Not too long ago I wrote an e-mail to one of our members commenting on his experience with some charismatic doctrine regarding extra works of God’s grace to empower believers for Christian living. The specific teaching in question was the idea of being “slain in the Spirit”. It means that a person is overcome by the Holy Spirit, or invaded in a unique and powerful way beyond that which he experienced at salvation, when the Holy Spirit originally came to reside in the believer. Charismatics believe that being slain in the Spirit is necessary after a person is born again, if that person wants to experience a fuller indwelling of the Holy Spirit for overcoming sin. Typically, the person being “slain” falls back, or is propelled back, as the pastor invokes the Spirit’s power to indwell the person.

My response to this was not so much to debunk the false teaching of being slain in the spirit, but more importantly, to speak about the issues of the heart behind such false doctrine and counterfeit religious practices, and to encourage discernment in the area of worship practices and what constitutes true spiritual power. The person I was writing to had tried to gently engage a Charismatic pastor about this subject. I’ve used that conversation as a springboard to share some additional thoughts about a couple of key aspects of man-centered worship practices:

It was great to hear of your encounter with the other pastor about the slain in the spirit stuff. You are tracking just right on this subject, as far as I can tell. I can hear the influence of Dr. MacArthur’s teaching on you. GREAT! Charismatic Chaos is a wonderful treatment of the charismatic movement in general and their crazy doctrines specifically. Slain in the spirit is a man-made (Satanic) added work of grace which is not Biblical. In other words, we are to be filled with the Spirit, not slain by Him. The entire concept is a man-centered (focus on self) way of diverting attention away from our true submission to the person and work of the Holy Spirit as He guides us in obedience to the truth, and more importantly, testifies to our spirit that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God. Satan has a million and one schemes which are designed to pervert, divert, and deceive God’s people from true discernment and worship (2 Cor. 11:3). This slain in the spirit thing is one of them.

The problem is that like so much of what passes for true religion today, being slain feels good, looks powerful, and gives others the impression that deep spiritual activity is taking place. These are very strong allurements which hold people’s attention and demand their allegiance. When we “feel” religious, and when we can have an “experience” which seems to validate the power of God at work in our lives, we chase that feeling and that experience in order to continue to give ourselves that sense of assurance that God is with us; unfortunately, it is false assurance. We learn to live and long for a repeated experience instead of seeking to know, love, and obey the Lord in all things. We are not to pursue a feeling or experience. We are not to put our faith in an event. We are to seek the Lord and His kingdom, and we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are to put our faith in Christ alone, and examine our hearts to see if we are truly in that faith which leads us to love and honor Christ supremely.

The Bible teaches us to say no to anything which sets itself against the things of God, and to give ourselves to the study of God’s Word, and the process of being transformed in how we think about what is important in life. Notice that there are no man-centered, or self-focused emphases in the following verses:

“…examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21, 22)

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1 – 2).

“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in our hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Colossians 3:16 – 17).

Our infatuation with good feelings, and emotional religious experiences is due to our blindness, weakness, and depravity. We are idol worshipers at heart; we are self-deceived, and we seek our own pleasure in all things, even religious things, because it is what comes naturally to us:

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

“ …for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me” (Romans 7:11).

“For men will be lovers of self…treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power…” (2 Timothy 3:2, 4 -5).

See also Romans 1:18ff. and Mark 7:20 – 23.

As Christians we have a daily need for God’s truth in Christ to open the eyes of our understanding so that we can grow in our ability to discern truth from error. This way we will not be carried away by every wind of doctrine blowing around in these different churches and denominations (Eph. 4:11 – 16; 5:6 – 21). I have said this many times, people can be sincere about what they believe, but they can also be sincerely wrong. Being sincere is no guarantee that any of us are believing and living according to God’s will in Scripture. Many heresies have been propagated by sincere, and even by, well-intentioned men. Many, many things will seek to draw us away from a simple devotion to Christ and to serving one another in love. We must learn to discern these empty, vain things and flee from them:

“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (Rms. 12:9).

Today, much of evangelicalism is carried along in this pursuit of religious experience based on feelings and events. The emphasis in church worship services is so man-centered as people preoccupy themselves with songs that make them emotional, with sermons that make them feel better about themselves, and with activities designed to entertain them over educating them in the truth of God. Whether it’s being slain in the Spirit, or singing about how Jesus can fix all of my problems, the issue is how we have come to make worship about us, even though we use religious words, have our Bibles with us, listen to a “sermon”, and call what we do worshiping God.

God help us. And God help our brothers and sisters who have been seduced by this feel-so-good religion which leads them away from a simple devotion to Christ. We must rightly divide the Word of God, and let it teach us about the heart of God. In turn, we will then be in position to rightly worship this God of all creation.

“But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).