A Christian shares some of the extreme and ungodly tactics that the Charismatics tried to use upon him and others in the hard-of-hearing community.
I was born on July 25th 1973 in Nassau the Bahamas after the Bahamas was freed from Britain.
My father who is still alive, was a drug dealer and my mother (now deceased) was a teen mom when she first had me. I was born of hearing until I got a disease known as measles which caused me to become hard of hearing in my right ear. When I was five years old, I used a Q-Tip to play with both of my ears until it dangerously burst my left ear drum, leaving me deaf.
I attended a deaf school where enjoyed art and craft, and meeting many other deaf children.
I was a difficult teen because my father was never around that very much, plus my mom had different boyfriends and she loved reading porn magazines. I was into a gang called Nike Passy until I met Mr. Donald D. Hoogerdoornand, Mr. Reed Condra and Williams Johnson from Baptist Bible Church who visited my home to share the gospel with me but I was not ready.
I was accused of having “little faith” and that I was “possessed with a dumb and deaf spirit” that needed to be cast out…
I was traveling with the group from Baptist Bible Church deaf ministry to USA. We stayed at Bill Rice Ranch deaf camp in Tennessee for one week. When Ronnie Rice, a deaf evangelist himself preached the death, burial and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, I became strongly convinced who Christ said He was and what He did on the cross of Calvary for me. I started to believe the Gospel after I heard it by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I told Mr. Donald Hoogerdoorn that I wanted to be saved and he was happily surprised. While I was listening to the gospel, I looked up at the roof realizing that God exists in Heaven and how He controls the vast universe, and confessed, “Jehovah Jesus Christ, I believe you right now that you died on the cross of Calvary for my sins, was buried and rose from the dead on the third day. I now receive you as my Lord and Saviour.”
My first encounter with the Charismatic movement was my family’s church, The Church of God of Prophecy. My first thoughts about their activities were that they were crazy people speaking in gibberish tongues, so I kept my distance away from them.
Once, my class received an invitation from one of the teachers from Centre For The Deaf School to her charismatic church called Faith Temple Ministry. She was a crazy lady dressed in an all-white robe and funny hat. She tried to put her hand on our foreheads (‘slain in the Spirit’) to ‘heal’ our deafness and even spat at my face as she barked. I didn’t fall and I just stood there, totally convinced that what she did was nothing but a scam. Even her eyes would eerily roll up while she performed her ‘miracles’.
Some of my family members and siblings still attended such charismatic churches. I tried to persuade them to come of their cults with the Gospel tracts from Baptist Bible Church. Only my late mother and my aunt came out of it. I thank God that none of them convinced me to stay in the charismatic church though. However, wherever we were home, some of my family members would come over to dance right in the front of us with their loud charismatic music and yelling out their name-it-claim-it mantras. I ignored them as usual.
Worst of all, I was accused of having “little faith” and that I was “possessed with a dumb and deaf spirit” that needed to be cast out, both by family and by that crazy lady at my school. They also tried to rub my ears with olive oil. As usual, I felt nothing – no so-called power came through me to heal me. I tried not to laugh as I stood there, and I observed how one of my deaf friends was running around like a lunatic, bashing his elbows on the wall sadly enough. A teacher once asked me, “Why are you laughing at us? What’s so funny?” If only they knew how foolish this whole debacle was.
If there is something I want the Charismatics to know, it’s this: Salvation is only found by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ Himself and only Him alone can deliver you out of this cult. I may not have the perfect life nor perfect hearing, but thank God He can still use me for His Kingdom. My best life will come later when all is restored at the new earth and new heaven:
Revelation 21:1-4 (KJV) – And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Albert J. Major
Ex-Charismatics 