This was an example of a prayer that was said for the benefit of the people listening and not out of Love of God.
It was emotionally manipulative.
It will cause people to lift up the person saying the prayer, and not help people find God.
I’ve spent thirty plus years studying mind control and manipulation in religious settings, traveling the world to visit many cultures, various religions and diverse denominations within the religions. These included Christian, Messianic Jewish, Pentacostal, Charismatic Catholic, and even New Age Cults. It included Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim services. The techniques are the same no matter the setting.
Charisma does not lead one to God. It leads people away from God.
I studied and learned stage hypnosis and observed it being used to induce trance states in religious services. (I have never used this in practice, nor will I as it is dangerous and hatmful.) These are not restricted to the poor and uneducated, but also the wealthy and highly educated.
Early in this journey I attended a Christian Businessman’s Association Meeting with an evangelist speaking to about 80 people. These successful, educated attendees swallowed it hook line and sinker. They spoke in tongues and were drunk with the Spirit. Except, there was no Holy Spirit present.
The evangelist used stage hypnosis techniques in a religious setting to put people in a trance. The attendees would swear on a Bible they were Born Again. It had nothing to do with religion. It was mind control and manipulation.
I walked outside and stood in the cold rain, feeling physically sick at what I had observed.
I turned to God in tears and asked, “ Why was I led here to see this atrocity?”
The answer came strong and loud, “This is how the anti-messiah will lead my people astray.”
Hypnosis is an emotional external surrender to ANOTHER PERSON. True spiritual surrender can only be within self to God.
These are words of warning. Discount them if you wish. You will remember my words when your external surrender becomes aware to you and you realize that you were led astray.
Blessings to everyone on your individual journey to fond and experience God.
🙏
He invoked the power name of Jesus Christ many times. That is all anyone needs.
Critical spirits are not from God
Some people will find fault where none exists.
I think your post is a little over the top...and unnecessary.
People worship in different ways, and you don’t know what’s in their hearts, or what God thinks of their worship.
My old man was lead astray by that Christian Businessman’s thing years ago. My mom was very distressed by it. She went to one of their services - with Dad and the others trying to get her to speak in tongues.
I asked dad if they had an interpreter present. (No).
“Well dad - that is required according to the Bible.” Then read the part about all the different gifts Christians are given - some ARE given the gift of tongues - but not all. Etc.
He eased up on my mom, but stayed with the group, and straying away from his lifelong friends. When he died he had appointed men from that group to carry his casket. Strangers to the family.
Mom felt obliged to his wishes. But had his (and her) friends as honorary pall-bearers.
I will listen to the prayer with more critical ears when I hear it. I guess that goes for any preacher. Or person. I don’t mind a sermon where the guy is running through a list of points and topics. I can’t stand it when they turn a prayer into a similar thing. (I have no idea if this preacher did that.)
I can’t judge, having never been in that kind of situation before with the eyes of the world watching me like that, but … it did seem a bit more about him and his performance, than about the moment or about God.
But hey, that’s just me and my “in the moment” first impressions. No judgments, just an observation/impression and I thank you for yours also! Your comments are always thought provoking!
But what a show, right? Our longest running great American political soap opera was very entertaining today!!
I divided yesterday's prayers into two distinct groups: Those offered by people who know God and those who don't.
THIS prayer is in the former category. He knew who he was addressing, how he had the authority to come to the Throne of Grace, and why we seek God's providence.
I was blessed by his prayer and I said, "Amen!" at the end of it.
It sure was!
I really liked all the VIPER and whitewashed tomb references.
To tired&retired (henceforth, shortening this to T&R), I believe you are quite incorrect in this statement, and have done the Christian Business Men's Connection (click here) a grave injustice, and should apologize and visibly retract what you have written about CBMC on this forum.
I have been closely associated with CBMC since 1990, am familiar with the administration, have gone to and led many weekly breakfast Bible studies as well as organizing and attending many outreach dinners with business leaders that were invited to speak of their beliefs and results.
In all of this, I have heard not one smidgen of charismatic or Pentecostal manifestations; only featuring the influence of the Biblical Christ and His Written Word on the personal and business conduct of the participants. Nor have I ever heard of such events elsewhere or anytime in the past of this organization, which was founded in 1931 in Chicago, IL, and has spread globally to the redounding and glory of the God of Heaven.
I'm calling you out on this, but in a FRiendly way. You are wrong and have a spiritual debt to CBMC.
Conversely, it may be that betimes of your (hazy?) past experiences, you may have been invited to a local weekly meeting of, or more likely one of the recruiting dinners of, the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International (FGBMFI) (click here) which abides unreliably in your memory.
In my past, I also have had a brush with this organization, have gone to a few local meetings in the 1970s, and received their magazine.
This operation was founded in 1952 in California, under the lifelong leadership of Demos Shakarian, which also has expanded globally. Its distinctive feature was the unabashed commitment to the "full gospel" (falsely proclaimed as fulfilling the gospel experience) exhibition of "signs" by publicly encouraging any and all of the Pentecostal/charismatic manifestations in its events.
Your observations of their conduct may be correct, but your opinions of it might not be, so you owe them an apology for attributing to them that their goals were more subject regarding intent to deceive, rather than objective, which would be to allude to the active Presence of Christ's Spirit among them through the "signs": speaking in tongues; a word of wisdom; healing; abnormal physical strength; revealing of secrets of the heart, etc.
Let's see if you can admit and revise what you have written in Post #23.
~~~~~~~~
As a footnote, let me also say that i was a very active member of another of the para-church non-Catholic organizations--the Gideons International--for ten years, an group that sought to recruit openly professing Christian church-member men across a broad evangelical Protestant local or denominational assemblies for the purpose of financing and distributing Bibles; and that included those admitting of charismatic conduct.
However, none of the Pentecostal extra-biblical charismatic manifestations, ones that were not favored by the more traditional faiths, were displayed. I never saw a demonstration of that kind of speech or action in any of the activities of the Gideons.
Yet in a past conversation...you have mixed Indian Mysticism with Christianity....speaking highly of one particular Indian mystic’s embrace of Christianity with his own unique blend of Hinduism, equating the two as though they were the same as the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection on the cross. I can go back in time to reference the postings. Yet I suspect I don’t need to.(Thomas Merton did much the same with his writings on Christianity and Buddhism)
So I don’t think any of us here can even trust what you have to say on the coming judgments. I have no doubt you have had certain experiences....
Jesus or Yeshuah is the name by which all men can be saved...he is God in flesh...and like Collossians 1 says: 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
There is nothing in any other body of thought or religion that can save the soul except the name of Jesus...period...as laid out in Acts in the last half of the 17th chapter. No more blending truths...it is all Jesus Christ!
Sure there are sign markers that can point the way to Christ...Acts 17 makes it clear....but God isn’t “winking” any more at people’s groping in darkness, or their attempts to hide themselves in it, when he has provided the light of the World that is Jesus! Yes...Hebrew Jesus, died on the cross Jesus, God in flesh, and risen Jesus who sits on the spiritual throne of David forever, and...at the right hand of the Father!