I totally agree with you. Even if the parents did not do it for the money and their few minutes of fame, and thought it would help others believe, they have not read Luke 16 lately, which is very sad since the father supposedly is a minister of the gospel. It is the power of the gospel that saves, not the power of some "experience" and faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Luke 16:19 "There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'
25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.'
27 And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' 29But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'
30 And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
31 He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'"
People will NOT come to true faith from reading the account of the book according to Christ. They come through hearing the gospel and being convicted of their sin. I wonder if sin is even mentioned in the book, or repentance?
Repentance is enabled by REVELATION.
Faith comes by hearing.
The Spirit of God gets to our hearts through all of our senses. He works most often through the word — by reading or hearing — but NOT exclusively.
Why, then, do you impose upon the boy the unreasonable, unbiblical, legalistic standard that his testimony is invalid unless it comes with an exhortation to repent, or a sermonette on the Four Spiritual Laws?
Who made you judge over him?
Have Jesus repeated excoriations of the myopia of the Pharisees and Saducees so failed to register with you that you so readily imitate them rather than Christ?
You appeal to the gospel; well and good. And what is the gospel (literally: “good news”) but the joyous declaration to fallen man that relationship — actual, personal knowledge of, encounter by, and experience with the Living God — has been made available through the finished work of Jesus at Calvary?
The curtain of the temple was torn in two. Who was behind it? And is He there still? NO! He’s out in plain view, for all with “eyes to see, and ears to hear.” And do you think this biblical phrase refers only to spiritual eyes and ears? It does not, for I tell you in all sobriety that Our LORD, Jesus has appeared in Person to MANY to bring to the uttermost ends of the Earth the knowledge of Him. Heathen men and women have SEEN Him with their own physical eyes, and heard Him with their own physical ears.
Recall that Jesus is “The Last Adam,” and consider that part and parcel of his function under that title is to reconcile us to God with the result that we can NOW have relationship to God in the same fullness that the First Adam enjoyed; and I do mean NOW.
Or do you think that Our Father, having given up His only Son to save us, would subsequently withhold Himself from us?
That is not the testimony of scripture.
Paul, in the book of Romans makes this clear when he writes, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things?”
What — aside from sin — is excluded from “all things”?
Surely “all” means ALL, and within the scope of all are sons and daughters who prophesy, young men who — like this boy — see visions, and old men who dream dreams.
Why does Paul — not once, but repeatedly — exhort The Church to prophesy saying, “...covet spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy” (I Cor. 14:1), and again “I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied...” (I Cor. 14:5), and yet again, “...covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues,” and also even again, “Quench not The Spirit. Despise not prophesying.” (I Thess. 5:19 & 20)?
Why these repeated exhortations unless he expected that these things be continually manifest in The Church?
The Scriptural record is complete in its testimony that “all things” truly and most excellently means “all things.” Therefore, abandon this joyless cynicism, and pursue the full knowledge and experience of the stature of the whole man, even Christ.
I declare to you with all the force and power with which I am endowed by The Spirit of the Living God, and do in His matchless NAME proclaim to you, that the greatness and glory of The LORD, and of His Kingdom, and the variety of its manifestations among men exceed the furthest extents of your wildest possible imaginations.
THEREFORE, DO NOT DEIGN TO LIMIT YHVH!!
That’ll preach