We must never assume that those whom God uses to do His work are in right standing with Him.  In the majority of cases the exact opposite is true.  Having been in the ministry during the “charismatic movement” of the 1970’s I have seen many miracles performed by Satan’s “ministers of righteousness” (1 Cor. 11:13-15) who “knew” they were in good stead with Him because they were like everyone else in “the church”–they believed in Jesus Christ, went to church, read the Bible, tithed, etc. Those who received the miracles, along with those who witnessed them and heard about them also “knew” that they themselves were God’s people and “… in need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17). I know this to be true because I was one of those who worked miracles, received miracles and heard about miracles being performed.  Everyone involved in the miraculous works of God “knew” we were right with Him.  After all, would God work miracles through, for and in the presence of those who did not walk with Him?  Absolutely not, we all reasoned.  BUT WE WERE WRONG, as God tells us in His Word. He would, did and continues to do His miraculous works through the ungodly in order to “speak to” the ungodly in what is globally known as “the church.”

Sadly, I have not heard of anyone else from the charismatic movement who heard the voice of God, believed it, embraced it, converted to His way of life and “come to the knowledge of the Truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).  It is my hope that there are others who saw God’s light and came to it.  Let me be clear: MIRACLES ARE BIBLICAL, NECESSARY AND AS MUCH A PART OF GOD’S MINISTRY AS PREACHING HIS GOSPOLE.  THEY ARE AS NECESSARY TODAY AS THEY WERE IN THE DAYS WHEN JESUS WALKED THE EARTH.  “HE IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER.” “I AM THE LORD; I CHANGE NOT.”  At various times the Lord has saturated the world with Biblically-promised miracles just as He did during the days of the early church.  Great “moves of the Spirit” came, lingered temporarily, then faded out because people refused to immerse themselves in God’s Word after experiencing, witnessing and hearing about the miraculous things He was doing.   He was calling the church to grow up in Him, to “come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

The church refused, preferring to focus on the headlines while rebelling against the fine print.  Because God was moving among them they “deceived themselves” into believing that they were walking with Him (Jam. 1:22/ 2 Tim. 3:13).  A number of times over the past 2000 years God has sent His Holy Spirit to the Institutional Church to “speak” to her, to woo her to Him.  Those great “moves of the Spirit” were referred to as the “Great Awakenings.”  But as was the case with their ancient Israelite ancestors, modern man refused to hear His “voice.”  Just as He warned in Matthew 7:13,14, only a few heard His call, entered His church through His strait gate and walked His narrow way to conversion.  The vast majority have entered Satan’s wide gate and walked his broad way to false salvation.  For this reason we do not see the miraculous displayed publicly as we once did.

But that is about to change. The time is coming, and soon, when God will use t.v., the internet, etc., to reveal His power to the world in one final attempt to get her attention.  This will be a time of great spiritual upheaval.  The Lord will reveal for all the world to see who are and who are not His people.  In a rage, the world, including the church, will turn on Him and His people like never before, led by the miracle-working “false prophet” written about in Revelation 16,19,20 who will be at the head of a universal church.  This miracle worker will point to the Antichrist and proclaim that he is the world’s Messiah who will solve all of man’s problems.  God’s people will be identified as the cause of the world’s problems because they refuse to worship and serve the Antichrist. They will survive only because of God’s miraculous protection.  At the point at which it looks like they are about to be overwhelmed by the Antichrist’s army He will destroy it (Rev. 12:16).  After God’s Very Elect saints are settled into their place of safety (Rev. 12:6,14) the Great Tribulation will begin, followed by the Day of the Lord.  During that 3 1/2 year time of terror and suffering, first Satan, then God will punish mankind in unimaginable ways.  During this time God’s “two witnesses” will torment the world’s wicked people as described in Revelation 11.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-4 the Old Testament God, Who later came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth, warned His saints not to make assumptions about people based on the miracles they perform, their world-encompassing ministries, their t.v. “presence,” etc.   In this passage He says that if a “prophet” (religious man) predicts that a miracle would take place, and it happens exactly as he said it would, we are not to assume that the prophet is a man of God.  If, following the miracle, the prophet asks the people to go after “other gods,” we are to understand that He (God) is testing us to see if we will follow Him (God–His Word) or the one who works miracles, has a huge church, is world famous, supposedly leads millions to Christ, tells his audience what they want to hear, etc.  Invariably, this what happens because people focus on the headlines and not on the reason for them.  The “other gods” the prophet points to are the various gods of Catholicism/Protestantism.  Each of the hundreds of religious organizations within professing Christendom has its own gospel, its own god, its own messiah, its own salvation experience, etc.

Billions of people “go after other gods” because they do not know, and refuse to study the “precepts” and “lines” that can be found only by searching “here” and “there” within God’s Word (Isa. 28:9,10).  They blindly follow the popular preachers to their “other gods.”  In so doing the religious masses embed themselves deeper and deeper into Satan’s Counterfeit Christianity. I have been asked why God forces people to study the entire Bible in order to find His Truth.  Why, they ask, did He not state everything simply using a minimum of words.  My reply is not well received: This is His way of separating sheep from goats, wheat from tares and good fruit trees from bad fruit trees. The sheep, wheat and good trees eagerly study His Word from Genesis to Revelation because they want to know the Truth.  Others prefer to believe what their false prophets tell them.  This is much simpler and less time consuming.  L.J.