Many of the preachers teaching at our Bible Centre advocated strange experiences of the anointing. The following excerpt from Sandy Brown’s teaching in 1985 is one example of these:
“In the back of the room, a cloud came in. It was so thick, I thought that I was losing my vision. It began to roll across the crowd. And I began to watch it. And I began to read these other couple of Scriptures. and the awesomeness of God came upon us, and I could not move. I just stood there, and I began to weep. And as the glory began to come in, people were falling off their chairs. They were falling under the power, all over the room. And it came up to where I was, and where the pastor was, and we were caught in a whirlwind of God. Ezekiel talks of the whirlwind. See, in the satanic world, when you worship Satan, in satanic worship places, they experience things, but theirs is a counterfeit of God. They walk through fire. Do you know that Satan worshippers have visitations from Satan, just like we have visitations from Christ? And in the satanic world, you can get caught up in a whirlwind of power, and it becomes witchcraft all around you, and you can be caught in one moment in a whirlwind of confusion. That is the false, but what Christ has was a whirlwind of glory, and when it started hitting the platform, I started spinning like a top, and the pastor started spinning …, and whoever I would point to, would spin around like a top. We got so drunk ….” 11
The above association with devil worship is not really misplaced. The similarities are striking. The only difference that is referred to is that the experiences of the devil worshippers are false whereas Sandy Brown’s experiences are supposedly genuine. It is the experiences themselves that are made the important thing. With such an attitude, it is all too easy to end up in the wrong kind of spirituality.
One of the visiting speakers at the Bible school made this statement about his communion with angels: “And on my way back to earth I met my angel. You see, everyone has at least one, and the busier you get, the more you get. Right now, I carry sixteen! Ah, you don’t have sixteen angels! Well, I know them all. They were sent here to help me, and as I keep obeying and keep going, I get more.” 12
If we are to comment on such statements as the above, it must be said that any such thing as a regular conscious contact with angels is foreign to the teaching of the New Testament. There are some examples of contact with angels, but they are on very special occasions only, and in no way regular occurrences. Paul never wrote anything about knowing the exact number of angels accompanying him, let alone about knowing them personally! On the contrary; in Colossians 2:18, Paul is warning the Christians against being too taken up with angels.
In his book “The Way of the Shaman”, Michael Harner writes that shamans have a guardian spirit and a various number of helper spirits. It will normally take a shaman many years to get a good number of helper spirits.
In his book “The Anointing,” Kenneth Hagin encourages Christians to seek experiences referred to as being in the Spirit. By this, he means experiences of entering into the otherwise hidden spiritual realm. He writes that on one occasion he got so far out into the spiritual realm, that he thought he might not get back. Just like astronauts exploring space, Hagin urges Christians to make discoveries “in the Spirit”. His only word of caution is not to go too far out into the spiritual realm and, thereby, run the risk of not being able to get back again. This teaching is no different from classical occultism along the lines of the occultist Rudolf Steiner. Hagin admittedly refers to the Bible, but so did Steiner, the occultist!.
People who have been dubious about these experiences of the anointing in Hagin’s services, have been singled out for special treatment by him. Hagin describes how he has touched them on the forehead and how they have been unable to move, until they were willing to acknowledge that what was happening in Hagin’s ministry (including their paralysis) was the power of God. The first ones to receive this treatment were Hagin’s own wife and another pastor’s wife, who had both begun to have doubts about what they had become involved with.
Hagin describes the following events that happened during a prayer session: “The Spirit of God said to me: ‘Go over there, and touch the forehead of your wife and the pastor’s wife with your finger!’ Well, I just know the Spirit, so I went over there (they were kneeling, you see) and touched my wife with my finger. And when I did, it was just like you had knocked her in her head with a ball bat. She flattened out on her back — just flat! I did the same thing with the pastor’s wife, and she did the same thing …. The Spirit of God said to me: ‘Go over there, and kneel down beside each of them and ask them: ‘Do you acknowledge that this is the power of God?’ (Not just what happened to them, but including that, but what’s happening in the services.) Now, several different times I have done some similar things to that with people in the congregation, that were opposed to what was happening, until they could not move until I released them. And they had to acknowledge that this is the power of God, or I guess they would have been standing there yet.” 13
In concluding the above account, Hagin posed the question: “Was that the power of God?” Then he continued by implying his own foregone conclusion, saying: “Yes, what do you think it was?”
Footnotes
11. Sandy Brown “The Prophetic Plan of God for the Future,” Audio Cassette, 10 April 1985. Word of Life, Uppsala.
12. Roberts Liardon, “Heaven is a Real Place – I was There.” Audio Cassette, 24 April 1987 19.00 hours RL 113. Word of Life, Uppsala.
13. Kenneth E. Hagin, Audio Cassette, Winter Bible Seminar 1987, Thurs am, “Moving up Higher!” WB708.
