hi ken
1. true.
but i've watched 100s of hours of that stuff. and seen much in person.
2. alright. well, of course this is where we have that gulf between us, since i am a cessationist.
but i do appreciate your adherence to Paul's instructions to the people the epistle was addressed (who were receiving the New Covenant revelation).
3. the above part makes me more than a little uncomfortable.
i guess we can talk about that.
4. thank you for sharing that ken.
it's wonderful
5.i would agree with that, at a bare minimum.
in that case, it surely could not be of God, would you agree?
6. if it was not of God, what was it?
(i've spent several years studying that particular movement, as i had a personal brush with "it" myself).
7. 3 weeks of prayer and fasting brought deliverance from it. and much understanding of what it really was.
we could talk about that sometime.
8.okay.
it's a little awkward getting to this point with you, since though i am certain we again have the gulf between us on the issues of tongues, your sincerity and forthrightness is disarming.
however, it does need to be addressed eventually in any discussion of the continuation (or "renewal") of the Acts 2 miracles.
9. i certainly agree.
but are
feelings all we have to be certain?
i suppose this is discernment. but discernment is not simply going by our feelings - we have to have something more from which to measure, or weigh what we see. something objective.
10. this is a good time to say i do not nor have i ever denied miracles, that God can and does work miracles, He is the same always, in His Character and Attributes....but He does not always
do things the same way - i wonder if we agree here?
11. for example: in the exodus, His miracles and power were huge and amazing - they are recorded for us.
yet in the return from Babylon, we see no miracles of the same kind.
He was the same God, leading the same people, both times out of captivity. yet He did things differently.
12. this is perfectly reasonable, and i would agree.
but where are we actually told, when we assemble or worship, to "allow the Lord to move"?
what does that mean exactly?
13. the only issue i have is that if we are expecting, or believing that 'certain things' will or should 'happen', do we not actually set it up in expectation of that?
some groups do: we have a particular kind of music and emotional hyping prior to whatever 'event' is planned, and so on. this is really obvious in the hundreds of hours of footage i've seen. anyways....
14. i do not think, though, that means He is happy with the likes of joyner et al.
just that He may (might) have mercy and be working in someone's life in spite of (what i see as ) apostate 'leadership'.
i love you
zone
I am not certain if I was blest by not being able to answer you three hours ago or not. Due to the delay, I had to edit and paste comments, and then bring them back to the other page, and that is hard. But, I did see your exchange with Red, and I think this is much of what is making this discussion so necessary. Those of us who matured to Christian adulthood in the first years of this, see the horrors people have been posting as Satan's new counterfeits, and we stay away and do what we have always done without putting it on youtube. I agree with where Red is coming from, as much of what was posted is part of black Pentecostal culture, and it blesses them, but they have other ways to deal with it. With the post you said about having gotten Kundalini spirits, etc., I certainly see why you are opposed to it all. I think we can all agree that all of us are trying to find all the good God wants us to have, and avoid all the evil the devil wants us to have. But we are all victims of a culture that has changed so fast we can hardly keep up with it, and we seem to be using the same words for different things. Words like tongues, prophecy, even what you said "special music", all mean three different things to you, me and Red, depending on our experience. I would rather permit the gifts and deal with excesses. Red would rather permit the gifts elsewhere, and you would rather have them not be there at all. That's perfectly fine to me; each of us is just doing the Godly thing based on our experience. The discussion is important, as you say. We need to know as best as we can what that Godly thing is, or how else are we to take our place in the whole Body, with its varied experience and thus varied desires for the gifts.
1. I've watched just enough to know to stay away. When I get caught in these things accidentally, I usually wait until I can get the person's ear, and start asking questions, and gradually tell them the opposing Scriptures when I have their confidence enough to listen. One of the reasons I needed to get more info on rich Joyner, was that I keep away from big name ministries, since their temptations to become like this are great, and I know so many have succumbed.
2. Do you, as a cessationist, believe the gifts do not exist today as a fact, or that they exist but are not appropriate for use in the church?
3. Everything depends on whether the people know enough Scripture to know the "Lord's thing" (see #10). The people I associate with do, or I stop associating with them in ministry. This is another of those terms we are using three different ways.
4. Part of my purpose in sharing that was that it could have happened without the "gifts". My wife could have just finished watching a TV show, or talking to her long-lost best friend, and could have done the same thing. I think we should receive joy from God at least as much as we do from good things in the world.
5-6-7. Absolutely not of God. I have a theory about all of this. I think it all started when the Catholic Church decided that hierarchy are the only ones qualified to administer a church. The Protestant reformation changed who could be in charge, but it is only very recently that the idea that a pastor or elders need not be in charge, has come up. The question is inherent in the restoration of the gifts. If the gifts are real, and are of God, then prophets, sayers of wisdom, apostles, etc., all have a say, and anyone could become one of these anytime if God wills. I think this is the real dividing point - who gets the authority. The purpose of allowing the first holy laughter was to make the social statement that the carefully prepared sermon of the
ordained pastor should be forced to wait for the "Lord's joy" in the
non-ordained people. I'm not saying if it should or not in fact wait, or if it was even the Lord's joy. What I'm saying that's why the event happened, and why it was allowed; that particular pastor felt that the sermon should wait. But then, like the gifts we are talking about, it drew attention, people wanted to see it, their money was of use to the church, so they started making it happen. Like so many, the desire for prestige and money got them out of God's will. By the time you saw it, it was a doorway for the demonic, and it sounds like some of that got onto you. (I feel so bad it happened.)
8. Perhaps our gulf in tongues is because we mean something different by the term? Have you ever heard of the Catholic "rosary"; look it up and compare tongues to that; maybe if you grew up Catholic you will even want tongues when you see this particular "other option". But by all means,when we get the bulk of this done, state your reasons for opposition. Once I see where you are coming from, maybe we can understand each other better.
9. Of course not. Feelings are what you have after applying Scripture for many years. It's just like going by your "gut". If you are in charge in an assembly where something like these videos happens, sometimes it's your gut that gets you standing up and stopping it; the Scriptures come later, after you have saved someone from getting hurt the way you were.
10-11. We agree completely. My take is He has a normally awesome way He does everything day-to-day, and a stunning super-awesome way he does unexpected things, just enough to keep you wanting to praise Him all the time. So we should always depend on Him to use regular methods (like music, the Word, prayer) but be ready for anything new to us He might want to do as well. Do you agree that anything God does, has an example or verses in Scripture that we can refer to, so we can be certain it is Him and not a counterfeit?
12. That is an impossible question in view our exchange in 10-11. We have to be open to anything God might want to do, which is why we need to be in prayer for our assemblies, and knowledgeable in the Word. I have lists in my head from experience and study. And when I lead, I have expectations based on what I believe He told me in prayer for the particular day. These lists include pretty much everything we are discussing here.
13. Let's all pray we are humble enough not to do that. Let's also realize we probably are not, and be ever on the alert, lest we fail. You bring up "music and emotional hyping". To me, these are different things. There are really great pastoral music techniques, that can bring a congregation into an emotional experience of God. My wife perfected a series of these techniques, and I studied from her and learned a lot. I have never known her, or anyone who uses techniques like hers, to agree with any of the videos we are presenting here. The congregation has an emotional experience of God and heaven opening, and immediately settles into a quiet, reverent state while the music is still playing. Handel is quoted as having seen the heavens open when he finished writing the Halleujah Chorus, and that is what I mean about this music. The music can apparently be misused for emotional hyping, but I want to mention that is a separate thing. I have tried three times to start a thread on specifics, and gotten no takers.
14. God does not approve of sin in any form, deliberate or accidental. Which is why He sends people like you to ask questions like you are asking. You, or someone who reds this, might be a part of His corrective solution. He lets the wheat and tares grow together, but His allowance of the amount of hurt that is happening, I believe, is very nearly used up, and believe it or not, I have prophets in my life who are prophesying exactly that.
I love you in the Lord as well.
