Born-again Christian shares the heart-breaking experience of how the Charismatic movement wrecked the life of his deceased father, robbed his family’s finances and how it is filled with demonic manifestations masking as the “power of the Holy Spirit”.
Hi, I’m from Indonesia. I just want to share my experience that I had with my family in the Charismatic movement. My name is Enoch C and I don’t mind that my name is published.
First, I give all thanks and glory to Lord Yeshua HaMashiach that my eyes were opened to the truth and I could learn English better so that I can do research and come to a better understanding of the words of God.
Second, to give you a picture about the Charismatic movement in Indonesia, let’s just say we have so many Charismatic “fast foods” here. My family got involved in many Charismatic movements such as “Bethel” (the biggest in every town we moved in), even I myself went to the biggest one in Surabaya. When I was studying at my university, we were involved in Israeli Bethel movements developed by 6 “servants of God” (It is led by pastor Petrus Agung Purnomo in Semarang). This movement uses Israeli attire and recently they got involved with many faith teachers like Benny Hinn and Morris Cerullo. What makes me REALLY SAD is that they have about 30,000 followers and growing.
My dad had an accident when we were still under this teaching so he declared that he refused the reality that he was sick and “rebuked” his accident and illness as lies from the pit of hell. He forced himself to stand and his bone split in two right away. We went to the hospital only later to be told by the teacher of this teaching that my dad lacked faith.
My family also got involved in Revival Total Ministry. This famous movement in Indonesia is about spiritual works and exploring “another realm” which has led many to occultism and dangerous things, even some followers died of unnatural events which I believe is the price they paid for playing with the supernatural (demonic) realm.
I want to share what happened to my father who died.
Let’s get started with the Bethel movement. At that time, my dad was an architect who helped the Bethel church with their construction. He also served as a pianist in the music team. I was just a kid and didn’t know anything much then. This church was always full of itself, kind of like City Harvest Church in Singapore. I still remembered when Kong Hee visited our church and promoted his wife’s CD to the congregation. The funny thing about this church is that the message preached on every Sunday service is repeated on the same powerpoint every year or so. Because of this, I was not fed anything new.
When I became a teenager, the youth service became a place for young people to have fun and date each other while I started to feel there’s something more in the Bible than just meeting cute girls. Most of the Sunday services preached about money and getting it. The family of the pastor of that church even used the flock’s money to invest in different businesses, but they all failed (which is public secret in the small town where the church is at).
My dad was a good man who’d never use cheap building materials for profit, especially for the church as it will compromise on public safety. Despite being an architect, I found it strange that my dad had problems paying my school tuition (less than $10 a month). He couldn’t even afford a computer, so I learnt ways to earn money to buy it for myself. When my father died, my mom discovered many bills that amounted to more than $100,000. We started to connect the dots.
Due to the radio tower project by this church that my dad was involved, my dad was finally pressured to leave the church (the music department head scolded my dad “stupid” over and over again, and said many other mean things), so we guessed that the financial problems happened because my dad spend all he could on the best materials for the building construction. I wanted to pursue this matter but my mom burnt all the bills and proofs, so I know God wanted my family to forgive. And in this writing, I want to say once again I FORGIVE YOU PASTOR AND MY OLD LOCAL CHURCH.
At the Israeli-Bethel movement, I felt really safe because they wore israeli attire and I felt the presence of the “Holy Spirit” which I learned later it was actually the same kind of presence that New Age music delivers. The same presence that I felt led me to almost always empty my wallet and I thought it was all for the glory of kingdom of God.
When i just came out from this movement, the same pastor, Petrus Agung Purnomo stated that he was making a deal with Disney to make Disneyland in Semarang. Now this is the REAL whistle blower that made many walk out of that church. This movement monetizes almost everything from Christian books, small flags (made from tooth picks and printed banners), attires, holy oil, etc. – too long a list to state here. At a service, they accidentally launched fireworks inside the enclosed building by miscalculation. I was cowering under the chair while the others were shocked. Later, they apologized and shouted that it was the Devil’s work and they spoke in tongues for an hour to chase the Devil out of the building. Some of their “spirit-filled” dances were quite erotic from my Asian point of view (yeah, they REALLY like dancing), considering that Indonesia is a conservative country with its own norms, it was quite weird to see elders being enchanted by the dancing and looking at it as love between God and man, but it looked more like love between 2 opposite sexes. When my family was there, my dad donated $1000 to Benny Hinn (even though he had barely enough money for our daily needs).
I attended another church called Holy Stadium which went International and had so many charismatic pastors attending it. I also lost money to this church because of the funny feeling that I felt and thought was the “Holy Spirit”. This movement is constantly “in war” against demons. Their routine prayer is brought to streets in car teams. They will have banners stuck to the ground at so many places, and they even go out to the ocean and throw bigger banners into the ocean as declaration that Jesus had won the battle (apparently their “Jesus” needs them to do things physically while MY JESUS calmed the storm only with WORDS). I just hope their brain-washing activity will be revealed to many people soon and I pray for their followers to be open to the real GOSPEL of Christ.
The last movement I got involved was the RTM (Revival Total Ministry). They teach many different things but mainly about spiritual warfare and focusing on the “gifts of the Spirit”. The founder is already considered a heretic by the Christian communities in Indonesia, but this movement cleverly masquerades as “gifted” Christians with seemingly high knowledge of the Bible. They teach that we are little gods who have power over everything, They usually see visions of black snakes , black clouds and mostly anything black and bad about someone. Recently, they adopted the teachings of Andrew Wommack to teach their members. This movement is like a mixture of deadly poison.
My dad had an accident when we were still under this teaching so he declared that he refused the reality that he was sick and “rebuked” his accident and illness as lies from the pit of hell. He forced himself to stand and his bone split in two right away. We went to the hospital only later to be told by the teacher of this teaching that my dad lacked faith. I FORGIVE YOU ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS for if you all don’t repent and see the truth, you will stand before God and be judged by Him. For I fear not the one who can only destroy the body but I fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
For almost 20 years of my life, the Devil wrecked my family through the Charismatic movement but now I am set free by the Real JESUS the MESSIAH, my only SAVIOR. Right now, I don’t go to any church since most of them are hijacked by Bethel or the greedy prosperity gospel. But I am glad to be part of the real Church, the body of Jesus Christ who is the Rock. I may not have a building to worship with other believers but I lead my wife and my son to worship and be part of the REAL JESUS. In the end, we are together with many other parts of His body, which is the Church. I want to share the REAL GOSPEL with only 1 book – that is my beloved Word of God, the Holy Bible.
Enoch C a.k.a Chan Kim Liong
Ex-Charismatics 