Experiencing The Spirit

Dr. Couch, I've read Robert Heidler's book "Experiencing the Spirit." I knew from first hand experience that the book was full of false teaching. The reason: I was previously a flaming charismatic but one day, it just dawned on me that this teaching was absolutely dead wrong! I found out that I, and all who were in this movement, were simply egotistical fakes! We were putting on a show to impress others, and even ourselves with this false "power." However, the teaching is controlling because it feeds the flesh. Thank you for your role in teaching the truth from the Scripture. ANSWER:  The book you mentioned was first published in 1998. I don't know how I missed it—I stay on top of what is printed that can so harm the church. It would take a masters thesis to point out all the errors in the book. However I just flagged a few of them to alert folks what is out there.    First, I noticed that almost half of the endorsements for the book were by women. Two of the women were working with American Indian organizations. Hmmmm! A lot of false theology, and Indian mysticism, is out there in the hinterland!    Second, I noticed that the book is full of speaking about "experience" and "empowerment." "Experience" is what the book is about.    Then, the author changed his theology because he heard a well-known speaker who had come to town teaching on "Experiencing the Spirit." He admits that previously he had become "profoundly dissatisfied" with his Christian life as he read his New Testament. He admits he saw the light when further influenced by a charismatic couple who pushed him over the line. This is a typical testimony of most charismatics. Their dissatisfaction in the solid teaching from the Bible caused them to seek some additional experience that would give them an emotional high!    Finally, he moved into the realm of setting aside his objective studies, with such objective intellectual arguments "gradually evaporating." Another charismatic tendency is to deny objective facts from the Scripture and begin operating in the realm of  emotion. Clearly, he put aside objective truth and replaced it with experience. This is characteristic of what charismatics do. I have actually heard them say: "I don't care what the Bible says, I know about my own experience!"    Then there is some downright theological errors in the book that go beyond the errors about the Holy Spirit's work today. He makes the statement "so those who receive the Spirit receive Jesus." He is writing about the fact that Jesus will send the Spirit when He ascended to the Father. But the Spirit and Jesus are not the same person. They are separate persons in the Godhead. Further, "The one who relates to the Spirit is relating to Jesus, so the more you develop your relationship with the Holy Spirit, the closer your walk with Jesus will be." This statement is not necessarily true. In fact, it could be downright incorrect. In the paragraphs that follow, he tries to prove his point by bouncing around from verses in the OT.    As the author goes on, he continually confused the idea of "knowing" God with the issue of "experiencing" Him. To a charismatic to experience God, or the Spirit, is to have an emotional high, a euphoria, a giddy experience that is outside of biblical fact. This determines their view of walking with the Spirit. Heidler then sets up a straw man and knocks it down. He writes that those who deny the dramatic charismatic work of the Spirit, as charismatics try to claim is normative, then "teach that we can talk to God in prayer and read what He said to others in the past, but that we cannot experience Him ourselves. If that is true, we are in a sad condition, for we can have no more relationship with God …"    What a leap of false logic!     Then Heidler goes bonkers in trying to explain what he calls "empowerment." He says it is not a "once-and-for-all" occurrence. You need subsequent times of filling and additional anointings. While it is true that "filling" is continual, he totally does not understand the doctrine of the anointing. He then gives more false theology. He writes "The New Testament also seems to indicate there are different levels of empowering. Your initial empowering may not give you a great deal of power. … Don't be satisfied with your initial experience of empowering." What he is really saying is that charismatics have to learn to outdo each other, and copy from each other, how to act charismatically! They have to "up" the ante! They have to learn how to out-experience the other charismatic! They are great imitators who mimic each other in raising the experience and emotional bar! Remember, to them a show of emotional experience means that they have arrived spiritually. Every charismatic I know, who got out of the movement, admits that this is true!    What poor theology Heidler has about "the anointing." God's anointing (chrio) has nothing to do with an experience. Paul uses the idea concerning believers only in 2 Corinthians 1:21. He writes that God has established us "with you in Christ and anointed us in God." He has "sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge." But this is a "positional" work of the Lord and not an experiential issue. Paul uses the aorist tense which implies a once-for-all positional work when we are brought to salvation. John then also writes about a positional anointing, using three nouns, and he is not talking about some charismatic experience (1 John 2:20, 27). All believers, not just a few or some, have this anointing in order to learn "about all things" that are spiritual. By this he means that, though we have human teachers to help us understand spiritual truth, such knowledge actually comes from God and is not originated simply by human beings. The Lord may use human teachers but all spiritual truth ultimately comes from Him!    To prove his point about an anointing, Heidler has to go to Gospel passages and OT passages to try to substantiate what he is saying (pp. 121-123). But this won't fly! With false theological arguments he writes "When you are empowered by the Spirit, God places the anointing within you. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, that anointing is there, right now, ready to flow out to accomplish God's purpose in the world." There is not one passage of Scripture around to prove his point on this issue!    Thus, charismatics teach false theology when it comes to the issue of an anointing!    Charismatics do not believe in the sovereignty of God. They give lip-service to the subject but they really limit God. Heidler says that "The Bible assures us that everything that happens is not God's will!" He adds that some believers "assume everything that happens must be God's will. When tragedy strikes, they say, 'It must be the will of God.'" All Pentecostals and charismatics deny the sovereignty of God. The reason: they are so experience bound that it comes automatic to deny His all surpassing providence and sovereignty! Heidler's theology then gets worse. Quoting Matthew 6:10 where Christ instructed His disciples to pray "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven," he argues that if God's will was always at work in the world, Christ would not have to instruct the disciples to ask that God's will take over. Heidler then says that Christ is not speaking about territory but in terms of God's will and rule. Again, false theology! The Lord is speaking about the coming of the Messianic Davidic Kingdom reign which has to do with territory! For Christ to speak of God's "will" in this passage is not saying that He is no longer sovereign. The imperative here is used as a wish, a desire, a statement of priority for the disciples. The Messianic Kingdom will come exactly when God has determined. The implication is not that the Lord is no longer sovereign. It is He who declares "the end from the beginning." His plans are never thwarted! God has said: "My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure; … I have planned it, surely I will do it" (Isa. 46:10-11).     If one wishes to see true miracles, they happen when charismatics suddenly and instantly see the light and drop like a bomb their charismatic thinking all at once! I have witnessed this many times, over and over. The blinders fall from their eyes and the truth comes through. They realize that they have been fooled, and that they were but imitating what other charismatics were saying and doing!    Thanks for asking.    Dr. Mal Couch