Rejecting the Baptism of the Spirit

Victor sent this letter to Dana:

Hi Dana, Victor Hafichuk here,

I knew Henry while in Saskatoon at the Christian Training Center as a student under him. Then my wife and I were baptized in the Holy Spirit and that changed everything. Suddenly I was seeing, by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the evangelical spirit and works were quite contrary to God. There was no reverence for God. Indeed, there was, in spite of profession otherwise, great irreverence. We could not stay. The Lord began to teach us directly, personally, and to change everything in our lives, for which, today, I am very thankful.

I am sorry to see you unsubscribe. We are speaking truth that all need to hear, for very life. If you understood and were one with the Lord, you would not be where you are or rejecting what we have to say.

Now contending for the faith once delivered to the saints,

Victor Hafichuk

He then wrote this letter to Henry Blackaby:

Hi Henry,

I could have, perhaps should have, contacted you and your family personally when finding your website. I recall writing to you once in 1975 or ‘76, and your response was a bitter one. I did not expect that things had changed. My expectation was that you would decline correspondence, so I thought that perhaps a word without formality might get somewhere.

You did not believe that God had taken us to Himself, giving us His Spirit. You could not believe it because it went beyond, if not came against, you and your spiritual position, not being in Christ Jesus. I thought repentance was a great thing, and it truly was, but added to repentance, after a season of remorse and confessing attitudinal sins at Faith Baptist in the fall of ’74, to you and several others, in due time, the Lord baptized me in His Holy Spirit. Read at least part of my spiritual journey, Victor Hafichuk, if you have not already done so.

You are now famous, acclaimed by many, and your children follow in your footsteps. We met a man recently who said you too had received the Holy Spirit in the ‘80s. I did not believe him. I would love to be wrong, but I do not believe I am. Your works tell it.

Though you may think otherwise, we have never had negative feelings toward you or anyone else in our past associations in your denomination. I am thankful to this day for those times. Frankly, it was a sad thing to be severed from you. There was, however, no alternative, not if we were to obey and go on with God. I once told you, after the severance, that we loved you, but you rejected it out of hand, judging our circumstances after the appearance and treating us as deceivers or deceived. Henry, it won’t be too much longer before you know the truth. You may try to read The True Marks of a Cult. There are many writings you could read. Lord willing, some day you will know, and He is.

Victor Hafichuk

Henry did not reply.

Here are some notes from Victor on what happened when he and his wife received the Holy Spirit and were divided from Blackaby and his church:

Right before they received the Spirit: The night before Marilyn and I had prayed for the Holy Spirit, the church had planned a “Watch Night Service” on New Year’s Eve. It began about 7 pm. We were expecting a “season of prayer,” Bible study, and worship to bring in the New Year. Food was served, games were played, and, generally, it was a worldly social in the basement of the church. We were rather chagrined. It was not until about ten minutes before midnight that Henry rallied everyone upstairs to the chapel, and he said a few words. We prayed a short prayer at midnight and went home. Frankly, I was greatly disappointed, if not disgusted. That night seemed to be the “final straw,” precipitating us to going on with God the next night.

After they received the Spirit: If a sheep should stray away, is it up to the sheep to find its way back to the fold, or is it up to the shepherd to come and find the sheep?

Jesus said:

“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, does he not leave the ninety and nine and go into the mountains and seek the straying one?” (Matthew 18:12 MKJV)

Henry Blackaby never called; he never visited. We did not hear that he so much as enquired of us. Marilyn had been his star pupil and helper for nearly three years. Was she not worth some kind of attempt at “rescue” or reconciliation? We did hear that he preached a sermon in his church, saying, as a result of our departure, something about their having to examine themselves.

There was not one word spoken between us until many weeks later when we decided to donate our religious books to Henry’s Bible school library. He came to pick the books up, saying very little, except to cite some ignorant examples of false tongues and Pentecostalism. He asked no questions and wished to hear nothing. I think he was bitter.

Another incident, afterwards: ...I was in great turmoil. Seeing Jack had not wanted me to speak on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I decided that perhaps I had been unfaithful in preaching that which I did, though not making specific reference. I learned that Henry Blackaby, speaking to others in my absence, had accused me of “desecrating the pulpit.” Still having high regard for Henry, I went to Jack and his congregation and apologized. I now look back and realize that I should have confronted them on their error, that I had every right to speak the truth, more than they had to preach error, more right to preach more of the gospel than they had to preach less of it, but I was not ready to do spiritual battle, other than to remain undeterred from our course upon which the Lord had launched us by giving us His Spirit.

To sum up the matter: Still attending the Bible school classes for a few weeks, it became increasingly difficult to tolerate both the spirit and letter of what was happening. One day, Henry Blackaby was discussing with Bill Bye, a pastor from Edmonton brought to Saskatoon to teach a class, what classroom would be used to teach a course on the Holy Spirit. Laughing, Henry pointed the room out to Bill, saying, “The Holy Spirit’s over there.” That event immediately struck me in my spirit. I was very uncomfortable with the irreverence, the lightness of their attitudes toward God.

Daily, time after time and incident after incident, we were seeing that God had done something in us. Things were different for me. This was the first time I can identify the discerning of spirits operating, one of the nine spiritual gifts of the Spirit mentioned by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter twelve.

While the Baptist teachers said things and quoted Scripture, the Lord was telling us something quite different. We understood on a new level the very Scriptures they were using. We began to realize that our time there was about up. One by one, we dropped study subjects on which we felt we could not agree. Truly, the subjects were not the issue. We could not be in fellowship with them nor they with us.