There is a fascination with demonic manifestations among those in the Charismatic Movement, specifically that the gospel is not anointed preaching unless there is evidence of demonic activity in the church.
According to them, the cries and shrieks of the demonically possessed is demonstrative of an “anointed, convicted preached sermon has taken place. Without these kinds of reactions missing from “American churches” and on “American stages,” as claimed by one among them, John Burton, and is indicative that a revival needs to place across the evangelical landscape.
These kinds of demonic activities must become commonplace claims, John Burton, ministry leader, author, and “sought out teacher, prophetic messenger and revivalist” if America is to see another Great Awakening.
Burton recalling a recent meeting:
Suddenly, as people were silently, somberly on their knees at an altar, and in the middle of a teaching—no, a preaching—that was demanding a response, a response came.
A disturbed, provoked cry, “Damn John Burton to hell! Damn John Burton to hell! I’m going to hell! I’m going to hell!” shocked everybody in that church sanctuary. It was shouted, screamed, from the rear of the room, shattering the weighty atmosphere with demonic shrieks. The voice went on with the tirade while its source was escorted to the foyer and then out into the parking lot to be ministered to by church staff. We all heard this person, a well-respected part of this church from what I understand, continue in their manifestation as the Holy Spirit was bringing deep conviction to all who were present.
Burton explains that revival must include demonics:
We must see another great awakening come to America! It’s time to shut down the predictable, stale church services and allow the disturbing yet wonderfully freeing messages of repentance emerge!
This type of demonic reaction to anointed, convicting preaching should not be rare in the church today, but it is. Extremely rare.
Burton misconstrues the great preaching of both Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield as evidenced in calling for the next great revival.
Of Jonathan Edward, John Burton said, “he caused quite a stir at Enfield”:
An eyewitness, Stephen Williams, wrote in his diary, “We went over to Enfield where we met dear Mr. Edwards of Northampton who preached a most awakening sermon from these words, Deuteronomy 32:35, and before the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying went out through ye whole House…. ‘What shall I do to be saved,’ ‘Oh, I am going to Hell,’ ‘Oh, what shall I do for Christ,’ and so forth. So yet ye minister was obliged to desist, ye shrieks and cry were piercing and amazing.”
And stating that “George Whitefield knew this well”:
After a sermon in Lyme, Connecticut, “many had their countenances changed; their thoughts seemed to trouble them, so that the joints of their loins were loosed, and their knees smote one against another. Great numbers cried out aloud in the anguish of their souls. Several stout men fell as though a cannon had been discharged, and a ball had made its way through their hearts.”
Making the claims that the cries and pleads of convicted sinners at the hearing of the gospel preached (John 16:4-11) are actually the voices of reviled demons is categorically and scripturally absurd.
