20/05/2016
SCRIPTURAL EXAMINATION OF HANDKERCHIEF,APRON,WATER AND OTHER SUBSTANCES IN MIRACLE GOSPEL. By Pastor Paul Rika
IN AFRICA call +2348167932399 or +2348056834323
IN EUROPE call +441708375742 or +44795601465
In NORTH AMERICA +12024863150 or +12024137799. Movement Book Store.
There is a new phenomenon especially among some African churches where HANDKERCHIEFS,APRONS and ANOINTING OIL and HOLY WATER are being handed around a congregation claiming that they have an anointing that can cause people to be healed and other miraculous things happen to them.
The problem with this idea is especially evident in two things: (1) that this can and is being considered by many to be Christian magic and (2) that it is being taught as being something that should be a normal part of the Christian experience. It is taught that if you have faith you will believe in touching the handkerchief that you will be healed, freed from demons, or get a special anointing. But faith is not proven by signs and wonders. The Bible says:
Jude 1:20-23 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and (1) pray in the Holy Spirit. (2) Keep yourselves in God’s love as you (3) wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (4) Be merciful to those who doubt; (5) sn**ch others from the fire and save them; (6) to others show mercy, mixed with fear— (7) hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
So faith is shown in these things, not believing in something that isn’t even to be a normal Christian experience but was a one time event in history where God did miracles to prove that Paul and the other Apostles were genuine and foundational to the Church. Don’t get me wrong. God can do miraculous things especially to help the unbeliever to believe. I have seen this in my own experience. But we must be careful not to pull the stories of Acts out of context and still expect the Lord to bless us.
Acts 19: 11-12 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.
The problem with taking something that happened in Acts and applying it to the church today, assuming that it is to be a normal part of the Christian experience, is that this is an erroneous practice. This is exactly what has caused cults to arise in Christianity. God did some amazing things through Paul, but part of the reason was to confirm his Apostleship. Many did not believe that Paul had the authority of the Lord to teach and do what he was doing. They knew Paul had persecuted the Church and did not believe that he had really changed. So God did many miraculous things through Paul. One of those things is a good illustration of why we cannot take miraculous events from Acts and assume that they will be a normal part of the Church today. There are no more foundational apostles that God is showing through signs and miracles that they are who He said they are. You might remember the story of when Paul was shipwrecked, God saved them, and when Paul was on the shore of the isle of Malta. He was eating with the islanders there when a snake crawled out of the brushwood he had gathered for the fire and bit him.
Acts 28:1-6 Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.
Now the islanders did not know the Lord so when they saw that the viper did not kill Paul, which is a deadly snake, they were amazed. The only thing then knew was to call Paul a god, but Paul was not a god but protected by the God he served. Now a viper is a deadly snake.
The most dangerous thing I have noticed concerning this development is that these anointed objects are slowly and steadily taking the place of Christ in the lives of people hence ending up being idols. John Calvin once remarked that ‘the human heart is a factory of idols’ and indeed due to our fallen nature, we easily make idols of many shapes and sizes and worship them thereafter.
The anointed items are fast becoming idols for many. What is happening with this anointed stuff is that people are told to use them whenever they want to experience a miracle or blessing from God. Recently, I met a relation who is a Christian and he greatly boasted about a certain anointed sticker bearing a face of ‘man of God’ and said:
“You know, this sticker is very powerful. I always travel with it in my car and if the devil had plans for me to get involved in a road accident, it doesn’t work. I am also told that next time, I am invited for job interviews, I should just put it in my shirt’s pocket and before entering the interview, I should pull it out, gaze at it for a while and then say a prayer and I will be successful.”
It is evident that my relation’s life is revolving around this anointed sticker. To him this sticker is his life. Now, where is the place of Christ in his life? Are not our lives supposed to revolve around Christ? I hope you get my point. I will not mince words here: placing our faith in this anointed stuff is superstition and nothing else. It is not different from relying on charms or ‘small pillows’ from witchdoctors.
Mostly Africans will understand this better. For most Africans who are not Christians, they rely on witchdoctors. For instance, when one wants to get a job, they might go to a witchdoctor who would give them some charms which they are to put in their trouser’s pocket when going for job-interviews. The charms, they are told, will guarantee success in the interviews.
I believe this is similar to how some Christians are treating these anointed objects. Only that this time around we have sugar-coated the anointed stuff with the name of Christ. Please, fellow Christian, think twice about your involvement with these anointed objects.
A couple of things need to be pointed out here. Firstly,You need to get your own copy of this book by calling these numbers to order for your own copy. God speed!
