True Revival: A Critical Response to Counterfeit Christianity

Confusion is being sown in the Church of Jesus Christ. We ourselves, in our haste to meet publishers' deadlines, or in our haste to correct others and prove ourselves right, fail each other by passing on gossip, or by innaccurately reporting what God has said and done. There is no hope for you, dear reader, until you yourself take the Word of God into your hand, and become more familiar with it than with any other thing. We must begin to utter the Word to one another, not in argument, but in encouragement. As we begin to seek Jesus, our silly differences will fade in the light of His wonderful splendor. These pages seek to answer biblically and honestly objections made to outward manifestations witnessed in churches. These are no substitute for the Truth found only in the Christian Bible. Read, then with this in mind: The author has already been forced to change what he had innaccurately reported, once better information was provided. This, therefore, is but one man's limited opinion of what God is doing on the earth. Take it as opinion, and seek God's perspective above all.

• Introduction
• Who am I and what are these pages all about? This page is to be soon revised...
Read Pastor Pete's blog at the River's edge
• What is the Revival?
• What is the Criticism?
• What does the Bible say about the Revival?

My Name is Peter Mehegan. I teach French in a public school in northeastern US. I have no credible credentials in dogmatic theology except this: that He who promised is faithful, and as He said the anointing will teach the anointing has taught (1 John). As a result, since the Holy Spirit started to get a grip on my life in 1982, I have lived in 4 different states, I have preached the gospel in eight different countries, I have fallen in love with and married the most beautiful woman Sweden had to offer, and have fathered as a result only eight beautiful children thus far.

The topic of these pages is the revival, and specifically the global revival as it has manifested itself in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and in Pensacola, Florida. What has been called the "Toronto Blessing" has actually been a global blessing of incredible proportions, being felt on every continent and even, which is gratifying to me, in my beloved France in the town of Macon. It is also about the controversy that stems from this revival.The controversy swirls around the manifestations that follow the revival, and the leadership's strange unwillingness to curb what is deemed excessive by the non-participants. Specifically, hysterical laughter, falling down, unabashed drunkenness all seem to appear, wherever the revival hits.

My own testimony explains my open attitude toward any strange manifestation. I have been privileged to meet or at least see great men of God operate as these manifestations were happening. The first time I ever spoke in tongues was in solitude, in 1971, in my bedroom, under the influence of Jesus own words in Mark 16, saying, "believers...will speak in tongues." I believed and I did, and I did not believe that it could be that simple. It took me ten years to understand and accept the gift. The first time I fell down as another prayed for me was at a week-long revival meeting conducted by a Pentecostal Jamaican in 1977. He had been praying for people with all manner of sicknesses and oppression all week long. As he prayed, I saw that those he prayed for fell. On the last night of the meetings, he called up any for whom he had not prayed all week. I went up, not knowing what to expect. He went along the row, praying for people, and as he touched their hand, they fell backward. I did not. Neither did the lady next to me, a very good friend and deeply spiritual. He came back after the whole row had gone down, and touched her hand again. She went down. Then he touched my fingertips, and said, "Give him a double anointing, Lord. A double anointing." The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, looking up, thinking, "this is interesting, I am on the ground looking up." Suddenly I understood that it was not a high, not an anomaly, but a fact, that when God touches you, your muscles can behave strangely. As with tongues, the spiritual gift, I did not get up more spiritual, but I got up more humbled, and more knowledgeable.

After that I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, and everybody's pet doctrine was thrown out of the water. It happened on this wise: While I was on a forty day fast, eating only brown rice, chicken and oranges, I was seeking God for holiness, without which I could not see God...and I wanted so desperately to see him. I was reading Romans 6,7 and 8 again, and could not get out of them. When I finished eight and went on to nine, the Holy Spirit drove me back to six, to start all over again. Suddenly I realized that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwelt in me, and He was able to restore life to my mortal body, dead in sin. He told me He could use me. Two weeks later, I was RIF'd from my teaching job because of the incessant budget crisis public schools suffer universally. I went on to CBN University, now Regent, for a Master's in Biblical Studies. Half-way through the program I was called away to teach for two years in a Christian Boarding school, run by cessationists. I was fired, because kids who came to me for prayer kept getting healed, and worse, kids as a result were praying for each other, and getting healed. I joined Operation Mobilization, and spent a year doing street outreach in Paris, and traveled among muslims the next year. I was arrested and jailed in a North African country for possession of subversive literature with the intent to convert a muslim. I was subsequently exiled to Nazareth in Israel, where I learned Arabic, and worked among the Arab population there.

It was at a Believer's Convention that I witnessed the ministry of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland first hand. The week long meetings in Charlotte, North Carolina started in the early mornings and lasted until eleven at night. I and thousands of Bible-loving others attended every meeting. The ministry of the Word was powerful, more so than most of what I have ever witnessed. I remember the worship ministry of Len Minks one night, when he began to sing in a language I could not recognize. I knew what he was singing. Dirge-like, he sang of the torment of Jesus in His body, as we torture and torment each other in disrespect to Him. "Who will heal my body? Who will bring the balm that can cleanse my wounds?" As I fell down weeping uncontrollably, as I felt the pain and anguish Jesus must be feeling, Len started singing in English, and he sang exactly as I had understood. I could not stop weeping for a very long time.

It was at a David Walters meeting that I first encountered laughter at its richest. Having laughed, and having enjoyed laughter's natural catharsis, no one can convince me that my laughter was sardonic. I knew joy and I enjoyed it. And I praised God in Jesus Christ that he allowed me to obey the admonition to rejoice in the Lord to such a full extent. That is not unscriptural.

One of the richest experiences happened to me in Toronto at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. This experience served above all to demonstrate God's ability to touch lives. It was midnight at a mid-week service. I had taken my wife and children back to the hotel and returned for the ministry time. I was surprised to find Pastors John and Carol Arnott still ministering to people. I stood in line to be ministered to, because I wanted them to lay hands on me. They missed me and walked right by. I got into another line, so they wouldn't miss me. They stopped ministering at the spot where I was standing. It was as if I were invisible. This is significant in this: that God has always known when I needed a word or a touch from Him. He has always ministered to me in a very personal way. I have a personality that is much like the American television program The Price is Right. I find myself waiting for the big word, "Come on down!!" I have always found the big word I needed in His big Word, and I love Him for that. I find the revival meetings extremely enjoyable, because I am comfortable where people from all over the world gather to seek Jesus for a time. Many have sacrificed much and come as pilgrims, as in days of old.

I have been moved by a book by Hank Hanegraaff called Counterfeit Revival to respond to the unreasonable calumnies that appear in it. Books like this are destined to set Christians against Christians and to inflame us in anger against each other in flagrant disobedience to Jesus who commanded us to love one another with the same love with which He loved us. The danger of books like this is that new Christians read them, and having no confidence in the Spirit in their lives, entrust their very souls to the pernicious teaching of critics who themselves have abandoned the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to a set of strict rules laid down in the system of the visible world and its precepts, as established by a tradition of orthodoxy as powerful today as the pharisaical orthodoxy was in Jesus' day. This tradition is powerful enough to nullify and render void the very Word of God.

Dear reader, the Holy Spirit, the Gift of God to you, is the Spirit of His Son, the Spirit of His Love, the Spirit of His Faithfulness, the Spirit of His Word. He will never leave you or abandon you, if indeed you are His. And if He is not in you, you are none of His.

A statement of faith would be appropriate, so that you may know where I stand.

• God the heavenly Father created the universe and everything in it. He made man in his image and in his likeness, male and female. He delegated authority to man to rule over the earth. Man, in rebellion to this heavenly order, relinquished that authority to the serpent in the garden by choosing to obey him rather than the Word of God. Man's fate and God's redemptive plan of His Love is revealed for all who can see it in the Bible.
• The Bible is true. It is not an opinion. It is the Word of God. It is not my opinion, or your opinion, it is not subject to my approval. It is established for all time. The Bible is the yardstick whereby all truth is measured and established. Although it does not contain every communication God has had with man, nor could it, God has caused to be written everything we need to test the spirits whether or not they are from God. In it God's purposes and plans for the Church are revealed. We are what it says we are, and if we believe it, we can do what it says we can do.
• Jesus Christ is who the Bible says He is. He is the Word made Flesh and having dwelt among us. He is God incarnate, the visible expression of the invisible God. He is one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In obedience to the Father's will, He, who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He came, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried in accordance with the prophecies concerning Him. He rose again in accordance with the prophecies concerning Him. He ascended into Heaven and asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to all who believe as a gift.
• The Holy Spirit came upon the Church at Pentecost. Jesus said much concerning the person of the Holy Spirit, but it is enough to know that He said the presence of the Holy Spirit is more advantageous to us than was the presence of Jesus Himself in the Flesh ("Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you." John 16:7 NKJ) He has become our teacher, our anointing, our comforter, an intercessor on our behalf. He is the gift of the Father, he distributes gifts to the Church for our exhortation, edification and comfort. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, which power raised Jesus from the dead, we are empowered to do greater works than Jesus Himself did, because He went to the Father (John 14:12). He reveals Jesus in us. He glorifies Jesus through us. He raises us up and seats us with Him in the heavenlies. He is destined to bring many sons to glory.
• The book of Acts is normative for the Church. The book of Acts was written so that the Church could rise up to God's level of expectation for the Church. Whenever an apostle in the book of Acts visited the Christian community, they first checked out if there was a manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and in absence thereof, they laid their hands on the disciples and they received the baptism of Jesus, which John the Baptist described as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.


This is an essential doctrine, because it not only emphasizes the completed work of Christ on the cross, in that He, by His shed blood, translated us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His Wonderful Light, but it actually demonstrates that He made us partakers with Him of the divine nature, making us effective representatives and ambassadors of that kingdom in the fallen world in which we live. It gives us responsibility for our faith and for our actions. It adds fearsome power to James' admonition "faith without works is dead," because those works cannot be the dead works of a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, who have shown themselves capable of unusual kindness and compassion, but those works must be the supernatural works of God, in that He works exceedingly and abundantly above anything we ask or think. Paul, when testing the Corinthian leadership, warned them that he was not going to listen to their clever expository preaching, but he was going to be looking for their power, for "the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power (dunamis)." (1 Cor. 4:20)

(See, for example, Acts 8, when Peter and John went to Samaria, and despite the miracles happening at the hands of Philip, the new disciples of Samaria were not themselves displaying the manifestation of the promise of the Father spoken of by Joel and quoted by Peter in Acts 2. Peter and John laid hands on the disciples; they were all baptized in the Holy Spirit, and whatever happened was so impressive that even a warlock named Simon, used as he was to unusual manifestations, was powerfully impressed. )

(See also Acts 19, when Paul asks a group of disciples if they had received the Holy Spirit when they first believed. In today's theology, that would be a ridiculous question. But looking back at Acts 18, these disciples had been led to Jesus through Apollos' teaching, who knew perfectly the things concerning Jesus, but he was only familiar with the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila taught him more fully the ways of the Lord, but he went away to Corinth...ostensibly to catch the revival fires first hand and witness the manifestations for himself. In the meantime, Paul arrived on the scene, and not seeing the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the disciples, he laid hands on them and they all received the Holy Spirit. It is possible therefore, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and still be victimized by the teacher's ignorance or unwillingness to teach the Bible as it is written. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." How, then, can they hear, if the teachers themselves don't admit that the manifestations witnessed in Acts chapter 2 are those promises that are promised personally "...to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." Acts 2:39 39(NKJ))

(Compare this with Acts 11:23. When Barnabas comes to the believers at Antioch, he sees that the grace of God is manifesting. Delighted, he goes to Tarsus and gathers Saul (Paul) and they join the church. This gathering, not planted by "apostles" in the historic sense, was not lacking in any gift. )

Without this power, the church is incapable of being the Church. We are admonished to love one another as Christ loved us, but we become so spiritually blind that we are incapable of understanding the one who said "Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long must I put up with you!" and then put up with us even to the washing of the feet of Judas.

• The debate has always been over the delegated authority of the Church. We have been fooled by religious, high sounding rhetoric long enough. The debate has always been over whether or not believers will "in [His] name...cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will handle snakes, if they drink anything poisonous it will not harm them at all, they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover." (Jesus in Mark 16:17-18) In speaking these words, Jesus himself framed the debate, to the extent that there exists today those teachers who would deny the words themselves. False teachers become rich writing and selling entire books on why the believer should not expect these signs to follow him.

Antichristian teachers are easily recognized. They attack people and denigrate leaders. Their major concern is to stop any experience that they themselves have not had and cannot understand. To criticize the revival, to ask questions, to seek answers, this is not a blasphemous or damnable endeavor. But to pretend that you know what God is doing in the lives of untold millions, to disdain the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of countless thousands, to attribute to hypnosis and suggestibility the powerful work of repentance and cleansing and to publish your claims, this is to despise the Hand of God and to hate the Blood that bought us. You are not criticizing the revival .You are passing judgment. You are not asking questions. You are answering them. You are not seeking answers, you are diverting the attention of true seekers from the path of Truth. This is no longer warm and open discussion of doctrine. Instead it is an attempt to make the least of these to stumble. Let the reader beware.

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