There is a serious danger of God’s people entering into fanaticism. Fanaticism is so dangerous that it can easily cost you your eternal life. If you look in the book The Great Controversy you will find that Ellen White makes it clear that fanaticism almost destroyed the 16th century Protestant Reformation. The devil has not forgotten that. It is stated very clearly that fanaticism was more dangerous to the Protestant Reformation than was the Roman Catholic Church.
During the last few decades, God has raised up a grass-roots revival and reformation movement in the Second Advent movement all over the world, and the devil knows how to successfully destroy these revivals. Fanaticism is still his method of choice. Many historic Adventist churches have been destroyed as a result of fanaticism. Fanaticism has threatened to disrupt and destroy the work that God’s workers have worked for years to build up in various parts of the world.
When we talk about the dangers of God’s people entering fanaticism, we need to learn what we can do so we don’t get caught up by it. This does not just happen to common people; leaders in God’s work are also susceptible, and often we don’t realize what is really going on until it’s too late. It is a deadly trap!
Fanaticism can cost you your life. There is a dramatic story in I Kings 13 about a prophet who got caught up in fanaticism. This fanaticism cost him his life. One of the reasons for this story to be in the Bible is to help people understand how dangerous the issue is.
The Lord gave to this prophet a message. He said he was to go down to Jeroboam in Bethel and pronounce judgment against him and against the altar because they were practicing idolatry. So, he told Jeroboam that one born of the sons of David by the name of Josiah is going to destroy the altars and burn the bones of the ones that sacrificed on them. Incidentally, this was hundreds of years before Josiah was born. Jeroboam, not being very happy, decided to have this prophet arrested, and in the attempt, his arm withered up and became helpless. He became scared, and said to the prophet, Please pray to Jehovah for me so that I can have the use of my arm again. The prophet prayed for the king, and God restored his arm.
There was no question that God had sent this prophet. This was demonstrated by three miracles. Not only was the prophet sent with a message to Jeroboam, God had given him specific instructions about what he was to do after he gave the message. You can read it all in 1 Kings 13; the Lord told him, You’re not to eat bread there. You are not to eat bread and you’re not to drink water in that place, and you are to leave by a different path than that by which you came.
Now, here is the point. When God gives instructions, nobody has a right to change any instruction that God has given, and if you allow a change in the instructions, you are touching fanaticism.
For instance, did God give some instructions on what day of the week to keep holy? All through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation it is talked about. Now, if somebody comes to you and says, “Our church was authorized by Jesus Christ, and we have the authority to change that day,” if you believe that, you’re into fanaticism. Is it reasonable to believe that you can lose your soul from fanaticism? You can be as sincere as you want to believe, but you can still lose your soul, because God gave you the instructions and you allowed somebody else to give you different instructions than what God gave you.
The prophet that took the message started out, and there were two young men who were the sons of another prophet, who came home and told their father everything that had happened. The father went looking and found him sitting down under a terebinth tree and said, “Come to my house and eat bread and have something to drink before you go back home.” And the prophet said, “I can’t. The Lord told me that I wasn’t to drink water, and I wasn’t to eat bread in this place. I was to go back by a different way.”
The other prophet said, “Well, an angel of the Lord told me by the word of the Lord, that you can come to my house and eat bread and drink water.” Do you remember what the apostle Paul said in Galatians 1 about that? He said, “Even if an angel from heaven tells you a different gospel than we have told you, let him be cursed.” When God gives you a message, even an angel doesn’t have authority to change the message, and if you allow an angel to convince you to do something different than you have instructions from God’s word to do, you are into fanaticism. And don’t think it can’t cost you your life.
That prophet got up and went to the other prophet’s home, and while he was eating and drinking, the word of the Lord came to the other prophet who had lied, and He said, “Because this man, whom I told not to eat bread or not to drink water in this place, disobeyed, he will never return to the land of his fathers.”
The other prophet felt badly about this, as he was the one who had invited him back home, so he thought he had better help him get home. He wasn’t going to let him walk home, so he saddled up a donkey and sent him home on his own donkey. On the way home, a lion met him and killed him, and his carcass never got home. Part of the punishment of the false prophet was not only to notify all the relatives, but also to go and take care of the man. He buried him in his own tomb, and the Bible says that they made a terrible wailing for this man. He felt terrible because he was responsible for the other man’s death.
The same thing has been repeated down through history. Whether you’re listening to it, or promoting it, fanaticism can destroy you. Fanaticism is usually a distortion or exaggeration of something that is actually true; just an extreme position. It is often a result of a lack of faith or presumption. Usually it helps the people who accept it have a good feeling about themselves and their advanced beliefs that others supposedly do not understand.
There are a few cures for fanaticism. One is to develop a humble mind. Jesus said, “I am gentle and lowly in heart.” Fanaticism is almost always associated with spiritual pride. If you want to avoid fanaticism, you need to develop a humble mind, a humble heart. And secondly, you need to develop faith. Faith is based on the promises of God’s word.
When the word faith is used it is based on the promises of God’s word—what God’s word explicitly says, and not what is implicit in God’s word.
An example of this is the story of Paul and Silas in Philippi in the book of Acts, chapter 16. At midnight there was an earthquake, and they were let out of prison and the jailor comes. Verses 30 and 31 say, “And coming to them outside he said, ‘lords, what is necessary for me to do so that I should be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, and your house.’ ” Now there is nothing wrong at all with that explicit statement, but it is very interesting what we think is implied by that statement. There are four different conclusions that people have deduced from this simple statement, “You shall be saved and your house.” Acts 16:31:
His house will be saved if the father or husband believes.
His house will be saved if they also believe.
If he does not believe, then his house will automatically be lost.
His house will be lost if they don’t believe, but they could be saved if they believe.
Those are four contradictory deductions that people think are implicit in the text. And that’s the problem with implicit evidence. Different people will get a different implication out of the very same thing. That’s why if you don’t want to end up in fanaticism when any new teaching arises you must insist that, in order to accept the teaching, it is explicitly taught in God’s word.
Paul said to Timothy in II Timothy 2:15, “Study to show yourselves approved to God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” As we draw near to the end of time, there will be people more and more deceiving and being deceived. God knew ahead of time; Jesus predicted it in Matthew 24: He said, “There will arise false christs and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible, they would deceive (or lead astray) the very elect.” Now that’s an interesting statement. If it were possible, they would lead astray the very elect. The Lord gave the Spirit of Prophecy to the Second Advent movement, so His people need not be deceived.
We are living in the most deceptive period of earth’s history. Not only this, but we are the weakest generation that has ever lived physically, spiritually, and mentally. If this is the case, how are we going to deal with the prevailing deceptions? God predicted through Malachi 4:5, 6, “Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet. He’s going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and curse the earth, smite the earth with a curse.”
We read in Revelation 12:17 that God’s remnant people are not only going to be a commandment keeping people, but they are going to be people who have the testimony of Jesus. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy; Revelation 19:10.
One of the reasons that God gave us the Spirit of Prophecy was to keep us from going into fanaticism. If you understand the Spirit of Prophecy, thoroughly and carefully, it will protect you from going off on tangents.
We are not as powerful or as intelligent as we sometimes think. In II Timothy 2, in Greek, it says that the devil captures them alive at his will. He just leads them astray, takes them wherever he wants to, and they don’t even know what is happening. We need both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy to keep us from going into fanaticism.
Before we have any new teaching, in addition to talking to the leaders in our churches, we should be checking in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy to find a plain “thus saith the Lord” to support the belief. In the book, The Great Controversy, 595, it says that God will have a people who, before accepting any doctrine or teaching, will demand a plain “thus saith the Lord” in its support.
The devil is very successful in leading many of God’s people into fanaticism today. We need to be on the watch for this.
False visions and dreams. That is the number one way that the devil is leading God’s people into fanaticism. It is all over the world today, and it has been with us for a long time. Some claim to have seen Jesus. Recently, a book was circulating from a man who claimed that Jesus told him that a Sunday law would be passed before April 2008. Friends, Paul said to Timothy, “Preach the word.” The Bible is the authority, and we should not believe any message that is not in the word of God or the Spirit of Prophecy.
If God sends you a message from a prophet, that message will be able to be documented and authenticated. For example, Ezekiel says, at a certain date, in the certain year of a certain king, at a certain place, the Lord told me this; I’m Ezekiel and the Lord told me this, this, this. The message is authenticated; there is a place, a date, and there is a person who can be identified who meets the Biblical tests of a prophet. That is always the way God has worked. The Lord says in Numbers 12:6, “If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will manifest Myself to that person in a vision and in a dream.” And it says in Amos 3:7 that God won’t do anything except He reveals His secrets to His servants the prophets.
If God has a special message for His church, it will come through a person who is a prophet. And, of course, God has authority to do that at any time. But, if God has a message for you and me, for the church, through a person to whom He is giving a vision or a dream, that message can be documented and authenticated. Part of the documentation is, as we read in either the book of Numbers or Daniel 10, when a prophet has a vision, that prophet does not breathe. There must be supernatural events connected with the vision; otherwise you do not know whether the vision is from the Lord or the devil. You cannot tell whether an angel is from heaven or hell. Remember, it says in Revelation 16 that in the last days devils are going to work miracles. They are going to be so successful that they will deceive the whole world.
In regard to Ellen White, her visions were authenticated. Ellen White had many public visions, and these have been very thoroughly documented. The Lord gave her visions over and over again in public so that God’s people could document and authenticate that this was a prophet of God.
If God has a message for you, you must be able to prove that this person really does have the prophetic gift, because you’re going to stake your life on it, and you’d better not stake your life on a message that you don’t know for sure came from a true prophet.
The second example—and this is a terrible one to have to go over, but it is worldwide. God does speak to people individually for some specific circumstance in that person’s life or in some other person’s life to help them. He has done that many times; however, if God has a message for His church, it will come through a prophet that can be authenticated and documented.
In John 18:19, 20, it says, “The high priest therefore asked Jesus concerning His disciples and concerning His teaching. Jesus gave answer to him, ‘I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in the synagogue and in the temple where always the Jews gather together, (or you could say where all the Jews gather together). And in secret I have spoken nothing.’ ” Jesus is saying, I don’t deal secretly. It’s the devil that is behind all the secret information that God’s people are accepting today. It’s time to wake up and recognize where this information is coming from.
If God wants to warn His church about something, He will not do it by some secretive way that you can’t document. As an example: a rumor was spread that by the middle of September 2008, the entire American economy is going collapse and the world would never be the same again. That prophecy, by the way, has proved to be false, but, unfortunately, when these prophecies prove to be false, they are just revised and moved up in time. The same people will tell you nothing happened in September, but it is going to happen in October.
It is usually difficult to ascertain the source of these messages, because they come through so many people. A lot of this information is coming from the evangelicals, and we’re taking their information and spouting it off, and we’re just getting into fanaticism. There’s a book, written by a Sunday keeping evangelical pastor, about what is going to happen in 2008. The book states all the awful things that are going to happen in 2008. Before the end of the book, he gets into his own false interpretation of the seals and the seven thunders, and our people are getting information from all of these people.
At the beginning of every year, Pat Robertson tells the world what the Lord told him is going to happen that year. In January 2008, he said that before September 2010, there will be a major stock market crash and there will be a major depression. Then he listed other things that are going to happen, but what he didn’t know was that he was about one year late. Several financial analysts, in January and February of 2007, said that we are going to have a major recession during 2008, and they didn’t claim that God was telling them anything. They were just looking at the economic and financial conditions in the world.
So you see, Pat Robertson was actually about a year late in his prediction, and, of course, he did hedge himself using the date in 2010. Pat Robertson does not have a stellar record. When he gave his yearly prediction of what the Lord had told him was going to happen in January of 2007, he said there was going to be a major terrorist attack on the cities of the United States, probably using nuclear weapons. People were petrified all over this country. Strangely, though, it didn’t happen. So, in 2008, he announced, “I guess God’s people must have prayed and the Lord had mercy on us!”
If God is trying to get a message through to you, you will not find it out by some secretive source that somebody found from this, that, that, and that. There is a game called “Gossip” where a circle of children sit, and one child whispers something in somebody’s ear and then that child whispers in the next person’s ear what they heard and then they keep going around and the last person has to tell you what he or she heard. When the last person tells what he or she heard everybody else starts laughing because it is so distorted by the time it passes from one mouth to another ear.
Unfortunately, there are people who are making all kinds of rash decisions on the basis of this kind of information.
Friends, the devil is trying to get God’s people terrified so that they will go into a panic, because he knows that when people go into a panic, they will do irrational, crazy things that don’t make any sense. God’s people are in a state of panic. Back in Jesus’ day His disciples were also in a state of panic, and Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me.” The reason the Lord is allowing these things to happen now is to get you ready for the bigger troubles in the future. If you can’t survive the panics we have now, what are you going to do if we get a really bad one? What are you going to do then?
We need to forget about all this secret information, because there is so much that you’ll never be able to even read it all; the information that’s coming from the CIA, the Vatican, the Jesuits, the government—in every group in the world—there is somebody who claims to have secret information that will help you to do something. And you have no way of knowing which is accurate and which isn’t.
What you need to do is ask, What does the Bible say? What does the Spirit of Prophecy say? Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” In commenting on that, Ellen White said, Satan’s devices are most successful against people whose hearts are darkened by discouragement or trouble; they’re oppressed, they’re depressed, they’re discouraged. God does not want you to be troubled. It is the devil that wants you to be terrified and in a panic, not the Lord. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, do I give unto you.”
The world’s peace can be taken away at any time, but God’s peace cannot. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
This is not suggesting that we stick our heads in the sand. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.
There are going to be worse times in the future than there are now. And we have to learn to trust in Jesus, and to follow Him and His Word and not any other teaching if it does not agree with the Bible or Spirit of Prophecy. We have the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy to show us what to do and which way to steer our craft. If you allow yourself to get caught up and directed and led by all the information coming, the devil will see that you get enough information to lead you astray.
Pastor John Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.