Charismatic Abuses? Discernment and Finances

00:00:00.000 | In the last Ask Pastor John podcast episode, episode 216, you focused on the doctrinal

00:00:10.920 | and emotional abuses in the charismatic movement, but you said there's other abuses to address.

00:00:16.060 | What are some other abuses that caused you concern, Pastor John?

00:00:19.680 | What I said was, lest we be harder on charismatics than on non-charismatics, we must keep in

00:00:29.200 | mind that all the abuses I'm mentioning, these have their counterparts, their mirror image

00:00:36.480 | in the non-charismatic churches as well.

00:00:39.160 | So in the previous podcast, we focused on doctrinal abuses and emotional abuses, and

00:00:45.360 | I would say that non-charismatics taken as a whole, all the Christians who don't practice

00:00:50.240 | the gifts, are far more guilty of these than charismatics.

00:00:54.700 | Think of all the doctrinal errors in the history of the church.

00:00:57.280 | Those weren't charismatics by and large.

00:00:59.380 | Think of all the dying mainline churches today with all their moral and doctrinal aberrations.

00:01:04.920 | These aren't charismatics.

00:01:07.000 | And think of the emotional deadness in thousands of non-charismatic evangelical mainline churches.

00:01:12.880 | Those are deadly emotional abuses.

00:01:15.880 | And we just need to remember that if we target the charismatic church because of things that

00:01:23.240 | are happening there, doctrinally and emotionally, let's remember the mirror image, which are

00:01:28.240 | equally deadly, are happening among non-charismatic churches as well.

00:01:33.860 | So here, let me mention two more abuses.

00:01:37.440 | There was doctrinal, then there was emotional.

00:01:39.760 | Now I'd add discernment abuses or lack of discernment abuses.

00:01:46.160 | And by this, I mean doctrinally sound people who are not denying any fundamental doctrine

00:01:54.560 | and who are not loose cannons emotionally.

00:01:58.000 | They're just undiscerning and make mistakes that bring reproach on the spiritual gifts.

00:02:06.000 | And this I have in mind, 1 Thessalonians 5, "Do not quench the spirit, do not despise

00:02:12.240 | prophecies, test everything, hold fast to what is good."

00:02:15.040 | Now, why would Paul say, "Don't despise"?

00:02:17.520 | That's very strong language.

00:02:19.100 | And I think it's because some of those folks were claiming to speak for God, and it resulted

00:02:26.560 | in foolishness.

00:02:27.560 | They weren't speaking for God.

00:02:30.240 | And it resulted in an emotional pushback in the church.

00:02:33.320 | They said, "We don't want that."

00:02:35.360 | And Paul was trying to rescue prophecy from broad brush sweeping it away entirely by saying,

00:02:41.640 | "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

00:02:43.560 | Discern what is good here and discern what is bad here.

00:02:47.480 | Don't throw it all away.

00:02:49.640 | Make distinctions in the various claims to hold it fast."

00:02:53.720 | So let me give a couple of illustrations from my life, or maybe just one.

00:02:57.280 | I have been prophesied over numerous times, and two of them were just wacko.

00:03:05.120 | I mean, it was so hard in those days to try to take this seriously.

00:03:09.960 | I really resonated with the folks who were starting to despise prophecies.

00:03:13.560 | A lawyer one time prophesied over me when my wife was pregnant.

00:03:17.840 | He said, "Your fourth child is going to be a girl, and your wife is going to die in childbirth."

00:03:25.560 | And that lawyer, with tears, told me that she was sorry she had to tell me that.

00:03:34.400 | So I went home, and I got down on my knees and I said, "Lord, I'm trying to do what you

00:03:40.520 | said here in 1 Thessalonians."

00:03:44.200 | And frankly, I despise what that woman just said.

00:03:51.040 | It proved out that my fourth child was a son, and I knew as soon as he came out that that

00:03:56.840 | prophecy was not true, and so I stopped having any misgiving about my wife's life.

00:04:01.000 | She's still with me now, 30 years later.

00:04:04.600 | So that's the sort of thing that makes you despise prophecy.

00:04:07.920 | And then I was at another meeting where a well-known prophet, if I said the name, lots

00:04:12.200 | of people would know who it was.

00:04:13.320 | He prophesied over me, and I could tell as he was talking, he's just trying to fit in

00:04:19.680 | with the trajectory of my life and say some nice things about me.

00:04:23.760 | And what he said simply didn't come true that year.

00:04:25.840 | He said it was going to come true by the end of the year.

00:04:27.440 | It didn't.

00:04:28.440 | So I know the lack of discernment that people can have, even when they're solid, doctrinal

00:04:36.880 | people.

00:04:39.200 | So that's a third one, discernment issues that make us want to despise the gift of prophecy.

00:04:47.680 | And here's the last one I would call financial abuses.

00:04:50.920 | So doctrinal, emotional, discernment issues, and now financial abuses.

00:04:58.160 | People who treat their giftedness, whether in teaching or healing or prophecy or evangelism,

00:05:04.280 | as a warrant to make their ministry a means of getting rich.

00:05:10.720 | And of course, you can hear even in that list of gifts I gave, evangelism and teaching,

00:05:17.240 | that I'm not thinking merely about charismatics here.

00:05:21.040 | We tend to think of charismatics when we think of people abusing finances in this way.

00:05:26.840 | Well, all you have to do is listen to the Twitter sphere to know that's not the case.

00:05:32.820 | There are just as many non-charismatic leaders who are using their status as an effective

00:05:42.160 | spiritual leader to make a lot of money and accumulate a lot of money and look like they

00:05:48.000 | have a lot of money.

00:05:49.560 | And I want to say that there are a lot of simple, honest, humble, charismatic pastors

00:05:53.640 | living on modest salaries who are less guilty than many non-charismatics when it comes to

00:06:00.040 | financial abuses.

00:06:02.200 | And of course, there are plenty of non-charismatic pastors using their status to get rich and

00:06:06.920 | have lavish lifestyles.

00:06:08.120 | Now, here's the key text, 1 Timothy 6, and as it comes to the end of verse 5, it talks

00:06:17.360 | about false teachers who imagine—this is the end of verse 5—who imagine that godliness

00:06:23.560 | is a means of gain.

00:06:25.760 | So it's possible to have a teaching gift or a healing gift, some kind of remarkable gift

00:06:31.040 | that is so popular, you make millions of dollars.

00:06:34.720 | And then you start feeling entitled to it all—lavish clothes, lavish cars, lavish

00:06:40.720 | houses, lavish jets and hotel accommodations—turning godliness into a means of gain and justifying

00:06:47.880 | it by the fact that you are so gifted and so many people are benefiting from what you

00:06:52.880 | say.

00:06:54.080 | To whom, charismatic or non-charismatic, Paul would say in verse 9 of 1 Corinthians 6, "Those

00:07:00.760 | who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful

00:07:07.360 | desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction."

00:07:11.720 | So wanting that better car, wanting those fancier clothes, wanting that bigger house,

00:07:19.160 | wanting that longer vacation, wanting that top floor hotel room that has the pool in

00:07:25.560 | it as well as the bathtub, wanting that stuff will kill you, Paul said.

00:07:32.160 | So my alternative is to preach Christian hedonism that says, "Pursue contentment in God, not

00:07:39.720 | in things."

00:07:40.720 | Or let's let Paul say it, "Godliness with contentment is great gain.

00:07:47.040 | For we brought nothing into the world, we cannot take anything out of the world.

00:07:51.040 | If we have food and clothing with these, we will be content."

00:07:55.320 | So one summary word to end.

00:07:58.360 | Charismatic doctrinal abuses, emotional abuses, discernment abuses, financial abuses all have

00:08:04.800 | their mirror image in non-charismatic churches.

00:08:08.240 | We all stand under the Word of God and we all need repentance.

00:08:11.920 | Yes, so true.

00:08:13.680 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

00:08:17.200 | Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:08:20.360 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,

00:08:24.120 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

00:08:27.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:08:28.040 | Thanks for listening.

00:08:28.760 | [End of Audio]

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Charismatic Abuses? Discernment and Finances

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