John UK wrote:
I'm glad I'm not a lurker but a poster.
Lurkers ought to be ashamed of themselves.

John UK wrote:
.. I was effectively shunned, which was not very nice. And now you are doing the same thing (goodbye John) which seems to be the way of it in reformed circles. ...

John UK wrote:
.... but they spoke to me in the same sort of way that you speak to me, "Oh, that was then.....we're living in the day of small things..."

If you learn to reignite your situation to return to how things were in the Acts, then by all means let us all know. In the meantime, I shall carry on seeking God for himself and the power of Holy Ghost to effect real conversions.

Michael Hranek wrote:
....you yourself have been in revival meeting where you ..experienced the presence of God in a powerful way ... and I think it is safe to say you would not call those experiences "Charismatic Mysticism"..

All my experiences of God's powerful presence centre around the Word of God. I've been in meetings where God's presence is so powerful that his word comes to life and every heart present is captivated by that word to such a degree that you could literally hear a pin drop. After the meeting there is no small talk, but every soul says how they have been deeply affected by the word and we have wonderful fellowship discussing the ramifications of what we've heard and how we may best help each other in our walks with The Lord. No one at anytime has ever mentioned hearing voices: this is heart converse only leading to definite change.

We don't have any showy stage shows, no miracle workers etc

As I explained occasionally I've had what I can only refer to as promotings or premonitions which are so deeply impressed on my heart that I feel compelled to do or say something, but I'm never sure whether these are of The Lord and I wouldn't feel confident to ascribe them to him for fear of lying.

John UK wrote:
....It was pastored by a most conservative and straight-laced brother called Paul Bassett...
Until, that is, one day God spoke to him clearly and with purpose, and Bro Paul never had a Bible in his hand. He related the event subsequently in one of his books. He was driving about his business as pastor of the church, when suddenly, the Lord said, "Turn left, turn left!"....

How did he know it was The Lord who spoke to him? How do you know?

Must be wonderful having a personal hotline to The Lord where he speaks verbally to you: you can just bypass the Bible having authoritative personal revelations. We poor sub-normal, nominal, straight laced Christians have to make do with a written word, struggling to understand parts of it, praying for the Lords help, struggling with holiness, assurance etc. Sure the explanation must be that we deserve our lot in life because you say we deny the supernatural. Seeking God for himself is not enough if we can't also have the miracles of the NT: like witnessing miracles ever saved anyone.

Anyway, I am also bowing out, because as Frank said this is going nowhere.

Blessings to you.

Elmer K. Yoder wrote:
Any dictionary will tell you a person is a human being. A human being is commonly considered a man or woman, though the unscriptural term human being is worth investigation. A man or woman is body, soul, and spirit - or do you believe otherwise?...
It is written: ...

Anyways Elmer, you take the dictionary definition offered by an unbelieving world and apply it to the God of the Scriptures?

We make no headway when you quote verses without offering the slightest explanation. I could do the same in support of the trinity.

You are obviously a Unitarian, so why the subterfuge? Come straight out and tell us where you worship, whether it's a Kingdom Hall or wherever.

BTW, any religionists will profess to have love for God. But if you cannot love and worship the trinitarian God of the Bible, your profession is worthless because you've created your own god to worship.

John UK wrote:
...it was God's will to have twelve apostles of the Lamb. The fact that they ended up with about 17 apostles is neither here nor there.

John UK wrote:
As I am a sola scriptura man, I need biblical proof of such a thing as a canon.

"It pleased the Lord to commit His revealed Truth wholly to writing. Therefore the Holy Scriptures are most necessary, those former ways by which God revealed His will unto His people having now ceased." BCF1689 - You don't believe this anymore?

John UK wrote:
And God has set in the church, apostles, prophets, teachers and so on. ...

John UK wrote:
1. If you can find any that have the right qualifications, yes.

You don't believe that the canon of Scripture is closed?

What about NT prophets?

John UK wrote:
2. Partly...
3. For example, have you ever seen a Christian poster, with words like:
Isaiah 30:21 KJV
(21) And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
If so, how do you think Christians understand that?
In Frank's story about Bible smuggling (wow!) God communicated to him by his Spirit, and said, "Get ye back to the hotel, gather the Bibles together, and go hide them in your car! Quickly!"..

John UK wrote:
Well TS, firstly I do not have to prove that the Bible is normative (as you call it).

John UK wrote:
Secondly, I have not mentioned an "audible voice", so let us deal with your misunderstanding.
I'm talking about God communicating to men. God is a Great Spirit and he does not have a tongue, and yet he can be heard audibly by men, saying such things as, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." How often does this happen? Extremely rarely.
If a church of 500 have in their midst five unsaved persons, and the gospel is preached. You could ask them afterwards individually, "Has God spoken to you?" Four might say, "No" but one might say, "Yes, God has spoken to me very clearly." Now they all heard the word of God (scripture), but only one heard God speaking to him. This was because God was communicating to that person. "Did you hear a voice?" "I don't know, but God very clearly SPOKE to me."
Frank's wonderful testimony is another example of what I'm talking about.

John UK wrote:
...
Now please note that the Spirit's involvement was not restricted to apostles, but effectively to all men and women too.
..

Cornelius also met an angel and an apostle. Should this be normative, if every narrative in the NT is normative?

Your understanding of the New Covenant is rather strange to say the least. The wording in Jer 31.34 says of the New Covenant that, "..they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord". Does that mean that in the NC there are no teachers or evangelists?

To me there is a desperate conflating of all sorts of issues to justify a small audible voice, and a rather feeble accusation of a third covenant for non-normative matters, when you cannot yourself prove that every NT narrative is normative.

Frank wrote:
.... Had I not moved the books, they would have been discovered...

John UK seems to be arguing for more than a prompting though. He appears to be arguing for intelligible words quietly spoken to us.

Michael H

John UK wrote:
.....
You are claiming there are three covenants: the OT covenant, the 70 year new covenant, and the last covenant which is just like the second, except we leave things out.
Back later.....

Acts 8.26 And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.

It is only when he gets there that we read:

Acts 8.28 Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.

John UK wrote:
....
Now bro, if you "pray over something", what is it you are expecting from God by way of answer? .....Well it is when we live a subnormal Christianity. We're missing out on spiritual guidance - LED by the Spirit.

There is a thinking process that God sharpens so that all the relevant Scriptural principles comes to bear on the issue to hand. Eventually we see a clear way, or if we don't we have a choice to wait some more on the Lord, or if the issue really is not that important and there are no great scriptural issues at stake, then we take a step of faith asking that if that be the wrong step the Lord will correct us. This is walking by faith, this is being led by the Spirit, because the Spirit leads by the Word of God.

I don't have a voice in my head, indistinguishable from my own thoughts to lead me. If we needed such a voice, the Bible would explain how to distinguish between our own thoughts and the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can't see any passage dealing with such an issue.

John UK wrote:
St Michael,
Here is an example of what I say, complete with John Gill's bizarre interpretation of it:
Revelation 3:20 KJV
(20) Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
"If any man HEAR my voice".
...in the appearances of things and providences in the world. Gill
Jesus talks about knocking and speaking. Where? Does he say "I will come into HIM, and sup with HIM?" Sure. But the whole meaning is lost, because "God doesn't actually speak to anyone today."
No wonder the churches are all up and down, they don't expect to hear from God, so they are not listening for God, and so they do not hear anything from God. They'll spend hours and hours reading books and listening to preaching, but how many hours are spent "in prayer"? Or should I say "minutes"?

John UK wrote:
TS, walking by faith does not discount experience of God.

John UK wrote:
The charismatic experience is a counterfeit of the real thing.

John UK wrote:
Now bro, I could take you through hundreds of verses in the New Testament, and to each one, you would reply, "Well, God doesn't do that today."
So what you're left with is a torn up Bible, and the only things left are those which are intellectually available to all and sundry.
In other words, the supernatural is discounted, and the only thing left is rationale. There is no more a reconciliation with God, it is all just "legal", not deeply spiritual.

John UK wrote:
TS, if you want to learn some things about revival (which is a restoration of normal Christianity) you can choose from 41 sermons by [URL=http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakeronly=true&currsection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Rev._Duncan_Campbell]]]Rev Duncan Campbell[/URL] here on SermonAudio.
I do have a contention, namely, that the Christianity we have come to know in our churches, is not really getting to the heart of the matter.
For an instance....

However, if this is normal Christianity, then there have only ever been very short periods in the history of the churches when this has been the case. Also how is it then walking by faith, and how does it differ from the voices that the Charismatics hear all the time, or the daily diet of miracles that they live on?

I grant that God spoke with the apostles in a way that we don't hear, and appeared to them in ways we don't experience, but then they were being led into all the truth. There are no promises to us that we will be able to do what the apostles did, or indeed that God will communicate with us in the same way.

John UK wrote:
Bro, I clean forgot to answer this.
Have you listened to the account of the amazing revival on the Isle of Lewis? There were two elderly, Christian sisters living there, who were living very close to God. (this is a key point.)
They were mighty in prayer. (another key point.)
They knew revival was coming to Lewis, and not only that, they knew the name of the preacher through whom God was going to bring a mighty revival to the place.
When another preacher turned up, they asked his name and said to him, "Oh no, you're not the one God is sending here. The man God has for this place is called Duncan Campbell."
Now if anyone can tell me how they got that by using sola scriptura, I would be very interested to hear about it.
But then I expect the hypermen - or should I say hyperman - would discount the whole episode of The Isle of Lewis Revival as "spurious".
What thinkest thou, Bro TS?

Elmer K. Yoder wrote:
Why would you say that? How do you get a trinity out of 3 persons each having body, soul, and spirit?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? If so, how is he related to the Father, assuming that you accept that the Father is also God?

Elmer K. Yoder wrote:
Why is the Calvinist and like-minded Calvinist painting not accurate? Are they not murderers, killers, and State Supremacists? Do their precious creeds and faith statements profess otherwise?

Dorcas wrote:
Well TS if memory serves me correctly, when he came back on SA
there were some of us who warned our brethren and sisters concerning him. You even researched out all his old posts and posted them up for all to read.
But alas the wolf was welcomed back in to the sheep pen and now we have all his spamming and subterfuge to deal with.
Aye yai yai

My mind was made up when he came to SteveR's defense against Observer, then he stated sarcastically to Observer that interpreting Scripture with Scripture to arrive at the correct meaning was an 'interesting theory', and finally we had his Pope Dopey insanity episode.

I don't like his abusing the Word of God to play silly mind games to manipulate people either, or his verse launching.

Elmer K. Yoder wrote:
Someone described God as 3 co-equal persons. A person consists of body, soul, spirit.
The Calvinist painting is accurate, though I do realize non-Calvinists share the same murderous spirit of Calvinism too.
Why do you think it's not accurate?