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But here comes the balance of everything.  Having only religious affections is just as dangerous as having no religious affections.  

While Jonathan Edwards writes about this back in the 1700's, I think it has become a more divisive and more prominent problem in our day.  The reason is that we have the charismatic movement today.



Here is the problem.  Many in the charismatic movement have much religious affections.  They are excited about God.  They want to see him working.  They know he is powerful.  Those outside the movement though hear some of the things some charismatics teach (see how careful I was) and hear blatant heresy and lies from Satan.  

A perfect case study is the "outpouring" of God's Spirit last year in Lakeland, Fl.  This revival started small and they grew bigger and bigger.  Eventually it was filling up the Lakeland Civic Center and then moved out to the airport.  They claimed miracles and healings.  However it came to an abrupt halt when the leader was caught in adultery.  Now I don't know the man's heart.  But this caused so much work that he had done to fall apart. 



People outside the charismatic movement see this and misuse of Scripture and deny religious affections in general. However this is moving from one extreme, Christianity is all affections and excitement, to the other, Christianity has no affections or excitement.  This is the problem of being off balance, you fall over.  


"There are false affections, and there are true. A man's having much affection, does not prove that he has any true religion: but if he has no affection it proves that he has no true religion. The right way, is not to reject all affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections, approving some, and rejecting others; separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the precious and the vile." (Edwards Religious Affections Part 1) 


We have to be careful.  When we see the most excited man for Christ, he might just be excited for Christ, or he might be a wolf in sheep's clothing ready to carry some away.