WWUTT

Today's charismatic gatherings are not producing the kinds of miracles the apostles did. Instead of being obvious supernatural signs like we read about in the New Testament, their own teachers have to admit it's mostly fake. "In the last twenty years, I have concluded: in manifestation meetings all over the world -- and again, I've been to several thousand of them, a couple thousand at least -- that eighty percent of them are not real, but twenty percent of them are." Mike Bickle, founder of the charismatic International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO. They're more fake than that, but I digress. Let's say you attended one of these gatherings, and you did witness a verifiable miracle or vision or prophecy. Would that confirm these teachers actually have the apostolic gifts? Deuteronomy 13 says this: "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass...

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world." That's something to keep in mind any time someone says that God told them something. Everything we could ever want to hear God say has already been said in the Bible. God spoke through His prophets who gave us the Old Testament. And in these last days, He has spoken through His Son Jesus Christ, whose apostles gave us the New Testament. Now the Bible is not just a record of what God said in the past. When we read the book of Hebrews, the writer quotes the Old Testament as something that God is saying to us right now: "Of the angels He says, 'He makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.' But of the Son he says, 'Your throne O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scept...

There's a word you won't find in your Bible, yet you'll find the subject all over your Bible: theology. What does theology mean? Augustine was perhaps the first to use the word, theologia in both Greek and Latin, which he defined as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity." Now, people often say things like, "Well, I'm a spiritual person, but I'm just not theological." "I love the Bible, but I'm not interested in theology." "Don't give me theology, just give me Jesus!" They make these statements because they're ignorant about theology -- or what the word even means! Rick Warren's Saddleback Church shared this: "Jesus never let His theology get in the way of His ministry." (Huh?) Andy Stanley instucts pastors to "Separate theology from ministry." (What?) And apologist William Lane Craig said, "We're not doing theology. We're doing apologetics." (D'oh!) ...