But when people walk with God, and His presence (Remember people talking His real presence being in some elements having to do with a ritual?) is manifested in their worship, all of a sudden it is emotionalism, psychology, sickness, and so forth. I am avoiding direct answers to those who have, evidently, narrow experiences.
God made man to be emotional — feeling. There is even a “feeling after God” that God Himself wants to take place in man (Acts 17:27; etc.).
We marry with great emotion, we bear children with great emotion, we strive to raise them correctly with great emotional stresses, we even bury some of them, along with our sick and elderly. We celebrate things common to most men with emotion.
But let us have emotion with the REAL PRESENCE of God in our daily walk with Him and it becomes mere emotionalISM, psychological veneer, mental sickness and the rest, in the view of some religionists. We would be denied any closeness to God unless we travel through their system.
That wasn't what you described here:
Now take 50 or a hundred, or more, of this same kind of Christian — those who talk to God in such a personal way because they actually know Him that person-ably (Philippians 3:10), and are filled with His Spirit. Gather them in a meeting where prayer is want to be made, and the preaching of the Word of God is in power. One might be very surprised at the manifestations of God in His people in such a gathering. This might be in a church house, or in a tabernacle, tent, or brush arbor — in a forest or at a river side. The place matters little. The Person of the Lord Jesus Christ being lifted up and the moving of the Holy Spirit not being quenched. My, my. What gatherings! What worship! What a Saviour!
As I said, I've BEEN to those meetings. The HS, had He been present, would have been appalled.
One cannot hold it against them that do not have understanding, I would say. They don't know the difference, or they would not criticize.
I have expressed my leanings toward Pentecostal churches because I KNOW what it is to be filled with the Ghost, and I KNOW what it is to have visions and dreams. I have seen miracles before my very eyes. God is good! Praise His Name!
That being said, there is more than one way to worship- some folks do solemnity and hymnals, some folks are all guitars and tambourines. The requirement is to worship in spirit and in truth. Different strokes for different folks. It's all good, providing it is according to what the Good Book says.
Oh, dear . . . a double standard contradiction???
Whatever can you mean?
The pure as the driven snow are never wrong. Just ask them.
Being a Baptist and having attended several different churches there have been times where we've gotten pretty worked up! I think the key is are we attending services strictly for that emotional moment, or is it to worship God. I don't see a lot of difference in the former between that and the Maryolatry that you see in the third world and in the conditioned responses of RC's to go to Mary before Jesus.
We would be denied any closeness to God unless we travel through their system.
If they can get people to believe this they then have real power over them. Thank God the dark ages are over and we can go to the Scriptures and see it is the one on one relationship with our Saviour Jesus Christ that saves us, reconciles us, and creates the closeness to God.