Posted by on February 18, 2011 at 17:59:17
In Reply to: Re: Thoughts about signs and wonders posted by CB on February 17, 2011 at 09:33:15:
Re: “…the charismatic teachings of many groups…”—a fairly loaded phrase for me. As I said, I am not of the variety of “charismaniac” that so rightly offend Farmer—not at all.
I lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, right down the street from Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible College, and got a real bellyful of the “name it and claim it prosperity doctrine”, where one actually tries to direct God’s Spirit and be His counselor. No thanks—heresy all around.
Berg tortured Isaiah 45:11: there, God says, “you DARE to direct My Spirit and to be My counselor?” Like “do YOU give ME orders?” Obviously we cannot. I don’t care how many groups do that; I do not.
“Expectations” is also a little touchy. In the group I went out with, before we went, I shared this:
“I believe that we all have the faith that God apportions to each of us, which is specifically the faith resulting form our developing relation ship of trusting Him, through what He sovereignly allows to come our way in the form of trials and tribulations. It varies with the individual. But when God decides to operate one of the Holy Spirit gifts, He initiates it, and there is a specific “supercharge” faith accompanying it, so that it will work just like God wants it to.
1 Corinthians 12 actually mentions it specifically in the list of gifts, right before the gift of healing, in fact.” So, “will” or “must” don’t start with me-=-I just pray first, for a long time. I believe we should be careful; of course—and an ex-TFer especially so!
I always say, I believe that God might be telling me such-and-such. As for “I think it's my job to teach people how to hear from God for themselves, not to tell them what I think God wants to say to them”, I think we should teach both, because that is what the gifts are for in a corporate gathering, for both the unbeliever, and the “untaught” Christian. Proper use of the gifts produces the following:
24 But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, 25 as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”
In Acts 3, perhaps a word of knowledge that God was about to sovereignly heal preceded ““Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.””
And, in Acts 4, after that public healing, Peter spoke prophetically about the testimony of Jesus, said “as for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard”, and later prayed all together: “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
I don’t know how many of the answers to that kind of prayer are fairly ordinary, explainable processes. And my degree is in advanced human anatomy and physiology, thinking I would become a Physicians Assistant or Nurse Practitioner, the domain of purely natural cures and recoveries—I know all of the logic well.
When you do actually see it, being skeptical is entirely moot; believe me.
From my own point of view, rationalist-materialists are philosophical frauds and fools; pretending they have accessed a non-existent data set of weakly-grouped hypotheses; not even a respectable strong hypothesis, much less a viable theory or dependable scientific model.
They claim to possess the boundaries of proof—they simply do not. So, I would be careful of that “99.99% of the time” obvious “probability” and not certainty—it is nothing more than a huge begging of the question, besides being based entirely upon a false premise, and helped along staggeringly by mere circular argumentation. Sorry.
I haven’t had new X-Rays taken yet; I plan to—the last two orthopedists, pre-healing, who saw my knees independently, said, “Oh my God! You have the knees of a 90-year-old man! You’re 40% and 60% bone-to-bone, and have no cartilage left—you need joint replacement!” They both said that independently of each other.
This isn’t my first “creative miracle” healing; though. Several years ago, I was working in a hospital, and had to restrain a very big patient for a very small doctor who was performing a lumbar puncture on her, with the gurney cranked way down where the doctor could reach her. She thrashed around in pain, and I bore the brunt of it—I was X-rayed and showed crushed vertebrae on L3, L4 and L5, the three lowest lumbar vertebrae.
I went to a Vineyard small group. We split up for prayer by fours, and the group I was with prayed for me, while my back was up against the wall in a corner; with no room to move. A woman reaching around with her fingertips on my spine said, “I can feel intense heat and movement! The spine can’t move like that! It kind of feels like a baby in the womb, or something!”
What it felt like to me was two very large non-substantial hands (difficult to explain otherwise), lying on the skin, and then closing around my lower spine, and then the vertebrae went “Pop! Pop! Pop!, and then I felt the heat the woman had spoken of.
I happened to work at a clinic at the time, and one of the doctors there was a Christian friend of mine; every bit as logical as you or I. He X-rayed me.
Here’s what he told me:
“Richard, what I see around the vertebrae, although it really just looks like they have already been healed, but with the evidence that they were severely damaged, that is, some evident scarring, are what are called “bridging osteophytes”, which do what they sound like; they bridge from on vertebra to another, are the same exact density as the vertebrae, and are perfectly spaced in groups of four around all of the damaged vertebrae. They are very rare, existing at birth, or are evidence of a miracles, which I am inclined to believe in because of your earlier X-Rays!” They couldn’t exist, logically, around damaged vertebrae, because the damage could not have occurred under their protection. They could only come into existence after the damage, but that’s unexplainable, too! They are simply miraculous, without any other explanation”.
Like apples? How d’ya like THEM apples?!
Of course healings are rare—I never said they weren’t. I am very glad you can say “I able to say "God did it" and "I don't know HOW it happened" at the same time”. I don’t think we’re supposed to know (“so is everyone that is born of the Spirit”). I know I don’t—not a clue, much less a formula.
I just pray constantly like Peter and the others did together in Acts 4; for worldwide revival, which does include, necessarily, signs and wonders leading to mass salvations and God adding to the church in droves, and many wonderful good works being done in Jesus name. We can’t let our past govern our future expectations of Who God is, nor of what He can or cannot do. He is Almighty; after all.