Dr Koch On Blood Pacts And Charismatic Movements
I must repeat my warnings in the last article on this one on blood pacts, too. All men need to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance and protection whenever the issue in hand has to do with attempt to understand issues that border on the occult. It is not a thing of fun, and perhaps, the closing part of today’s headline attests to this.
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If anyone thinks he can pilot himself through life without the Lord Jesus Christ, sorry to tell you, he is deceiving himself. The Bible is right: the devil and his angels are here and their main and only jobs are to kill and destroy. And I am talking of killing men and destroying men’s lives.
All men need help when it comes to our relationship with the lord of darkness. If you or any of your loved ones suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only safe way out. As I warned in my earlier post, do not approach any pastor or charismatic priest where they speak in tongues or they are ‘slain in the spirit’: they are in cahoot with the Devil .
I must state that Dr Koch never wrote fiction.
Excerpts:
“Blood pacts provide some of the most difficult problems in counseling. I have record of about a hundred cases in my files. What is a blood pact? A person takes a piece of paper, scratches his finger until it bleeds, and then signs himself over to the devil. From that day on such people are no longer approachable on spiritual issues.
Effects Of Blood Pacts
They become totally opposed to the church,the Bible, prayer, and to every kind of spiritual influence. I am surprised that such people come for counseling. It evidently shows that they are not happy with their master and are looking for something else to satisfy them.
Ex 26: In Canada, I was speaking at a youth conference. In the group was a seventeen-year-old girl who took part during the day in the Bible study and the prayer meeting. At night, however, she had confused dreams, and her roommates could hear her cursing herself and saying: “I hate Jesus. I love the devil. He is my lord.” Yet this same girl, who cursed herself and had sold herself to the devil, could come to me for counseling and ask for help.
Ex 27: A young teacher came to me for counseling. He suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, and asked me for advice and help. In the course of the conversation, the following facts came to light. In a fit of despair he had signed himself over to the devil in his own blood. He took the paper to a cave, went inside, placed it on a ledge of the rock and put a stone on top of it. Then he left the cave. A few minutes later he began to regret what he had done in his desperation. He ran back and reentered the cave, intending to pick up the paper and destroy it. The paper was gone. There was no one in the cave who could have taken the paper. It could not have been blown away by a gust of wind, for he had put a stone on top of it. He now became very anxious, and his anxiety brought him to me for counseling.
A psychiatrist would say that he was an unstable character. But, in spite of his depression and his instability, he was telling the truth. It was his earnest desire to find the way to Jesus. It took considerable time before this teacher found inner peace. He made a general confession of sin, and was able, in faith, to accept the forgiveness of Christ. Then he did something I have never advised anyone who has made a blood pact to do. He scratched his finger again and with his blood wrote a statement declaring himself free from the devil. I repeat that I never advise anyone to do this, although I know there are some counselors who tell people to do so.
Blood pacts create a terrible block. People who have signed them find it extremely difficult to find the way of salvation. The story which follows makes this frighteningly clear.
Ex 28: A woman belonged to a spiritist circle and had signed herself over to the devil in her own blood. She happened to go into a mission meeting. She was convicted by the Spirit of God and made a general confession in the course of being counseled afterward. She wanted to follow Jesus, come what may. From that moment onward, terrible struggles began. The satanic attacks reached their climax in a red tattoo which appeared on her breast one night. She showed this to her sister. It was in the shape of a horseshoe with an S in the middle. A prayer group began to intercede for this troubled woman.She was delivered.
Ex 29: What concerns us more than the power of Satan is the victorious power of Jesus. A man who had made a blood pact went to see a friend of mine. This counselor, who is a fully qualified pastor, heard his confession and advised him to write another statement in his own blood declaring himself free from the devil. This bold piece of advice was followed by the blessing of the Lord. The man became free.
Charismatic Movements
Let us briefly sketch the history of the modern movements in which speaking in tongues has emerged. At the age of nineteen, George Fox (1624-1691) broke with the church because he was repelled by its laxity. The spiritual system he adopted depended on experience. He heard a voice say to him, “Not the outward Word of Scripture, not the teaching of the church, not the outward Christ can lead you, but only the inner light, the inward Christ.”
Fox was the founder of the Children of Light or Society of Friends. Their enemies called them Quakers. This nickname has remained with them to the present day. A dangerous, extremist view can be seen in the origin of the Quakers: the inner light and the voices from above ( the spirits) were more important than the written Word of God. The door was open for all kinds of false teaching. In the early days some groups also practiced speaking in tongues. Since then some things have been clarified among the Quakers, and things have settled down. I have addressed Quaker meetings in places like Kotzebue in the Friends’ Mission Church.
Another group which teaches speaking in tongues and other ecstatic forms of expression are the Irvingians. They call themselves the Catholic Apostolic Church. The founder was Edward Irving. Among his circle of friends was one Mary Campbell, who began speaking in tongues in 1826. Various charismatic manifestations such as faith healing, visions, and prophecies attracted people for whom traditional churches no longer had any significance.
The Irvingians spread rapidly in England, Holland, USA, and especially in Germany, where their center was in Augsburg; but their largest congregation was in Stuttgart. By the year 1900, they had fifty thousand members.
Among ecstatic movements we must also number the Mormons, the Latter-Day Saints. Their founder was Joseph Smith (1805-1844), who was born in the state of Vermont, USA. This movement is marked by visions, revelations, speaking in tongues, and healing. In 1823, Smith had a vision of the angel Moroni, who showed him a chest containing some golden tablets on Mount Cumorah. Smith claimed to have received these tablets in 1827. For the Mormons, the words written on these tablets have the same authority as the Bible. The length to which this labyrinth of false teachings took Smith is shown by his insistence that he had been consecrated to the Aaronic priesthood by John the Baptist. Peter, James, and John had later raised him to the priesthood of Melchizedek. Smith was murdered in 1844.
Everything that claims to possess an equal authority to the Scriptures is false teaching. For the Mormons, authority is found in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon. In the Catholic Church, authority is found in the Bible, but also in church tradition and the doctrinal pronouncements of the Pope. In some extremist circles, it is the Bible and the revelations and prophecies of those with “gifts of the Spirit.”
The speakers in tongues left Armenia, moved to the USA in 1900, and settled in Los Angeles. A few years later, this group joined the fellowship in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, who also spoke in tongues. Various charismatic groups gradually became established, mainly in America. To list them briefly, we note:
In 1899, the Reverend Parham, at a small Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, formed the conviction that speaking in tongues is the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
In 1900, this small movement came to Los Angeles, a city whose atmosphere of spiritism makes it a breeding ground for any ecstatic movement.
In 1906, a former student of Parham, W. J. Seymour, worked up a strong tongues movement at 312 Azusa Street, Los Angeles. In 1908, this enthusiastic movement was spread to Norway by Barrat, and to Hamburg and other towns by E. Meyer. The unedifying scenes which resulted led to the Berlin Declaration of September 1909. In 1959, a new charismatic movement began in Los Angeles. It affected not only the Pentecostal churches but all denominations. Los Angeles has been, since 1850, the starting point for all kinds of occult and extreme spiritual movements until the present day.
In 1967, the Jesus People movement began, again in California. This movement is not all of one mold. Among the extreme groups are also some small groups of genuine Christians who cannot hold their own against the general movement.
Parallel to the Jesus People movement is the so-called charismatic movement, which has a much wider scope than a tongues movement. Here it is not merely a matter of speaking in tongues, but of faith healing, visions, prophecies — in short, all the gifts of the Spirit. One can understand the starting point of those who belong to the charismatic movement. Cold congregations, with traditional and uninspired forms of worship, are not able to satisfy the spiritual hunger of many Christians.
If this hunger and seeking had remained within Biblical limits, the charismatic movement would have brought great blessing to Christendom. In reality, however, this so-called charismatic movement has issued a great sea of confusion, depending on evidences of power which owe much to religious suggestion, hysteria, hypnotic and occult influence. This pseudocharismatic awakening has become a worldwide threat and a confusion to true Christians. The pseudocharismatics are the elite, the advance guard of Satan, who would use them to attack the best members of the church of Christ . I must, however, warn anyone who would use these hard but frank words as an excuse for his own unspiritual attitude. Within the charismatic movement, there are tens of thousands of true Christians who will one day inherit the kingdom of God. On the other hand,there will not be a single modernist theologian in Heaven, unless he repents,receives Christ as Son of God and his own Savior, and throws his theology overboard, as Dr. Huntemann has done.
Why are genuine Christians found in the ranks of the pseudocharismatics? They must lack the gift of distinguishing between spirits, otherwise they would leave this movement. It is a common experience that, in the circles where gifts of the Spirit are most talked about, they are least to be found.
After this introduction, let me give a few examples:
Ex 30: Some years ago in Kevin Ranaghan’s book, Catholic Pentecostals, I read: “Baptism with the Holy Spirit leads to a greater love of Mary, a greater veneration of the Pope, a greater submission to the Catholic Church, a more
frequent attendance at Mass, and a greater authority in witnessing to these matters.”7 The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, not into false doctrines.
Ex 31: Another experience contains a similar lesson. Some years ago I gave several lectures in a church in Rock Island, Illinois, USA. The pastor told me he had been invited by the Jesuits in New York to come and speak about the gifts of the Spirit. This group of Jesuits belonged to the charismatic movement.
The pastor declined the invitation with the comment, “I should first address Jesuits on the subject of true repentance before I could deal with the subject of the gifts of the Spirit.” This pastor said to me, “The Jesuits have gone straight into speaking in tongues without being a true Christian, and that is not Scriptural.”
Ex 32: Another example is from Vim Malgo’s publication Mitternachtsruf. Notice that I am not alone in my assessment of the charismatic movement. “A lady who belonged to the Roman Catholic charismatic movement prayed for a long time for the baptism of the Spirit. Nothing obvious happened. She did not speak in tongues. Finally she cried out to the Lord in desperation, ‘I have now been asking You so long, and You have not given me my request. If You do not give me the baptism of the Spirit, I will speak to Your mother about it.’
At that very moment she began to speak in tongues.”
Vim Malgo adds: “Here again we cannot speak of a baptism of the Spirit, but rather of baptism with spirits.” I am thankful for the clarity of the view here expressed by Vim Malgo.8
Ex 33: In the New Covenant magazine I read the following caption: “The Holy Spirit: My Hope.”9 The article was written by Cardinal Suenens. Apart from the content of the article, the title itself is unscriptural. The New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ is our hope for eternal life. It is characteristic of the charismatic movement that the center of emphasis is shifted at this point. When people add to or subtract from the statements of the Holy Scriptures, the result is false teaching.
Ex 34: Also in New Covenant, Archbishop George Pearce of the Fiji Islands is reported as saying, “I owe to the Spirit, and to him alone, the fact that I have been given a new life.” Here again the focus has been shifted from its rightful place. Jesus says in John 10:28: “I give unto them eternal life.” And in Romans 6:23 Paul testifies that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We must not deduct anything from the work of the Holy Spirit, but neither must we move Him into the center of the work of salvation, as is done by the charismatic movement.
Ex 35: The worst example of which I have heard, took place in Batu, East Java. The Dutch evangelist, Hugenduyk (senior), was giving some lectures at the Batu Bible School. Among other things, he said, “We now no longer need speak of the cross of Jesus, of His blood and His redemption, but only of the work of the Holy Spirit.” A woman missionary from Batu told me of this.
Ex 36: In H. A. Baker’s book, Visions Beyond the Veil, the following appears: “Where is the Holy Spirit who was to come to carry on His [Jesus Christ’s] uncompleted task?”11 The uncompleted task of Jesus Christ? The apostle John tells us in John 19:30 that on the cross, Jesus cried out “It is finished.” In order to justify their actions and intrigues, members of the charismatic movement are prepared to declare the work of Jesus Christ incomplete.
This list of examples may be concluded with an excerpt from an illuminating report from the missionary G. A. Birch. In his report, this appears under Case 8. People who come for counseling are not, of course, cases — but it is difficult to find another word.
Ex 37: Mark (not his name) was a Christian in a church that he thought was formal and dead. He went to a Pentecostal church, where hands were laid on him, and he was what they called “slain in the spirit .” He was lying on the floor in a trance. When he came out of it, he was praising Jesus in a loud voice, and he continued praising Jesus.
While attending this Pentecostal church, Mark also received a gift of tongues. The name of the spirit of the tongue was “Domenigaio.” Here are some of the notes taken when this demon was cast out in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Domenigaio, how many associates are with you in Mark?”
“I am alone.”
“When did you enter him?”
“When he was slain in the spirit.”
“Who sent you?”
“The devil, from the pit.”
“Do you acknowledge our authority over you in Christ Jesus our Lord?”
“I do.”
“What is your commission from Satan?”
“To deceive.”
“How?”
“In his love for the Lord Jesus; ruin his faith; have him follow Satan.”
“You were posing as the Holy Spirit, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Mark denounces this demon in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is
cast out into the pit in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The name “Jesus” keeps coming into Mark’s mind, so we command in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that, if there is a demon in him named
Jesus, he come forward and give his name.
Answer, “Jesus.”
“What Jesus?”
“Jesus of the devil .”
“What is your work, what did Satan commission you to do?”
“To fool him; to steal the glory from God.”
“When did you enter into him?”
“When he was slain in the spirit.”
This demon had to acknowledge his defeat by our Lord Jesus Christ, through the blood of the cross, and was cast out and into the pit, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We see here again that demons sometimes claim to be Jesus. Further, it here becomes evident that the so-called baptism of the Spirit in the charismatic movement is usually an opportunity for demons to enter.
Experiences with the so-called charismatic movement teach us to pray more than ever for the gift of discerning of spirits. These experiences also warn us to be led, in faith and obedience by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, into all truth”.