Watchout For WOLVES: Keys To Discerning Authentic Ministries & Evaluating Doctrinal Trends

Positive Aspects of Trends in the Church

Often God uses trends or spiritual emphases in the present church world because of something that He is trying to accomplish in and through the Church in the current stage of God’s unfolding purpose. God is very much involved in the building of the Church through the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been a key player in the life of the Church from the very beginning. Some trends reflect an emphasis that God is highlighting in a certain season. God understands the world-wide demands of each generation and knows what the church needs to move into at any given time to meet its unique challenge. Some trends represent the restoration of a truth that has been lost to the church. The history of the church demonstrates that by the 3 rd Century, the church had seemingly lost much of the dynamics of the Early Church as represented in the Book of Acts. The Church seems to have gotten to the place by the 14 th Century that Luther’s revelation of the “just shall live by faith” was a novel concept. From Luther on, God has been restoring His church back to her former glory. Restoring such things as water baptism by immersion, holiness, healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and many other truths that seemed to have been lost in the experience of most of the church world. This work by God will continue until the Church is the beautiful expression of Christ to the world that God intended for it to be. Some trends are aimed at refreshing the Church with a fresh breath of air from the Spirit of God. Peter preached in Acts 3:19 and referred to “times of refreshing” coming from the Presence of the Lord. It seems that there are times in God’s economy where He feels the need to blow a fresh breathe of Holy Spirit air on the Church to enliven some to the bones that have grown weary or dry. Wuest in his New

104