Belief in Continuing Revelation Leads to Heresy, Apostasy, and Sin

The Bible is God’s Word. It is whole, complete, and without error. God didn’t leave out anything important. Everything we need to know about why we were created, how we can be saved, and what God expects of us, is in it (II Timothy 3:16-17

In the days before Jesus came to earth, and during the early years of the church, God poured out special gifts through the Holy Spirit onto his prophets and disciples, giving them the ability to foresee the future, supernaturally heal, speak in other languages they’d never learned, and exhibit other incredible supernatural powers for the express intent of proving that the messages they were bringing were true and of God (I Corinthians 14:22). But once the Bible was complete, I believe the Scripture is clear, the sign gifts ceased because that which is perfect had come (I Corinthians 13:8,10).

The problem with so many denominations today is that they have strayed off course and bought into the idea that God is giving continuing revelation today, and that He is still pouring out his supernatural gifts on individuals. In fact, in some churches, the Bible is considered “old news” and “new, fresh revelation” is what is sought. Since the Bible itself says that is it all we need (II Timothy 3:15-17), this “new revelation” movement opens up a Pandora’s box of problems.

A common thread among cults is the belief in continuing revelation.

If God is still speaking to individuals and giving them supernatural revelations, then how is one to know who is really receiving those messages and who is a charlatan?

Take, for example, “Pastor” Jesse French, of the Solid Life Ministries-Church of Disciples in Rockledge FL, who somehow convinced a naïve (and evidently Bible illiterate) church member that God told him she needed to be anointed with oil in the nude to cure what ailed her. Not only that, but God told him the specific details about how they should set up their appointments for these “healing” encounters – three “one-hour sessions” or one “three-hour session”, so that her “yoke” could be removed. Police say she was quoted Scripture which convinced her that she should submit to “God’s will”.

I’m not sure what Scripture French could have quoted her to convince her that God would change His Law and make an exception on fornication, but it is so sad to know that this woman knew so little of her Bible that this monster could convince her to do what she knew in her heart was wrong.

How can anybody be so deceived, you ask?

In too many churches today, the emphasis is on “feeling good”, getting an emotional “high” and getting “pumped up”. My son recently visited a church (to repay a visit to ours) where the music was the center of the service, there was dancing and shouting in the ailes, and the “pastor” told the congregation that God had told him “not” to preach a message that day.

People don’t read their Bibles, and they’re not getting fed from the pulpit, so they blindly (like sheep) follow their leaders into the apostate zone, going away from their services talking about how “awesome” they were, but not knowing the Lord anymore when they come out than they did when they went in – and certainly not being able to apply God’s Word in their lives in order to become more like Him.

We’re to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). And we’re to live by every word that He’s given us (Matthew 4:4). If we are in the Word every day, and submitted to God’s authority and will for our lives, then the Jesse Frenches of the world will be obvious to us (II Timothy 2:15).

Scripture References:

John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

I Corinthians 13:8 “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”

I Corinthians 13:10: “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”

I Corinthians 14:22: “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not…”

II Timothy 3:15- 17 “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

Matthew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

II Timothy 2:15: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”