04.07-CHAPTER 7 TESTING THE SPIRITS
CHAPTER 7 TESTING THE SPIRITS
ANOTHER FEATURE which early caused me to doubt the Movement was a frequent unreadiness to test the spirits acting and an unwillingness of the spirits to be tested.
Occasionally leaders uttered such a warning and exhortation as that of T. B. Barratt quoted in the preceding chapter, but I recall no instance in the literature of such a test being made, nor did I ever hear of a case. No one seems to have thought of testing the source of Mr. Barratt’s behaviour at the time of his “baptism.” It appears to have just been taken for granted that it was of God which assumption has been too general. I had an early and somewhat painful experience. An intimate personal friend went heart and soul into the Movement. Against the wish of her godly husband she went to live near one of the first and most violent centres. Presuming on our friendship I asked her to read a manuscript of mine discussing some aspects of the matter. It was returned unread with the scarcely polite remark, “The Lord will not let me read a thing like that!” What “lord” moved her to pen such a reply, or thus to shun investigation? Of herself she would have been too courteous to have so written.
Some were afraid to test the spirit because it affirmed itself to be the Holy Spirit of God, and to test it would amount to the unpardonable sin. But the Spirit of God has said expressly, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Therefore a spirit that declines to be tested does thereby reveal itself to be an evil spirit, and one can but see its deceiving power in that any believer does not recognize this. Many have beguiled themselves, or been beguiled, by reasoning that they had asked the heavenly Father for bread, and would He give them a stone? Most certainly He would not: but a deceiving spirit, if untested, would gladly do this, and would delude its victim with the notion that a stone is a loaf! There is no limit to the folly of a spirit-blinded Christian.
Moreover, a beguiling spirit may exert a subtle power to induce its victim to reject even conclusive testimony against itself, of which the following is an instance. In the very first days of the Movement in Sunderland another clergyman was an enthusiastic supporter. He was the Rev. J. M. Pollock, brother to Mrs. A. A. Boddy. He told me the following facts and confirmed them in writing. The small son of a neighbour was sick. Mrs. Boddy received in “tongues” intimation that the child would recover and be well. She requested her brother to take this comforting news to the father. On the way the “power” fell on Mr. Pollock and by “tongues” and interpretation he received confirmation of the message: but on reaching the house he learned that the boy was already dead!
He pressed upon his sister that it was evidently a deceiving spirit that was operating; but she, upon recovering from the first shock, said that she had received the explanation.
They had misunderstood the message, the true import of which was that the boy was to be well in the other world, not in this world! As if it needed a special revelation to tell them this about a little child! By accepting this obvious evasion this leading actor in the Movement at its British centre was more deeply blinded and firmly fettered.
Mr. Pollock abandoned the Movement, but was long fiercely harassed by the evil agents he had repudiated. It was some years before they ceased to torment his spirit.
Naturally it is in the light of this fact, early made known to me. that I have been compelled to consider with much care later experiences of this estimable sister in Christ, lest she should have been further beguiled from time to time. And the same caution has been constantly required seeing that testing the spirits has been so generally neglected.