Posted on 08/02/2019 7:04:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
St. Paul covered that part long ago. “Seek the higher gifts.”
When I hear the phrase“Speaking in tongues”, I always think of Robert De Niro as Max Cady drowning in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear.
(Warning: Probably R rated for violence?)
The Australian kid is interesting. It’s like his brain was pre-loaded a different language and some quirk of synapse caused it to load into memory.
How did the programming for Mandarin get into his brain in the first place?
Joh 14:13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
He doesn't say Apostles only, but all believers. The difference is we still have sin in our lives. We are double minded by still trying to live on the fence of carnal life and spiritual life. We are lukewarm finding excuses not to follow Jesus and live as He lived.
If you'll notice, the Apostles dropped what they were doing, left their families, and followed Jesus until they met an untimely death. We won't bother to go to church if it's raining or too cold. We talk a big story, but then pull up porn on our computers, or cheat on the IRS. "Everybody does it" is not what God wants to hear.
The reason I even posted here was to explain speaking in tongues and why it's a sign that you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 80% of church going Christians don't speak in tongues and don't believe it is a gift from God. If you don't have the Holly Spirit indwelling, there is no hope of performing miracles because He is the one doing it, not you. We can copy the words we think Jesus said to heal people, but if the Holy Spirit is not there, it is empty words. People generally believe if they can't do it, it must be a fraud. You must ask to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, but most don't believe or want it. They think it will embarrass them and make them look extreme. If that's you, then brace yourself for a life without supernatural things in your walk. Instead of finding verses that give you an excuse for why things aren't happening in your walk with Jesus, find verses that explain why the Apostles were able to perform miracles.
I have a Baptist pastor friend that doesn't believe in the gifts being given today, but believes they died with the Apostles.
Here are some relevant verses.
1Co 13:8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 1Co 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
1Co 13:10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
1Co 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1Co 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
1Co 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Paul is saying that the gifts will fade away at some point in the future. The difference in what I believe and what the baptist pastor believes is what is "perfect" and when did it come? He believes the Bible is perfect and was finished in Rev 22, so when John died, the spiritual gifts were taken away. In truth, we are still writing Acts 29. In Rev and angel told John to NOT write the thunders.
Rev_10:4 Now when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, "Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them." So the Bible isn't finished on purpose and we won't know the end until it happens, so, IMO, the Bible isn't finished on purpose.
I believe that the perfect is the return of Jesus and we see Him face to face. The only time that can happen is when we have a resurrected body. Our carnal body cannot stand before God without being consumed. Our new celestial body will be indestructible and never die or get sick, so we will be able to stand before God and see Him face to face. When we see Jesus face to face, we no longer will need the gifts of the Spirit because we will be as He is. If you feel like you are as Jesus is, then the gifts are gone. But if you don't think you resemble Jesus, we still need the gifts to have power to be His hands and feet on the earth.
Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to His Apostles, but then the disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit in the upper room in Acts 2. That was several hundred that received the gifts, not just the 12. What would make you and I different from those in the upper room that day?
I have come to believe that if we aren't able to duplicate the miracles that Jesus and the Apostles did, is we are not like Jesus and the Apostles. If you study the lives of the Apostles, they left everything, even family, and followed Jesus, went to prison, were beaten, and finally murdered for their faith. Comparing what I have given up VS them, I believe that is why only some are healed that I pray for. I have been witness to several healing's and other miracles. Many have stopped drugs and alcohol, marriages have been healed, monetary provision made, businesses saved, ect. But not all were healed immediately. If you want to say "the drugs finally kicked in", that's fine, but I have also seen that the drugs never "kicked in".
In many places in Scripture, We hear Jesus say "I never knew you" to people that believe they are true Christians. We fool ourselves into thinking what we are doing is "enough". Many "devout" Christians don't pray everyday, don't read their Bibles every day, and never witness to anyone, not even family. Most of us think we know enough about Scripture and don't need to study. We've become "unteachable". We might be known as the most Christian of Christians and receive respect from others. Many skip church thinking you are good enough to miss a few a year. We think we have knowledge about God, but what He is looking for is a relationship with us. Many of us think we are sons and daughters of God, but only speak to Him once a week, never come into His presence, and when He speaks to us, we ignore Him. We need to be asking God, what would you have me to do for You? And when He answers, follow through with it. Most of us have nothing in our lives that even resembles anything like that. But when we pray, we are disappointed that God didn't jump when we said jump. If we are truly on a walk to look more like Jesus, we should at times reevaluate where we are in our walk. The miracles will come when we get closer to the mark. If Paul had tongues, why don't we all? We will need power from on High to perform anything for God. We will NEVER be able to do anything in our own strength.
And that is my entire point ... show me in scripture ... where Paul says "You must ask God to receive the baptism of the spirit" ...
Its not there ... anywhere ... nowhere does the text of scripture command us to seek the baptism of the HS. And because you believe in this second blessing you have in fact put experience above the Bible!
Further, if we are suppose to do above and beyond what the apostles were told (yes, only the apostles were in the upper room in John 13-17) ... then why don't you drive to the nearest hospital and empty the place out.
Paul asked the question "Do all speak in tongues?" ... In the greek, he asked it with a definite "NO" answer in mind. Any first semester seminary student will affirm that. If not all speak in tongues then tongues cannot be the evidence of the indwelling HS. It is rather, the FRUIT of the indwelling spirit that is the evidence for His possession ... not fake signs and wonders.
Last point, why did Jesus specifically mention that false believers could prophecy, cast out demons, and do miracles? Since people in your camp routinely do all three of these ... doesn't that at least give you pause? Should that not at least cause you to think seriously about whether what you believe is Biblical?
Luk 11:11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Luk 11:12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
Luk 11:13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
If you don't have the gifts of the Spirit, you can ask for them. If you don't want them you won't get them. If you ask, you will receive, you can become an effective Christian able to serve God and build the Kingdom. If not, then there will be nothing supernatural about your time pew sitting.
I don't know if you read my other posts. If you haven't, then you might back up and read them all.
You cannot find a passage that explicitly mentions the baptism in the HS in the context of a greek verb in the imperative mood. It doesn't exist ... but in every case you have read into the text that which you want to see ... because you place your experience above the text of the Bible ...
If you can’t see what Luke 11:13 is saying, you have scales on your eyes and can’t see. You believe as you wish. I will believe the Bible. There are verses in Acts that speak of baptizing in the Holy Spirit. Like I said, go back and read my previous posts and read the verses given.
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Read 1Corinthians 12.
Paul lists the gifts. Saying one has ___ gift given by the Spirit... another has ____ gift given by the Spirit...etc. After he lists all the gifts (tongues only being one, not given to all) he says:
vs 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
(as He, the Holy Spirit wills)! We don’t ask for the gifts. The Holy Spirit, not we ourselves, decides which gifts we get!
How sad that one group thinks we’re all supposed to speak in tongues and another group thinks No one is supposed to speak in tongues. It’s weird how people start forming churches around particular gifts. I’ve seen small group churches where all the emphasis was in Bible study (lots of teaching, knowledge gifts there) and others with emphasis on tongues and evangelism but scant teaching knowledge gifts. We need every part of the body and every gift in our churches.
Hands, feet, eyes... we need the whole body! Not everyone receives the gift of tongues. Not everyone receives the gift of teaching or helps or exhortation. But every believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit receives a gift or gifts.
Read 1Corinthians 12.
Paul lists the gifts. Saying one has ___ gift given by the Spirit... another has ____ gift given by the Spirit...etc. After he lists all the gifts (tongues only being one, not given to all) he says:
vs 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
(as He, the Holy Spirit wills)! We don’t ask for the gifts. The Holy Spirit, not we ourselves, decides which gifts we get!
How sad that one group thinks we’re all supposed to speak in tongues and another group thinks No one is supposed to speak in tongues. It’s weird how people start forming churches around particular gifts. I’ve seen small group churches where all the emphasis was in Bible study (lots of teaching, knowledge gifts there) and others with emphasis on tongues and evangelism but scant teaching knowledge gifts. We need every part of the body and every gift in our churches.
Hands, feet, eyes... we need the whole body! Not everyone receives the gift of tongues. Not everyone receives the gift of teaching or helps or exhortation. But every believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit receives a gift or gifts.
Sorry for double post. Not sure how that happened.
Does your bible have the word baptism in Luke 11:13? This should be a simple thing to acknowledge ...
The Last Days church will have a form of Godliness, but deny the power from on high.
If you go to a church and ask for prayer to heal, how will you get healed if the person praying has no gifts? A person with one gift has all the gifts because the Holy Spirit brought them with Him. But only one or two may manifest itself distributed by the Holy Spirit as He wills. But the fellow with none of them CANNOT work supernatural things without any of them. For thousands of years, the Holy Spirit might visit, but then leave. Those persons had no power to fight evil on the earth. Casting out demons was not done, EVER! Then the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2 and followers of Jesus could have this power to fight in the supernatural realm. The Holy Spirit is not an "It". He is fully God. He is God's muscle to get things done, especially in the Spirit world.
We can't see into the Spirit world without the Holy Spirit. This is why, RIGHT NOW, there are demonic spirits operating in America, but the majority can only see "gun control" and hate Trump. Almost NO ONE see's that since prayer was forbidden in school, we are raising a crop of ignorant murderers in public schools. Almost every measurable bad thing has gotten worse since the 70's. Abortion makes life cheap to a millennial. Killing Terri Schiavo was just the tip of the iceberg of murdering people without trial and conviction of capital crimes. There is NOTHING to stop the government from emptying nursing homes of people on feeding tubes now to save money. That is why it's so important to control your health care. When they control that, they control you. Satan is moving on America RIGHT NOW, to convince them that rape is good, some people need killing without trial, burglary is good if you don't have a job and need it, freedom of religion means everything but Christianity, freedom of speech means everything I agree with, Socialism good, capitalism bad, America is a racist country and was founded by racists. The list is long and getting longer but Scripture just calls it saying evil is good and good is evil.
Most of us watch the News, but are blind to the bigger picture. The Holy Spirit points these things out to people.
What would pass muster today,....Prayer in schools, or gun control? Gay marriage or teaching Scripture in school? Killing a baby born for a week, or banning all abortion and euthanasia? This is why people are against the death penalty, yet allow killers to get out of jail after a few years. We are allowing men to enter women's restrooms and don't see anything bad with that. Now, we can't even make up our minds if we have a girl or boy at birth.
Scripture says "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools". We accept the world is ending because "science" says we have 10 years to live. The list is endless, but without eyes to see and ears to hear, we are defenseless to Satanic attacks. Jesus was adamant about His Apostles having the Holy Spirit so they could have eyes to see and ears to hear. He "Breathed" on them so they could understand the Scriptures BEFORE Acts 2.
Question:....Is the church growing or shrinking with all the turmoil in the world? The Holy Spirit gives power to the Kingdom people to grow the church, but it is obviously shrinking. The lack of people with the Holy Spirit living in their tabernacle is the cause. Satan does what Satan does, but there are fewer and fewer to fight him. If we are sitting in our Lazy Boy waiting for Jesus to come back and defeat him, why are we claiming to be Kingdom citizens? We were elected into the Kingdom to build it and you can do NOTHING on your own. Without any authority and weapons, we are overtaken in an instant.
I would love to see Trump suggest that we bring prayer and Bible study back to public schools because we didn't kill one another back in the 50's and 60's, we left the keys in our cars, we left the doors unlocked at home, children chewed gum in class instead of bringing an AR 15 to class. Something has happened from the 70's till today. Any Christian with the Holy sight can see that God is being pushed out of America and the world. God has already written the results that are coming, but we somehow believe that we have a long time yet to go. Think about what will happen if guns are outlawed and government orders their removal. Think about what will happen if Trump is impeached for no reason. Think about what will happen if Antifa arms themselves and patrols the streets as they did in 1930's Germany. What would happen to the world if America falls to godless socialists?
We are at a sensitive time in world history and the Holy Spirit is our weapon. If you say you're saved and support the Democrat party, Satan has lied to you. The Holy Spirit would show you that anyone that would kill a child would have no problem killing you. But they don't have the Holy Spirit and are convinced they don't need Him.
δίδωμι
didōmi
did'-o-mee
A prolonged form of a primary verb (which is used as an alternate in most of the tenses); to give (used in a very wide application, properly or by implication, literally or figuratively; greatly modified by the connection): - adventure, bestow, bring forth, commit, deliver (up), give, grant, hinder, make, minister, number, offer, have power, put, receive, set, shew, smite (+ with the hand), strike (+ with the palm of the hand), suffer, take, utter, yield.
This is what the word "give" means. "Bestowing", committing, delivering, granting, have power, putting, ect the Holy Spirit must be asked for. "Baptize" just means immersed. If you don't "get it" by now, you aren't able to read the Bible.
God chooses them. I've never been in church with a tongue spoken and more than one interpreter. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I've never seen it. The question would be if the interpretations differed. One would be false and another true. What I see often, however is someone is prompted by the Holy Spirit to interpret what was said, but the interpreter was too timid to open his/her mouth, so the tongue goes uninterpreted. Either someone else will interpret or the church moves on to the next subject. Generally if the tongue goes uninterpreted for 10 seconds or so, we move on. There are many people prompted to speak in church that never open their mouth's. God speaks all the time, but we might not move on His prompting. Same as someone thinking they should say something to a stranger in Walmart and just keeps walking.
A woman I knew was at Walmart and a man walked past her, but he turned around and came back to her. He said "Excuse me, do you have pain in your neck?" She told him "well yes". She said she was suffering from neck pain and a brain disorder that puts her in seizures. He asked her if he could pray for her after showing her his family was with him and this was not some sort of attack. She said he could, so he prayed over her right there in Walmart and she was immediately healed. He explained to her that he was from Louisiana (this happened in Texas) and was told by the Holy Spirit that he was to pray for someone in the store. As he past her up, he was shown it was her to pray for.
Now he could have walked right passed her and not responded to the Holy Spirit, but he would have lost a chance to operate in the Kingdom and she would still be having neck problems. This is how we get "treasure in Heaven". If you never follow God, how will you get a reward in Heaven. If the Spirit prompts you to speak in church, speak! If no one interprets, at least you obeyed the Spirit and have treasure in Heaven for obedience.
Jesus said "My sheep know My voice and I know them, and they follow Me." If we don't hear His voice and follow Him, we are not His sheep and He doesn't know us. What could be more terrifying that meeting with God and He says "Go away from Me, I never knew you!" Many if not most Christians fall into this group. If we know His voice, we will hear from Him daily and do as He says. Does your spouse speak every day? Do you recognize their voice?
it is not ... if I "give" you a dollar ... you are not "immersed" in it ...
Anyway ... you keep telling me that I must be blind for not seeing it ... I keep telling you that you are blind in that you cannot interpret or even read the text honestly. For you see, you do not interpret the Bible with any solid methodology which seeks to understand what is written ... you seek to shoehorn your personal experience of tongues, miracles, etc. into the text of scripture placing your experience as the judge of the Bible. You have, at a minimum, placed experience on equal setting with the text of scripture ... as a RC puts tradition on equal setting with scripture.
If you continue down this path, eventually it will not matter to you what the Bible says ... it will be the experience you have that will dictate your beliefs.
So I think we're done here ... I doubt this is edifying to those who are following in the background.
lol ... now were on the rapture? ... wow ...
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