In my hometown, there stands a multi-million dollar church building project that began sixteen years ago on the word of a local “apostle.” In the time since, its progress has halted, and one of the pastors of the church was sent to federal prison for financial crimes. Now the skeleton of the building stands as nothing more than a monument to false prophecies and empty promises.
This is a fitting illustration of the Charismatic movement. Blind prophets and impotent healers have promised much but produced nothing for generations. Worse yet, they pervert God’s Word and malign the Holy Spirit in the process.
This egregious reality led to Grace to You’s Strange Fire conference ten years ago.
In God’s providence, the ten years after the conference have brought serious public shame for many leaders within the Charismatic movement. Here is just a sampling from the last decade:
Yet nothing in this parade of disgrace has slowed the Charismatic movement.
At our recent Truth Matters conference in 2022, Justin Peters pointed out that the true “fringe” of the Charismatic movement is not the televangelist kooks, but rather the more faithful men like Wayne Grudem—they are the true minority. Consider these numbers from YouTube alone:
Bethel Music has 4.7 million subscribers with over 2.5 billion views.
T. D. Jakes has 2.6 million subscribers and 487 million views.
Sid Roth has 1.8 million subscribers and 345 million views.
The 700 Club has 684 thousand subscribers and 218 million views.
With respect to our continuationist brothers, they do not have influence of this magnitude. The marrow of the Charismatic movement remains to be the charlatans and radicals. This is why the message of the Strange Fire conference is as relevant today as it was ten years ago. And it’s why we’re taking this week and next to revisit some of the sermons from that landmark event.
To begin with, we want to highlight John MacArthur’s opening message, simply called “Strange Fire.” In this introduction to the conference, he teaches on the necessity of pure worship from Leviticus 10. Coming before God is no trivial task—that’s why Jesus said that true worshipers must worship in “truth” (John 4:24). John summarizes, “Worship of the triune God is the most fundamental of all duties and the highest of all responsibilities.”
Thus, far from downplaying the person of the Spirit or pushing His true work aside, John establishes the purpose of Strange Fire: “We’re here to try to call for the restoration of the true worship of the Holy Spirit in the church.”
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Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse at a Time Since 1969
