DOCTRINE QUESTION 42:

QUESTION 42:
What about being "slain in the Spirit", is this of God?

ANSWER:
The only way we can know what is of God is if He tells us. He has only spoken to us by His word, the Bible. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20. The previous verse speaks of "familiar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter."

To put the modern experience of "being slain, drunk, or laughing, in the spirit," to the test of Isaiah 8:20, it must be utterly rejected. There is absolutely nothing in Holy Scripture that resembles this movement. Mark 9:20 tells us about a boy that "the spirit tare him; he fell to the ground, and wallowed (rolled) foaming." This was not the Spirit of God, but an evil spirit.

One would search the scriptures in vain to find these things. Experiences prove nothing. Heathen witch doctors along with physics and hypnotists experience all sorts of phenomenal things. God warns His people to beware of these things. Read Deuteronomy 18:10-12; Leviticus 19:31 and Leviticus 20:6. In 1 Timothy 4:1, we are told that in the latter days there would be "seducing (misleading, deceiving) spirits.

Let God's people be warned to test all things by God's word. With many teachings of man, they can twist a verse here and there to support what they think; but I know of no verse that could be perverted to support such nonsense as "laughing in the spirit, or braying like a donkey, etc. "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion." (1 Corinthians 14:32-33). "He that hath not rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." Proverbs 25:28. To let your mind or spirit go out from under your control, is opening the door for any spirit to enter.

"Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not." Proverbs 8:33 "...let God be true, but every man a liar;..." Romans 3:4.

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

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Updated July 2009, by Shelly Allen