I realised to my great surprise, that some of the ex-Moonies who were present described some of their experiences in a way that sounded the same as my own on the occasions when I had been “filled with the glory of God.” These cult members described the lovely feelings that would come over the body in waves, starting with prickly and fizzy feelings in the head and moving down through the whole body. When I listened to them, I recognised my own experience! I had also, like them, experienced an aftermath of dramatic emotional contemplation. I was shaken to the roots when I heard all this because, till now, I had reckoned that these experiences were proofs that it was God who was the source of the movement I was involved in, and that it was He who had created these intense feelings. Though God is able to do everything, I realised that it was not necessarily God who had given me these experiences — no matter how intense and wonderful they might be.
During some of my most intense periods of devotion in the Faith movement, fellow members sometimes said that there was a radiance of the Glory of God coming from my face. I had been very pleased to hear this and, naturally, took this to be a sign that God was working powerfully in my life. But now I heard that this same type of radiance was seen on the faces of members of the Moonies and that this was the very thing that often enticed people to join this cult!
I began to realise that though there was a possibility that it might have been God that made my face shine in this way, this was not necessarily the case. It was quite unthinkable to me that it could be God that would have given this radiance to the Moonies! I was, therefore, forced to conclude that it was, indeed, possible to get a false radiance that did not come from God, and it was equally possible for people to be attracted by this false radiance.
I had thought, hitherto, that provided people were brought to faith in God and getting converted, then you simply had to overlook other defects. But now, as I began to read about the movement called “The Children of God” (now the “Love Family”), I realised that this position was not a valid argument.
Many young people had actually been saved, and their lives had been transformed through the initial work of the Children of God. Young people who had suffered a great deal began to turn their attention to others and testify to them how Jesus had changed them. But while all these positive things were going on, the leader, Moses David, had already started to replace the Word of God with his own revelations. He used verses from the Bible to support his revelations, but they did not fit with the context of the Bible as a whole. In this way, the young Christians were led away from God and from His Word.
Many people within my movement were also radiating a new confidence and a hundred percent devotion, just like the Children of God did. Even though a complete devotion was, of course, also characteristic of the first Christians in the New Testament, it now dawned on me that intense devotion in itself is not a reliable sign of a genuine Christian faith.
The people who were brought to faith via the Children of God, and who remained in this movement, eventually landed in a condition that was worse than what they had come from. Having to acknowledge this fact made me consider in earnest what happened in the long run to the people who were brought to believe in Jesus through the Faith movement. I realised that it was not good enough merely to rejoice that people were converted to faith in God.
In movements like the Faith movement, you can often see people falling to the ground and then lying there on the floor trembling and shaking. It is possible for people in these circumstances merely to pretend that they are falling. Actually, I have done this myself on a few occasions. But when people genuinely fall, it is not very hard to tell the difference and to see that it is real.
Among the videos we were watching, was one called “Marjoe”. It was about a preacher in the States, who held meetings in Christian churches, and was praying for people in the meetings. When he laid hands on people, you could tell that people were genuinely falling. You could see how they fell helplessly to the ground without being in control of themselves at all, and some of them were lying on the floor with jerks that were shaking their whole bodies. The people in the churches he visited thought that these things were proofs that he had an anointing from God, and that God was working in Marjoe’s life and ministry. But was this really the case?
As we kept watching, it actually transpired that Marjoe was living a double life and that his whole purpose in making the film was to make a mockery of Christianity. Some of the early shots showed him speaking to his film crew, telling them that this film was the last part of his bluff before revealing that his whole ministry was a deception. His film crew seemed to have nothing to do with Christianity, but they were quite willing to co-operate in the whole show. He was also seen telling them how to behave in order to avoid raising any suspicion among the Christians in the churches; and after that, he was mocking the blood of Christ and the Christian faith. This was the spirit with which Marjoe went straight into the churches preaching about Jesus, praying in tongues and using the Name of Jesus over the people he was praying for.
Some Christians have said that they felt straightaway that Marjoe had a wrong spirit. This is, of course, very easy to say on hindsight, but the fact is that Marjoe succeeded in deceiving one church after another, including their pastors. The churches he deceived appeared to be something in between a classical Pentecostal church and a Faith church.
This film made me realise that it is not necessarily a sign that God is approving of the preaching when people fall to the floor. In addition to this, I realised that it is possible for a person to preach and pray in the name of Jesus and to speak in tongues without the preacher himself being a believer in Jesus — and it is also possible for this to happen without some Christians even realising that there is anything wrong!
