Posted on 04/17/2018 8:56:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have skin in the game (see my tagline).
I personally think these kinds of problems...false prophesies, promises of healings that never happen, etc...are more symptomatic of the church in America than the global Pentecostal movement. And I have a host of reasons why this is, depending on how long you’ve got...
“depending on how long you’ve got...”
Type away!
This article seems like an advertisement for the author’s new book.
I just added this book to my cart yesterday.
RE:This article seems like an advertisemt for the author’s bew book.
Don’t buy the book if you don’t want to, just deal with the points in the article.
Even more importantly, based on Scripture, I find it indisputable that the gifts and power of the Spirit are to continue in operation until Jesus returns.
Indisputable? So why is the author disputing? In fact, the completion of the God-given, God-breathed Scripture upon the death of the last Apostle is not in dispute. Since then, there is no man alive who can legitimately proclaim as a prophet, "Thus sayeth the LORD." One may say, "It is written . . .", and apply it correctly, but there is no more new supernatural, special revelation.
Regarding those who clain to be "charismatic" (= grace-acting), their falsity soon become obvious to all when they fulfill the Scripture:
"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa 8:20 AV).
When you run across a crowd whose prophesies are only haphazardly accomplished, not 100% all the time, you know that they are merely relying on statistics to con you, unwilling to admit that there is truly no light in them at all. They do not trust in The True Christ and His Word for all their spiritual needs.
The author of this article is one of them, by his own admission.
Well, much harder to do at work on my mobile phone so I may go in more detail when I get home and have an actual keyboard. But to sum it up, the Pentecostal church in America too badly wants the results of a Spirit movement...tongues, healings, etc...without being willing to pay the PRICE...fasting, prayer, repentance...
...which leads to a fast embrace of fanaticism.
I think one of the main reasons why this “movement” has caused so many problems for believers is because they emphasize “the gift of tongues” - a so-called sign gift - above all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. Scripture says that tongues is one of the “least of the gifts” to be desired (see I Corinthians 14).
I’ve been burned, and not “allegedly” either by the very thing you have mentioned.
And heard it all.
When the promised whatever didn’t come, it was MY fault.
The blame game kicked in and the people who presumed to speak for God when they didn’t know His mind, NEVER took responsibility.
They are sure they know how He should be acting and it’s not HIS fault that He didn’t do what they thought He should have in my life, the way they thought He should have done it. Therefore there was only one person left to blame.
I’ve been a Christian a LONG time and am pretty well established in what I believe, but getting sucked into that still rattled me. I can certainly see how devastating it would be to a new believer or someone not well grounded.
There is also too much of the New Apostolic Reformation and prosperity gospel nonsense infiltrating Pentecostalism, too. And that it because as whole, while there are pluses for the Pentecostal movement, there are a few MAJOR negatives and not being well grounded in Scripture is one of them. They are too experience oriented and tend to compare Scripture to their experience instead of their experience to Scripture.
There’s a real problem of people not applying test of Scirpture to claimed prophesying, etc.
These days, all someone has to do is say *God told me* or *Thus sayeth the Lord,....* and God alone can help you if you question what they say.
They are aghast and ask, *How can you dare to question God? (Or *Touch not the Lord’s anointed*).
Well, I’m not questioning God.
I’m questioning YOU and what you are saying is from God.
IF Paul didn’t get everything he asked for I don’t expect I will either. Everything must be in accordance with His will. I think that is where we mess up.
I was connected with some acquaintances who were very NAR oriented and constantly were prophesying all kinds of things most of which never came true.
Then they’d either conveniently forget what they said, or they’d say they said something different, when I remember what they did say.
I finally decided that I needed to separate myself from them and made the break.
I concluded that the reason we did not see the church acting and moving today as it did in the book of Acts was that we were not living as the did in the book of Acts.
But what exactly it was that we were missing eluded me.
Until I heard a sermon recently that I think answered that question.
It was about fulfilling the Great Commission. Then it hit me.
We’re so focused on everything else, especially the glitz and show, that we are no longer GOING and preaching and making disciples.
It’s too much work and too much commitment and investment and in an instant, have it now society, does not feed the appetite we’ve developed for instant gratification.
Maybe if we took the trouble to go out and preach and make disciples, we’d see God move in the way He did in the early church.
It is in fact just such. BUT, if he has written a task set before him, advertising can help get the message out to a wider audience. When I finish the fiction piece I’m on now (Phase Shift), I fully intend on ‘advertising’ it here as soon as a publisher accepts it. It is Christian oriented Sci Fi. Who knows what God has in store?
And tongues are a sign for UNBELIEVERS, not believers (I Corinthians 14:22)
Romans 12:3-8 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
But what glory is there in serving or acts of mercy?
Nobody can see that.
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