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My Journey to being Charismatically Reformed

My Journey to becoming

Charismatically Reformed

By Chris Parker

May 9, 2012

When most hear the word "charismatic," they envision someone speaking in tongues, being slain in the "spirit," or running up and down church aisles whooping and hollering.  That is not what I intend by the use of the word "charismatic".  Rather, I intend it to mean, someone who holds the belief that the gifts of the Spirit have not ceased in apostolic times, but are still intended for the church in the present age.  And, with my "of-late" coming to this realization and utilization in my life and ministry, believe that the cessationist view that most American Christians hold today, and that their pastors teach, has greatly contributed to our declining numbers, troubled physical health, ministry and outreach to the increasingly troubled world around us.



My journey begins, concerning this association, not long after my salvation in early college.  Presbyterians played a major role in shaping my interests and desires for theology, apologetics and correct doctrine.  At the time, they had more of an academic slant than did the Southern Baptists, among which I had grown up.  I had a Presbyterian friend who used to try and tell me that I was Arminian, but I would reply to him that I was neither Arminian nor Calvinist, but Southern Baptist. 


After graduating from UNC-Asheville, I served overseas with Campus Crusade for two years in the Slovak Republic.  One winter we attended a Bible study conference in Bucharest, Romania, on the book of Romans.  It was then the LORD won my heart over to Calvinism, (or a.k.a., the Doctrines of Grace), when we came to Romans 9:16, “So then, it is neither up to the man who wills, nor the man who runs, but up to God, who has mercy.”  After my second year with Campus Crusade, I returned to the States to attend seminary and prepare for the full time ministry which God had called me to shortly after being saved.

I attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presided by R. Albert Mohler, who is very staunchly a Calvinist, and requires all the seminary professors to sign a statement confessing their beliefs in the doctrines of grace.  It was during this time that my confidence and belief in theses doctrines were confirmed and built up.  During this time, I was a cessationist in my views of the spiritual gifts, though through this and later missionary experience I would gain in Ghana, Kenya, Sudan and then home again in North America, I came to see the moving of the Spirit of God and the realities of the spiritual realm around us.

While In seminary, I took a Spiritual Warfare class with Dr. Chuck Lawless, and one of the projects we did was watching taped episodes of Dateline, featuring a NC Baptist pastor who had been called into performing exorcisms. We watched the show and evaluated and discussed the implications and realities of this ministry.

While in Kenya, a newspaper reported on a young boy who fell to the floor convulsing and foaming at the mouth while the teacher had led the children in saying a prayer at the opening of the school day.  Pastors were called upon to pray over this child and cast out the spirit.  This was unlike anything I had seen or heard of before in America!  During college I was a philosophy major, and so I could discern, and really see that outside of the ‘westernized cities,’ I was in a land that had not been effected by the scientific enlightenment, and still lived very much like people of Bible times.

Later In Kenya, doing my tribal group research, we interviewed one fellow who was telling us of his tribes “shatanyi dances.”  When a member of the tribe got sick, the tribe would encircle the person, dance around them and chant, and then they would ask the spirit what it wanted for the person’s healing.  Whatever item the spirit indicated, (shoes, tools, etc.) it was brought, and the person was healed.  Siince this was a pre-evangelistic work, we merely recorded the young man's stories and included it into our resesarch.

I also saw God move in some uncanny ways through prayer during this time in Kenya.  Later, serving in my first church, there was a sweet, humble little woman in the church.  You would never know it, but one day as my wife and I spoke with her, she told us that she had the gift of tongues.  She also had a spiritual prayer language, but never made a show of it.  Her husband was an agnostic, and once the news featured some an interview to some native American Indians, and this woman with the gift of tongues was in the other room, and told her husband what the people were saying!  Needless to say, as an agnostic, this was quite shocking to him!

Another time at this church, after a Sunday morning service, the congregation was standing up and moving into the aisles to leave.   In the center aisle, one woman  turned and looked over her shoulder, and her eyes had changed.  They were no longer human, but the eyes of demon.  This was my first experience seeing a demon manifest itself.

After the LORD had moved us from this church, He brought us to this small trailer we rented located on five beautiful acres of a farm.  This was in answer to prayer for a place to raise our boys and for our desires to garden.  During this period, I served as an theological email answer-man for CARM.org, founded by Matt Slick.  I also poured myself into the study of the New Age religion along with end-time prophecy and its fulfillment.

At the corner of the property were we were staying, the owner had a waste pit, where he would dispose of the remains of animals that he butchered for meat.  We knew that UFOs and ‘aliens’ had an interest in cow reproductive organs, and there was a large committee of vultures that roosted around this area.  We began to sense spiritual attack in our lives.  One night while I slept, a demon appeared in the upper corner of our bedroom, and spoke to my wife.  He asked her if she thought she was strong enough to take him, and she responded, “No, but He who is in me is greater than you.” And with an expression of disgust, the demon disappeared.

Other supernatural things happen to us during this time.  In our first church, it was apparent that there were differences in theological belief between us and the church.  After the LORD moved us, we prayed for a pastor to serve with who beleived as we did, that we could stand with and carry out ministry.  The LORD took us there to stand alongside the current pastor.  After some time, we were again hired on by a church to serve as youth pastor.  The community was filled with Masons, and many in the church leadership were Masonic members.  Because of this, they were very works oriented in their theology, and were/are serving demons.

I was introduced by a pastor to the work of Henry Wright, A More Excellent Way.  My wife had some health issues, allergies, asthma, problems with her sciatic nerve and a phobia of rats.  When we moved to this new community, all her maladies were intensifying.  I read Wright’s book with regard to what it said about my wife’s maladies, and in faith we confessed sins and laid on hands and prayed for healing, and saw my wife freed and cured from her sicknesses that doctors were only able to manage with medications.

One day my wife had been on her feet on the hard floor most of the day, and her sciatic nerve was searing her with pain down her leg!  I looked this up in Wright’s book, and it said the spiritual root, or cause was a demon of sciatica!  So in the name of Jesus Christ, I commanded this demon to leave, and the pain went away.  Another time when my wife was having an asthma attack, she asked me to lay hands on her for it to stop.  When I did, and I commanded it to be healed in the name of Jesus, it ceased and she has not used her breather since.  Since then, there has been a time or two when her lungs would begin to get tight, so she would lay hands on her chest and pray healing in the name of Jesus.  Then her lungs would loosen and she could continue her activity and breathe regularly.

Once my wife had pain in her shoulder and arm much like scitica and I tried to cast the spirit out, but my wife's pain intensified.  I repeated myself, trying to command it out in the name of Jesus, but it kept increasing the pain.  My wife was screaming hysterically, and I was imploring the Lord to have mercy on her.  After 10 minutes of this, the pain gradually subsided.  It was gone, but we were shaken.  Serving at this church was an intense period of spiritual attack, as the community was dominated by the Masons, and the leadership of the church were Masons, and the demons didn't like us on their territory!

A young man came by the church office one day when I was there alone.  He wanted me to give my blessing for him and his girlfriend to live together.  I would not do it.  This man was schizophrenic, and heavily on drugs (at least in younger years).  I asked him what the voices said to him, and he told me that they tell him to kill people, all the time!    I responded by telling him that in Bible times people would take drugs to open them to spirit beings they thought were gods.  The Bible tells us that these were demons.  I said, “I think those voices in your head are demons.”  Over the next couple of minutes, as I continued to refuse to bless his living in fornication, his face hardened, and his eyes went from blue to yellow!  The demon in him manifested itself.  It was literally like looking into the eyes of a serpent!  I knew he could spring upon me and finish me off, but the Lord gave me a peace.  

As he was leaving with his girlfriend, I prayed for him and the healing of those voices, but the next he called the church, I tried to pray for him, he hung up the phone on me.  I was going to command the spirits out in the name of Jesus.  His uncle is a pastor, and I wanted to try to share the gospel with him.

This church had also fired the last four or five pastors in a decade or so.  They held a vote of no-confidence for my senior pastor (which is unbiblical).  An older woman in the church led the charge against the pastor.  She was also a member of the Eastern Star.  A young man who stood up, out of turn( according to Robert’s rules of order), and demanded the woman answer the spiritual test question, “Has Jesus Christ ever walked the earth in the flesh?” (1 Jn. 4:2).  The lady never answered him, but looked at him with a sinister smile on her face and said, “You’re silly, sit down.”  as he was out of turn according to Robert's rules, the rest of the church asked him to be seated.

Later it came to my attention (on Facebook) that female members in leadership were going to see, and raving about the Twilight Vampire Series.  I took a stand against this and asked them to stop.  I had been teaching the youth in church that it opened gateways to the demonic, but these female leaders in the church was openly broadcasting their love for the antichrist movies.  The senior pastor resigned from the church, and two weeks later, the leadership moved to fire me.  They tried to get me on areas of theology, and on mismanagement of church monies. When they saw that I was blameless in these areas, they tried to get me by saying that I was not reaching the youth.  When the youth defended me, those particular individuals were “exceptions to the rule.”  So they brought me to a vote of no-confidence before the church.  The LORD told me to stand, so I refused to resign as the pastor had.  Our friend, who had the gift of prophecy told us that the Lord told her we would have victory.  The vote failed by about three votes.    I had fully expected to have my job terminated at the close of this meeting.  So both my wife and I were in shock that I still had my position in the church.  But the persecution against me and my family continued, and I could not carry out my ministry in that environment.

During this meeting, and in several encounters with church members involved in Masonry or Eastern Star, I would see a dark cloud around them as they raged against me.  God is my witness that I walked in complete integrity all during my ministry, but the enemy did not like that I was beginning to teach the church of healing, and that involvement with the world opened gateways to the demonic, and that many of our sicknesses and depressions are caused by unconfessed sin and demons.  If the church had accepted it, this would have brought delieverance, holiness and freedom, and healing to the lives of many who were sick and dying.

The LORD has brought us now to a beautiful farm.  I and my wife, who is my partner in ministry feel that the LORD has called us here to get the farm ready for the economic collapse that is coming and the LORD brought a couple of different people with the Spirit who have prophesied that this will be used for an end-time ministry.  And so the journey continues...

A Pastor's lament on Twilight

This movie seems to be taking America, and our youth by storm.  And it seems strongly appealing to women, because of its strong message on Romance and the theme of validation of personhood.  But are the answers it's giving really Biblical?  And what of the occult nature of the film, is it okay for Christians to watch and enjoy, or to be obsessed with such a topic?

Some people will make the case that Twilight is simply fantasy.  Fantasy is a powerful thing, because it engages the person's imagination and feelings, and now with movie media, it may employ fantastical effects and music, which manipulates the emotions.  Many of today's movies and TV series employ the use of these computerized effects with music to manipulate the audience and bring them in line with the message of the movie.  And emotions are a powerful thing. 

Some may make the case that Twilight is no different than C.S. Lewis' use of fantasy.  But here's where the difference lies, in Lewis' chronicles of Narnia, they employ analogies to convey Biblical, spiritual truths to children, as Aslan was an accurate analogy of Christ dying for the sins of Edmund (the world; Jn. 3:16).  But Twilight is using occult ritual, belief and lore to teach about the "un-dead," those cursed to live an eternal darkness, yet it is portrayed in the movies as being a good thing to be on the side of darkness and eternally accursed (Is. 5:20)!

Wicca is known to be one of the fastest growing religions in America today. Our kids' exposure/desensitization to witchcraft/sorcery and magic that has appeared exponentially on TV shows today. It's one of Satan's tools, people are indoctrinated through movies.



"We know that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." 1 Jn. 5:19



"in which you formerly walked, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." Eph. 2:2



These verses tell us that Satan controls the world (remember when he offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world), and that he is presently working in the world.



Acts 19 speaks of when Paul was in Ephesus, a great center for witchcraft, sorcery and astrology, and tells how in verse Acts 19:19, a mass number of Christians who had not yet renounced witchcraft renounced and burnt their magical papyri, totalling 50,000 days wages.  Even though this people had accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, and were now indwelt with the holy spirit, they had not renounced their association with or practice of witchcraft, of 'daimon guides,' who were spirits that took up residence within the people, and brought other daimons in the name of serving the practitioner.  After seeing the failed attempt of an exorcism performed by non-believers in the name of Jesus, the believers saw the reality of the message of Christ, and of His complete authority over demons (by their own admission), they then renounced and burnt their books which instructed them in the ways of the demonic.1 



The Apostle Peter warns believers: "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert, your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Ptr. 5:8).

Why would Peter need to warn believers about being devoured by Satan? Wasn't he defeated on the cross? Don't they have the Holy Spirit in them? How does Peter, being inspired by the Spirit (2 Ptr. 1:21) write this for believers? Clearly there is a danger for believers to be 'devoured' by Satan. Or what about the man handed over to Satan for the destruction of His flesh but the salvation of his soul?


Some say that the Twilight series is just harmless fantasy.  Pornography is also fantasy. Is it okay for a Christian man to enjoy pornography? Any believer would clearly say no. There have cases where people have received demons through their involvement with viewing/delighting in pornography. How is that different from viewing/delighting in a movie about occultic creatures, such as Vampires (the eternally damned, unchristian) who twist and pervert the truth.

What does scripture state about our entertainment choices, upon which we are to think/"dwell on"?

Philippians 4:8

8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Does this fit the Twilight movies? Is this something we would watch for entertainment with Jesus? I'm not trying to anger anyone, but get people to think through the issues. 

I am trying to warn against something that is quickly sweeping through the church. What happens when church leadership embraces the demonic? Is God pleased with such things?

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

For His people, the Church, God commands us to come out and be separate.  He doesn't tell us it's okay to enjoy movies about Satanic rituals and child sacrifice.  What agreement does light have with darkness?  what agreement does Christ have with Belial?  "Come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord.

1 John 5:20-21


²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. ²¹ Little children, guard yourselves from idols.


Footnote:
1 Arnold, Clinton E., 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare.  Baker Books: Grand Rapids.  1997.  p. 91-92.

"[O]ne magical text explains how to perform a ritual in which "a daimon comes as an assistant who will eat and sleep with you."  This being is then described as "a god; he is an aerial spirit which you have seen."  Once the door is opened, others invade the life of the person: "He will quickly bring daimons [for a banquet], and for you he will adorn these servants with sashes.  These things he does quickly."...  If prior to, and even subsequent to, their conversion, believers in Ephesus were engaging in this sort of magic - summoning spirits and inviting them into their lives - how would the apostle Paul have responded?  Surely he was not blind to this phenomenon.  Was providing these people with instruction in the Scriptures enough, or was more direct intervention required on occasion? (Arnold, p. 92).