The New Enthusiasts

As I listened to the keynote speaker at a recent lunch honoring pastors in the Pittsburgh area, I saw one of the 400 guests seated next to me at the table wince. Knowing he'd studied at the local Reformed seminary, I guessed at the cause. The speaker, a formidable pastor with a national ministry was talking on the topic of God seeing you through difficult times between Promise and Fulfillment.

He was sharing an anecdotal tale of how a friend had believed God had promised his congregation a certain building in the community for their church. So, they had literally marched around the building like the Israelites around Jericho because they believed that was what God wanted them to do to lay claim to what had been promised them.

Now, I'd sat under charismatic teaching for 14 years before leaving it for the Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod. I'd heard this kind of nonsense before. I've witnessed many dear friends believing God had spoken some promise to them regarding a business, or a ministry, or a home only to see them endure much heartache when, after a long time, sometimes years, it went unfulfilled. One dear family ran their business and their family into bankruptcy over a promise they believed they had from God.

I leaned forward to my friend and whispered, "Did you march around your building to get it?" He smiled and said, "This is what is wrong with so much of evangelicalism today." I then pulled out my pen and wrote on his program a question that a fellow Reformational guy would understand. "Does God make promises apart from means?" A big smile crossed the pastor's face and he nodded vigorously. "Exactly!", he said. The Lutheran and the Presbyterian shared a moment of quiet bonding.

It's a fundamental difference in what it means to "hear the voice of God". In Martin Luther's day, they were called the Enthusiasts. People who believed that the Holy Spirit came upon people to grant special revelation apart from the Word and Sacrament, which the Reformationalists understood as the "means of grace". Ultimately, it breaks down into hearing God "intuitively" verses "objectively".

I know God forgives me of my sin for the sake of Christ because it is an objective promise given me in his Word. I don't know with certainty that he wants me to buy a particular house or take a particular job and so on. What modern-day Enthusiasts do is exchange the intuitive and the objective. And God forbid if you're the one who gets in the way of what God has promised. This is how much abuse in churches takes place as the rank and file is kept in line because the leadership has heard "the Lord told me to".

Another interesting distinction is in how for the Enthusiasts, prayer and worship have taken on a sacramental quality. In other words, through prayer and worship, God speaks to us intuitively. This experience informs how we interpret the Word of God. This is the complete opposite of Reformational thinking, in which the objective truth of the Word of God informs our prayer and our worship. The subjective and experiential are always subjugated to the objective promise of the Scripture. This is why God will never tell you to leave your spouse for someone else you saw at the prayer meetin'.

Unfortunately, too many believers are caught in this hurtful cycle, believing and trusting God for what he has not expressly promised to give. And the hurt and the woundedness, the disappointment and the broken relationships that happen along the way are all too real. And the saddest thing about it is when that hurt goes so deep, all faith in the objective promises of God are jettisoned along with everything else.

So, next time you hear someone say, "The Lord told me"...ask them where they found that promise. If it makes you wince, it's probably a pretty good sign they didn't hear it from Him.