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In the great words of the stated theologian...

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1050 **9/16/16 9:59 am**

Hilary, "What difference does it make?"

Every person here has an opinion and I've yet to see anyone on here say that their's was changed and so it is with this thread. Accusations have been made, anger has been felt (although no one will admit to it), and insults have been thrown.

Contrary to what some think, I do know and understand what the word, "Hyperbole" means. I also know what, "Figuratively speaking" means. Because I don't see or believe as some here do, does that make me wrong? Who says? The majority? We know where that gets ya. If I'm wrong to blindly follow God, then so be it, because I blindly followed the devil for years and I have a sneaky suspicion there are some here that hasn't been saved all their lives either.

What is sad to me is when I was a sinner, I didn't have others telling me my way of sinning was wrong, because I wasn't sinning like they were. But, in the church we are ready to pull the rug out from under people if they don't believe the way we do.

Oh well, life goes on and I have spent way too much time on here this week.

Be blessed

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/16/16 10:14 am**

Pull the rug out from under people? Not sure exactly what you mean by that, but in any case it has never been my goal to cause anyone harm.

Re: In the great words of the stated theologian...

Friendly Face Posts: 395 **9/16/16 11:05 am**

Re: I know what a hyperbole is, but.....

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **9/16/16 11:36 am**

I'm going to quote Da Sheik's post because I would like to see you engage the questions, Ernie.

as usual this thread

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **9/16/16 3:19 pm**

:like so many before it has devolved into something beyond it's initial roots. Its still sad and I know what hyperbole is but I do not think John 14: 12 is hyperbole.
I have watched God heal 12 deaf boys in 2 days in Gulu, Uganda along with delivering many from demon possion/oppression along with blind eyes opening and the Gospel preached to more than 8000 per night for 5 days. I have traveled down the Orinoco to indigenous villages and started churches as Jesus healed the paralyzed, deaf, dumb and lame and blind. I have seen marvelous multitudinous miracles all over the world as thouands upon thousands have given their lives to Jesus. "Greater works" ? You betcha, thank you Jesus!! He is still the same and manifesting His Grace to All who will call upon His Name in faith. Faith you say? Yep Faith. Whar a concept. Hyperbole? Wasn't it John who said all the books in the world could never contain all the mighty acts of Jesus? (John 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.Amen.)

Hyperbole? Nope TRUTH. CHOKE ON IT. TRUTH I SAY.

Re: as usual this thread

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/16/16 5:04 pm**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **9/16/16 5:46 pm**

Okay, some people are saying that "greater works" is not hyperbole, just that it is referring to quantity. I'm not seeing any reason to classify it as hyperbole, really. What if "works" doesn't just refer to physical miracles, but conversions as well:

John 6:
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Re: as usual this thread

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6042 **9/16/16 7:14 pm**

Re: as usual this thread

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/16/16 7:16 pm**

Delete

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6042 **9/16/16 7:58 pm**

Delete

How can you posSibley think

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **9/17/16 6:49 am**

And fail to admit that the greater works cannot conceivably mean number as opposed to magnitude? For some 2000 years Jesus' disciples have been doing signs, wonders and miracles. Do you not think more people have been saved, healed, delivered and yes even raised from the dead than what Jesus might have accomplished as one person on this earth for the 3.5 years He manifested the Anointing as Messiah on earth. Sheesh man get a grip. Probably more people have been saved in my meetings alone over 35 years than Jesus saw saved much less healed etc. Methinks you really are a cessationist.

My last thought on this subject

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1050 **9/17/16 7:30 am**

I believe that IF Jesus wanted to, all He had to do was speak the Word, "Rise up all ye that lie in the grave" and every dead person would have risen out of their grave. All He had to do was speak the Word, "Be healed and sin no more" and every person that was sick would have been healed.

BUT, He chose not to do that, instead He chose to use us to take His Word into all the world...He chose us! Can't we be happy with the thought that Jesus chose us?

If you believe or think different, that's fine, I'm just glad He chose me.

John 15:16-17 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/17/16 7:31 am**

The works that Christ is commending to the disciples to believe on Him regarding are the miraculous signs which proved/attested that His Father was working within him. There is nothing in the context to suggest that He meant, "Look at all the converts I am making; believe on Me because of the many converts I have, and you too will have many converts, even more than I, if you will believe." The works that He is referring to could only have been the miraculous signs which showed His Father working in Him.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/17/16 8:46 am**

Cessationism is the belief that the miraculous sign gifts recorded in the Bible ceased with the death of the apostles, or, as some conceive it, with the completion of the NT canon of Scripture.

The cessationist believes that the miraculous sign gifts like tongues, prophecy, and healing served only to authenticate Christ and His gospel message and the ministries of His original messengers/apostles, and that once the church was firmly established on the foundational message of the gospel, the purpose of and need for miraculous signs confirming the word ceased.

I am definitely not a cessationist by any stretch of the imagination, but am in fact a Pentecostal (fifth generation) who believes that ALL of the gifts of the Spirit are in fact available and operative in the world today through believers in Christ.

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **9/17/16 8:55 am**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **9/17/16 9:44 am**

The whole point of physical manifestations are so that people will believe on Christ. So whether it takes a miraculous physical manifestation such as healing or calming a storm or whether it doesn't, the goal is that people will come to believe in the resurrected Christ. That is the work that we do. The manifestations are a means to an end.
Jesus was making a point about the change in dynamics when he left in his physical person and sent the Holy Spirit.

The problem is when one generation passes from the scene the next dilutes his message

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **9/17/16 9:04 pm**

Ron Auch wrote about a number of years ago in an excellent book titled "Pentecostals in Crisis". As each generation of Pentecostals passes from the landscape and passes the baton on to their children the message of Pentecost is diluted. The first generation had a "power encounter" with Jesus and experienced the dynamic of the power of Pentecost in a real, tangible and personal way. Their children were taught that and heard about it but for many it stopped there. They believed the stories and the word but had not experienced it for themselves. When their children were born, they now heard the stories of their grandparents but it became ancient history and without a personal Pentecost they were easily swayed away from the very things that their grandparents so fervently believed as not being viable for their day.Imagine what has happened to 4th and 5th generations of those Pentecostals? Without fresh baptisms, fresh encounters of God and His Spirit, it becomes easier and easier to say I believe it is possible for God to do certain things but I don't expect them and perhaps those things that my great grandparents experienced really didn't happen that way.

And then couple that with the dynamic of growing mega churches and attracting people who don't want the weird or hard to explain manifestations in their churches and we arrive at our point in history in the American Pentecostal Church. You may say you're not a cessationist and you are a Pentecostal but what would that first generation say to you?

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **9/17/16 10:23 pm**

I reject entirely the scurrilous, arrogant accusation by WoFers like brotherjames, that to deny WoFism is to backslide somehow from true Pentecost. My family is five generations deep in the Pentecostal movement, going all the way back to the 1920s in the PH, AG, CoG, and 4SQ churches, and they were never WoF in mindset, yet still experienced miracles by faith, unlike the WoF liars who claim to never get sick, and to basically have miracles flying out their fingertips contantly (to hear them tell it).

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **9/18/16 12:43 pm**

OTCP and QW...Old Time Pentecost was a WHOLE LOT MORE like WOF that the stuff being peddled in its place.

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6042 **9/18/16 5:40 pm**

Friends, there was a time when many Pentecostals didn't even think you should go to a doctor!

If you were sick, you didn't stay home from church--you WENT to church to get healed.

They EMPHASIZED healing and miracles and wonders, right alongside the great joy and enthusiastic singing and anointed preaching.

You are wanting to take the most EXTREME elements of WOF and, using that, try to undermine virtually every aspect of WOF. It's called a straw man fallacy.

You are perfectly willing to throw out the baby with the bath water in your blighted efforts to eradicate WOF. I'd rather have WOF--at least as I know it--than whatever it is you guys are arguing for.

Consider that you claim that, well, OF COURSE we are praying in faith, but God, in His sovereign will, wants the person to die anyway.

That is directly contrary to the prayer of faith (hey, instead of WOF, we could go with POF!) that James mentions. Why in the WORLD would James write that--why in the WORLD would Luke tell of so many miracles in the Book of Acts--why in the WORLD would the gospels tell of the incredible miracles of Jesus--if it is supposed to VIRTUALLY NEVER HAPPEN?

And, no, it doesn't happen very often for me either. But here is the difference: Instead of claiming that I have the requisite faith, but God is not "cooperating" with my faith (e.g., in His sovereign will, He chooses not to heal, despite my apostolic-level faith)...instead of that, I say that I--and perhaps also the person who is sick, etc.--have not reached the requisite level of faith. I don't blame it on God. I blame it on my failure to have the needed faith.

But I don't wallow in it. I WANT to have that level of faith. I cry, "Lord, help Thou mine unbelief!" But I don't shame myself or anyone else (as you have indicated apparently happens in the extreme elements of WOF). I simply say to myself that I, like many, many others that were far better than I, simply did not have the level of faith that the apostles had...and, Lord, help me attain that level of faith.

When I've done all I know to do, praying as best I know, then, yes, God mercy and sovereignty handle the matter. But I believe that God has given US the opportunity--if we but have true faith--to see these miracles done.

Does anyone doubt that the beggar would have died a beggar had not Peter and John came along?

Does anyone doubt that pretty much every sort of spiritual case likely came to Jesus at one time or another...yet was healed anyway, their sins being forgiven (as James indicates, too)?

If I were an agnostic, I would ask QW and OTCP to justify why the present church doesn't see what the Bible indicates should be standard procedure. WHY?

I would answer "Because we don't have the level of faith."

But QW and OTCP would seemingly say (as best I can tell from their responses): "Well, we DO have the faith needed for healing...but God still has to decide each case."

To which the agnostic would reply, "So God has changed, right? Because back then in Bible days, it seemed He ALWAYS decided in favor of Jesus and the apostles...but today, He ALMOST NEVER decides in favor of the person who is praying for the sick."

We ought to ALL be seeking to attain the level of faith that the apostles clearly had...instead of excusing the relative powerlessness that so many, myself included, seem to experience when we pray for the sick!

I, too, am disappointed when prayers are not answered the way I prayed. But I don't ever want to act like "I did my part! It was God who didn't come through." Of course, I know that is not the intention of QW and OTCP, I am just saying that because it does kind of lead to that sort of conclusion.

We can PRAY for faith. The man asked Jesus "Help Thou mine unbelief." Paul speaks of coveting earnestly the best gifts--why do that unless you can acquire them? So perhaps we need to pray for the gift of faith or miracles.

Let's play fair with WOF teachings. It has almost gotten to the place on this board where if someone believes that God WANTS to heal everyone...that that person is apparently a heretic. But 2000 years ago, that person might have been called a saint or apostle or miracle worker.

It's OK to believe that God is willing to heal everyone. He certainly was in the gospels. He certainly was in Acts. If we're wrong, then it is an honest wrong, based on the SCRIPTURE...and not are often failed EXPERIENCES.

THAT is the way forward: Believing the scriptures over our experiences.