Sewing socks?
Trust me, that ain't what she's doing...
Posted on 04/06/2017 2:33:11 PM PDT by NYer
I like his definition of the difference between exorcism and prayers for liberation.
Sewing socks?
Trust me, that ain't what she's doing...
Okay, I almost... ALMOST... passed some Black Seal rum through my nose. I feel your pain, brother. :-)
“An exorcism is also a direct order given to the devil, whereas a prayer of liberation is a supplication to God or the Virgin Mary for them to intervene.”
People who pray to Mary only think they are communicating with the Mary of the Bible. This is not a way to be delivered from evil spirits but to open the door to them.
There is no example in the Bible where any apostles, prophets, or teachers prayed to anyone but God. And any attempt to remotely communicate with those who have departed to the afterlife is always treated as occultic even in the rare case where Samuel actually did return and speak with Saul and a witch.
Conservative, pro-life Catholics have recently recognized and acknowledged other false teaching coming from within the ranks of the hierarchy of clergymen in the Catholic Church. Why can you not also recognize and discern this error?
Not a good disguise.
And why would anyone be foolish enough to think that a demon was telling them the truth in the first place?
There's also an objective difference between what Saul did and, e.g., praying a Hail Mary. A person who tried to conjure up a saint or angel to Cornell the future would be guilty of multiple serious sins against the First Commandment.
It’s extremely difficult. Usually, many exorcisms are needed.
It ought to be. I don't recall Jesus needing to do multiple exorcisms on people to cast demons out.
He did it with just a word.
That fear is wise. We should also feel that way when tempted to sin. Because demons are fallen angels I imagine myself with Elisha when he was going to be attacked and was protected by warrior angels. 2 Kings 6
“15 Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”
One interesting thing is the FIRE. I was just reading the other day in Deut 9 where Moses tells the Israelites, “3 Know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.”
I think we are protected by the same fire. The Holy Spirit settled on the people at Pentecost as a flame (Jesus was already purified so the Holy Spirit did not need to be a fire). Better go. Peace!
“What you propose amounts to giving death power over the bonds of charity that binds members of the Church to one another.”
Death separates the dead from the living. God is not limited by death, but we are. A dead person can no more hear you than you can hear him.
“We don’t acknowledge that death has that power.”
Death has not yet been destroyed. It is true that the Body of Christ is united with all members dead and living by the Holy Spirit. But this does not give you, in your current mortal body, the ability to communicate telepathically with other people. If you are at the store, and your spouse decides to contact you to add something to the shopping list, your spouse will use a cell phone, not telepathy. But dead people don’t use cell phones. The only one in Heaven with a resurrected body is Jesus. Others are spiritually present but their bodies are in the grave awaiting the resurrection. If you speak to someone who is dead and in a coffin at a funeral, they don’t hear you. Only God has the power to speak to the dead and be heard.
When Paul comforts us with the promise of the resurrection, he never adds that we can also be comforted by our new, Christian powers of talking with our dead family members whom we have lost to death. Instead, he comforts us with the certainty of being reunited at a future date. Why does he not tell us we can talk to the dead? Why not in this passage especially? Why not anywhere in the Bible?
Communicating with the dead is a form of witchcraft and is an abomination for anyone to practice. In other words, it is not like Jewish dietary rules or circumcision which were specifically commanded to Israel. This is something that God find abominable for all nations. Those who practice it and things like it will NOT inherit the kingdom of God.
Saul disregarded what God told him to do, and he made similar excuses about how he did it in order to serve and sacrifice to God. God told him He wanted his obedience, rather than sacrifice.
“There’s also an objective difference between what Saul did and, e.g., praying a Hail Mary.”
The works of the flesh include “such like”. You have not one single example of Jesus, the apostles, or any other people of the Bible who are examples of faith, who prayed to the dead. But you do have specific condemnation of such.
You can choose to follow what God says to do or what religious leaders tell you to do. But be sure that the consequences for rejecting the authority and word of God are tremendously severe. I would not be posting here against doing such things if it were otherwise.
See for yourself. If you will not hear me, perhaps you will hear the scriptures or others will read and be forewarned not to be deceived by the doctrines of men which seek to supersede the commands of God.
Deuteronomy 18:9-12
When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
1 Samuel 15:13-23
Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”
But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”
And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.”
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”
And he said to him, “Speak on.”
So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”
And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
So Samuel said:
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
He also has rejected you from being king.”
1 Samuel 28:6-15
And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.
Then Saul said to his servants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.”
And his servants said to him, “In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En Dor.”
So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Please conduct a séance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you.”
Then the woman said to him, “Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?”
And Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, “As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.”
Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?”
And he said, “Bring up Samuel for me.”
When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!”
And the king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What did you see?”
And the woman said to Saul, “I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.”
So he said to her, “What is his form?”
And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.
Now Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
John 5:28
Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice [i.e. the voice of Jesus].
Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
LOL! When SNL use to be funny.
“People who pray to Mary only think they are communicating with the Mary of the Bible.”
Reminds me of atheists insisting that God never speaks to anyone because He has not spoken to them.
When a Saint communicates with you through the permission and power of God, there is no “only think” about it.
You had me at “Latin American Warlock”.
“When a Saint communicates with you through the permission and power of God, there is no ‘only think’ about it.”
The Bible even gives us an example of such once (i.e. the witch who conjured up Samuel), which I included in the post to which you are responding. Unfortunately for you, the evidence supports that such activity is occultic, not godly. It falls into the category of works of the flesh. As I gave scripture to support.
You have NO scripture to support your claims. None. Zero.
With the exception of saints who had died and whose bodies had been raised, we do not read of any people who died and later came to speak with any living believers. The resurrection has not happened yet. The deceased and perfected saints are spirits. They have not yet received their resurrection bodies.
We read about seducing spirits. We read about false visions. We read about angels and demons. But nowhere do dead saints come to speak to people.
The deceiving spirits draw attention away from Christ. He is central to EVERYTHING in the scriptures. Things that detract from His centrality are not from God. Things that elevate themselves, rather than Him, are not from God.
“Reminds me of atheists insisting that God never speaks to anyone because He has not spoken to them... a Saint communicates with you through the permission and power of God....”
It is not a matter of whether God has the power to enable such. God has the power to raise them from the dead. But currently, they are dead in relation to us.
That is why it is never contemplated anywhere in scriptures that God would send a dead person to deliver a message to anyone who is alive. In order to do so would require such a person to be raised from the dead. And that has not happened yet. Christ had to assure His disciples He was really Himself, in the flesh, and not a ghost.
Paul and Peter both considered their death would result in their inability to continue to teach and communicate directly with the believers in the early church:
Philippians 1:21-24
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.
2 Peter 1:15
Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.
Jesus, on the other hand, said the opposite. He said it was far better for Him to depart because He would be present with us by the Holy Spirit:
John 16:7
Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
Christ warned over and over about false prophets, false teachers, false Christs, false doctrine, seducing spirits, false signs and wonders. He gave us commandments to follow. And those who teach others to pray to Mary and other saints DEFY God’s commandments.
You are claiming that experiencing this is PROOF that it happens. But that denies that Christ’s warnings have any validity. You are basically saying that Christ was wrong because there is NO danger of being deceived by false spirits because the feeling you have when you encounter them. But God’s word is more trustworthy than any experience you have supposedly had.
Matthew 24:24
For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
Colossians 2:18-19
Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
There is no Christian version of communicating with the dead, nor any Christian version of bowing to images, nor offering incense or flowers to them, nor praying to them. These things were forbidden by God’s commandments. And He never rescinded them. They are no more Christian than the idea of there being Christian adultery, or Christian murder, or Christian theft. Those who do teach this are the false teachers Christ warned about. And those who follow such teachings are those who Christ said would be deceived. You had better direct your heartfelt prayers toward God alone and beg Him to deliver you from deception. Otherwise you will receive exactly what Christ said would be given to those who reject the truth. And it’s even worse for those who spread these false doctrines to others.
“You have NO scripture to support your claims. None. Zero.”
And you have no scripture to support the notion that everything there is to know is in the scriptures.
The saddest thing about protestant theology is that you are led to reject so many of God’s gifts. And there’s no arguing with you.
So, having said what I wanted to say, bye bye now.
“We are discussing so-called knowledge that contradicts the scriptures.”
No, we are discussing knowledge that contradicts your ridiculously narrow and mistaken interpretation of scripture.
Maybe we worship a different Jesus. Mine destroyed death by dying on the Cross and rising on the third day. I'm sorry yours didn't.
Death separates the dead from the living.
Breaks the Body of Christ into pieces, huh? I don't think so.
Communicating with the dead is a form of witchcraft and is an abomination for anyone to practice.
So on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus conversed with Moses and Elijah, was he sinning gravely? Just setting a spectacularly bad example for us? What, exactly?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.