A recent book by Hank Hanegraaff, titled “Counterfeit Revival”, documents the false doctrine, false prophecies, and false "miracles" of Rodney Howard-Browne, Benny Hinn, John Arnott, and other popular leaders within professing Christianity. These are some of the most prominent leaders in the "Toronto Blessing", the "Pensacola Outpouring", and other supposed revivals. These "revivals" involve all sorts of strange manifestations (people laughing ucontrollably, acting like animals, lying on the floor for hours as they're "slain in the Spirit", etc.). These "revivals" do not resemble those of the Biblical era. During the revival of Nehemiah's day, for example, there was repentance and a return to adherence to scripture (Nehemiah 8:3, 9, 18).

The "revivals" of today don't emphasize repentance and a return to scripture, but rather they emphasize emotional experiences and a departure from relying on scripture for spiritual guidance. These characteristics of the recent "revivals" are thoroughly documented in Counterfeit Revival. Pastor John Arnott, for example, gives the following explanation for seeking after emotional experiences rather than the characteristics of a real revival: "We didn't think it was going to look like this. We were praying for God to move, and our assumption was, when God moves we'll see more people saved and more people healed, and there would be the excitement that that would generate.We didn't think He would come and throw a massive party." John Arnott's "party" analogies don't end with what's quoted above. He goes on to approvingly refer to Christians getting "thoroughly blasted" by the Holy Spirit. The evidence of being "drunk in the Spirit" isn't greater knowledge of scripture, evangelism, or anything of the sort, but rather rolling around on the floor, shaking uncontrollably, making animal noises, and other strange behavior. John Kilpatrick, pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God and a leader in the "revival" movement, testifies that he's been so "drunk in the Spirit" that he's been unable to drive at times, to the point of knocking over his neighbor's garbage cans.

John Arnott tells of an incident in which he asked God why He was sending "revival" in such an unusual manner, and God supposedly responded, "Is it all right with you if I just love up on My church for a while?" Arnott also claimed to sense that he was "quenching the Spirit" when he preached messages on salvation. Supposedly, God wants His church to revel in strange emotional experiences, and quit focusing on scripture and doctrine. Like unbelievers who complain about "judgmentalism" and "hatred" whenever their sins are condemned, proponents of these recent "revivals" often make the same accusations against their critics: "And for the one who comes to bring division, to divide the Church of Christ, to cut off His arms and His legs, and the toes from His feet, the Lord says it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for that one on that day....human wisdom and reasoning...kills the word of faith and brings division and justifies in self-righteousness the dividing of the church." -  Stacey Campbell, a "prophet" involved in the "revival" in Toronto, claiming to speak for God "What motivates them to tear down another church? The answer is pride, jealousy, fear, hatred or ignorance. Take your pick. You can be sure one of these factors is at the heart of this present contention." - James Ryle, pastor, member of the board of directors of Promise Keepers.

The second quote above illustrates how widespread this false "revival" movement is, as well as how credible some of its proponents appear to be on the surface. Promise Keepers is a popular men's movement that receives a lot of positive press coverage. James Ryle is not only a member of the Promise Keepers board of directors, but also is the pastor of the church of Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney, as well as a speaker at Promise Keepers conferences. Ryle doesn't just
support false "revival" movements, but even engages in false doctrine and false prophecy himself. Paul Crouch, the president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Christian television network in the world, is also a promoter of what Hank Hanegraaff calls the "Counterfeit Revival". Paul "David" Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world's largest church, has also supported the Counterfeit Revival. Many tele-evangelists, such as Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland, are also promoters of false revivals.

Hank Hanegraaff and others have thoroughly documented the false doctrine, false prophecies, and false "miracles" of many of these people, yet they still have huge followings. Benny Hinn, for example, falsely prophesied that God would "destroy" the homosexual community with "fire" no later than the year 1995. Though Hinn has been proven a false prophet and a teacher of false doctrine over and over again, he still has an audience of millions of people, as well as strong support from other leaders in the Counterfeit Revival. Many millions of people are being deceived by these false "revivals". Hank Hanegraaff explains that the Counterfeit Revival is bringing cultic practices into the church, along with all sorts of bad fruit: "What has been commonplace in cultic systems such as Christian Science is today becoming commonplace in the Christian church as well. Like Gnostics in the second and third centuries, many who claim the name of Christ are taking a trip beyond Christianity into the world of the occult.

They are being convinced by leaders of the Counterfeit Revival that reality can be reduced to a personal experience of enlightenment - a transformation of consciousness that will initiate them into 'true spirituality.'...As shocking as it may seem, what was once relegated to the ashrams of cults is now replicated at the altars of churches....Today what was once relegated to the 'back room' is centerstage in the Counterfeit Revival. Thousands testify to 'getting drunk' and personally experiencing powerful psychological and physical manifestations. These experiences are so 'real' that many key evangelical Christian leaders are convinced they cannot be explained apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. Tragically, many of them are dangerously ignorant of the striking parallels between their experiences and those of Eastern meditators who achieve altered states of consciousness through occult practices. As has been well documented from studies of the world of the occult, the dangerous effects may involve depression, detachment, depersonalization, disillusionment, and many equally serious disorders. Like devotees of the Counterfeit Revival, counterparts in the world of the occult testify to experiencing a variety of troubling physical manifestations in the aftermath of their encounters...God is not obligated to protect people from the consequences of unbiblical behavior. Whether one is a Christian or a cultist, the consequences of swallowing cyanide are identical. Likewise, whether people work themselves into an altered state of consciousness in a cult or in the church, the destructive effects are the same."

When love is misdefined as a mere feeling, and religion is characterized as only a subjective, personal matter, it's inevitable that truth will fall to the wayside, and those who call for a return to truth will be accused of "narrow mindedness", "judgmentalism", "hatred", etc. What is perhaps even more deceptive than the emotionalism of the Counterfeit Revival, however, is the emotionalism of calls for "unity" among professing Christians. Unfortunately, some of those who are discerning enough to see the falsehood of the Counterfeit Revival are also promoters of a different sort of deceptive emotionalism. Many people within professing Christianity are calling for "unity" among all of those, or almost all of those, who claim to be Christians. There are calls to "break down denominational walls" and to not be "divisive". Christians who accurately expose the errors of Mormonism, Hinduism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and other religions are not so discerning when it comes to exposing errors within "mainstream Christianity". Catholicism is perhaps the greatest example, since it isn't even Christian to begin with, and has
influenced far more people than Mormonism, Christian Science, and some of these other religions have. Yet, these other religions seem to be receiving more attention today from evangelicals than Catholicism has received. Even worse, many evangelical Christian leaders are now explicitly calling Catholicism "Christian", and are calling for "unity" with Catholics. This is not a phenomenon unique to today, but it's worse today than at any other point since the Reformation.Charles Haddon Spurgeon condemned the tendencies of some Protestants of his day to associate with Catholicism, but never did the apostasy of his day reach what it has become today. Spurgeon, the "Prince of Preachers", accurately called the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon and the "master-piece of Satan". Many of today's evangelical leaders, however, think otherwise, as witnessed by the recent "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" agreement, which was signed by many prominent evangelical and Catholic leaders (Pat Robertson, Bill Bright, Chuck Colson, Ralph Martin, John Cardinal O'Connor, etc.).

"It's time for Protestants to go to the shepherd [the Pope] and say, 'What do we have to do to come home?'" - Robert Schuller, Protestant pastor and televangelist

"I'm eradicating the word Protestant even out of my vocabulary....[it's] time for Catholics and non-Catholics to come together as one in the Spirit and one in the Lord." - Paul Crouch, president of Trinity Broadcasting Network

"As we [Catholics and evangelicals] discussed the meaning of the gospel and what Christ meant to us, it became abundantly evident that we shared a common faith....They [Catholics and evangelicals] share the promise of the Father that they have been accepted by Him, and so they, His children, had better accept each other." - editorial from the October 1981 edition of Christianity Today, a popular evangelical magazine , "I don't know anyone more dedicated to the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity than the Catholics." - W.A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention

"We [evangelicals and Catholics] have differences, but on the ancient creeds and the core beliefs of Christianity we stand together." - Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship

"I've found that my beliefs are essentially the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics." - Billy Graham

Many leaders who are discerning and effective in serving Christ on other matters are undiscerning and tragically prone to compromise when it comes to Catholicism, a false religion with approximately one billion followers worldwide. The Roman Catholic Church still teaches salvation through works, indulgences, veneration and worship of graven images, praying to Mary, and the other false doctrines that it taught at the time of the Reformation, and more. Since the Reformation, Catholicism's blasphemous "Mary" has been elevated even higher, papal infallibility has become an official Catholic doctrine, and the Second Vatican Council has declared that the God of Islam is essentially the same as the God of the Bible, in addition to claiming that people can be saved apart from trusting Christ. Catholic doctrine is more erroneous and blasphemous than ever before. In most of the world, political and social changes no longer permit the Catholic Church to use violence today as it did in the past in order to enforce its will (Inquisition, Crusades, etc.). An apostate church is apostate with or without a sword, though. It's arguable that today's ecumenical Catholicism is even worse than the violent Catholicism of the past, because it deceives more people. What the Catholic Church of the past accomplished in terms of physical destruction seems to pale in comparison to the spiritual destruction it brings about today among nearly one billion Catholics and hundreds of millions of non-Catholics who have been deceived by Catholicism's recent ecumenical tendencies.

Millions of Christians suffered persecution and even martyrdom over the centuries rather than submit to Rome's false doctrines. While Christians condemned and separated from the Roman Catholic Church for centuries, and recognized it as the Whore of Babylon described in Revelation 17-18, many evangelical leaders today say little or nothing against Rome's errors. To the contrary, many of them promote "unity" with Rome. They would do well to remember the examples of the martyrs who came before them. The reader is urged to purchase John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Thieleman J. van Braght's Martyrs Mirror, and other books that tell the stories of so many of the people who have given their lives for Christ over the centuries, many of them at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thomas Cranmer was one of those martyrs. He was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church on March 21, 1556. The World Book Encyclopedia describes the events leading up to Cranmer's execution: "Cranmer supported many measures reforming the church and its doctrine. When the Roman Catholic Queen Mary took the throne in 1553, Cranmer and his Protestant workers were imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1554, they were moved to a prison at Oxford, on the charge of heresy. Cranmer became so weak that he signed statements repudiating his former acts as archbishop. In one of his recantations, he acknowledged his submission to the pope. Two days before his execution, it was arranged that Cranmer should make a final recantation, declaring his belief in every article of the Roman Catholic faith and repudiating his former writings."
Cranmer was brought before an overflow crowd at St. Mary's Church in Oxford, where he was expected to recant his former beliefs, endorse Catholicism, and thus provide the Catholic Church with a great public victory. John Foxe describes, in his Book of Martyrs, what Cranmer said when he was brought forward to speak: "Forasmuch as I am come to the end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life to come, either to live with my Master Christ for ever in joy, or else to be in pain for ever with wicked devils in hell, and I see before mine eyes presently either heaven ready to receive me, or else hell ready to swallow me up: I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith, without any color or dissimulation; for now is no time to dissemble, whatsoever I have said or written in time past. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe every word and sentence taught by our Savior Jesus Christ, His apostles and prophets, in the New and Old Testament. And now I come to the great thing, which so much troubleth my conscience, more than any thing that ever I did or said in my whole life, and that is the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the truth; which now here I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life if it might be; and that is, all such bills and papers which I have written or signed with my hand since my degradation; wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished there-for; for, may I come to the fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and antichrist, with all his false doctrine."

The crowd was stunned, and the Catholics began shouting down Cranmer, insisting that he be silenced and taken to the stake immediately. When Cranmer was delivered to the stake for execution, he kept his word by holding his hand in the fire before the rest of his body burned, declaring "This hath offended; oh, this unworthy hand!", interspersed with "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" until he was consumed in the flames, and died.

A monument near Balliol College in Oxford declares of Cranmer and two other martyrs of his era: "To the glory of God and in grateful commemoration of His servants Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, prelates of the Church of England, who near this spot yielded their bodies to be burned, bearing witness to the sacred truths which they had affirmed and maintained against the errors of the Church of Rome, and rejoicing that to them it was given not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for His sake."

Many evangelical leaders today are not willing to speak the truth about Catholicism, the truth which so many martyrs not only spoke, but even died for. What Charles Haddon Spurgeon said of Catholicism in January of 1873 is just as true today as it was then, with the exception that Rome's ecumenical arms have reached out much further since then: "Essence of lies, and quintessence of blasphemy, as the religion of Rome is, it nevertheless fascinates a certain order of Protestants, of whom we fear it may be truly said that 'they have received a strong delusion to believe a lie, that they may be damned.' [2 Thessalonians 2:11-12]

Seeing that it is so, it becomes all who would preserve their fellow-immortals from destruction to be plain and earnest in their warnings. Not in a party-spirit, but for truth's sake, our Protestantism must protest perpetually. Dignitaries of the papal confederacy are just now very prominent in benevolent movements, and we may be sure that they have ends to serve other than those which strike the public eye. A priest lives only for his church; he may profess to have other objects, but this is a mere blind. Our ancient enemies have small belief in our common sense if they imagine that we shall ever be able to trust them, after having so often beheld the depths of Jesuitical cunning and duplicity. The sooner we let certain Archbishops and Cardinals know that we are aware of their designs, and will in nothing co-operate with them, the better for us and our country. Of course, we shall be howled at as bigots, but we can afford to smile at that cry, when it comes from the church which invented the Inquisition. 'No peace with Rome' is the motto of reason as well as of religion."

Many Christians today not only are at peace with Rome, as well as with many other false religions and false doctrines, but even condemn those who are discerning enough to "rightly divide the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). The discernment and concern for truth that were so much a part of the ministry of Christ and the apostles (Matthew 15:3-14, 2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, etc.) are condemned today as "hatred" and "divisiveness".

If we are in the final apostasy that Jesus and the apostles said would occur just before Christ's return, as all signs indicate, then matters are only going to get worse. The truth will continue to be trampled in the name of a false "love" and a false "unity". To the few who listen to the voice of scripture and the voice of the martyrs and faithful Christians of the past, there is more need to be discerning and doctrinally sound than ever before. As the apostle Paul said of the last days, these are "perilous times" when men "will not endure sound doctrine" (2 Timothy 3:1, 4:3).

 While we should not be surprised at the progressive abandonment of the authority of  Scripture among the churches because the prophets warned this would happen, it is tragic to realize that many new believers are in great spiritual danger due to the lack of teaching of doctrine our churches today.  The apostate church of the end times will be a church with the lowest common denominator faith  that holds almost no fundamental doctrines other than secular humanism and a pagan , idolatrous worship of the “god with in.”  Gods command to those who will repent of their sin and follow Him is that we must base our life, our teaching and our eternal hope solely on the truth revealed by the unchanging Word of God. “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,   and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.   All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,   so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. “ ( 2 Timothy 3:14-17)