Posted on 04/09/2016 12:04:27 PM PDT by SetFree
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Didn't you people learn ANYTHING from the smoke of SODOM?
-- GOD |
It might have something to do with...
Go ye into ALL the world...
Now Mom; you've just caused a few of the Pentacostal different groups to have exploding heads!
Amen!!
[A person need not possess any of those so-called gifts in our times to be saved.]
Speaking in tongues is not necessary to be saved, but the gift unleashes a holy boldness and increase in ones faith - at least it did for me.
:)
Chapter and verse that that is what tongues does for someone?
I was not seeking the gift of tongues at the time. Our family was going through a great trial, and I was earnestly seeking answers...
As I was listening intently to a sermon in the church I was attending, the pastor said, “If you want answers to your problems, you need to PRAY!” A great warmth filled me and not long after I began to speak in tongues - a few words at first that developed into a language in time.
This article from Charisma Magazine reiterates what I experienced since that time...
[”For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries” (1 Cor. 14:2]
How do we access this revelation? Communion with the Holy Spirit on His level—in His language. Remember, Paul defines Holy Spirit as the One who “searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets” (1 Cor. 2:10, NLT). As you pray in the Spirit, you will discover things that were previously mysterious and unknown will start coming into greater focus and clarity.
I once rode a motorcycle on HWY 39 from Crystal Lake to Azusa in 40 minutes, including the stop to let my passenger smoke a cigarette.
As to Jim Bakker, I don't know if he has remained Pentecostal, but his program is similar to what it was years ago. As to Jonathan Cahn, I wouldn't call him Pentecostal. He has appeared on a couple of shows I wouldn't expect that I saw on video. I hope making money on his writings is not a high priority.
Having said that, I view him favorably, and I don't have the intellect nor training to discern everything he says and writes. He seems to focus on the Old Testament. I know he says he was saved, but he doesn't say much about the New Testament.
I did write him an email a couple years ago asking his views on Holy Communion. He never answered. Well, I found out. He presided over one on the Jim Bakker show (the two families went to the Holy Land together recently). I don't remember if he had words of blessing, but there was no admonition to confess like St. Paul writes, he used grape juice and I think leavened bread. If I remember this part correctly, it seemed like everyone served themselves at their own table.
I'm always interested in Jonathan Cahn's latest books, opinions and ideas.
That form of communion would be against both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. So I am interested in what he says and thinks, how he interprets the OT, but I take it with a grain of salt. To me he is cut of different cloth than Jim Bakker but I only judge him out of I wouldn't involve myself in his program were Jonathan not on it. Jim may have been totally forgiven, that is God's business.
Those links were interesting. In the first, I have heard Charismatic phenomena associated with Kundalini opening before. It is alien to me as a spirituality. The video should be disturbing to anyone watching it. I don't know why people would be attracted to that craziness and danger.
The second one was informative, too. The moderator at one point said he had maintained his Pentecostal ties with speaking in tongues and I forget what else. He was deeply disturbed at the direction the rest of it has taken.
I hope I have covered everything and thanks to all. I have no ill will toward others of differing opinions, may God bless all and may all our FReeper FRiends, loved ones and may the people at the Azuza event grow in a saving knowledge in the Lord; everyone has to start somewhere on their journey.
And may God rescue the poor souls who ignorantly let themselves being exploited by spiritual predators, the likes of god's unholy bartender et al. It strikes me as more of an appeal to the senses like the Muslims use. There is a sect in that religion dervishes or something. In Russia, Chekhov wrote of holy babblers who travelled the land a century or two ago. So it doesn't seem to be something new in Christendom or limited to one place.
“Nor does a person need to possess any of the gifts to have been filled with the Holy Spirit.”
That is also true, although no less a Christian luminary that Saint Paul TWICE admonished believers to desire the gifts of The Spirit, so I think the state of being filled with The Holy Spirit but not possessing any of the gifts should be regarded as transitional, not terminal. Paul’s teaching about the gifts is quite extensive, and he makes quite clear the expectation that believers will mature from a state of being filled with the Spirit to a state of having and using one or more of the gifts of The Spirit.
Here’s more on that point, and better stated than I’d be able to put it:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/10-reasons-to-desire-all-the-spiritual-gifts
I’ve heard before of *whirling dervishes* who were said to engage in such behavior.
Anyway, the lack of Scriptural support for the behavior, slain in the spirit, holy laughter, etc, and the misuse of the gift of tongues and the claims made about it that have no Scriptural substantiation, make me very suspicious of the movement as a whole.
I am hearing more and more of people who have left the movement after being involved for years and they are out there actively warning others, but the problem is, the experience is too real for many folks and once someone experiences something, it’s hard to convince them of the need for caution.
I think Johnathan Cahn is the real deal and that is primarily because of his message to repent and turn to Christ and his lack of showmanship and fanfare. he’s preaching a very Biblical and unpopular message. There is also the fact that he refuses to make specific prophecies although he suggested at some possible scenarios in the book, and one was concerning last Sept.
I read his book, The Harbinger and was intrigued by it. He pulled together a lot of things about 9/11 and the events following that seemed unconnected. Whether or not you agree with him, I think the book is worth the read. I learned about a lot of things connected to 9/11 and the years after that I never knew before and just could not be coincidence.
For what it may be worth, I am sorry you’ve had run-ins with characters misusing the gifts of The Spirit, or faking them outright.
I’ve been in and around quite a bit of what I should, for all honesty’s sake, call the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
I’ve seen sickening fakery done “in the Spirit.”
That’d be the Ugly.
I’ve seen wrong-headed, but sincere things done.
That’d be the Bad.
I’ve seen genuine, amazing, miraculous things done.
THAT would be the Good.
I’m not willing to throw the whole shootin’ match under the bus over the missteps of a few cranks and amateurs, nor do I see that God Himself is out to do so. I for sure see Satan TRYING to do so, but he’s not going to succeed in the long run.
Do this: Take a look at Mark 9:38 & 39. Jesus’ own disciples came to him all hair-on-fire because there was this other guy out there casting demons out of people, and they tried to shut him down because he wasn’t one of them; he wasn’t part of the group of disciples that followed Jesus around everywhere. He wasn’t part of their group — he was “doing it wrong” — so they wanted to throw him under the bus.
There’s some solid instruction in Jesus’ reply to this manufactured crisis:
FIRST, note that Jesus does not dismiss this guy as a false teacher; there’s no “brood of vipers,” or “ravenous wolf” talk about this guy.
SECOND, see that Jesus admonishes his disciples not to impede the guy’s ministry saying, “he who is not against us is for us.”
So — back to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: it’s only the Ugly who aren’t for Jesus. Yeah, the Bad are in need of guidance and correction, but they aren’t getting it wrong out of malice. And the Good; well those would be analogous to Jesus’ own disciples and the Apostles — they’re getting it right, doing it “by the Book” and the fruit is evident in the lives of those they minister to.
In your own life, you’ve run into all three, but the negative experiences you had in some of those cases has driven you to misidentify some of the Good others as illegitimate, and that’s unfortunate; it needn’t be so.
You wrote about one experience: “I felt something like electricity or static in the atmosphere around me. I didn’t feel good inside during or after, didn’t feel fear but didn’t feel peace. The best I could say is it felt relaxing.”
Your account is a TEXTBOOK encounter with The Holy Spirit, and I’ve little doubt that you were genuinely touched by The Spirit of The Living God. Your lack of prior experience with such things perfectly explains your mixed emotions, at the time, and there’s no condemnation in that. The trouble is that your subsequent experiences with a couple of kooks has led you to re-cast that genuine God encounter as “black arts.” That’s not good.
But let’s do just a moment of thoughtful analysis, here. If I’m Satan, do I not have a real fear that The Church — meaning EVERY follower of Jesus in the world — will wake up, be filled with The Spirit, and begin ministering using the gifts of The Spirit? I’m JUST ONE DEVIL; I’m not omnipresent like God is! How could I EVER hope to get anything infernal done in the hearts and souls of fallen humanity with millions of Spirit-filled Christians everywhere raising the dead, healing everybody left-and-right, prophesying, encouraging all the time, building each other up in Christ — AAAAAaaaahhh! That’s Satan’s worst nightmare; it’s an unmitigated DISASTER for the Kingdom of Darkness!
But what could I do to stop it? Just about nothing, once it really got rolling. If I’m Satan, I KNOW I’ve got NO HOPE of resisting The Holy Spirit. No, my only hope — Satan’s only game plan — with respect to The Holy Spirit and his gift is to VILIFY them; make Christians afraid of them, dubious about them, disparaging of them; to get them to vehemently reject them, if possible. Well, scanning the landscape of Christianity in this hour, I’d have to say Satan has done a bang-up job of it. He’s even managed to fool you in at least one instance.
But that doesn’t make EVERY instance bogus, and your present attitude that “It just isn’t worth the risk” plays RIGHT STRAIGHT INTO Satan’s strategy.
I implore you for the sake of The Name to seriously, soberly re-think the whole thing.
I don't know the area well enough to comment.
That link is a good read. Thanks for posting.
You know, one thing that people complain about is that so much of what goes on in Charismatic, Pentecostal and other Holy Ghost churches involves so much NOISE. I grew up in a Nazarene church, and the loudest we ever got was singing some of the great hymns; probably the church organ was the loudest thing in the service. Ever. So, even considering where I’ve been since, some of the shouting, and stuff is a bit off-putting to me. I’ve seen a lot, and I’ve learned to consider at length, and speak reservedly, so I almost never say a thing about it. Still, I must admit I’ve seldom been comfortable with speakers revving up the congregation with things like, “Come on let’s give Jesus a shout!” Only rarely have I sensed that that sort of thing was Spirit-led.
I’ve not been to many Catholic services, but I’ve NEVER been to a Catholic service that was LOUD; LOUD just isn’t in their repertoire, as far as I’m aware. So they see some Third Wave bunch hollering in church, and the Preacher shouting above the din — they haven’t got a grid that’s capable of processing that in a positive way without a substantial input of willpower. And I think that’s a significant barrier to Catholics being able to look at things like this Azusa Now meeting, and see the positive in it.
Ditto Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians...right on down the line.
At this point in my post, I’m hoping to get some thoughtful feedback from some of our “high church” brothers and sisters. Am I onto something, here, or not?
In the days of Whitefield and Wesley, the interventions of the Holy Spirit in some of Wesley’s meetings drove him to try to explain these outbreaks of what was then pilloried as “sensationalism” or “emotionalism.” Wesley came to accept the occasional noise as the price of having The Spirit show up, but the only reason HE did any yelling from the pulpit was due to the absence of powered amplification.
I zoom out, look at the whole church landscape as far as I’m aware of it, and it doesn’t seem to me that a lot of the shouting is of much benefit, especially when the speaker already has a hot a microphone in his hand with 10,000 Watts of amplification on tap.
Why yell so much?
Not saying don’t ever, but certainly THINK and ASK, “Is this Spirit-led, or just the flesh makin all this racket?”
From another angle...
The story of David bringing the Ark to Jerusalem carries sobering instruction for both Charismatic and non. Uzza — the Charismatic representative — got the Divine ZOT for having a too-low regard for God’s Holiness. NOBODY was supposed to touch that Ark except in specific ways and for specific reasons. But — la-dee-da — the wagon the thing was on (which was the wrong way to move it, in the first place) hit a bump, and the Ark rocked, and Uzza thought God needed some help, there — ZZZOTT!! Dead.
WARNING to the Charismatic crowd:
God ain’t your “friend”; He doesn’t “Like” you on Facebook. He LOVES you RADICALLY and delights in you, BUT — NEVER EVER take His Majesty, Power, Glory and HOLINESS lightly.
When we get needlessly uproarious on church, are we being like Uzza thinking God needs some help getting in motion in our midst? As if The Spirit responds to the volume knob? We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Elijah didn’t meet a deafening God; he threw his cloak over his head, and prostrated himself before a still, small voice.
Again, I’m NOT saying, “All of this racket is carnal, so don’t”; I’m saying SOME of it is, and any of it that can’t be tied to the activity of The Spirit or legitimate joy in His Presence probably is noise the church could reduce. Now, “joy in His Presence” DOES, I think, include worship, so I’m not getting picky about having the worship band play loud, and the people sing loud; we were loud in the 1970’s with just a piano and organ. But does some of our shouting and arm-waving quench the Spirit because He’s not willing to shout above the fleshly aspects of our commotion?
Yet again, this is more wondering in print than preaching condemnation. I’d love a diversity of input coming back.
Back to the return of the Ark...
David’s wife, Michal — daughter of Saul — embodies the sober warning to non-charismatics: she disdained King David’s worship of The LORD. Reading the account, you’d think David went way too far with it; you’d think she had a legitimate point, and when he walked in the door after the whole thing was over, she hit him with it. “O how the King of Israel has distinguished himself, today; exposing himself before the slave girls as any vulgar fellow would!”
God disagreed and she was barren all the rest of her life. HELLO?! UNFRUITFUL?! Her condemnation of David’s uproar and excess in worship earned her condemnation from The Almighty himself; condemnation that impacted the rest of her LIFE!
Going back and looking at the whole picture as I’ve laid it out, it seems to me there are “action items” for everyone:
The “Holy Rollers” need to recognize when the flesh creeps into the noise and put a bung in it, at that point.
The rest need to recognize when the flesh rises up to disparage the manner of others’ worship of The LORD, and hold their peace about it.
Noise arising from people experiencing the active working of The Spirit ought not be spoken against by anyone. This requires discernment, and church leadership will likely have to actively pastor their congregants in many cases.
And I think we ALL need to admit: ULTIMATELY this is GOD we’re dealing with, here; He gets it HIS way, which is very likely going to make US UNcomfortable, at least SOME of the time. I’m thinking of all the times Jesus’ works got the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law all bent out of shape, as examples.
So did I, it's a small world... of course I turned out to be a traditionalist Catholic so go figure.
Bttt.
Actually, God likes noise and He also likes for us to be still to hear His small, quiet voice. He tells the people to shout and rejoice. Even the rocks cry out. Perhaps we should be more atuned to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s youth are crying out to know God. A lot of their music reflects the turmoil of today. If they find comfort and strength in revving up the amplifier, so be it - just as long as it’s worshipful.
GOOD VERSES ON SHOUTING!
ZECHARIAH 9:9
Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt.
Leviticus 9:24
Fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground.
Joshua 6:5
When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams’ horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town.”
Judges 7:20
Then all three groups blew their horns and broke their jars. They held the blazing torches in their left hands and the horns in their right hands, and they all shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”
1 Samuel 4:5
When all the Israelites saw the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord coming into the camp, their shout of joy was so loud it made the ground shake!
1 Samuel 17:52
Then the men of Israel and Judah gave a great shout of triumph and rushed after the Philistines, chasing them as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron.
1 Kings 1:40
And all the people followed Solomon into Jerusalem, playing flutes and shouting for joy. The celebration was so joyous and noisy that the earth shook with the sound.
1 Chronicles 15:28
So all Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant with shouts of joy, the blowing of rams’ horns and trumpets, the crashing of cymbals, and loud playing on harps and lyres.
1 Chronicles 16:36
Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting! And all the people shouted “Amen!” and praised the Lord.
2 Chronicles 15:14
They shouted out their oath of loyalty to the Lord with trumpets blaring and rams’ horns sounding.
Ezra 3:11
With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord: “He is so good! His faithful love for Israel endures forever!” Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had been laid.
Ezra 3:13
The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.
Job 8:21
He will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.
Psalm 20:5
May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory and raise a victory banner in the name of our God. May the Lord answer all your prayers.
Psalm 27:6
Then I will hold my head high above my enemies who surround me. At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy, singing and praising the Lord with music.
Psalm 32:11
So rejoice in the Lord and be glad, all you who obey him! Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!
Psalm 47:1
Come, everyone! Clap your hands! Shout to God with joyful praise!
Psalm 66:4
Everything on earth will worship you; they will sing your praises, shouting your name in glorious songs.”
Psalm 71:23
I will shout for joy and sing your praises, for you have ransomed me.
“Actually, God likes noise ...”
Yes, and your references all point to Spirit-inspired noise being the noise He likes. It’s not the noise, itself, but the motivation behind the noise that I intended to bring under the microscope for closer examination.
They shouted at the top of their lungs at Jericho because God told them to. Spirit-inspired.
They shouted for joy on Mt. Carmel. Spirit-inspired.
And so it goes.
May it ever be so in our churches.
[It’s not the noise, itself, but the motivation behind the noise that I intended to bring under the microscope for closer examination]
I believe the motivation of the worship leader has a lot in ushering in a Spirit of worship. It must be Christ-filled worship.
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