Broken Promises

When I was seventeen years old, my family relocated to El Paso, Texas. We lived next door to a family with three children, the youngest of whom was only five years old. It wasn't long before we learned that the father of the family (a man named Hector) had been diagnosed with cancer a few months before and was not expected to survive. He had already undergone several surgeries and chemotherapy, but the cancer had spread throughout his body and could not be contained.

My mother insisted that God had called us to El Paso so that Hector would be healed. She plunged into fasting and prayer. She recruited others to fast and pray as well. But it was to no effect. Months passed, and Hector only grew weaker as the cancer overtook more of his body. Finally, my mother arranged a prayer meeting at Hector's home. She invited a family from our church whom she believed really 'moved in the gifts of the Spirit'.

Hector's wife and his youngest daughter were there at his bedside when we arrived to pray. They sat quietly while we prayed in tongues. And then suddenly David, one of my mother's friends from church, announced that he had seen a vision. He told us that he had seen Hector covered with what appears to be chunks of dirt, and then a light had appeared above him and moved over him from head to toe, melting the dirt away. "Hector," he said, "God just showed me that he has healed you. When you go to the doctor tomorrow, the cancer will be gone."

But the cancer was not gone when Hector went to the doctor the next day or the next or the next. A few weeks later, Hector died.

This event troubled me deeply. I was saddened that we had made promises to Hector's wife and five-year-old daughter that the cancer would disappear. I wondered if we had harmed their faith.

I also began to think about other times that promises had been broken. There was a crippled woman in a church where we had attended previously who had been told many times that God would heal her, and yet she was still in a wheelchair. There were promises of revivals and 'great outpourings' that never materialized. There was even a prediction of the return of Christ that set us all hoping, only to be disappointed.

Even in the small ways, Pentecostalism disappointed. It promised happiness, health, power, and a life of 'victory' that always seemed elusive. In the church, we danced and sang of our joy and our power, but then we returned home and nothing ever really changed. Our neighbors were not converted, our miracles never arrived, our bodies still fell victim to the flu and seasonal allergies and migraines like everyone else.

It always seemed that promised miracles were just out of reach. We could never be quite good enough to receive them, no matter how we prayed and fasted and gave our money and our time in the service of the Lord. "You don't have enough faith," we were told again and again. Sometimes it was hinted that someone had ruined it all by hiding some secret sin or by doubting. And sometimes the failures were put down to the shortcomings of the church in general or the overpowering influence of demonic forces.

"God's will is scarcely ever done," my mother told me again and again. We thought that, in order for God to act, all the conditions had to be right, all the stars had to align, all the demonic forces had to be slumbering, and someone must find the secret that would finally unleash God's mighty power.

But that time never came. It finally began to occur to me that all the prophecies and visions and dreams meant nothing at all, for nothing ever came of them. God's word, if He was speaking in these ways, was as worthless as that of a drunk man on a barstool boasting to his companions that he will win the lottery and marry a supermodel. It was wishful thinking, and only a great fool would invest time, money, and effort into seeing it come to pass.

This is the great disillusionment of Pentecostalism. It builds up excitement and hopes again and again only to dash them to pieces. Eventually, it destroys faith, for it makes God out to be a liar and His word untrustworthy. The Pentecostal is finally left shattered, scarcely able to believe in anything at all, having been so many times disappointed. The only logical conclusions that can be reached are either that God is so weak that He can do nothing (in which case, how can anyone trust Him for salvation?) or He is a cruel practical joker who dangles rewards and snatches them away again ... or the promises are not from God.

When it finally began to enter my mind that the prophecies and visions were not from God, then everything became painfully clear. Under the pressure to produce miracles, Pentecostals convince themselves that they have received the promises that they desire. When the prophecies fail to come to pass, they must justify the failure and so they look for a place to pin the blame - lack of faith, demonic power, or something similar.

And yet all of these so-called prophecies and visions distract from the real word of God that the Pentecostals have right in front of them. Peter calls the Scripture the "more sure word of prophecy:" (II Peter 1) and Paul tells us that it is God-breathed and "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3).

Pentecostalism leads its followers away from the Word of God into illusions. Pentecostals use the Scripture only in bits and pieces and twist it to support their vain hopes and delusions. And so they leave the sure foundation and find themselves on shifting sand. Their view of God dwindles amid false promises and disappointment until it bears no resemblence at all to the God of Scripture.

Ex-Pentecostals must take on the the difficult but wonderful task of learning the true nature of God according to His own revelation in Scripture. He is the Sovereign who reigns over all. His voice "thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding" (Job 37:5). He does not lie, He does not fail, and His word is sure (Numbers 23:10).

We never find God or even begin to understand Him while we seek Him outside of Scripture. When we follow our own imaginations, God becomes smaller and smaller in our minds. Only by reading the Bible (the real Word of God) do we begin to grasp again the greatness of God as the Creator and Lord of all. And only by trusting in the Scripture will we know that God's Word is sure and His promises unbroken.