15. The Spirit Of Fainting & Barking Like A Dog
Chapter 15 The Spirit Of Fainting & Barking Like A Dog “Toronto Blessing”—1994 In January 1994, something very dramatic happened in a church in Toronto, Canada. A pastor named Randy Clark was visiting the church and gave his testimony about some things that had been happening to him. He said that the Holy Spirit was causing some unusual things to happen to him. As he was talking about it, strange things began happening to the people he was speaking to. Many people fell to the ground and began rolling around and laughing hysterically. Some people started acting like animals by crawling around on their hands and knees and making sounds like barking dogs or roaring lions. Some women rolled around on the ground like they were in the pain of childbirth or making strange noises and words that no one could understand. Others fell to the ground and shook violently like they were having seizures, or became like someone who is unconscious, unable to move. Some of them had to be carried home. All this commotion went on for about two hours. The church service was not focused on preaching or hearing God’s word because they were just totally taken up with all the strange things people were doing, and obviously it was very noisy and chaotic. They called it a “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit”—like a Holy Spirit party—and claimed they were drunk in the Spirit.
These types of meetings continued to happen in this church for months, and the news got out and hundreds of people went to see for themselves. It was called the “Toronto Blessing” because the people thought the Holy Spirit had given that church in Toronto a special blessing and filling from the Holy Spirit. In the years since that time, many people have gone to that church in Toronto hoping that they too could “catch the blessing” or “catch the fire.” People from all around the world went to the Toronto church and then took the experience back to their own churches and started similar movements in many places.
Pensacola Outpouring (Brownsville Revival) The next year (1995) a church in Pensacola, Florida was having revival meetings and similar things began to happen there. Over the next few years, thousands and thousands of people came from all over to receive the same kind of blessing. They built a multimillion-dollar church building to accommodate all the people, but after a while, many people stopped coming, and they were left with a huge debt to pay, without enough people to pay for the new building.
Todd Bentley At Lakeland, Florida A few years later (2008) a preacher named Todd Bentley was preaching at a church in Lakeland, Florida, when all sorts of strange things started happening there also. For months people came by the hundreds to have Todd lay hands on them and pray for them and get the blessing or “fresh fire” as they called it. People were falling on the ground and laughing uncontrollably for hours. Some were making animal noises or clucking like chickens. Some were babbling and making noises that no one could understand, as if they were drunk. Many people would lay on the floor for hours, unconscious. One woman’s legs stopped functioning so she couldn’t move them—she couldn’t walk for three days. She just stayed there at the church and people had to carry her to the bathroom every few hours. On one occasion, one of the staff members on stage with Todd started yelling and pounding his fists on a small folding table that was on the stage. He was a big man and as he pounded the table with his fists over and over again, the little table broke down and fell flat. Then he took a large pile of papers from the table and threw them all over the stage as if he was a raging madman. He claimed to be filled with the Spirit when he did it. A few years later, in the middle of all these meetings and ministry, suddenly Todd Bentley’s wife divorced him because of marriage problems. Todd married one of the young women on his staff and later went back into ministry.
Most of these types of preachers claim to give the Holy Spirit to people just by laying hands on them or pointing at people and shouting. One preacher named Rodney Howard Brown called himself the “Holy Ghost Bartender” who could hand out the Holy Spirit like a bartender hands out liquor at a bar. Many of these men actually acted drunk during the church service—staggering around, slurring their speech, making strange noises and speaking like drunkards. Some of them even compared the Holy Spirit experience to smoking marijuana. Although many of these things seem unbelievable, there are many actual videos of these events and testimonies that can be seen to prove it.
Los Angeles—1906 But the things that happened in Toronto and Pensacola and Lakeland were not totally new. About a hundred years before that, in 1906, something similar also happened in Los Angeles, California. A visiting pastor named William Seymour started some revival meetings there. Later these people formed a church on Azusa Street.
William did not emphasize preaching too much, but rather spoke to people a lot about their need for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues—which he admitted he had not yet experienced himself. He told people that they needed to pray and fast and wait for the Spirit to come. In the meetings he often just sat behind the pulpit and prayed as people sang. He kept shouting at them to “repent!” They often sang one particular song over and over again: ‘The Comforter Has Come.’
They just sang and sang and eventually began to feel they were being filled with abundant joy or ecstasy and they began crying and shouting and “speaking in tongues.” Some began making animal noises. Some were jumping up and down and running around, spinning in circles in the church. Some fell down on the floor jerking, kicking or trembling like they were in convulsions, both men and women. Some went unconscious for 2-3 hours. Many people claimed to be healed at these meetings and many lives were changed. The Movement Grows World Wide
These meetings were the beginning of a movement that started to spread and has lasted for many years. Missionaries took the message around the world. One man from this church, named Alfred Garr, took this experience and message from the Azusa Street church to places like India and China. (We’ll hear more about him in the next chapter.) Many people claimed that the Holy Spirit was doing an amazing miracle like at Pentecost. Other people claimed it was all fake and just emotions, so there was a dispute over whether or not it was a real blessing of the Holy Spirit. Even today people are divided, and many churches have been split up over this issue. Does The Holy Spirit Like To Expose Women Indecently Or Embarrass Them?
Some churches today continue to follow these practices in their worship services. One of the most common things to see at these meetings is people who are touched on the forehead and then they fall down unconscious. They often call it being “slain in the Spirit.” When they are “slain in the Spirit,” other people usually stand behind them and catch them, so they won’t bump their heads or get hurt when they fall down. And when the women fall down, they usually have someone there to quickly cover their legs with a blanket, so they don’t expose themselves indecently. But let’s pause and think about this for a minute. Does this really sound like the work of the Holy Spirit? Does the filling of the Holy Spirit cause churches to become a place of confusion and chaos with hundreds of people yelling, howling or laughing all at the same time while they roll around the floor? Does the Spirit make people pound on tables until they break, and throw things around in the air like a raving madman? Does the Holy Spirit want us to act like drunkards or people high on marijuana—to make men fall to the ground and bump their heads and hurt themselves? Does the Holy Spirit want to embarrass women or have men to see them exposed indecently so that they have inappropriate thoughts about them? Is that the way a HOLY Spirit would operate? Think about it carefully!
What Does The Bible Say? Is God still able to do miracles today as he did at Pentecost? Absolutely—he can do anything, whenever he chooses. His power has not changed. But if we study the history of the Bible we see that God doesn’t do miracles all the time—in fact for hundreds of years God did not—but only when he has a specific purpose. So today, just because we see something that looks like a miracle, we shouldn’t quickly assume that it is from God—because we know from scripture that Satan has power to do some miracles too. The Bible warns us about believing everything we see or hear. We should test it first, lest we are deceived and believe “another spirit.”
1 John 4:1 says: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, buttest the spiritsto determine if they are from God, becausemanyfalse prophets have gone out into the world.” (NET) The Bible tells us to “test the spirits.” So we know that God wants us to use the patterns in the Bible to test the spirits. Otherwise we wouldn’t know whether it’s really God’s miracle. We can compare these things with what the Holy Spirit did in the past as recorded in the Bible. So you should ask yourself: when Jesus first gave the Holy Spirit to the apostles, were they “slain in the spirit?” NO! Did they fall to the ground or walk around on all fours barking like dogs, roaring like lions and clucking like chickens? NO! In Acts chapter 2, in the first church in Jerusalem, did the Holy Spirit make the Christians faint and fall down and shake in convulsions and go unconscious for 2 or 3 hours? NO! Did they have to be carried to the toilet every few hours because their legs stopped working? NO! When the women in Acts 2 received the Holy Spirit, did someone have to catch them from falling and cover them up? NO! When the Holy Spirit baptized the Samaritans and the Gentiles in Acts 8, 10, did they roll around on the floor and laugh hysterically for 2 or 3 hours like people who had lost control of their minds? NO!
None of those things were done by the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts anywhere! Not once. So we have to ask ourselves, are the churches in Toronto and Los Angeles really better than the apostles’ church in Jerusalem? Do we need to travel to Toronto to get a biggerblessing from the Holy Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit in Toronto different or better there than the Holy Spirit here with us? Are we lacking in some special blessing of the Spirit? Think about it. Instead of just using our eyes and emotions, we really need to judge these events by what the Bible has said is true about the Holy Spirit’s work, and we need to understand what is the true meaning of being “filled with the Spirit.”
What Is This Spirit Of Falling Down And Convulsions And Embarrassment? The Bible says to test the spirits. So, as we have compared the “Toronto Blessing” with the Bible, we saw that God did NOT do those kinds of things to his disciples in the book of Acts when he filled them with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit never embarrassed the Christian women or made the apostles bark like dogs or roar like lions as they crawled around on all fours or rolled around on the floor and laughed uncontrollably for 2 hours, or kept someone from going to the toilet for 3 days! The Holy Spirit never made the disciples yell and scream like madmen or sleep unconscious for hours. The Holy Spirit didn’t do any of those things. However, we do see something similar to that in the book of Mark, but it wasn’t the Holy Spirit that did it. It was another kind of spirit. In Mark 9:17-27 we see the story of a demon-possessed boy that was brought to Jesus to heal. In this passage we can notice several things that the demon caused the boy to do:
The demon made him fall down
The boy rolled around on the ground
He yelled or cried out
He had convulsions
He became unconscious
But finally, after Jesus gets rid of the demon, we read:
“…Jesusgently took his hand and raised him to his feet, and he stood up.” (NET) This passage says that the boy was thrown to the ground and convulsing and shrieking. But the Holy Spirit didn’t cause him to do any of that—demons did. It was common in those days for demons to take control of people and cause them to yell or shout or fall down in convulsions and lose control. Demons did that to this boy, and also made him faint and go unconscious. In fact, this still happens today in many places around the world where they worship heathen spirits and gods.
Demons don’t care about people’s well-being, so they love to do things like this. But notice that when Jesus helped the boy, the boy stoodup and acted and talked NORMALLY (not out of control). That’s the way Jesus and the Holy Spirit work. God wants to help us. He doesn’t want to harm us or shame us or make us act like irrational people who are out of control. God’s word is clear. The Holy Spirit brings order and control into our lives.
Galatians 5:23 states that the “...fruit of the Spirit is ...self-control.” The Holy Spirit Gives Us Self-Control, Not Loss Of Control The Holy Spirit doesn’t cause us to lose control and act silly or drunk or crazy. This verse in Galatians shows us the opposite—the Holy Spirit gives us more self-control. Satan, on the other hand, wants to trick people. He will try to use his power and counterfeit miracles to deceive people, so they think they are under the control of the Holy Spirit, when actually they could be under the influence of a spirit of lies and deceit. So it is quite possible that it was demons who used their power to confuse the people of Toronto and Los Angeles and other places. We can’t know for sure, but one thing we can be sure of is that the Bible doesn’t lie—and the unchanging Word of God says this about the Spirit’s control:
“...God is not a God of confusion...” (1 Corinthians 14:33) (NASB) The NIV Bible says it this way: “...God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.”
These passages make it very clear: God’s Spirit does not promote confusion or disorder or disturbances in our churches. Instead he brings peace, clear thinking and orderliness. But Satan, on the other hand, is the father of lies and confusion and chaos. He continually changes his tactics and tricks to deceive people, even in the church. He disguises his ways to appear as an angel of light in the church, and he deceives God’s people whenever he can (2 Corinthians 11:13; 1 Timothy 4:1).
If we’re not careful and don’t compare experiences with God’s word, then Satan can trick us too and we could end up listening to other spirits instead of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 11:3-4). The Holy Spirit wants to bring order into our lives and our churches. But Satan wants to confuse people and make them act in a disorderly manner and out of control. Remember, Satan is a master deceiver—the father of lies—but he can’t outsmart God or his Word.
1 Corinthians 14:40 says that in church: “…everything should be done in afittingandorderly way.” The Holy Spirit Always Keeps The Focus On Jesus
After the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) we see that the church experienced many more miracles. But the church didn’t get distracted by those miracles or start a miracle crusade. They stayed focused on Jesus and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching about Jesus (Acts 2:42). The coming of the Holy Spirit did not change God’s focus on Jesus. In fact, Jesus himself said that when the Spirit came, he would focus our attention on Jesus and glorify him.
John 15:26 “… the Spirit …will testify about me…”(NET)
John 16:13-15 “…when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, …He will glorify me, because he will receive from me what is mine and will tell it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; that is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what is mine and will tell it to you.” (NET)
Throughout the rest of the New Testament, we see the Holy Spirit continue to glorify Christ and keep the church focused on him. That’s why Satan tries to take our focus away from Jesus. Satan knows that if we can be distracted by other things and not focus on Jesus, eventually we will forget him or deny his importance. That’s exactly what has happened with many cults. They confess “another Jesus”—they don’t believe that a man (Jesus) is truly one with God and that he is the only Christ—the Savior. The Bible says that is how we can test the spirits and false prophets—they will try to take the focus away from Jesus (1 John 4:1-3; 1 John 2:22-23). Satan is always trying to distract us with something else—something new or better—something that sounds more spiritual. That’s exactly what the serpent did in the garden with Eve.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 says: “…I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by his treachery, your minds may be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaimsanother Jesus…or …a different spiritthan the one you received, or adifferent gospel…you put up with it…” (NET)
Remember:
—The Holy Spirit’s goal is to encourage and edify (build up) the church by keeping our focus on Christ, the head of the church (1 Corinthians 14:12; Colossians 1:18; Colossians 2:8-10; Colossians 2:18-19).
—Satan’s goal is to hinder that growth by deceitfully blending into the church and distracting us to focus on ourselves or other things rather than on Christ. Don’t be distracted by a different spirit!