A Pentecostal Had a False Gift of Interpreting Tongues

Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev. "A Non-Boring Life of an Orthodox Missionary".

Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev

Exposure

Once, when I still studied at the seminary, I was invited to a joint meeting of Pentecostals from different communities, despite the fact that the person who invited me and many others of them knew that I was Orthodox.

“A person has arrived who has all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and he will help you break these Orthodox complexes of yours and see the truth as it is!” – I was told.

I was glad that such a “vessel of grace” appeared, and immediately agreed to go to this meeting. I have always had some kind of burning interest in such people, just a hunting passion. I left my seminary jacket at home, put on an ordinary jacket, shirt and immediately set off.

The meeting, however, was already coming to an end, but I got to the most interesting part: this man worked miracles. A whole queue lined up for him, people came up one after another and confided their secrets and aspirations to him.

“I have very poor eyesight,” someone said.

The "Man of Grace" took cotton wool, dipped it in a glass of water, smeared his eyes and said:

- This is how Jesus Christ healed!

Differences between True and False Healers

Kalashnikova T.P. "True and false healings".

Qualitative characteristics	Russian Orthodox faith healers	False miracle workers
Moral character	Humility, meekness, respecting others before self, fear of God, modesty, truthfulness	Pride, arrogance, vanity, sometimes outward religiosity, guile, affectation, desire to be exalted, to attract, to seduce
Attitudes toward the reward for treatment	Non-acquisitiveness, gratuitousness	Pursuit of profit, gain, wealth, luxury, commerce
Attitude to publicity	Hiding one's gift of miracles and hiding positive results	Promoting successful cases of treatment, seeking publicity, self-glorification, and fame
Methods of treatment	Prayers, anointing sick body parts with holy oil, laying hands; using sacred objects, the sign of the cross, sometimes herbs, and holy water. Gentle calm voice, no violence	Hand manipulations, passes, non-contact massage, staring, incantations, conspiracies, shouting, elements of violence, suppression of other people' will, hypnotism, magnetism, etc.
Positive effect is caused by	divine grace through the faith of the patient and the healer's special divine gift	By natural causes, sometimes by coincidences, through self-hypnosis, faith of the patient, or through forces of a non-divine (demonic, mortal world)
The emergence of the gift of miracles	As a consequence and reward for righteousness, prayerful deeds, fasting, humility, while denying from following one’s own will	Often it is spontaneous just because of a longing for recognition as a miracle worker
The nature of healings	Healings are complete: both physical and spiritual, connected with the revival or strengthening of the healed person's true faith. It is possible to heal from all diseases and even to raise from the dead	Healings are only of an external nature, covering the physical aspect, but spiritually they have a negative impact
Side effects of healing	None	Multiple, mostly of a mental, spiritual kind. However, sometimes they can remain undiscovered for a long time.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/kinds-of-spiritual-delusion/136-healing-ability-from-demons/1034-differences-between-true-and-false-healers

Delusion Through Hearing Voices Is Very Common Nowadays

Elder John (Krestiankin). From the letters of 2003.

Elder John (Krestiankin) (1910 - 5.2.2006)

Servant of God, L.!

You get a gift not from the Lord, but you are deluded by the dark forces. And if you do not stop following "the voice", the end of this delusion will be very sad for you. Initially you are given a gift for free and you are taught to obey, but in a very short period of time you will get retribution.

Have pity on your soul. You should confess, take the Holy Unction and the Holy Communion.

And to succeed in resistance to this enemy violence you should take the Holy Communion more often, no less than once in two weeks.

Now in our time this way of delusion is very common – at first you are dictated the truth, but very soon you will not even notice how the lie will be mixed with the truth, and the deluded person takes the lie for the truth. The Divine truths at all times are kept in the Church of God, and for this purpose the Lord created the Church - the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. And you have lived outside the Church for a long time, and so now the enemy easily enters your life using flattery.

Do not teach, you have no blessing for this.
http://oprelesti.ru/index.php/what-is-spiritual-delusion/496-delusion-through-hearing-voices-is-very-common-nowadays

Metropolitan Anthony on Prelest

Conversations with Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. "On Prelest".

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom)

Very often, way too often people talk about prelest and use this word with some mysterious expression on their faces because they found this word in the writings of the Holy Fathers, which they should not be reading yet. I remember a very experienced priest telling me, "Do not let people who have not yet matured in Orthodoxy read "Philokalia,"  because they will think that they already know everything that is described in there in such simple terms. In reality, none of us often has the slightest idea of what is being described there in such simple words." And that takes us to the topic of prelest. People can be charmed by their imagination. They can be deceived. Prelest is derived from the words "flattery, lies." And a deluded man is a man who is imagining something while the real situation is different. That man thinks he knows the secrets of spiritual life, while in reality he only knows something about his emotional life.

There is a wonderful excerpt in Theophan the Recluse’s writings where he doesn’t speak about prelest but rather says that very often we, thanks to prayer, sacraments, deep reflection, and our attempts to live worthy of our Christian calling, start having some unexpected feelings or even corporal experiences – we feel warmth or some light rising in the soul.  And he says: all of that is only emotions and corporal experiences. He even says that if during prayer we see some golden light, we should know that that phenomenon is not divine but is of an emotional and corporal nature. For this reason, we should be very cautious in such matters and should live soberly instead of wondering whether it is prelest or not. In other words, we shouldn’t get intoxicated with our desire to live a spiritual life.

Saint Isaac of Syria says: if you see a novice who begins to ascend from earth to heaven, grab him by his legs and throw him to the ground, because if he rises too high, his fall will be ever more painful.  Thus, we should learn to live simply and soberly. As one priest told me, where there is simplicity, there are a hundred angels, where there is intricacy, there is none. We fall into prelest because we are lost in contemplation of ourselves. When we pray, fast, read, or have a conversation, we direct our attention to ourselves and think, "What am I like, what is happening in me now, what am I like in God’s eyes?" — but we cannot answer those questions ourselves. We can only say, "If what I am experiencing now is from You, oh Lord, strengthen it; if it is not from You, dispel it."

How to Distinguish Whether the Gift Is From God or From the Devil

Question to Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye in the air of TV channel "Soyuz". April, 2008.

Archbishop Vikenty (Morar')

In the studio: Archbishop Vikenty and Hegumen Dimitry (Baibakov).

- Please tell how to distinguish the gift of God from what gives the sly one?

- First, God's gifts God gives to man for the great labors, feats, renunciation of oneself, from all worldly things, for the feat of humility. The basis of these gifts - humility. Because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble – when there is a virtue of humility and the man no longer is proud of his achievements. When he thinks that they are not his but belong to God, then the Lord gives some gifts: the gift of healing, the gift of insight, the gift of advice, many, many gifts. And, of course, the person who is working on himself and tills the soul, eradicates all the weeds, does not think how to get any gifts. He thinks of salvation, and the Lord Himself gives him. And it often happens that he does not want it and does not see, but people notice it. And he says, 'This is not mine - this is the Lord".

- He runs away from this glory...

- Yes, he runs from this glory. The Lord is merciful, He wants to give a benefit to someone who needs through that person. Now extrasensory individuals believe that they have gifts from God. This way they only believe, and this is actually not the case. They wave their hands, foresee, see, hear, notice something and think that it is from God. They have a candle lit as well, and an icon next to it, "Behold, I am with God's help". There are no such gifts. According to my knowledge of the Holy Fathers, they reached such gifts only with labors.

- And with incredible labors!

- Yes, with incredible labors. Take St. Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov. For example, a man came to St. Sergius, brought a sick baby, and the baby died. And the man in despair and grief threw it to the saint: do what you want. Sergius went and prayed, and the Lord heard his prayer. And he said to the man, "Go home, but do not say anything to anyone while I'm alive". He went with joy that his son was revived and recovered. Of course, it is a great joy. Here the Christ the Savior Himself was saying: "Do not tell anyone what I've done". Here is an example of how the Lord shows us how to receive the gifts and to have them in a contrite, humble heart. But when a person receives the gifts is such simple way...

- And travels on tour between the concert halls...

- Yes, all painted, overdressed. What is his feat, a feat for which he received these gifts? Received for his pride? Yes, received for the pride, not from God but from the Devil. There is no third power: there is Divine one and demonic one.

- Either, or...

- The Divine power can only be obtained through humility, through a great feat, and demonic - safely and easily...
http://oprelesti.ru/index.php/kinds-of-spiritual-delusion/136-healing-ability-from-demons/505-how-to-distinguish-whether-the-gift-is-from-god-or-from-the-devil