I'm glad your world is perfect. The real world that the rest of us live in, is full of hate and ungodliness. Which is far from perfect.
I guess you don't watch the news. In what perfect world do 11 cops get ambushed and killed?
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I'm glad your world is perfect. The real world that the rest of us live in, is full of hate and ungodliness. Which is far from perfect.
I guess you don't watch the news. In what perfect world do 11 cops get ambushed and killed?
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Eternallife
Guest
I'm assuming since she's agreeing with Roger that she is referring to the 'perfect' as the finalizing of the Bible. That is an assumption and it could be wrong. Many people think that's what 'perfect' means. But they are for sure sadly wrong. It is actually referring to Christ who's kingdom is soon to be of this world.
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Eternallife
Guest
Yeah there is so many posts on here and who can really tell what is in a person's heart by a thread of a few sentences? I just wrote what I wrote to make sure people understand the God is still in control. Even when we see things such as what happened in Dallas. And I do want to say that we must rise above pride and the wanting of taking it upon ourselves when people talk down on us because the truth is there are beings possibly around us that have been under the wrath of God for thousands of years. As someone who acknowledges the fact that I lived under God's wrath before I can tell you it isn't any fun. This message isn't to you RickyZ, but I just use this response to help people understand that Christ didn't come to bring peace but a sword and that it is real important that we understand that we either walk with Christ correctly or we belong to the devil and he has power to rule over us.
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popeye
Guest
....knowledge has also ceased.
That must be why cessationist think Jesus is a clerk in a window,and not a powerful church equipping warrior,equipping us to do what he did,and even greater works.
And surely he is powerless to tell a creationist " do not buy that car,it will bankrupt you"
"OH MY,THAT IS PROPHECY,THE DEVIL MUST BE SPEAKING. ALL PROPHECY AND KNOWLEDGE HAS CEASED"!!!!
LOL
Yep,they are right. Knowledge has indeed ceased.
Jesus says " that plane will crash" through another believer.
Cesationist now is forced to board that plane. ( prophecy has ceased)
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popeye
Guest
Now factor in that Paul spoke in tongues more than anyone,and he said they are for edification,that the spirit is actually praying but the mind is unfruitful.
You have no case. Zero. Not a single verse.
Your knowledge will cease verse is grossly twisted.
Taken IN CONTEXT. " perfect" is not a book.
Read it again. You guys are deceived.
You have been duped by men
Even an unsaved person can see that you view the gifts of the Holy Spirit as something to be manipulated for gain. You take that which is Spiritual and make it earthly and corrupt.
The church at Corinth was being reprimanded not praised for their conduct. Three specific gifts were sign gifts and were ended because they are not for the Gentile church.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
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popeye
Guest
Uh that is what Paul said.
He who speaks in tongues edifies himself.
According to you, David was evil.
He asked Saul " what is in it for me,if I kill the giant?"
Your reach is sloppy.
You have no case ,so you go after me personally.
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popeye
Guest
Scene in an airport as the crowd watches a plane crash on take-off:
"We were supposed to be on that plane! Thank the Lord God for the word He sent to keep us off it!"
"You knew that plane would crash and didn't board it? How???"
"A gift of knowledge from the Holy Spirit of God told us it would. God spared our lives thru that gift! Praise be to God!!!"
" Wow that's some amazing God you serve. Tell us more about Him..."
And thus, a word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit serves to glorify God even among the unbelievers!
Yep, there's that old devil satan, spreading lies to glorify God among the unbelieving. Because bringing glory to God is satan's no. 1 goal.
Sheesh, Roger, you really have no clue at all as to how this works. You're in the wrong team's bleachers, Roger.
Satan is "the god/ruler of this world/age" (John 12:31, 2 Cor 4:4).
The NT also informs us that ...
Satan is "the father of all lies" and "deceives the whole world", and etc.
Anyone think Satan might just had/have some spiritual power goin' on?
Satan deceived the post-apostolic church leaders into believing
(or teaching anyway) that the following had ceased:
-- the baptism with the Holy Spirit (with the initial evidence of tongues)
-- the 9 spiritual power gifts (in 1 Corinthians 12)
This horrendously false doctrine is called "cessationism".
Without it, the whole world would have been quite
successfully evangelized hundreds of years ago!
The NT also informs us that ...
Satan is "the father of all lies" and "deceives the whole world", and etc.
Anyone think Satan might just had/have some spiritual power goin' on?
Satan deceived the post-apostolic church leaders into believing
(or teaching anyway) that the following had ceased:
-- the baptism with the Holy Spirit (with the initial evidence of tongues)
-- the 9 spiritual power gifts (in 1 Corinthians 12)
This horrendously false doctrine is called "cessationism".
Without it, the whole world would have been quite
successfully evangelized hundreds of years ago!
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1Co 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
Still trying to write scripts for Hollywood?
Pure fantasy by speculation.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
Before discussing these gifts in I Corinthians 12, Paul tells his readers, who operated in these kinds of gifts, that they had been led about by mute idols. So it is quite likely that they were Gentiles.
'Sign' could be used of a prophetically predicted event or some kind of miracle. I don't think 'signs and wonders' as an idiom (or set collocation) refers exclusively to predicted events in scripture.
The phrase 'sign gifts' is used by cessationists who want to divide gifts up into categories and do away with gifts, in this day and age, that don't fit with their world view. They try to do away with the 'sign gift' category. The phrase 'sign gifts' is not in scripture.
'Sign gifts' is typically used by people who don't believe in miracles occuring today. I haven't heard anyone call those things 'sign gifts.' Most people who believe in miracles don't believe you should go out looking for snakes to bite you as some kind of sign. Paul survived snake bite when he was unwittingly bit while helping with the fire after a shipwreck.
To me it is sort of like self-fulfilled prophecy. A person does the work of being patient and praying and it verifies you have the Holy Spirit. It I believe takes away the faith principle. Just as in the beginning in the garden , the cause of the fall.
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight
The scripture do not inform us to seek after a sign gift. The gifts it does speak of are not outward. They would be more of a changed heart as the Spirit of Christ through His word witnesses to ours. Going beyond that shows men are not trusting God who has no form, I believe.
It seems to me like you are looking for excuses not to believe in miracles in this day and age. If your interpretation of 'We walk by faith and not by sight' does not work when you apply it to the lives of Jesus and the apostles, then you are interpreting it wrongly.
Doing miracles does not show a lack of faith. Jesus did miracles. The apostles did miracles. Some apostles were not able to do a miracle, casting out a certain demon, Jesus said, because of their lack of faith. Walking by sight in that case might be looking at the boy, looking at his dad's face and dispair, and getting caught up in the circumstances. When they believed God and the demon went out, that was walking by faith.
If you make doing miracles an anti-faith thing, then you would have to condemn Christ and the apostles. Those who prophesy, Paul says in Romans 12, are to prophesy according to the proportion of faith.
Plenty of people came to Jesus and were healed because of their faith. Jesus would say things like, "You faith has made you whole." Plenty of people came to Him specifically believing for healing. The woman who touched the hem of His garment and was healed believed if she touched it, that she would be healed. If she had walked by sight, she might have just thought all those doctors had not been able to cure her, so she was stuck with that problem. But she believed and was healed.
It is not wrong to want to see a miracle either. In John 6, Jesus told a crowd that they sought Him not because they saw a miracle but because they ate of the loaves and were filled. The problems are unbelief and disobedience. It was not a bad thing for the apostles to witness the miracle of the Lord Jesus having been raised from the dead. Thomas' problem was that He would not believe when he heard it. Yet Jesus let him be a witness of His resurrection, that Thomas be not faithless, but believing.
The idea you seem to have that Christianity must be internal and not outwardly displayed by signs and wonders to be truly spiritual doesn't stand up in light of the word of God, either. That clearly isn't what Paul meant by 'we walk by faith and not by sight' because he did miracles. If you really read the Bible, do you get the idea that people did miracles because they weren't spiritual enough and did not believe God enough? That makes no sense. Jesus did many miracles. Stephen was full of faith and power, and what did he do? He did miracles. Miracle workers are typicall portrayed as men of faith.
Consider Peter walking on water as an example of walking by faith versus walking by sight. When he saw Jesus walking on water, Peter wanted Jesus to tell him to come out of the boat and walk to him. Jesus did. So Peter, acting on faith in the word of Christ, climbed out of the boat and walked to Jesus. But then he saw the wind and the waves and doubted. That's when he shifted from walking (quite literally) by faith into walking by sight. When he walked by faith, he performed a miracle. When he walked by sight, he doubted what Christ had told him to do, and he sank.
It takes absolutely nothing away from a man of God who is full of faith to see a miracle. This in no way diminishes his faith. Jesus saw the miracles He Himself performed. He probably witnessed some of the miracles the apostles did as He taught them. Jesus was in no way lacking in faith. Witnessing miracles can help a person strengthen their faith if their heart responds properly. Sergius Paulus believed after he witnessed Elymas being blinded through the words Paul spoke.
If someone heard Jesus rose and beleived it (unlike Thomas), then saw the risen Christ, he would still receive this blessing. Thomas problem was not with seeing the miracle. Thomas problem was that he did not believe before he saw the miracle.
When it comes to the topic of miracles, we have people believe the scriptures and believe in them, and then we have people on the forum thinking up theological excuses to think they happened in the past, but couldn't happen in our own life now where we'd experience them.
There is no evidence of anyone actually preaching the Gospel 'in tongues' in the Bible. In Acts 2, the tongues God gave were such that many present could understand. It captured their attention so that they listened to Peter preaching the Gospel, apparently in a commonly understood language. In I Corinthians, speaking in tongues edifies the speaker, and if it is interpreted, it edifies the church. It also serves as a fulfillment of the sign 'and yet for all that they will not hear me' when unbelievers hear it, because they tend not to believe when they hear speaking in tongues. Unbelievers tend to respond with faith when they hear the secrets of their hearts made manifest through the gift of prophecy. Some of us who have witnessed the gift of prophecy enough know that through the gift the secrets of someone else's heart can be told.
The Bible does not teach that signs only occurred while the Bible was being written. That idea is not part of the 'faith once delivered to the saints.' Also, there were signs recorded in Acts that occurred after the resurrection of Christ, the fulfillment of the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Jesus said, 'Beware of false prophets' and then later, 'Behold, I send unto you, prophets, wise men, and scribes....' If one believes all prophets are true, he can be deceived by false prophets. If one believes all prophets are false, he can reject the genuine prophets Jesus sends. The balance is in knowing both truths and being discerning.
The epistles teach that gifts like the working of miracles are given to the saints. It also warns about lying signs and wonders. So we must be discerning. Rejecting all miracles is wrong. Not being discerning when it comes to miracles is also wrong. One approach can lead to rejecting the works of God. The other can lead to embracing the works of the Devil. We must have discernment. Cessationism is dangerous doctrinal error since it can lead people to reject the work of God. It could also lead those who are wreckless in their speech and lack the fear of God to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and think they are justified because of their theology.
The book of Revelation predicts the two witnesses who would prophesy and do miracles before giving that warning at the end of the book to those who would add to the scroll of Revelation.
And Muhammad did no miracles, instead arguing that the recitation (quran) he taught was the miracle.
Do you think Jesus, the apostles, and the early church were less holy than modern cessationists? Again, I think you should think of Peter walking on water as an example of this. For him, walking by sight was seeing the wind and the waves. Walking by faith, he was able to walk on water and do miracles. Miracles are associated with faith, not with 'walking by sight.' Doing miracles isn't the only way to walk by faith, of course.
As a matter of logic, I would like to point out if that if an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, that doesn't mean all who seek a sign are evil and adulterous. An evil and adulterous generation drinks water, too. But so do the righteous. The apostles asked Jesus for a sign, "What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age?" King Ahaz received a rebuke when he refused to ask for a sign when Isaiah told him to.
If someone is trying to do miracles to prove how spiritual he is, I'd be wary of that person's motivation. I don't know of any church that teaches that as the motivation for doing miracles. If people seek to do miracles to glorify Christ and to testify to the Gospel, I don't have a problem with that.
Something to notice in the Gospels is that signs confirm the word of God as it is preached. The Bible never presents signs and wonders as something to confirm the Bible as a complete book. That idea was developed later on, not taught in scripture.