Why I Don’t Believe Benny Hinn Type Revivals Are of the Holy Spirit

In Lincoln’s Battle with God, historian Stephen Mansfield recounts the camp meeting revivals which were so prominent during Lincoln’s upbringing. Using Barton Stone as a source he writes:

There was the falling exercise, in which a person would “with a piercing scream, fall like a log on the floor, earth or mud, and appear as dead.” Then there was a phenomenon called “the jerks.” Stone insisted that in this manifestation a man’s head “would be jerked backward and forward, or from side to side, so quickly that the features of the face could not be distinguished . . . I have seen the person stand in one place, and jerk backward and forward in quick succession, their head nearly touching the floor behind and before.” There was also the dancing exercise, the barking exercise— in which “a person affected with the jerks, especially in his head, would often make a grunt, or bark, if you please, from the suddenness of the jerk”— and the laughing exercise. Understandably, there was the running exercise, in which “persons feeling something of these bodily agitations, through fear, attempted to run away.” -Mansfield, Stephen. Lincoln’s Battle with God: A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America (Kindle Locations 602-609). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

This type of “manifestation of the Spirit” as it is so often called, was not confined to the backwater regions or the time period of the American pioneers. One can turn on the television and find similar things on the televised Benny Hinn conferences. I’ve even been in a few churches like this where I’ve witnessed similar things.

Whether it be the falling exercises, the “jerks”, or screams, or laughing, one thing they all hold in common; namely, a belief that to be really in the Spirit is to no longer have self-control. The idea is that when the Spirit takes over the flesh gets out of the way. Folks falling at the wave of Benny Hinn’s suit coat is testimony that the Spirit is moving mightily as folks have no control over their ability to even stand up. The Spirit, we are told, is too powerful in that place for humanity to get in the way—He has his way with them and it’s evidenced by their utter lack of self-control.

But I see one massive problem with the idea that the evidence of the Spirit’s moving is an utter lack of self-control. It doesn’t jive with Galatians 5:22-23. According to that passage the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…(emphasis mine). How do you know when the Spirit is at work and not just fleshly desires? It isn’t because folks have lost control—it’s actually the opposite.

To be “drunk on the Spirit” isn’t to go around like you are drunk on wine. To be filled with the Spirit is to see the darkening and damning effects of the fall overturned in your life. Or to put that another way it is to be increasingly more loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and to have your self under control. John Stott says it well:

But it is a serious mistake to suppose that to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ is a kind of spiritual inebriation in which we lose control of ourselves. On the contrary, ‘self control’ is the final quality named as ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5:22-23. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit we do not lose control; we gain it. (Stott on Ephesians, 204)

So that’s why I don’t buy it. I don’t think the laughing, barking, jerking, and dropping stuff we see on television is really of the Spirit. I don’t buy it for one second that the reason why these types of “revivals” are almost always followed up by terrible dry periods is because man got in the way of the Spirit of God. As I read the Scriptures, I believe the problem is that this wasn’t a move of the Holy Spirit in the first place. Galatians 5 is also clear that dissension and strife is what you see when folks are running on flesh instead of Spirit. I don’t think its an accident that time after time we’ve witnessed exactly these things following on the heels of such “revivals”.

If you really want to see a movement of God don’t be waiting for something to come over you in such a way that you lose control. Instead be looking for a new power for obedience to God’s already revealed Word. You want to see a movement of God it will be a movement of holiness. It will be marriages healed, relationships restored, lasting repentance happening. And each of these will be grounded in what Christ has already accomplished for us. True biblical revival is gospel motivated and will show itself in lasting fruit which gives honor and glory to Jesus.

And I’m saying all of this because it pains me to see folks exchanging the precious gospel of Jesus for some silly little charade. It pains me to see people thinking they’ve tried Jesus and had an experience with the Spirit when all they’ve probably done is danced with a demon they’ve named Savior. I abhor the “burned over district” that is often left in the wake of this stuff, when people are now even more hardened to the gospel because that fleeting moment of ecstasy is what they now equate with the good news of Christ.

Just keep faithfully plodding along and preaching the unchanging gospel of Jesus and I’m confident the Spirit will attend your ministry. And you’ll see the real work of the Spirit and not this garbage that fits better as a Branson side show.

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