Three Who Fell Under the Power of the Spirit

Three Who Fell Under the Power of the Spirit

Well, enough social commentary. I want to write now on something totally different.

One of the phenomena during charismatic meetings when people receive prayer is that people fall down. This is variously described as being slain in the Spirit or falling under the Power. In 1984, one of my elders at Beth Messiah said this would happen in our congregation when we were praying for people. I did not like the idea. But it happened. Another elder was so offended at how it looked that he thought we should pray for all people only when they were sitting on chairs! I eventually came to see that there is reality in being so overwhelmed by the presence of the Spirit that one cannot stand, but then there is also auto suggestion and even pushing. I had a scientific approach and would ask people at conferences and citywide gatherings what happened to them. Sometimes they would say that they had an amazing experience with God and at other times that they just felt that they should allow themselves to fall. The book by the noted Christian Psychiatrist John White, When the Spirit Falls with Power, is a great study on the history of revivals and how such manifestations unexpectedly occurred. There are three cases of falling under the Power which have convinced me that this is very real, though it never happened to me in the powerful ways that others described.

The first is my Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Stuart Hackett, whom I served as an assistant in the department at Wheaton College. Dr. Hackett was a brilliant rationalist. I took Philosophy of Religion East and West under him for a year and also Ethics. Dr. Hackett was known as a super rationalist. If something was not rational, it was not worth considering. What was real was rationally provable. He was a brilliant lecturer and nationally famous for his writings and teachings.

One day I drove from Chicago to Wheaton to visit him. I was in my own period of rationalism. I asked him, what ever happened to that arthritic elbow? How is it? Dr. Hackett said, “Well, Dan, you are not going to believe this but God healed me.” He then said that it was not just his elbow but that arthritis had developed in his back. It got to the pace where he was in excruciating pain. A friend invited him to a small Evangelical Free Church that was experiencing a move of the Holy Spirit. They were seeing healings. He believed that he had nothing to lose so he went. When the invitation was given, he was reluctant to go forward. He saw that some who were prayed for fell backwards, were caught and then were laying on the floor. He thought it was bizarre and that he did not want this to happen to himself and did not think it was real. Then he decided to go to get prayer anyway because he was in such pain, but not to so fall. He said he does not remember that contact was made with him. The next thing he knew was that he was on the floor having an amazing experience of God’s love. When he got up he was healed and spoke in tongues. He was from then a charismatic. When he transferred to teach at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School north of Chicago, he was questioned as to his balance in his charismatic orientation. He was then hired. He was indeed more balanced than ever form a biblical perspective. This was so amazing to me that I began to question my rationalistic bent.

The second is my late brother Richard. He was the last person I would expect would have such an experience. My sister used to call him the head. I was almost 7 years younger than him. He had the highest academic record in the 50 year history of his school. He was so rational oriented. After his military retirement he also was in great pain. In this pain, he went to a healing meeting with a minister, Gene Lilly. He had himself been healed of multiple sclerosis. Richard does not remember even being touched, but down he went. He described the experience of the love of God as waves coming over him again and again. He said it was the greatest spiritual experience of his life. Richard retired from the Air Force as a Major after 23 years. Sadly, he had agent orange disease at the end of his life, and died just before he was 69. Yet this experience stayed with him in those last decades.

Then finally is my best friend in the secular High School, my Jewish friend Michael. Michael was so important to me because as a really fat kid at 14 and 15 years old, before I lost all the weight, Mike as a cool Jewish kid and accepted me. He was the best man at my wedding. After over 35 years of sharing the Gospel with him, finally he accepted embraced Yeshua. A few years later, he had an experience just like my brother.

Now I have had some wonderful experiences with the Lord, but not one like these. I knew the joy of the Lord to come upon me so powerfully that all I could do was to run and run. But I never fell under the power with such an experience of love. This is God’s sovereignty. However, the testimony of these three assures me that this is real and significant and that I should be open to what the Spirit does.

Martina Navratilova Objects

Recently Martina Navratilova objected to transgender women (biological men claiming to be women) participating in women’s sports. She claimed that they had an unfair advantage and would ruin women’s sports. There have already been a few examples of such transgenders winning women’s events. It has happened in women’s high school wrestling and in 2018 in world track cycling (Rachael Mckinnon). We need not worry about transgender men since such men able to compete with other men would be few and no one would claim that they are at a disadvantage.

Navratilova stated,

“You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”

Then in December the 18-time Grand Slam winner wrote in The Sunday Times that it was

“insane” that “hundreds of athletes who have changed gender by declaration and limited hormone treatment have already achieved honors as women that were beyond their capabilities as men.”

As expected, this has not led to a reasoned discussion, but instead to vilification and name calling. She is accused of being a trans-phobe-horrors! Nothing worse than that phobe word. Maybe you are not afraid of them but for them and for others. Well that is the nature of discourse today which is not discourse. Navratilova is a lesbian and does not object to people calling themselves whatever they want to. Some have pointed out that trans-sexuality in sports could be very destructive to Title 9, the requirement for equal support for women’s sports in schools and colleges. After the tremendous gains in women’s sports, there is now fear that such trans athletes will corrupt women’s sport.

Here the argument seems to be a no brainer. So why the lack of reason? Because her argument asserts a foundational difference in biology between men and women. She is not the only lesbian to be making this case. One noted lesbian sated she is a lesbian woman, a woman who loves a woman. She is for the LGB movement but not adding T to the letters!

The radical deconstruction of human sexuality by the racial relativists of our society do not want to accept that there are any norms or constants for human sexuality. All is a matter of social construction. We should not raise our children to be boys or girls. We see a hatred for any kind of creation order and even a nature given order. When a lesbian is vilified for stating the obvious, the heated push back is due to the fact that she is revealing that the “emperor has no clothes.” Foolish people do not want this kind of clarity. Eventually it can lead to the view the whole program to reject normal heterosexuality as the norm of human life and its expression in marriage, is indeed a bankrupt program. Any assertion of fixed sexual differences is a threat!

The New York Abortion Law and Religious Values

A new abortion law in New York gives unrestricted abortion rights to women even up to the point of birth even if she is in labor. Surveys show that the majority of Americans want to preserve the right to abortion but also support restrictions so that abortion only takes place in the early months of pregnancy. Defenders of the new law say that such abortions only occur if the child is very deformed and unlikely to live or if the birth will be a real health detriment for the mother (though other doctors say that there is no health detriment to the mother in giving birth at that point, and that third trimester abortions are almost never needed.) Amazingly the legislature broke out in cheers after passage. Imagine cheering for having a right to kill a fully formed baby. God must be weeping and indeed ready to judge.

The reaction of conservatives and committed Christians was pronounced. Many Catholics said that Andrew Coumo should be ex-communicated. What is his defense? It is the same as his father. Though he is a Catholic, he cannot make religion a basis for what he supports in law for the larger society. This is a wrong view indeed. In a pluralistic society law reflects the moral consensus of the society. Different populations in the society form their moral views on the basis of their world views, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, secular, or Eastern religious. A society thus has morals, and all the streams of that society contribute toward that moral consensus. Than that consensus is reflected in the law. Since in the United States there is no one religious foundation for our laws, the law reflects the popular consensus, unlike in the past when Biblical morals were the foundation and unlike ancient Israel where God’s revelation was the law. However, the Biblical world view is a legitimate ground for our contribution to that consensus, and we seek to influence society so that the consensus would move toward the Biblical world view.

The law of a society is based in the morals of that society. This is the issue. For Hitler, the morals of Nazism allowed that you could kill those then called retarded or today challenged children. Because they society rejected that all human beings were created in the image of God, some human beings were not worthy of life. Professor Singer at Princeton supports killing fully born babies if they do not measure up and says they have less worth as developed dogs. If Governor Cuomo was a good Catholic, he would seek to see Catholic morals influence the moral consensus and thus the law. I note that killing the baby at the point of birth is not the moral consensus in the United States. It is tragic.

The religious basis of much of the law in the West goes back to the idea of the equal worth of every human being which is a Biblical idea. In classic Indian society, the poor and most needy are that way because they deserve it in their re-incarnation. In the Bible we are called to lift the poor and needy because they have equal dignity and worth. In Communism large populations were killed as a necessary step toward the classless society. The idea that our laws are decoupled from religious values is an incoherent idea. And when that decoupling more and more takes place, we will see society slip to greater barbarism, especially to those who are vulnerable.

Universal Medicare and Universal Free College

Leaders of the Democratic Party (some of whom are announced candidates for president) are calling for Universal Medicare including doctors’ visits and hospitalization. The same ones also call for free College for all who qualify. The bar is pretty low for qualifying. Here are my responses.

I understand the justified emotion on the issue of medical coverage. As a pastor I had congregants who were financially ruined after their coverage for chronic and serious medical conditions ended. We have to solve this problem. This is not a new idea or so radical an idea since some nations do have such coverage. This was part of the platform of Harry Truman in 1948i Those who oppose this talk about it adding tens of trillions to the national budget. However, this does not always take into account that the money put into private insurance would be switched into the government program, and if it is like Israel, the families pay the insurance tax on a sliding scale according to income. Yet there are several issues.

I don’t know why liberals never seem to face the terrible inefficiency of government programs. In addition, the fraud in Medicate is quite alarming. This plan will lead to rationing since the government never can pay for all that is needed in a fast and efficient way. We have this issue in Israel and have to use private insurance to overcome long waiting times even if the situation is serious. This plan will also continue to inflate costs and produce great pressure to expand spending. My view is that those who propose this too quickly seek solutions through bigger and bigger government. Again, I would like to see private insurance and real competition as over against todays cartel like situation with insurance companies, hospitals and the present domination of trial lawyers also increasing costs. If there were different kinds of medical accreditation which would qualify plans, even for some alternative medicine, people could be given vouchers when they cannot afford insurance. Genuine competition could bring down costs. And, yes, I think taxing heavily those that do not buy into insurance is important since we need all in the system to lower costs The state can back up catastrophic situations beyond the ability of the private insurance.

Free college is a terrible idea for several reasons. First, the money could much better be spent in elementary and high schools by giving vouchers to families to choose the school of their desire for their children. The public system has declined even in so called good schools. We need to equalize educational quality for children. Real justice requires a real choice giving real justice opportunity for children. Better to support vocational training for young adults as well.

In addition, accept for the hard sciences, much of today’s education is bankrupt. Do we really want to spend money for young people to study leftist sociological theories, or liberal arts that dismiss the great classics of western literature and philosophy and study drivel. I have great doubt about the worth of college education in all but some exceptional colleges that really preserve classical education. I actually believe that the present colleges and universities outside of hard sciences mostly need to die and that alternative higher education needs to be reinvented.

Real education has largely died in the leftist post-modern attack on classical education. So much of the cost of college is an unbelievable expansion of administrators and bureaucracy. There are better ways to lift the poor into opportunity than to have them sit in classrooms where education really is not happening.

Kate Hudson and Raising Children as Genderless

This week, Kate Hudson took objection to a misunderstanding of what she meant in not raising her youngest child, a daughter, as genderless. She claimed that she is not doing this. She only was saying that she wanted the child to develop naturally without fostering stereotyped roles. In fact, her child acts with feminine traits and is quite different than the boys. What do we think of the culture in the west going toward gender fluidity in defining sexual relationships.

One of the sad facts of western culture is not only the rejection of the historic standards derived from the influence of the Bible, but also from the wisdom of almost all developed cultures and even the wisdom of primitive cultures. That wisdom not only perceived the given distinction of male and female but sought to accentuate this distinction and to make the distinction more pronounced. Somehow it was perceived that the prosperity of the people, the tribe, or the nation required fostering the distinction. Why is that? It is that the bonding of male and female together in marriage requires significant distinction. It is that this very distinction attracts the sexes to one another and blurring the distinction undercuts this. The bonding of distinct males and females is a priority of all cultures. It is somehow perceived that not enhancing and fostering the distinction is destructive to society. We see this not only in biblical societies, but also India, China, Africa, Middle Eastern culture, Muslim cultures, Native American cultures and more. The intensity of attraction and last in relationship between the sexes in committed bonds require a strong distinction.

Sometimes the pattern of distinctions fostered by a culture are oppressive. The Chinese bound the feet of women in very painful processes so that they would take what they consider attractive little steps. Many times the Muslim world placed women in an enslaved position. It was not just to preclude women from careers of their interest in medicine, the sciences, and business. However, that boys learn to be men, handsome and strong, and women to be feminine, move with grace and to show that quality we know as feminine loveliness, is not oppressive. Yes, young girls will sometimes be tom boys, but they eventually and mostly grow out of this.

One of the great rebellions of our culture, and it is unprecedented in world history, is the attempt to break down the distinction of male and female. This will have a significant negative effect on marriages. The question on why the behavior of others should effect our commitments and why we should then oppose the LGBT agenda, is so short sighted. It Is not that it has to effect me and my marriage, but that it fosters a culture that does not value a lasting marriage between male and female. The effect of this on the culture as a whole is destructive and will lead to poverty and bankruptcy for many, and when children are not raised in intact traditional families the percentages of their success decline.

Happy New Year

We enter the new year with amazing political upheavals in the United States and China. Some are seeing amazing parallels between Israel and the United States. There are some, but there as significant differences. We need to pray for God’s will in these countries and the role they play in important matters especially as the United States is Israel’s key strategic partners.

First in the United States, however one evaluates Donald Trump, never did Israel have a more supportive partner. From moving the U. S. Embassy to Jerusalem, to the strong stand against hypocrisy in signaling out Israel for condemnation at the U. N., we in Israel are heartened. We witness the United States pulling out of UNESCO (United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization) because they bash and condemn Israel and do not recognize Jewish heritage in the Land and even in the Old City. We have been heartened by Nikki Hayley’s presentaitons at the U. N. Also Donald Trump pulled the U. S. out of the terrible Iran nuclear agreement which all sides in Israel say was a terrible agreement.

President Trump is now likely to face interminable investigations even if special prosecutor ends his investigation without any indightment. Indeed, the new Democratic House will be doing more investigations, and liberal New York prosecutors will go after the President’s business interests. The idea of President Trump being impeached and then convicted by the Senate is extremely remote, but the Democrats will have a neverending stream of news and coverage from a compliant pro-left media.

Second, in Israel we are having quite a political upheaval. Prime Minister Netanyahu has dissolved parliament and called for elections that will be held on April 9^th. This has produce some amazing results. Several outside of the government have formed new political parties. Naftali Bennett is forming a party that will include religious and secular leaders and is leaving his Orthodox party to seek to appeal to more Israelis. The former head of the military, Benny Gantz is forming a new party and seems to be getting traction. Former Defense Secretary Ya’alon is forming a party. Key people are laving the Kolanu party that was a partner to Netanyahu. Some think that Netanyahu’s action in dissolving parliament (the K’nesset) is in the context of losing the government control due to a new law on the draft which will cause the ultra-Orthodox to leave the government. The Supreme Court was requiring such a law. Others think that he is trying a pollical move to make it difficult for the Attorney General to bring an indightment against him. He is under investigation in several criminal cases. Meanwhile Israel is destroying tunnels from Lebanon that were built for an invasion of Israel from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Meanwhile Israel has just bombed Iranian targets in Syria. Russia complains against Israel while Iran seeks to build attack bases in Syrian and arms Hezbollah.

This is a time for much prayer, both for Israel, the United States and both together. Welcome to the New Year.

Transgender New York

Mayor Bill De Blasio signed a bill so that parents have three choices for the birth certificates for their children: male, female, and x. Under x a child can choose whatever gender they prefer. So now parents are not to raise their children to be boys or girls. This is child abuse.

However, when we realize that all the ruckus over the Supreme Court is really a symptom of something much worse, and that is the death of what was the consensus of basic morals and ethics in the United States. It is not only due process and innocence until proven guilty. That is a foundational biblical value. That people can no longer affirm boys and girls and think that gender is mere social construction or merely a personal choice when only real women can have babies, nurse, have periods, and then have menopause is so amazingly stupid. Romans would call this part of the reprobate mind.

The biggest issue in our society is that a good part of the society, the university, the Democratic Party, the news media, the entertainment industry and the social media titans with unbelievable wealth, have rebelled against the knowledge of God. Every social pathology is now embraced and fostered by these people, and those who disagree are said to be phobic in multiple ways. We are witnessing the downward spiral spoken of by Romans 1 where good and evil are no longer discerned and people call good evil and evil good. It started 150 years ago with atheistic evolution, but the last ten years are the climatic end of the process. We have to note that though the Republicans leave much to be desired, the Democrats have embraced every socially destructive cause and every aberrant group as a positive minority. It is so sad because it was not long ago that Evangelicals were a Democratic Party constituency and that Party was probably more moral and ethical than the Republicans. What a tragic direction. Read Romans 1:17 following and see the reality we are facing. May revival come or the U. S. will fall under severe judgment. As Billy Graham said many times, “If God does not judge the United States, he will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Or as the great judge and professor, Robert Bork wrote in his amazing book, the United States is Slouching Towards Gomorrah.

The Israel Surrogacy Law

On Sunday a strike has been called, and will be supported by Labor unions. It is a strike of protest against the recently passed law on surrogacy, where women can bear children for others and then give them to waiting parents who can not have children. What is the reason for the strike? It is that the law did not take into account the desires of the LGBTQ people in Israel. They desire that men and women singles can become parents through surrogacy and that the state will pay for it. The man and women can be any adults according to their own self identification (they can be bi-sexual, transgender, etc. etc.) The law only allowed surrogacy for married hetero sexual couples and single women, and single women can include lesbian single women. Israel does not marry homosexuals. What a sorry state we are in that such a strike can be called. Here are some thoughts.

1. What should my tax dollars pay for surrogacy? We are taxed to the hilt and there is so much demand for funds from poorly funded education, to research, to welfare. I am against surrogacy in principle. I think parents should adopt children that do not have good homes. I support international efforts to bring down the costs so it is doable for most people who could be good parents. Then we pay a woman to bear a baby for someone else?
2. Secondly, the far left and the sexual libertines simply do not want to face the massive studies that show again and again that the best situation for raising children is a family situation of a father and mother in a stable good marriage. One of the great characteristics of the far left is the great flight from empirical evidence. They paint a subjective picture of the way they want the world to be and will not bring that picture to the bar of empirical evidence that shows the consequences. We see this with the socialists who will not face what socialism does and with sexual libertines that will not face what their new “family” arrangements do to society.

And wait for the push for the rights of poly amorous communities to adopt.

That this movement has such support in Israel is really depressing. That our Prime minister was going to sign a bill that supported such broad acceptance for parents and surrogacy is alarming. In this case, thank God for the Orthodox community that pushed back against it, but the bill still goes to far in supporting surrogacy and single mother parenting. I was raised by my widowed mother, but had much to overcome by not having my father.

The Bible shows the way to health and would that it would be a greater influence on the way we see.

Anti Colonialism and Israel

Daniel Juster, Th. D. Restoration from Zion of Tikkun International

I want to write more on the foolishness of the anti-Western civilization orientation from the radical left. For some of these folks the basic problem with the world stems form white Europeans who foisted themselves on other more benign peoples and oppressed them. Israel then is demonized as a colonial imposition upon the native, innocent and peaceful Palestinian population. This completely misses the complexity of how Israel came into being, and the general opposition of the colonial powers after 1925. I mentioned in the last post that this claim of colonialism as something unique to white Europeans proves the ignorance of those who assert it.

The basic nature of colonialism is that a nation that is more powerful can take over and dominate a weaker nation and enrich themselves to the detriment to the weaker nation. Eventually their power grows to the point of dominating many peoples. Sometimes the colonial power does good for the subjected people and even civilizes them, but generally human selfishness brings much injustice.

Ignorance, self hatred or denial is the root of claiming that white Europeans are somehow and uniquely more evil than other cultures. A study of history shows that most peoples who became powerful and capable sought to control and dominate others. In ancient cultures, genocide was common. We see this in the history of the Middle East, India and China. The extent genocide, atrocity, torture to attain domination astonishes modern sensibilities. Yet some of these cultures produced great gains in art and science. China was formed form the dominant tribe subjugating all others. It was ruthless. The warfare in India with the goal of dominating the other tribes is an amazing and painful story. So also is the story of the conquering the colonialism of the Mongol hordes who came to power and ruled India for centuries. Japan was certainly a colonial power when they were able to be such a power and dominated Korea and East Asia. Korea was sometimes dominated by China and sometimes by Japan. Africa as well developed Kingdoms that were formed by a strong tribe dominating and controlling other tribes to their detriment. Africans sold other Africans into slavery as part of their war strategy. It is all a very sordid picture. Even today, we see China trying to take over the South China Sea and militarize it to their benefit and to the detriment of the nations surrounding their illegitimate territorial claims. Arab peoples conquered and dominated others forbidding their indigenous languages and cultures. Turkey was a major colonial power for centuries and subjected many peoples.

However, there is one nation that is an exception to this, at least in the original conception of this nation. Israel was formed to be the non-colonial nation. They were formed from the seed of Abraham to bless all nations. They were given a particular territory. Though they were to be an instrument of punishing the corrupt peoples of Canaan, they were told to not seek to conquer the nations around them, but to seek to live in peace with them. God would protect them without compromising alliances or becoming a colonial power. The goal and vision of Israel is that the nations would come into a place of peace under the rule of the Messiah. Isaiah 2 gives us the picture of all nations coming to Zion to learn the law of God and the Torah going forth form Jerusalem. The picture is that war has been ended and all nations are valued and able to find their own cultural affirmation in peace with other people. It is a picture where nations do not dominate one another. Though a great disappointment, the United Nations does reflect something of this biblical ideal in its charter, and even quotes the ideal of Isaiah 2 in the New York center, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

Israel does seek to bless the nations. They do not seek to be a colonial power. Yes, we have to deal with the difficult issue of the destiny of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not citizens; one state, two states, autonomy, linkage of the Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt. But the colonial accusation leveled against the only nation ever formed to be an anti colonial blessing to all peoples is a bogus accusation and it always has been.

Demeaning Women of the Past

Daniel Juster, Th. D. Restoration from Zion of Tikkun International

One of the astonishing aspects of modern culture is the inability to really empathetically evaluate cultures. Despite all the protestations for multi-culturalism, the truth is that never has there been such shallowness in evaluating cultures and such little empathetic evaluation. This is in part due to the loss of norms to evaluate. Evaluating the past with some degree of fairness is just impossible to so many today. No where is this more apparent than in how the lives of women before the feminist equality movement have been devalued. These women are looked at as slaves to their husbands and families because they did not have an outside life. Life is now evaluated in being able to get ahead in the world of business and the professions.

It is a good thing that women who have the desire for getting ahead in business and the professions have the freedom to do so. We respect a Condoleezza Rice who came to the top in her field. However, the lives of women who were or are today homemakers should be respected and valued. These women joined themselves to the important truth that the meaning of life is in personal relationships and not status and money. Two great books, Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, and Bruno Bettelheim, The Informed Heart. Both these Jewish psychiatrists noted that those who survived psychologically in the brutality of the concentration camps of Hitler, were primarily those who found their meaning in relationships, relationship with God, the transcendent and/or other people. Those who defined their meaning in external attainment, mentally disintegrated. But radical feminists tell us that their meaning is their attainment of status and money like men. And for years we tried to change men to base their lives on relationships.

Women in those by gone years in homes that had decent income did not just stay at home and care for children. I would add that nothing is more fulfilling than raising children and bonding to them. Today many choose to not have children. The birth rates are dangerously low. These women sell their meaning in life for something so much less. But again, these women of the past did not just raise children and care for their husbands. They were the glue of those mediating community institutions, the clubs, the charities, the churches and more. These institutions make life humane. Much of this has been lost. These women were given to literary and artistic endeavours. They were patrons of the arts. They had time for reading, poetry, and painting. They read books that were enriching. Some developed a deep connection to God.

Only if we recover the truth that for most people the will of God is found in lasting marriages and raising children can we overcome the shallow evaluations of today. I can also say that as a man I am glad that I chose the relational. Marriage and family were and continue to be the sources of great fulfilment.