What Guy taught us is that we should not be afraid of seeing our work be used in ways we never intended. He said you should be so lucky if someone buys your product and uses it for all the unintended reasons. His example is of course the Mac. He and Jobs and the Mac team intended the Mac to be a spreadsheet processor. But nobody used it for that. Instead, they used it for desktop publishing and artwork. He mentioned that a business might be tempted to get upset because they lost control over their product. Instead, Guy urges us to accept such things and embrace the success. Like Jobs, Guy says “Go dent the universe!” He teaches us to let the flowers blossom where they blossom, and let your creations grow and take on their own life. In the Christian sense, the message is this: You are not in control of your ministry, the Holy Spirit is.

How the purpose of ubfriends changed

Guy’s advice helps me embrace what ubfriends has become, instead of trying to control it. When I helped start ubfriends with Joe and a couple others, we were both pro-UBF and had a very specific idea about what we wanted to accomplish. We thought UBF could be reformed. For example consider this quote from our About page:

This website is not intended to promote or denigrate UBF or any organization. Our purpose is to serve people by giving them an independent forum to learn, to think, and to express themselves in a healthy and friendly manner. We hope that this website will foster multi-way conversations among friends, open new channels of communication and friendships among people of different ages and backgrounds, overcoming prejudice and stereotypes, help members of UBF develop stronger connections to the broader Christian community, and help us to see multiple sides of difficult issues and truly learn from one another, even when we do not agree.

We had hoped to discuss Christian theology and bring real change and reform to the UBF group.

That all changed because what has been revealed is that the foundations of the group are in shambles. Like an old house that cannot be repaired and must be torn down, we uncovered the failed theology called UBFism that cannot be repaired. UBFism is hindering all of us from seeing the all-surpassing gospel Jesus preached.

Over time, many different kinds of flowers blossomed here on this website.

Why must UBF be redeemed and not reformed?

Many hundreds of people over many decades from many cultures, including Korea, have attempted to reform UBF. It has not worked. The business model is fundamentally flawed, as Joe pointed out recently. Furthermore, UBFism is a theology that needs to be deconstructed and exposed as harmful.

This week I have extra time to ponder all these things. It has been an eye-opening week too, as I have had more people reach out to me and share confirmations of abuses. Some UBF leaders should be in jail for not reporting such abuse. This denial of abuse is the main reason I say UBF cannot just be changed or reformed, but must be stopped so that redemption can begin.

Here are the topics numerous people were talking about on social media this week:

– An older Korean missionary has routinely slept with his daughter.
– An American shepherd regularly molested children at CBF.
– A student regularly molested children and then was appointed to lead children’s singing.
– An American shepherd was made to live in a one room apartment with only a small window in order to kill off his worldly desires.
– An American shepherd was sick and kept at home with an IV instead of going to the emergency room.
– A Korean missionary died at a UBF center and they prayed instead of calling 911.
– Some 2nd gens are locked in their rooms after they partied too much and got drunk.

When will it stop? Will you speak up? 

Here are some examples of what I am trying to say, from our previous articles. In order to see many flowers grow and blossom, UBFism must be stopped and deconstructed:

Here is my bluntly worded article:
http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/05/08/it-must-come-to-an-end/

Here is Joe’s nicely worded article with John Amstrong’s input:
http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/05/09/john-armstrong-on-knowing-when-to-stop/

Here is Ben’s good article, in Ben Toh’s ubf-friendly style:
http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/11/09/why-churches-stop-growing/

So people can pick which “tone” they like, but in regard to this topic Ben, Joe and I are on the same page, even though we arrive from different viewpoints.

Prayer as calling God long distance

For most of my life I imagined God sitting in heaven, millions of miles away. Communicating with God was like making a long distance call on a telephone. The call went something like this: “Dear most gracious father in heaven, thank you for your great work. Help me to overcome my laziness. I am the worst of sinners but thank you for your amazing love for me. Please help my sheep to repent of being family-centered and come to the summer bible conference. Open his heart, Lord, and give him a new desire to accept my invitation. May God make America a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This kind of repeated long distance call left me empty, weak and confused after two decades of praying this way. I realize now some reasons why. One reason is that this prayer was a one way dictation of my needs to God. By constantly telling God what I wanted and what I wanted to be accomplished, I was treating God like a big vending machine in the sky. Another reason is that I kept praying to God this way out of fear. And another big reason for my emptiness came from dictating my will to God. That gets strenuous after a while. There was no room to listen to God, prayer was just me talking to God about myself and others. So my prayer life was marked by personal ambition, fear, and dictation.

Prayer as daily communion with the Spirit

As I’ve already shared, about 3 years ago I felt the Holy Spirit come over me in an unmistakable and very tangible manner after a certain phone call. Since then, my prayer life changed almost immediately. I no longer have any specific time set aside “to pray”. No longer do I envision God in heaven miles away. Still, at first, I felt guilty for not praying to God in heaven at a specific time as I always had for decades. That kind of prayer is fine to do, but I wanted something more. So I tried to do just that. But when I did that I had a noticeable feeling that I was ignoring someone right next to me, as if I was calling my grandmother in another city only to hear her cell phone ring because she was sitting right next to me. Making such a long distance call to talk to my grandmother on her cell phone when she is sitting in the same room as me would be very rude and insulting to her.

So prayer for me has become a daily communion with the Holy Spirit. No talking or communicating was involved at first. I just sensed a strong presence of God, always very near, almost inside me. From that first moment in 2011, my mind, heart and soul have been at peace, almost consumed by an effervescent comfort, joy and love. I felt surrounded by a protective, safe presence. That presence is so beautiful and amazing that sinful desires melt away far more quickly than ever before. Brother Lawrence seemed to explain my experience exactly in his book “The Practice of the presence of God”. I could never generate such a presence myself, it just happened suddenly and unexpectedly at one of the lowest points of my life.

For example:

“God is our “end.” If we are diligently practicing His presence, we shouldn’t need our former “means.” We can continue our exchange of love with Him by just remaining in His holy presence. Adore Him and praise Him!” –The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) Loc. 196-97

Thankfully, these worries did not weaken my faith in God, but actually made it stronger. When I finally reached the point where I expected the rest of my life to be very difficult, I suddenly found myself wholly changed.
” –The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) Loc. 218-20

“I don’t know what’s to become of me. It seems that a tranquil soul and a quiet spirit come to me even while I sleep. Because I am at rest, the trials of life bring me no suffering. I don’t know what God has in store for me, but I feel so serene that it doesnt matter.
” –The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) Loc. 286-87

Prayer as listening and discerning

One of the biggest revelations I’ve had about prayer is that prayer is mostly listening. Yes we have words to say to God. The Psalmists show us how we can express all kinds of emotions to God (without ticking God off!) And our Lord and Savior gave us the grand examples of how to pray. But both the Psalmists and Jesus listened to God, not only dictating their will to God, but trying to discern what God would have them do, and then struggling to obey.

Here is my brief outline of ways I’ve been learning to listen to God by hearing what the Holy Spirit is saying to me. The question here is this: How do I listen to God, discern God’s voice from other voices and obey what God would have me do?

1. The Holy Spirit guides us through…
-prompting (raising questions; leaving words impressed in our mind)
-prohibiting (raising objections; sudden sense of not doing something)
-clarifying (discover the root of anger, source of confusion)

2. The Holy Scriptures guide us through…
-explicit phrases (not just one word or verse but paragraphs and books)
-self-interpretation (bible teaches about itself)
-stories (teaching us principles not always specific laws to conform to)

3. The Holy people of God (other believers) guide us through…
-perspective (speaking words that speak to us)
-accountability (calling us out)
-listening (hearing our stories)

More questions

As I said in my intro, this article is not complete. I want to share my story and find out if anyone else has anything to share about communicating with God.

How do you listen to God? How have you encountered the Holy Spirit? What is your prayer life like? What do you think it means to discern God’s will? Who determines God’s will for your life?

Some further reading

In addition to The Practice of the Presence of God, I find this article helpful:

What does the bible say about communicating with God?

“Believers should constantly examine their communication. We should consider the tone of newer forms of communication such as email and text messaging. We should never allow the safety of a computer screen to lead us to harsh or ungodly words toward others. We should consider our body language and facial expressions toward others as well. Simply withholding words is meaningless when our body language communicates disdain, anger, or hatred toward another. When engaged in conversation, as we prepare to speak, we should ask ourselves these questions: it is true (Exodus 20:16)? Is it kind (Titus 3:2)? Is it necessary (Proverbs 11:22)?”

I thought, wow, what a concept! Christ-followers are happiest and most fruitful and blessed when we recognize the seasons of our life, the seasons of our community and the seasons of our family. As our pastor prayed for each one of us individually and we share our concluding thoughts he asked us: What’s next?  (He also asked us to be on the lookout for anyone who might want to take the class in the fall. I said “Do you have room for 8,000 people? :)

What’s next?

But that question, what’s next? sums up what I learned over the past nine months in this class my wife and I have been attending every Tuesday evening. I’ve learned to pay attention to the Holy Spirit’s promptings and to listen to people around me. At the beginning of the class I told everyone that I viewed myself as an empty shell, hollowed out with nothing inside and no idea of what God would have for me to do. As my wife and I shared our life narrative over the next several months, we shocked, stunned and amazed the other members in the class. But we also were shocked, stunned and amazed at hearing their stories and what their lives entailed.

What’s next for me and my wife? I don’t know exactly. But I do know we are now “filled up and being filled” with love, goodness, kindness, patience and an increased self-esteem and self-awareness. Here are some things I’ve learned that I feel compelled to share with our ubfriends community. I love each of you dearly.

Listen to the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Spirit is alive! Yes, you can listen to Him! And yes, the Spirit is God. What’s next for me? I answered that I will continue to listen and discern the promptings of the Spirit and let Him lead my journey in His way.

Gordon T. Smith articulates this well: “Christians of all traditions are appreciating more and more that the voice of Jesus is also present to the Christian community through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit… This inner witness is always grounded in the written witness of the Spirit–holy Scripture–and it is recognized by those who live in mutual submission within the community of faith. With these two anchors in place, Christians can know and live by the remarkable reality that God speaks to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, and that Jesus is present to us by his Spirit. We hear the voice of Jesus as we attend to the inner witness of the Spirit.”

Listen to your family and community. One of the more intriguing abilities I gained in our class was to begin to learn how to listen to people around me. I had to unlearn my “dictate and command” approach and start to listen to what people say and do. It was fascinating to begin to get to know my wife, and start listening to her, even though we’ve been married 19 years. What is my wife saying to me? What is my family saying? What is my community saying? I’ve learned in a whole new way that our journey of following Christ is not just an individual journey, but a communal journey. Together we go!

This collaborative approach to following Christ is expressed well in the following quotes from one of our lessons: “A collaborative approach seeks to accomplish goals through cooperative interaction and efforts of multiple people. We experience the joy of sharing challenges and victories, often facilitating a gradual move from a “me” mentality to a “we” mentality. Collaboration then puts a high priority upon the importance of building trusting relationships. Nothing can be more corrosive to a community, whether it is a family or team or organization, than distrust… In all of this, intentional communication is a key to nurturing healthy and empowering relationships.”

Listen to your self. Perhaps the most edifying part of the nine month class was for me to begin to know my “self”. I felt like finally, after decades of trying to be somebody else, I could begin to be myself.  Augustine’s prayer about knowing God and knowing self was highlighted in one of the classes, and has impacted me deeply.

This quote by Robert Greenleaf speaks volumes: “I have come to believe that every part of my life affects or influences my life with God. The world I live in, with its beauty and tragedy, with its creatiures of all forms and shapes, is constantly offering me messages about who I am and who God is. Everything and everyone teaches me about God, life, and myself…I try now to approach each person, event, creature with two questions: How are you my teacher? What am I supposed to learn?”

Questions

Yes, some things must come to an end. But every ending leads to a new season, a new beginning, and a new segment of our journey in the Kingdom. I want to conclude with the questions that ended the class. It was so refreshing to end with questions, not with answers! I would love to hear your thoughts. And I’m grateful you’ve all been on this journey with me together!

What have you learned about who God is and what God is like?

What has become clear to you about yourself?

What have you become aware of about who you are and who God is creatively shaping you to be?

What unique calling or purpose is God prompting you to follow?

In what I believe was an answer to this prayer, God led me to 1:1 Bible study in UBF. My Bible teacher helped me to confront my sin in repentance and receive forgiveness. I entered a very in-depth program of Bible study, testimony writing, evangelism, outreach, prayer, attending meetings, and so on. It kept me busy so that I had no time to sin. Testimony writing gave me opportunities to examine myself and see where I had sinned.

Bible teachers trained me in various ways to help me grow. When I exhibited pride, I was given the name “Humble.” When I struggled with lust, I was given a purity ring and encouraged to wear it as a reminder to be pure. These things are not bad necessarily, but the result was bad: I began to assess my spiritual condition according to how well-managed my sin was. Once I was told that my connection to God is like a pipe through which His love flows, and sin blocks up the pipe. I became so preoccupied with unblocking the pipe, I never stopped to realize that there was no water flowing through it anyway.

Nowadays, the Holy Spirit is leading me to realize that my Christian life is more than just overcoming my brokenness. It is about Jesus, who bore my brokenness on the cross and rose again to set me free to love him and others. All the training, repentance testimonies, and self-inspection couldn’t bring real freedom. It could only manage my sin—ensuring it didn’t get out of control. But Jesus, beautiful Jesus, and His precious holy blood transfuses my heart with a rich and eternal flow that emancipates, enlivens, empowers, enriches, and establishes me secure in His love forever! (That alliteration is for you, Ben!)

How about you? Has your focus been on managing sin or receiving real freedom in Jesus to love God and others?

What does “unobtrusive” mean?

My answer is both Yes and No. Yes, because I am called to be responsible as a Christian and an overseer over the people of God entrusted to my stewardship. No, because I am not God nor the Holy Spirit. So how does this Yes and No answer play out in practical Christian leadership?

Balance and Nuance. My seeming “obtrusiveness” in shepherding sheep for 25 years arose from what I believed I needed to do to in order to be a responsible good shepherd. But I no longer wish to do what I have done in the way that I did them, while still taking full responsibility of those entrusted to my stewardship. I would rather be unobtrusive, even if that is not my natural disposition. I want to allow the Holy Spirit (NOT ME) to spell out the details in the lives of those I influence. In order to let the Holy Spirit work in others, I pray to learn how to be unobtrusive.

Too Laissez Faire? But if I don’t spell out the details for my “sheep,” am I being too laissez faire in shepherding them? I heard it said that I now no longer “train my sheep” and simply “let them do whatever they want.” Yes, I am indeed wishing to give my sheep one of the most unique distinctives of Christianity, which is freedom (Gal 5:1; 2 Cor 3:17; Jn 8:32). I want those who come to know me to find the freedom they never knew outside of Christ. Yes, I want them to do whatever they want, which is to truly delight in the Lord (Ps 37:4) when they hear me proclaim Christ and the gospel of God’s grace clearly (Acts 20:24). If and when they see the beauty of Christ through the gospel (Ps 27:4; Isa 33:17), then what they will want to do more than anything else is to love Jesus and to serve and worship Him alone.

Do I Let the Holy Spirit Work in Others? My wife sometimes jokingly says to me, “I was not like this before marriage. But after marriage, I became annoying like you!” Yes, I want the Holy Spirit to work. Yes, I want to be unobtrusive. But yes, I am still a major work in progress because I am still under construction. Thank God who is ever patient with us (Rom 2:4).

Should Christian leaders be unobtrusive? Do your Christian leaders insist on obedience to them (as I did for 2 decades), or do they trust the Holy Spirit to work in you?

The important question then, is what are the marks of a work that is done by the Spirit?

How should we could judge any activity and determine if it is produced by God’s Spirit or not? Edwards provides the answers from 1 John 4.

1. When Biblical Jesus is lifted up.

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (2,3)

When people are interested in Jesus, respect him, seek for him and love him more then they did before – it is a true mark that the action is produced by Holy Spirit. Biblical Jesus means Jesus who was described in Bible. Jesus who came as the man, which was born from the Spirit and the virgin. Jesus who is the Son of God and the Christ. Jesus who became the only Savior for mankind, without whom we have no hope. Just Holy Spirit could lead human to this Jesus. And any false spirit could not and never will not do it. The spirit of antichrist can just draw and preach some another, mystical Jesus, who is not the Biblical Savior from sins.

2. When the Spirit acts against Satan’s kingdom.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. (4,5)

The one who is in you (Holy Spirit) is opposite to the one in the world. By “the world” the Apostle means human’s lust and corruption (1 Jn. 2:15, 16). So the Spirit which reduced people’s desire toward world sinful pleasures and honors, and instead makes them to sincere seek the God’s kingdom and righteousness is the Spirit from God. This Spirit shows to people the horror of sin and hell, waking up their conscience and compels them to look for the salvation. Satan will not drive out Satan (Mk 3:23). So Satan will never wake up the conscience, which is a God’s representative in one’s soul and will never inspire the sincere fear for sin to the person.

3. When the Bible is respected as true and inspired by God.

We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (6)

Here “us” means Apostles and Prophets who were inspired by Holy Spirit to bring God’s message and will in the world. The Holy Spirit will move people to have a greater regard for Scripture, moving people to regard the Bible as true, moving people to regard the Bible as divinely written. Satan will never motivate people to respect the Bible and to apply to it for guidance for their lives and salvation. He will not let them to ask answers from God’s lips. Satan does not speak like Abraham did, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them” (Luke 16:29). Neither will Satan speak like the voice from heaven concerning Christ, “Listen to him.” (Luke 9:35). The Spirit of Truth always leads us back to the written text of the Bible.

4. When people see the world and themselves like they really are.

This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood (6b)

Here the Spirit of God is described as the Spirit of truth who is imitated by false spirits. If the Spirit convinces person it the things which are true – this is the Spirit of truth. So if the Spirit convinces the person that there is God, who is holy and hates sin, that life is short, that there is another world, and there will be God’s judgment – this could not be a false spirit. The Holy Spirit does not ignore or gloss over or try to change the facts of our life. The Holy Spirit leads people into the light and truth, while Satan is the king of darkness and lies.

5. When people love God and love their neighbor more.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (7, 8)

Almost all following verses of the chapter talks of love. He talks of love like it was the very nature of God’s Spirit. He talks of love like it’s presence in the person is the same as God’s Spirit presence. So the true love toward God and God’s people, which is based on God’s love revealed in Gospel, is really true mark of God’s Spirit work.

Yes it is true that among those who is led by false spirit could be some kind of false love as well. For example if they are hated by all other people because of some particular qualities, sure they will love and welcomed those who are similar to them in this point. But this love is based on their love toward themselves. And then it will make them even more proud of these qualities. This love is very similar to love between pirates. But Christian love always comes from God’s wonderful grace and follows along with our humbleness.

For this holiday weekend (well at least in America it’s a holiday!), I’d like to publish a heartfelt story that my grandmother sent to me today.

It is in slideshow form and was translated from French into English: Mon_fils_English

Here is a free viewer if you have trouble viewing the file: Free MS PowerPoint viewer.

5. When people are stongly influenced by the personal example of others. Personal example plays an important role in human life and in all interactions among people whether or not the Spirit is moving. If many people begin to take action after being influenced by someone’s personal example, and if many people or many groups begin to exhibit similar thoughts and behaviors, it means nothing.

6. When the behavior of people affected by a movement seems irrational or incoherent. Edwards writes, “We are to consider that the end for which God pours out his Spirit, is to make men holy, and not to make them politicians.” The Spirit works to draw people to God and is not much concerned about appearances or outward behaviors. During outpourings of the Spirit, all kinds of people may be affected, including those who may be young, inexperienced, or unbalanced. It is very natural that some could behave unreasonably and irationally. They may break rules about behavior and act in ways that are unscriptural while being under the influence of the Holy Spirit. People remain sinners all their lives, and the corrupted nature still lives in them and affects them. The church in Corinth provides a good example of this. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he points out many problems and sins in the congregation, and yet there was still powerful evidence of the Holy Spirit in their midst. God does not want us to be lukewarm. Spiritual enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. But when Spirit-driven enthusiasm comes, human corruption — the pride and passions of the flesh — may be invisibly mixed in with it. The time of enthusiasm may also be a time of dangerous, unbiblical extremes, and movements of the Spirit can bring forth good fruits in the presence of these corrupt fruits.

7. When mistakes in thinking and even satanic deceptions are present. The Spirit does not wait until people have pure, infallible doctrine in order to work in them. Many godly, Spirit-led people have exhibited incorrect teachings and practices. All saints live in a state of corruption, and until Jesus comes, the kingdom of God will coexist with evil.

8. If some people who were involved in a movement later left or even became great heretics. The presence of false teachings does not rule out the presence of truth. Great movements of the Spirit are often accompanied or followed by great errors. For example, the heresy of Gnosticism arose during the age of the Apostles. Edwards, who was unabashedly Protestant, noted that, “How great was the number of those who for a while seemed to join with the reformers, yet fell away into the grossest and most absurd errors, and abominable practices.” Even in the ministry of Jesus, among the twelve apostles there was a Judas.

I want to stop here for a moment and say that Points 6, 7, 8 were very interesting and challenging to me. I learned two important principles here. First, I learned that when mistakes, sins and heresies are present, that is not conclusive evidence that a whole movement is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. This makes me want to be very careful in making judgments and jumping to fast conclusions. As long as we are living in this present world, we cannot expect everthing to appear just black or white.

The second thing I learned is that even when the work of the Holy Spirit is clearly present, we should expect human mistakes and sins to be intermingled with the Spirit’s work. People who are moved by the Spirit may be seriously sinful, mistaken and deceived on some points. So, even in the presence of great evidence of the Spirit’s work, no one can be sure that he is above reproach. Even when God is using someone greatly, he must always be ready to repent and correct his ways.

9. When hell and God’s holy law are strongly emphasized. Jonathan Edwards is remembered for preaching on God’s wrath, judgment and hell, and some of his critics thought that he over-emphasized these things. Edwards argues that the holiness and wrath of God may be preached in order to lead people to the gospel. Preaching God’s holy law is useless without Gospel, but apart from the law the gospel makes no sense. It is perfectly reasonable for Spirit-led preachers to speak of God’s holiness and wrath to prepare the way for the gospel. But they must never do so in a cold, insincere, uncaring or flippant manner. And Edwards acknowledges that some ministers emphasize law and wrath too much and preach on other topics too little.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world

Jonathan Edwards was a witness to and one of key figures in the Great Awakening (c. 1730-1745). During this great revival, the Holy Spirit came and worked in new and unexpected ways. This revival touched many lives and had many followers, but it had many strong opponents as well. The opponents pointed to unusual phenomena within this movement, claiming it was not the true work of the Spirit, and because of it questioned the validity of whole movement.

Very often (if not always), a great work of the God’s Spirit will be accompanied by false imitations. Phenomena which are not produced by Holy Spirit, even though they may appear to be acts of the Holy Spirit, can be dangerous and ruinous. This happened even in the earliest days of the church.

In his short book The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, Edwards defended the Great Awakening as an authentic work of the Holy Spirit. He described phenomena which were wrongly used as evidence against the movement, and he showed how the authentic works of the Holy Spirit could be recognized according to 1 John chapter 4 which the Apostle John devoted to this very question.

In Part 1 of the book, Edwards mentions nine “negative signs,” characteristics which do not provide conclusive evidence one way or the other of whether a movement is a true work of the Spirit. Edwards talks very specifically here, because he wanted to defend what had happened locally during the Great Awakening, but his observations are interesting and seem broadly applicable to other times and places.

Here are the first four of the negative signs mentioned by Edwards. Once again, by calling them “negative signs,” Edwards is not saying that these marks prove that the Holy Spirit is not at work. He is saying that these signs may accompany a true movement of the Spirit, but they may be found in counterfeit movements as well.

1. When people experience a dramatic change of mind and are influenced in extraordinary ways. God is very creative and powerful. He has done unexpected, marvelous things in the past and surely he will do them again. His own word in the Bible does not limit his activity, so we should not limit his activity either. An activity may be inspired by Holy Spirit even if we don’t like it and have not seen anything like it before. Quite the opposite, it is in line with God’s character to amaze people and angels. So even if people behave in ways that we have never encountered, we cannot not use their unusual behavior as evidence against the presence of the Holy Spirit.

2. Tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or the failing of bodily strength. The human soul is confined by space and time within a physical body. If someone’s soul is significantly affected by the work of the Holy Spirit, it is clear that his body may be affected as well. Realization of the truths of God’s judgment and hell, of God’s holiness, forgiveness and love are powerful enough to affect people’s physical bodies, but they are not required to do so. Edwards pleads for an open mind on this part. The presence or absence of physical side-effects does not prove that the Spirit is or is not working.

3. When the activity is accompanied by a great deal of noise about religion. When there is a lot of talk about Christianity the Bible, it doesn’t mean that the work of the Holy Spirit is going on. Edwards points out that even the Pharisees talked a great deal about religion.

4. Vivid imagination, ecstatic experiences and visions. Even without any supernatural interference, a strongly affected mind can conjure up images of Christ, of heaven or hell. Intense dreams and visions may be the work of God, but they are not necessarily so.

If we take the Bible seriously, none of these marks mentioned so far should surprise us. These signs were regarded as unusual in Edwards’ day, and when bystanders saw them during the Great Awakening — for example, what they saw highly emotional outbursts in church settings that were normally staid — some claimed it was evidence that the Holy Spirit could not be at work. But it should not surprise us if the Spirit produces dramatic reactions in people, because the Holy Spirit is powerful and creative.