In Reply to: About the Word in The Family and now posted by Lyle on July 11, 2003 at 11:43:10:
You asked, "How can I evaluate whether these are the right thing to accept or the thing to reject?" I guess with myself I apply two rules: If it has to do with the real world, I basically use common sense and don't buy the Brooklyn Bridge again. Look closely at a used-car dealer's teeth or something like that. But when it comes to new doctrines or fads or "moves of the Spirit" I just measure it against the common-sense basics in the Bible.
For example, a few years ago the Vineyard church which is generally easy-going and has a lot of good music, came out with the "manifestations" movement with people roaring like lions, shuddering and shaking, stuttering and grunting, and falling on the floor and writhing all over the place and a few of the people I knew got into it -- really got into it.
They thought it was cool that men would be laying on the floor writhing as if they were in labor and trying to deliver babies, like this was some cool thing from God, but the verse immediately came to mind that it was a CURSE that the day would come, and "woe unto you when you see every man with his hands on his loins as if in travail." I think that thought is repeated 3 or 4 times in the Bible.
Plus I met a medical doctor who told me the actual medical name for those kind of "Holy Ghost seizures". It was a mental condition as far as he could see, not some liberating wave of the Spirit.
Another fad that came through: people praying over "generational curses." If you haven't heard of it you haven't missed anything, but it's basically that there are demonic curses in families that are passed down along the generations, until someone prays a prayer and breaks the cycle. Now, there ARE natural genetic weaknesses passed down through families, and habits such as messiness, anger, sexual abuse, etc. which keep going and getting passed down unless someone breaks the cycle, but these are often natural things that take direct physical action, effort, real thought, etc. and take more than prayer to break. In other words, they're not just some curse that can be prayed away with a simple prayer.
They based "generational curses" on the verse where God said he would curse a family "to the third and fourth generation," but I remembered there was a later verse in Ezekiel where God said, "They shall no longer use this proverb in the land of Israel, 'The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But every man shall suffer for his own sins." And certainly in Jesus the idea of families being cursed in their generations was gone.
The final joke was when an evangelist came to the church I was attending and said, "Now let's pray back three generations to get rid of THIS curse..." He paused, then said, "No, let's pray back FOUR generations." I nearly laughed out loud. What if the so-called curse had been five generations strong? Would they have missed getting it all out? I suppose so. People like quick fixes with quick prayers but real life is all about working through problems.
The pastor of one church had the idea that if you had been sexually abused as a child to "pray for it" then "Get over it. Put it behind you." Which is nonsense. It takes years to work through issues. When people want to pray a quick prayer and then never hear of the problem again, it's not because of their great faith, but because they don't believe in competent counseling and don't care enough for the person to put in the time to work through things with them.
I do believe in miraculous prayers that can really cause break-throughs, but they're more like the exception than the rule, but people who don't want to put in the time want their one-shot prayers to be the rule, and if you can't keep up buddy and you didn't get the victory when I just prayed over you, well it's because you don't have enough faith, you're weak, there's sin in your life, etc. etc. The fact is, that one-prayer-and-you're-done doctrine doesn't work in real life with the majority of the people and frankly causes anguish and often brings about condemnation and mental harm rather than helping.
Things like alcoholism, bad habits etc. ARE passed down through families because that's the way the grandparents taught the parents, and the parents taught the chilren, so these habits and ways and hurtful ways of relating ARE passed down, but they're not demonic curses that can be prayed away by saying, "I pray this away, back to the fourth generation!!" People in families were brought up that way, the habits were ingrained in them, and these problems are dealt with by realizing the bad habits, changing ways, making amends, and truly breaking old harmful ways and starting new trends and habits.
I know the people seek a new thing, something new and interesting, but I have way too much of the new and supposedly interesting New Truths Grandpa tried feeding us all and am eternally suspicious of the new fads blowing by. I really do go a lot by common sense. And all that Scripure memorizaton from the early days goes a long way to shooting down the clay ducks of doctrines flying overhead.