WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

By Akin Ojumu

Pharisees of Jesus’s day and modern-day Charismatics are like peas in a peapod. On the one hand, the former attributed to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. With their false teaching, erroneous doctrines, false signs, fake wonders, phoney miracles, gibberish speaking, ecstatic chanting, euphoric groaning, etc., the modern-day Charismatic Movement attributes the work of Satan to the Holy Spirit.

Yet, when the leading heretics of the Charismatic Movement are denounced for their diabolical dramatics and heinous theatrics, their fanatical followers devolve into uncontrollable outrage. The disciples of charlatans descend into complete meltdown whenever the false teachings of their heroes are called out. 

The touchiness of the devotees of the Charismatic heretics is instructive. Every time the admirers of false apostles and false prophets lambast the critics of their lords and masters, they send the signal that they care more about the reputation of impostors than the desecration of the Word of God. That these folks get much more riled up when their spiritual fathers and mothers are exposed for their evil than when the sanctity of the Gospel is undermined is proof of where their loyalty lies.

While their rage hits boiling point whenever criticisms are lobbed at their powerfully anointed daddies in the Lord, the same people are as cold as ice when God’s Word is profaned by the same anointed pastors. These people who demand absolute reverence for their general overseers, display egregious irreverence to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.

It’s at this apparent cognitive dissonance that Pastor John MacArthur expresses profound dismay in this video clip. He is bewildered that modern-day Charismatics are intolerant of the criticisms directed at the heretics in their rank while, at the same time, they seem to be quite tolerant of the heresies and blasphemies that these heretics spew. 

John MacArthur is also particularly alarmed at the speed with which the heresies and blasphemies of the Charismatic Movement has gone global, proliferating in pandemic proportions to far-flung places especially in Africa and Latin America with the help of charlatans like Benny Hinn and media organizations like the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN).

In the video, which is a clip from a lecture he gave to students of The Master’s University a few years go, Pastor John MacArthur lamented:

“In Matthew Chapter 12, Jesus accused the Pharisees of attributing to Satan, the work of the Spirit. Remember that? Okay! What the modern Charismatic Movement has done is to attribute to the Spirit the work of Satan. They just flipped that. The work of Satan is being attributed to Him. Benny Hinn is a false teacher. Trinity broadcasting is a haven of false teachers. And if you think it’s bad here you ought to go to Africa or Latin America. The misrepresentations of the Holy Spirit are wholesale across the planet, and they are getting away with murderous blasphemies against the Holy Spirit. And I’m just saying, “Where is the outrage? Come on! And why don’t you demonstrate the same outrage against heresy and the dishonor of God that the Reformers would have? I mean how can you sit and let the misrepresentations, the abuse, the blasphemy, the grieving, the quenching, the mocking of the Holy Spirit with this horrible stuff? False miracles, false doctrine, false gospels. How can you not be, literally, overwhelmed with rage, with holy indignation?”

Of course, I share Pastor John MacArthur’s bewilderment. My heart breaks for my people. They are drowning in the sea of heresies and suffocating in the putrid fumes of blasphemies, yet they don’t know it.