John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, reviewed by Dennis Balcombe
Miracles and signs and wonders are a common occurrence among Christians in Asia, but they happen usually through the prayers and faith of ordinary people, not famous healing evangelists. But at the same time we realize that there are believers who are not healed through prayer, some of them passing away. Also there are some individuals who never speak in tongues, though they are so desirous to do so. Nobody can force God to move or for revival to come when He is not moving.
It would take far more space in this article to deal with the supernatural and miracles, so I will only make a brief mention of this. This is important in the rebuttal of this book, for again it must be recognized that only God or Satan and his hosts can perform supernatural miracles (those that defy laws of nature). If we can prove these miracles truly have happened, the only logical conclusion is they must be of God. These miracles are done in the Name of Jesus, and in all cases point people to Christ and away from the occult and idol worship. It is inconceivable that the Devil would be doing the work of the Christian minister and Holy Spirit.
I just finished writing the manuscript for a new book that Charisma Publishers will soon be publishing, China’s Opening Door. This book will clearly document the work of the Holy Spirit in China going back to missionaries and evangelists in the early 20th century, right down to the mighty revival in the Chinese house church that has resulted in up to 100 million conversions. To write the book, I spent four years going through hundreds of pages of documents and testimonies of mainland Christians. We also copied and transcribed up to 1,000 video tapes recorded in China in which we have documented testimonies relating to the revival going back to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
We have hundreds of accurate, verifiable testimonies (often with video footage) of some of the most amazing miracles including tumors and cancers disappearing, the blind seeing again, crippled people walking, AIDS victims finding total healing, and many testimonies of the dead being raised to life. However, I am sure that if MacArthur were even willing to look at these testimonies, he would find some reason to question or doubt them. This is the way all anti-Charismatics approach miracles. But what you cannot deny is the tens of thousands attending churches in areas where miracles took place, especially when most of these people claim that the miracles were the main reason they turned to Christ.
Pastor Niko Njotorahardjo is the Senior Pastor of Bethany GBI in Jakarta, Indonesia. His churches have 800 branches, some 6,000 family altar groups with approximately 250,000 in the congregations. In 2010, at the Empowered 21 Conference in Tulsa Oklahoma it was prophesied by leaders that he would lead a healing revival in Indonesia. This Conference was the offshoot of the 2006 Azusa Street Centennial of the Pentecostal revival held in Los Angeles.
Pastor Niko began to conduct healing crusades all over Indonesia, and the vast major of the crowd in these huge crusades were Muslims. We have personally been involved in this ministry, and countless numbers of Muslims have experienced miracles of divine healing and many have converted to Christ. This is true all over Indonesia, where some estimate up to 30% of the population—of the largest Muslim nation in the world—are now Christian.
Category: Spirit, Spring 2014
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