child abuse, and molestation--all for $19.95!  

Other Renew tapes promise to speak into being.  They will speak into being in 
your life: prosperity, weight loss, peace, healing, self-esteem, salvation, 
marital harmony, surrender to God, acceptance of God's Love, and a closer 
walk with God.  And according to Renew, "Bible-based subliminal messages hit 
controlling spirits where they live and command them to leave in Jesus' name 
and then the void is filled with the Word of God."

Now, you might be asking, "What are the mechanics of such tapes?"  Renew puts 
multiple voices on different tracks, simultaneously chanting a message aimed 
at indwelling demons.  For example, one tape designed for people struggling 
with homosexuality includes this message, "I speak to you spirits of 
homosexuality, I curse you and cast you down in the name of Jesus!"  That 
message is followed by Scripture verses relating to moral purity.  And so it 
goes.  

Other companies use variations of that approach.  "Life Source," an El Paso 
based ministry, uses an audible track of ocean waves.  Inaudible, subliminal 
background tracks carry Scripture verses.  You can hear the waves, you can't 
hear the verses.  Healing evangelist Vicky Jamineson Peterson (sp.) of Tulsa, 
Oklahoma, plays a reading of the entire King James Version, New Testament, at 
a rapid speed on a 60 minute cassette.  Imagine, the entire New Testament in 
60 minutes!  Her brochures promise that positive suggestions are being stored 
in your belief system at a rate of 100,000 suggestions an hour!  

You wrap this all up and it's all so easy and it's all so effortless; you put 
on a tape and you get 100,000 suggestions for your spiritual life, you get 
cured of every problem you have, you get all the demons chased away, and if 
you put it on your tie the people who see your tie are going to get saved!  
This is all so painless, it's all so easy.  Supposedly you can absorb 
Scripture without ever paying attention to it.  You can get involved in 
spiritual development, spiritual growth, miracles, and so forth without ever 
opening your Bible.  Things like fervent prayer and diligent holiness, and 
earnest devotion, and careful study, and conscientious meditation on the 
things of God are rendered unecessary by this approach.  It used to be that 
losing weight required self-control and some discipline.  Now, we are told a 
continuous play tape can exercise demons of fat and gluttony for you and 
there is absolutely nothing to it; pay the money and you are delivered.  More 
important, it used to be that faith and spiritual understanding and 
righteousness were pursued through disciplined lives of devotion and study 
and prayer, and now the proponents of subliminal therapy promise that 
holiness can happen to you even while asleep!  

Subliminal sanctification and the Charismatic movement seem to be good 
partners; they fit together perfectly.  From the very beginning Charismatic 
movements, whichever of them, have promised primarily shortcuts to spiritual 
maturity.  One of the greatest attractions of the Charismatic movement has 
always been that it offers believers "Power, Understanding, and Spirituality" 
immediately through some kind of experience; and if you just have the 
experience--you've got it without the time, without the pain, without the 
progress, without the struggle that's natural to any growth process.  

The question is, "Is this really a shortcut to sanctification?  Can a 
believer receive subliminal messages, a divine jolt, or some other kind of 
quick, immediate power boost and be instantly brought out of infancy into 
maturity?"  The answer is, "Not according to Scripture."  For the typical 
Charismatic the gateway to spirituality is through an experience, and that 
experience is usually defined as the "Baptism of the Spirit with speaking in 
Tongues."  They tell us that if you have that experience--you are zapped!  It 
accurately describes the way most Charismatics view sanctification; they 
think you go along in your Christian life until you get the Baptism of the 
Spirit, speak in Tongues, you get the "zap" and then you have been elevated 
to sanctification.  Some would go so far as to say you've reached the "Second 
level of Grace."

There are many Charismatics who will even use the word "zap" and say, "Well, 
may Jesus zap you!"  I had the occasion (it was a strange and bizarre one) to 
be invited to speak at the "Full Gospel Businessmen's Luncheon."  That is a 
Charismatic group.  They were having their Southern California Luncheon and 
somebody in the group thought that I had had the Gift of Tongues, that 
somewhere along the line I had gotten the Baptism of the Spirit and had 
spoken in Tongues; and they invited me to be the speaker.  They asked me to 
speak on "Speaking in Tongues."  This is true!  And this was when Jay Leddy 
was still on our church staff and he went with me.  I thought they were just 
open and wanted to hear the other side.  They thought I had the "Gift."  And 
so I went and they had a nice lunch and after lunch I got up, and I launched 
into my Biblical discussion on the reality of what the Bible says about 
Tongues.  And I could note there was a severe amount of nervousness and 
movement in the crowd, and I didn't know why because I thought these gracious 
people just wanted to know what the other side believes.  

So I continued to "wax eloquent" about what I believed the Bible was teaching 
about the cessation of the Gift of Tongues, and that it had no part for today 
and that it was a false standard of spirituality and things like that.  It 
was the only time that I can remember in my ministry that I was literally, 
physically, pulled out of the pulpit!  A man grabbed my arm and pulled me 
down in a chair--before I was finished!  And he got up and he said, "We've 
got to stop and have prayer for this brother because he's deceived and 
confused" (and then I was really confused because I thought that I was doing 
what they expected me to do).  I will never forget his prayer.  He started 
out by saying, "We want to pray for this brother, that sometime soon, in the 
middle of the night, the Holy Spirit will zap him!"  That's exactly what he 
said and that's what he prayed.  So I have heard that term used.

Charismatic evangelist, Norvall Hayes (sp.) explained what happened when he 
got his zap,

      God came on me so strong and started blessing me so much, I just 
      fell on my knees and began crying and weeping and getting 
      blessed.  I found out that God loves me and He was petting me 
      because I obeyed the Holy Spirit.

That's somewhat like the experience of many.  Unfortunately, the Charismatic 
movement has divided Christianity into two levels--the Zapped and the 
Unzapped.  And the Zapped believe they are at least a bit more spiritual then 
the Unzapped.  Like it or not, the effect has been severely schismatic.  Some 
of the Unzapped wonder why they don't have the experiences that their 
Charismatic friends describe.  Charismatics argue that unless you have the 
Baptism of the Holy Spirit with Tongues, you can't function the way God 
really wants you to; you're missing something.  If on the other hand, you do 
have the Baptism of the Spirit with Tongues, you have been elevated to a 
level of spirituality and sanctification.  

A good example of this particular kind of viewpoint is Melvin Hodges' book 
called "Spiritual Gifts" and I quote, 

      While the full manifestation of a person's gift and ministry 
      must await the fullness of the Spirit, there may be a partial 
      measure of spiritual ministry and incomplete manifestation of 
      spiritual gifts or endowments before the culmination of the 
      Pentecostal gift is experienced.  We must not lose sight of the 
      fact that in the New Testament, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit 
      (with the Charismatic experience) is considered an essential and 
      primary requisite for a fully developed spiritual life and 
      ministry.

And he is doing deference to people like me and others who have some kind of 
a ministry, because you just can't just flatly deny that people have a 
ministry, but it is a second class ministry: it is a partial measure of 
spiritual ministry, an incomplete manifestation of spiritual gifts and 
endowments because we have never had the culminating Pentecostal Gift of the 
Baptism of the Spirit and that "Zap."  

Now, are these people correct when they say this?  Is there a gap between 
Christians?  Are there two levels?  Do the Charismatics have some other level 
of Spirituality they have attained?  And are non-Charismatic Christians 
somehow mired in the muck of a second-classed Christianity?  We want to 
answer that question by considering the Scripture.  I think we need to be 
very direct in going to the Word of God so that we can understand it.  A 
foundational place to go (and you can turn there in your Bible, and we are 
going to go through these fairly rapidly because I know these are truths with 
which you are familiar) but it is 1 Corinthians 2, and I want to kind of give 
you a little bit of a feeling here for some of the terminology that is 
important to the issue.

1 Corinthians 2, verses 14 and 15, 

      But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of 
      God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand 
      them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is 
      spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by 
      no man.

Paul spent most of 1 Corinthians 2 discussing the difference between the 
natural man and the spiritual man, and that's the difference between the 
unsaved and the saved.  The unregenerate is the natural man and the 
regenerate is the spiritual man.  The natural man doesn't know God, he is 
unsaved, isolated in his humanness and sin, and headed for hell.  He cannot 
understand the things of the Spirit.  In contrast the spiritual man knows God 
and understands spiritual things.  

Now, that is very basic, and what I want you to understand is according to 
1 Corinthians 2, all Christians are--what?  Spiritual!  It's basic; its basic 
terminology.  That's our position in Christ.  We are alive in the Spirit; we 
have the life of God within our souls; we possess the Holy Spirit (as Romans 
8:6-9 clearly indicates).  And again in Romans 8, if we look at that, and I 
would just draw you there for a brief moment (chapter 8 of Romans) to affirm 
that same thought.  Romans 8:6, 

      The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the 
      Spirit is life and peace, [same contrast] because the mind set 
      on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject 
      itself to the law of God, for it's not even able to do so; and 
      those who are in the flesh cannot please God, however you are 
      not in the flesh but in the Spirit.

And then he goes on to say the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Only two kinds 
of people: those in the flesh and those in the Spirit.  Those in the Spirit 
are Spiritual, and those who are natural are also fleshly.  So in the purest, 
truest, simplest sense, there are only two kinds of people: spiritual people, 
and natural people, who are also carnal people.  The first understanding that 
I want you to have is that unregenerate people are natural; that is, they 
live according to human nature and they are carnal or "fleshy."  They operate 
out of the flesh--the impulse of the flesh.  Christian people are spiritual; 
the Holy Spirit dwells within them; their inner man has been made alive; they 
are new creations; they are sensitive to God and alive to spiritual reality.  
Now, that's basic.  

Now, to be spiritual simply means to be alive to God, to possess the Holy 
Spirit, and all Christians are spiritual and all non-believers are carnal and 
natural.  But let me take it a step further.  It is possible for a spiritual 
believer to act in a carnal way.  In other words, it is possible for us to 
behave like our old self.  We understand that don't we?  We still have the 
remaining flesh; that carnal reality is there and it is very possible that 
that carnal reality, that unredeemed human flesh, can still exercise and 
exert its power.  And so I want you to look for a moment at 
1 Corinthians, chapter 3.  Christians are spiritual--they just don't always 
act spiritual.  And that is really contrary to our own new nature.  

But Paul says (interesting way he words his words in 1 Corinthians 3:1), 

      I brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, I should 
      have been able to talk to you as spiritual men, but I couldn't, 
      and I had to speak to you as men of flesh.  I had to talk to you 
      like you were still unregenerate, as if you were just infantile 
      in Christ.

Obviously, one who is new in Christ, one who is an infant in Christ is going 
to have a greater struggle with the flesh (right?) then one who is mature in 
Christ.  And so he says, 

      You're acting as if you're brand new baby Christians struggling 
      with the flesh that's continually gaining the victory over you, 
      and I can't even talk to you as spiritual because you have 
      succumbed so frequently to the flesh.  

In verse 2, he says, 

      I can't even give you meat (solid food); I have to give you milk 
      because you can't handle the meat, (verse 3) "Because you are 
      still fleshy.  For since there is jealousy and strife among you, 
      are you not fleshy, ("fleshly" it says but "fleshy" is a good 
      way to translate that) and are you not walking like mere men?"  

There's the key!  He says, you're walking like natural men; you're acting 
like you used to act.  You're spiritual but you are acting like a natural 
man, and that is, you are succumbing to the flesh.  He should have been able 
to talk to them as spiritual because they were Christians, but they weren't 
acting spiritual; they were not receiving the Word; there was unholiness in 
their lives; they were behaving carnally; and they had to be dealt with as if 
they were brand new baby Christians who were still being victimized by the 
things that used to be a part of their life.

Now, all Christians face the same problem.  All Christians are spiritual 
positionally, but we are not always spiritually practically, right?  We are 
alive to God, we sense God, the Spirit lives in us; the life of Christ has 
manifested itself in us and we are a new creation, but we don't always act 
like that because we are incarcerated in the unredeemed flesh and it rears 
its ugly head.  I think a good illustration of this is the Apostle Peter, 
borrowing a little bit from a pre-Church text, but he fits the picture so 
well.  In Matthew 16 Peter recognized Christ as the Son of the Living God, 
you remember that, and Jesus immediately responded and said, "Blessed are 
you, Simon, and now I am going to change your name to Peter (which meant 
rock).  You are going to be a new person: you are going to be solid like a 
rock."  

But in John 21, a lot later, Jesus met Peter on the shore of the Sea of 
Galilee and Peter had denied Christ (you know all about that).  But Peter, 
even after the resurrection, was still weak.  Before the resurrection he was 
in a denial state; after the resurrection he was in a disobedient state.  And 
he had gone back to fishing and the Lord confronts him and calls him to task 
and asks him if he loves Him, and if he'll feed His sheep and goes through 
all of that.  And when the Lord talked to him, remember those three times He 
said, "Do you love Me?"  He didn't call him Peter; what did He call him?  
"Simon!  Simon, Simon, Simon!"  Why did He do that?  After all he had been 
given a new name, "Rock."  I'll tell you why He did it, because he wasn't 
acting like a rock; he was acting like a Simon.  He wasn't acting like a 
transformed man; he was acting like the guy he used to be.  Whenever he acted 
like the guy he used to be Jesus called him by his old name, which is a 
pretty vivid reminder.  

What Peter had done and what all of us do, from time to time, is temporarily 
cease from following closely after Christ.  Even after Pentecost Peter 
continued to struggle.  And do you realize that if you go back to Galatians, 
chapter 2, you read one of the most devastating accounts.  Galatians 2:11-12; 
the Apostle Paul had to go nose-to-nose with Peter and confront him because 
he was acting in a carnal way.  And he did that publicly before all those 
Jews up there, and confronted Peter in Antioch, and that whole thing was so 
embarrassing to Peter.  And it got written in the Bible; as if Peter didn't 
have enough "Bad Press" in the gospels, he has to show up in the epistles?  
And there he is again getting labeled as this "Guy who can't seem to get his 
act together."  And he says, "You are acting in a fleshy way!"  

There is some measure of comfort in that for all of us, to find out that one 
of the choicest apostles of all "stumbles and bumbles" his way around, both 
before and after Pentecost.  We would like to relegate him to some other 
dispensation and make ourselves feel more guilty, I guess, for our failures, 
but it is fortunate that he failed after the resurrection and Pentecost just 
so that we know that this is reality.  So it is that we do the same thing; we 
are new creations and we have been transformed, but very often we act in a 
fleshy way.  I think the Apostle Paul fully understood this (don't you, in 
Romans 6-7?), he says, "With my mind the law of God; with my redeemed nature, 
but also with my flesh I serve the law of sin or the principle of sin 
operating in me."  And he says, "I can't stand this struggle because I don't 
want to do what I do and I don't do what I want to do, and I am a wretched 
man and how am I going to get out of this mess?"  

Spirituality, beloved, is not some permanent state that you enter into the 
minute you get zapped!  You are spiritual positionally, but practically you 
never enter into a permanent state of spirituality.  You don't have some zap 
and become spiritual.  Spirituality is simply receiving the Living Word daily 
from God and letting it dwell in you richly and then living it out in the 
fullness of obedience.  It is walking by the Spirit, and you will not carry 
out the desire of the flesh.  It doesn't say, "Have one zap and you are set 
for life, of five zaps, or wait for the next zap, or go to the meeting where 
they zap you."  It just says, "Walk in the Spirit and you'll overcome the 
flesh."  

The word "walk" is a very important word in the New Testament.  It means 
"moment by moment conduct."  It's a choice word: you walk one foot at a time 
and one step at a time.  Paul said in Galatians 5:25, "If we live by the 
Spirit," and we do--better to translate, "Since we live by the Spirit, since 
we are spiritual, then let's just take one step at a time in the power of the 
Spirit.  Obedient to the Word which dwells in us richly."  Walking speaks 
about a measured pace, one step at a time, and that's how true spirituality 
functions--one step at a time, one moment at a time.  A basic mark, just to 
kind of help you follow this through a little bit more, a basic mark of true 
spirituality is a deep awareness of sin.  You know I hear people who say they 
reach a certain level of being zapped, and now they feel they reached a 
certain level of holiness.  That is a dead giveaway that there is no sense of 
an understanding of spirituality.  

You show me a truly spiritual man and I will show you a man that is 
overwhelmed, not with his holiness but with his sinfulness; even though it 
may appear to everybody else to be less than the rest, it is monumental to a 
spiritual man!  It is not that he now feels himself to have arrived, it is 
that when he is spiritual he knows full well that he is far from where he 
ought to be.  The spiritual man is aware of his sin.  In Scripture, those who 
most despise their sinfulness were often those who were the most spiritual.  
Paul didn't say, "I have arrived at a very high level of spirituality."  Paul 
said, "I am (not was, 1 Timothy 1:15) the chief sinner!"  Peter said, "Depart 
from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man" (Luke 5:8).  Isaiah, the godliest man 
in his nation, said, "Woe is me!  Damn me!  Curse me!  Sentence me to 
judgment for I am a man with a dirty mouth" (Isaiah 6:5).  The spiritual man 
realizes he is in a death struggle with sin, and Paul said, "Look, (1 
Corinthians 15:31) I have to die"  How often?  "Daily!  This war goes on every 
day and I have to slay this guy name Paul, this fleshly man, who though 
spiritual in the inner man is still victimized by his remaining humanness."

The ultimate objective of the spiritual man is to be like Christ and nobody 
gets there.  Paul writes, "Not that I have already obtained it (in this life, 
not until glory)."  Paul writes, 

      Not that I have already obtained it, or have already have become 
      perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for 
      which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I do 
      not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I 
      do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what 
      lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the 
      upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).

And what was the goal?  Christlikeness, and the goal is the prize.  The prize 
is Christlikeness and the goal is Christlikeness.  Paul said, "I am not 
there; I haven't attained it; I'm pressing towards it."  Many Charismatics, 
however, insist that once you get the Baptism of the Spirit--spirituality is 
yours!  But unfortunately it doesn't work that way, so you know what happens?  
They live under a false assumption of their true spiritual condition.  When 
the glow of one experience fades they are forced to find another experience, 
and then another experience.  And they find that a second work of grace is 
not enough, and a third, and a forth, and a fifth, and so on.  And they seem 
to have diminishing returns, and in their effort to seek something more they 
often unwittingly abandon the Bible; they unwittingly abandon prayer and the 
true path of spirituality and they run errantly and wildly down a road of 
experience that leads to an inevitable increasing carnality.  

Charismatic books and pamphlets and articles are filled with testimonies, 
also of how a certain special experience brought a new degree of 
spirituality.  The testimony follow something like this, 

      When I was baptized by the Spirit, when I spoke in tongues, then 
      I began to live a more holy life (you've heard that).  I had 
      more power, I had more freedom, I had more joy, I had effective 
      witness, more love, more fulfillment as a Christian.  

I have heard that many, many times.  And although not all Charismatics are 
consistent on this point, most would strongly connect that with speaking in 
tongues as a means of obtaining that spirituality.  But Scripture just 
doesn't support that idea.  In 1 Corinthians 1:7, Paul commended the Church 
at Corinth and this is what he said, "You are not lacking in any gift, you 
are not lacking in any gift."  They had all the gifts: they had the gifts of 
prophecy, knowledge, miracles, healings, tongues, interpretations of 
tongues--they had them all in the Corinthian Church!  They also had every 
imaginable spiritual problem.  They were spiritual in terms of their gifts, 
they had spiritual gifts.  The true Christians were spiritual in terms of 
their position, but their actions were carnal and the Church was in carnal 
chaos.  You see spirituality isn't related to your gifts or to even some 
supernatural kind of manifestation through those gifts of miracles, healings, 
tongues, and interpretation.  

The Corinthian believers of the First Century were not unique; Christians 
today face similar problems.  We are saved, we have the Holy Spirit, we have 
certain spiritual gifts but we still struggle with the flesh.  Your spiritual 
gift doesn't change your struggle with the flesh at all.  If tongues is a 
spiritual gift then why in the world would tongues change your spiritual 
struggle?  It certainly didn't do anything for the Corinthians; they were 
still fleshly, carnal.  He said that to them in chapter 3, as I read a little 
bit ago, "You have all the gifts and you are carnal!"  So even having the 
gift of tongues has no relationship to your spirituality.  Do you see that?  
It doesn't have any relationship to it.  No spiritual gift will guarantee 
that you are going to win the struggle and live on a supernatural spiritual 
plain.  The only way you can win the spiritual battle and live according to 
your position as a spiritual being, having been transformed, is to walk in 
the Spirit; Galatians 5:16, "Walk in the Spirit and you will not 
fulfill. . ." what?  "The lusts of the flesh."  

You overcome the flesh by a daily, step-by-step obedience to the Spirit of 
God.  And I have to say that any discerning Charismatic will, and perhaps 
some do, admit that he or she has just as much trouble with the flesh and the 
appetites and lusts and desires of the flesh as anybody else!  Enthusiasm, 
euphoria, fervor, excitement, emotion, all of that stuff, all the things 
Charismatics tend to equate with spiritual intensity, have no power to 
restrain lusts, no power to conquer pride, no power to overcome selfishness, 
no power to deal with greed; none at all.  

Charismatics, whose only strength is drawn from the last high, the last 
experience, in fact, are more likely to be spiritually weak and spiritually 
immature.  Dr. Charles Smith, who is now with the Lord, was the dean of our 
seminary, points out, and I quote,

      The doctrines of free love and spiritual marriages have too 
      often appeared in association with tongues.  Perversion of the 
      Biblically teaching relating to sex and marriage can be seen in 
      the Mormons and the Shakers.  Amy Simple McPherson (started the 
      Four Square Church) was not the only tongues leader to receive a 
      revelation that her marriage was not "in the Lord" and that she 
      should enter another union.  One of the serious problems of the 
      Pentecostal movement has been the fact that many of its leaders 
      have fallen into immorality.  One well known Pentecostal 
      preacher, a woman widowed for three years, professed to be with 
      child by the Holy Ghost!  Pharham, father of the modern 
      Pentecostal movement was arrested for the grossest of 
      immoralities.

Now what he is pointing out is something we continue to see played out on the 
scene today, right?  This problem of gross immorality, this problem of a 
lifestyle totally inconsistent with spirituality; what you have got here are 
people who are getting "zapped" all the time but on the contrary are not only 
not spiritual, but tend to give manifestations of unspiritual lives, carnal 
fleshly lives that are preoccupied with lust, pride, selfishness, and greed.  
To compound the difficulty, when they stumble they are not even likely to 
take the responsibility for it.  They are going to blame demonic power, 
rather than examining their theology or their fleshly will or their Biblical 
ignorance.  

With all their claims of new power and a new level of spirituality the 
Charismatics have no guarantee that any of their ecstatic experiences will 
put them in any kind of lasting spiritual condition.  Now, please understand 
that I am not saying there aren't people in the Charismatic movement who are 
spiritual--there are.  There are people who are in those churches who walk in 
the Spirit because they love Christ truly, they study His word; but the upper 
echelon propagation, the stuff they are telling people and the "party-line" 
(if you will) about spirituality is not legitimate.  No matter what kind of 
experience they think they've had, no matter how often they speak in tongues, 
no matter how frequently they get slain in the Spirit (One of their leaders 
said, "If you not slain in the Spirit every week, you're never going to able 
to live the Christian life."), no matter how many times they fall over 
backwards they still face the same challenge given to every Christian--they 
have to walk in the power of the Spirit and obedience to the Word which they 
understand; die to self and sin everyday.

There isn't any shortcut.  And I want to submit to you that begins with the 
mind and not the emotion.  That begins with an understanding of truth, an 
understanding of Scripture, an understanding of God, and Christ, and man, and 
sin, and the Holy Spirit.  It starts with the mind.  Unfortunately there is 
so much doctrinal ignorance in the movement that the people are trying to 
function without an understanding of who God is, who Christ is, what the 
Bible teaches about the Spirit and spiritual life.  How many people join that 
movement because they have been promised an easy answer to problems and a 
quick and easy path to instant godliness?  It's sad.  Sometimes I look at it 
and I think it's more giddy than godly.  You can turn on, almost any night, 
on Charismatic television and see it.  

It's emphasizing amusement and frivolity, and there is a lot of laughing and 
sort of breathless gushing and time for silliness, bafoonery, and shallow 
talk.  You look at the expensive lavish clothing and the whole scene that 
goes with it, the behavior, so many women who seem, to me at least, to 
violate most everything that is taught in 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2, and I 
get embarrassed because I know the watching world is looking at this and 
assuming that this is Christianity.  I mean, this has got to be 
Christianity--it says it is!  There is nothing wrong with being happy, I am a 
happy person.  I mean, I am always happy.  In fact, I've always said that, "I 
think God has taken happiness from a whole lot of people just to give it to 
me because I have more than anyone could imagine."  

There is nothing wrong with praising God and laughing and feeling self-
fulfilled, enjoying your Christian life and enjoying life in general.  But, 
it seems to me that many in the Charismatic movement seem so determined to 
pursue the emotional high, the quick thrill, the exciting event, the 
electrifying moment, the exhilarating conference, that they don't know 
anything about the serious part of spiritual life.  They don't know about the 
consistent walk with God that deals with the reality of your life, and 
therefore, they have given up the rich rewards of that walk; and they have 
settled for a superficial frivolity, sort of a cheap substitute; and gaiety 
is no substitute for godliness.  

Real godliness doesn't carry with it some kind of silly emotional high.  
Again I say, that the truly spiritual and truly godly person pursues 
righteousness with a burning sense of conviction, with a deep awareness of 
his own sin.  And when the Spirit of God is at work there is deep joy, but 
there is also a sort of corresponding profound sorrow.  Walter Chantery (sp.) 
has aptly written and I quote from him, 

      When the Holy Spirit comes to sinful men, He initially brings 
      sorrow, but in Charismatic circles there is only the boast of 
      rapid transport to joy and peace.  Any religious experiences 
      that brings immediate rejoicing and uninterrupted cheerfulness 
      are not to be trusted.  There is much more to spirituality than 
      a lifting of the spirits and the entering into the exuberant 
      life and in extending one's succession of thrilling experiences.  
      Yet, in many of the popular neo-Pentcostal societies, you will 
      look in vain for anything else.  No one who has God's spirit can 
      walk through our world without deep groanings of sorrow and 
      distress when the stench of immorality feels his nostrils.  The 
      spirit filled man cannot be happy, happy, happy, all the day!  
      If the Spirit were to come powerfully today, it would not be to 
      make men clap their hands for joy but to make them smite their 
      breasts in sorrow.

And Chantrey (sp.) adds, "He's not the jolly spirit--He's the Holy Spirit!"  
Charismatics usually give the impression however, that it is more jolly than 
holy.  And I don't want to be ungracious to those in the movement who are 
genuine, and there are many.  But the face of Charimaticism that we see cast 
before us projects so much of this.  Meanwhile, the self-indulgence in 
immoderation gets louder, gaudier, flashier, and more eccentric.  This trend 
I don't see as the fruit of genuine godliness.  

One of the most unfortunate characteristics of this movement is the continual 
emphasis also on the astonishing, and the dramatic, and the sensational, and 
the idea that that has got to be the part of everyday life.  The effect 
really is to intimidate anybody who is not getting the same kind of results:  
tongues and prophecies and spiritual pyrotechnics and whatever else is going 
on, miraculously filled fuel tanks and audible voices from God and all that.  
There are people--you've got to know that those churches are filled with 
people who don't quite have that spectacular list of events on their weekly 
schedule.  They are getting, frankly, not any spectactular things at all, and 
they live through a dry spell.  And you have got to wonder what they think 
and how unfulfiling and sad of heart they find themselves.  

The Apostle Paul knew what it was to be scorned, and he knew what it was to 
be intimidated by people who felt they had attained a higher level than he.  
Did you know that?  Second Corinthians, you don't have to turn to it, we 
don't have time, but in 2 Corinthians, you read chapter 9 and to the end, and 
Paul talks about the "Super Apostles."  Remember he had poured out 18 months 
of his life and love establishing the Corinthian Church.  And when he wrote 
back two letters, obviously there were so many problems.  The worst of it, 
from his viewpoint was, some guys had risen in the Church who wanted to 
destroy Paul.  There whole view was that Paul was not an honorable man and 
that they had reached a higher level of spirituality than he and they were 
the "Super Apostles."  By the way, the leader of that group, I believe, was 
the thorn in the flesh, the messenger from Satan that really tore him up.  

They came to town while he was gone, or they rose from the congregation while 
he was gone.  They were the new guys.  They love to extol themselves and 
elevate themselves; they had the power, they had the experience, they had the 
estacies.  They had swept the Corinthian believers off their feet and it 
broke the heart of Paul because people in the Church were believing them and 
following them and turning their back on Paul.  And it all came back to Paul 
that his spirituality was in question.  He didn't measure up to the 
superstars; he didn't measure up to these new guys.  They were saying that 
Paul couldn't play in their league.  How did Paul respond?  He didn't rattle 
off a list of healings or other miracles he had performed; instead he 
presented his credientials.  He didn't say, "Well, I have raised five and you 
know, I've healed a 1,000.  I've cast demons out of 1,500; here's a few 
illustrations."  Do you know what he said?  He said, 

      I want to present my credientials: five times I received thirty-
      nine lashes.  Three times I had been beaten with rods, once I 
      had been stoned and left for dead, three times I have been 
      shipwrecked, I have spent a night and a day in the sea.  I have 
      been hungry and sleepless, I have been in dangers from robbers 
      and Gentiles and even my own countrymen.  I have been run out of 
      town more times than I can even remember.  I've got a thorn in 
      the flesh that the Lord won't even take away and I have asked 
      Him three times.  You know what?  Do you want to know my 
      credientials?  I am well content with weakness, insults, 
      ditresses, persecutions, difficulties for Christ's sake, for 
      when I am weak then I am strong.  I have become foolish; you 
      yourselves compelled me.  Actually, I should have been commended 
      by you for in no respect was I inferior to the most immenient 
      apostles, even though I am a nobody.

Wow, what an amazing list of credentials.  It seems to me very doubful that 
Paul would have made much of a guest on a Charismatic television show.  
Instead of being "Slain in the Spirit" he was almost slain in the body over 
and over again.  He couldn't even remember his visions; he couldn't even get 
on to tell them.  Second Corinthians 12:1-4 he mentions being caught up to 
the third heaven fourteen years before, but he couldn't rememeber the 
details.  Now, how are you going to make a career out of that if you can't 
even remember what happened?  Instead of emphasizing his miraculous trip to 
the third heaven and back, he wanted to talk about his weakness, and he 
wanted to talk about his pain!  Because all of that weakness and all of that 
pain put all the glory in the place it should be and gave it to God.  That's 
the kind of true spirituality that is missing in the movement, and that's the 
kind of true spirituality that doesn't make it on the "Best Seller" chart.  

According to Paul, his life was weak, his life was wretched, his life was 
desperate, he was humble, he was the chief sinner, he was in a constant state 
of stress, tension, fear, even misery from the time he came to Christ until 
his head got cut off.  The same is true of the other apostles: Peter, James, 
[and] John.  You never find anywhere some kind of catalog of all their 
escapades.  See, they learned that true spirituality was walking humbly 
before God in the power of the Holy Spirit; that's where spirituality is.

Well, there is much more to be said, but I just remind you that perhaps the 
best and clearest definition of true spirituality comes in the simple 
statement of Ephesians 5, which says, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is 
excess; but be filled with the Spirit."  I wish we had time to go into all 
that that means but allowing the Holy Spirit to control your life is the 
essential issue; and that comes when you submit yourselves to the Word of 
God.  The path to true spirituality is through the Word, prayer, daily step 
by step commitment to the Holy Spirit.  

Aesop told about a dog who was crossing a bridge with a bone in his mouth.  
He looked over the edge, saw the reflection in the clear stream.  The bone in 
the water looked better than the one in his mouth, so he gave up the reality 
for the reflection.  

My great fear is that there are many Christians who with great zeal and 
lacking knowledge are doing the very same thing.  A false standard of 
spirituality will not restrain your flesh; witnesses are abundant to prove 
that.  The only way to restrain your flesh and gain victory is true 
spirituality.  Again I say, the path is through the Word and prayer to a 
daily walk with the Spirit.  Let's bow in prayer.  

Father, just touching these things tonight reminds us that even while we are 
endeavoring to understand a movement that we feel doesn't honor You we don't 
want to leave it at that, we want to bring this into our own hearts and ask 
if we are on the path of true spirituality to the place of true obedience; if 
we are walking in the Spirit so that we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  
Since we are spiritual and the Spirit dwells within us we must walk according 
to His will.  So Father, may the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, and may 
that Word become the controlling principle that moves through our mind to our 
volition and yields our body and our mind to the controlling Spirit.  May we 
know true spirituality, we who are spiritual, and give no occasion to the 
flesh, that we might live to your glory for Jesus' sake.  Amen.

Transcribed by Tony Capoccia of

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