I received this email:
"How and why do people claim to have these powerful charismatic experiences (seemingly with sincerity), often many of the same ones that you have talked about having (e.g. seeing the Lord, being taken to Heaven) but they don’t ever say a word about repentance, or needing to be sinless, or being cleansed every whit?
Often these people are teaching others how to have these experiences but they never say a word about repentance and by all accounts have success doing so. They also tend to hold large conferences and charge money to give and exercise gifts of the spirit. It would seem that many of these people stand in need of repentance. I say this knowing full well that the answer may be that I have a large beam in my eye and I’m seeing them as evil when they are good and I’m at fault. If that really is the answer, fair enough. I’ll get on with repenting my guts out and more power to them.
...the way you speak about repenting of all of your sins, to me it sounds like basically no one has done that except yourself (not a criticism, just an observation), so I don’t assume anyone else has fully, including myself.
The reasons I ask, and I would be grateful for any correction you would offer me is - I have been assuming that those types of experiences come only after or because of repentance. As in you cannot be qualified to have something like that happen unless you have fully repented of your sins. What am I missing? Many of these people seem very sincere and I know healings and the like do happen to them. They also go around saving people with the sinner’s prayer and calling it an evening which seems out of order from what I know about repentance."
Answer:
There are two answers here. The first is that some portion of those claiming these experiences are lying or confused as to the source. But since it's tricky to ascertain which fit this description, we'll go to the second answer:
For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)
Gifts are given in order to encourage us to develop into the kinds of people who merit them. When you learn and live the law upon which a blessing is predicated, you can use it any time. When you are "cleansed every whit from [your] iniquity" you can do "many miracles in the name of Jesus" (see 3 Nephi 8:1). The exercise of a gift, on the other hand, is subject to forces you do not understand and over which you have no control.
Our tendency to think that experiences with God make us special is one of the barriers we provide to God in the blessings that would otherwise flow from him to us. He will sprinkle these experiences among even a faithless population in order to prove that they can happen,[1] but that is no indication of whether they will be used as intended (to foster greater faith in God) or to amplify the pride of the still unrepentant people. The interesting thing about gifts provided without repentance is that they can't be transmitted to another person. This is why they aren't fruit. Fruit reproduces the same plant it came from, and the same fruit. Spiritual manifestations that come from repentance are transferable to all who exercise the same repentance. If a person follows the example of one who claims experiences with God, and does not receive experiences with God, they can know that their teacher is either a liar or exercising gifts without repentance. Of course, most would be filtered out far sooner simply by noting that all of God's messengers preach repentance.
And also trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. (Mosiah 23:14)
If they do not proclaim to the world that they've stopped sinning, or can't say so when asked, then that's all you need to know.
You said "the way you speak about repenting of all of your sins, to me it sounds like basically no one has done that except yourself...." That was true, as far as I'm aware, for a time. But now there are others, and there will be far more, especially as the seeds of instruction are fertilized by the outpouring of great desolation, all according to God's plan. Those who follow in the example of Jesus, as far as they are aware of it, experience the same things as everyone who ever did anciently, and more because he has gone to the Father, just as promised.
[1] That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45)