I am a life long Southern Baptist Chtistian and when Blackeby’s book, “Experiencing God” came out, it was whole-heartedly embraced by my denomination.
At first, I didn’t know what all the hoopla was about because I had never read the book, but I eventually read a review of the book by Greg Koukl (of Stand to Reason, an apologetics site), which pointed out the ultimate heretical ideas of “hearing messages” directly from God espoused in Blackeby’s writings. I checked out Koukl’s criticisms and discovered that he was absolutely correct.
However, whenever I tried to point out the problems of Blackeby’s views (and other “teachers” with similar themes) with some of my fellow Baptists, I usually got a “deer in the headlight” look and a sort of, well I see what you’re saying, but isn’t that a bit extreme to call it “heresy”? After all, they are not claiming to be writing new Scripture, just that they are having close fellowship and “direction” from God.
It is very upsetting to see the danger, but be looked at as some kind of “nit-picking, legalistic, spiritual kill-joy”.
The problem I’ve run into is from Christians who claim that simply because someone is encouraging people to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that means that their ministry is from God.
After all, the enemy would not encourage people to accept Christ, would he?
And those same folks do not accept that the enemy can perform miracles, hence when the miraculous is claimed to have happened, (which they always believe are true) it is evidence that God is validating the person’s ministry because they preach accepting Christ and it is endorsed by the miracles and healings that they see happen on TV. Therefore, the ministry is *bearing fruit*.
There’s just no reasoning with those people. They get angry and defensive when you point out the moral failings in the televangelists live or deem them of no consequence.
I can sympathize. Too many people are sucked into the lies they are told through what they "experience" that they cannot stop and try to discern if what they are being told is the truth IS really the truth. When questioning a new evangelist that offered "holy laughter" in his revival services but a perverted Gospel, I was told sharply to, "Touch not God's anointed!". These people were so convinced by what they experienced that they couldn't see through the deception. We must always watch and pray. God's word is given to us to guide us into all truth. IT is our touchstone.