Wow!!!  There was a lot of meat in there.  Phil, I want to tell you that I 
whole heartedly agree with you.  Billy Graham used to say that if you join 
the perfect church, soon it will become imperfect.  There's more truth to 
that than he's stated if we break that down with our spiritual ears and not 
our earthly brains.  God understands all the man made demoninations, He knew 
they would come before we ever had anything to do with anything.  However, 
since He is all knowing and so wise that He cannot be mistaken, he has 
allowed our unhokiness of thinking to let us choose how we want to believe 
and listen.  I  do not know for certain how many folks I have led to Christ, 
but what I do know is that a lot of them are always stating that I will just 
"wait" till vaction or whatever they are waiting for.  No, you can't teach 
someone "how" to speak in toungues, but teaching what that's all about and 
why it's so necessary is what we are to do anyway.  Since I have also come 
from a baptist background, I knowwhat you are stating.  I also have always 
had some trouble understanding how smoking cigarettes is all right but you 
can be a deacon but you can't drink or anything.  Then they always told me 
about speaking in tongues as something not only that died out, but some 
religions or demoninations say it's of the devil.  Well, he might have a 
language also, but like Bishop Patterson said on Sunday, if the experience 
in the upper room were from the devil then howdid the people speak in the 
tongues of the onlookers?  Once I wrote something about the gift of the holy 
ghost being like a power strip.  You can plug your microwave into it, but if 
you don't turn it on and give it the power it needs, it will not work. 
Someone got angry with me, stating that some on her list didn't believe like 
that so she wouldn't send it out.  I got off her list then after, but have 
since come back and have just prayed aobut the responses to give so that I 
could make sure that I wasn't giving bad advise.  God has shown me many many 
things through the years, and I had to overcome the lie that I couldn't have 
tongues.  I have it now, and am so glad to the awesome god that so freely 
allowed me to open that gift.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: Attention John


> John,
>
> Like I said, some of those things mentioned are true, some are things
> misunderstood by anti-charismatics, but I have learned how atheists can 
> take
> things Jesus said and turn them into contradictions and make it sound
> perfectly logical.  I have also learned how easy it is to lift things out 
> of
> the context in which they were spoken.  You could go to my website right
> now, lift out many statements, or parts of statements I have made, and
> create an intire denominational movement based upon false precepts.  As in
> the Baptist churches of this country, Charismatics are guilty of screwing 
> up
> the truth.  Not like me, of course, because I'm perfect.  However, in the
> last 30 years, I have watched Charismatics shift into a more doctrinal 
> type
> of teaching.  They are teaching things now they had backwards many years
> ago.  Most of my Baptist friends, unfortunately, haven't moved an inch.
> Some of my friends, and my two older sisters, think I am a heretic and 
> teach
> psycho heresy.  It is true that I have only led five people to Christ in 
> the
> last two years but I also now have contacts all over the planet I didn't
> have even 10 years ago.  I teach people Bible doctrine in more detail and
> specificity, with which I never personally had practical application and
> experience before, and I have discovered just how screwed up many bible
> Believers really are due to how they were taught.  I'm a critic at heart,
> too, so I don't mind when people point things out about those they refuse 
> to
> believe may actually be preaching the same salvation message.  A Baptist
> pastor friend of mine went to bible college in Oklahoma at Jim Vineyard's
> church.  During this time of his life, he was going to the jail every
> weekend to preach.  A bunch of Assemblly of God guys were there preaching,
> too.  My friend, he is still a pastor today but just no longer Baptist, 
> said
> the thing that bugged him the most was that these crazy Pentecostal
> preachers, as he listened, were preaching the exact same salvation Gospel 
> he
> was as a Baptist.  Other than his salvation, this friend of mine had never
> experienced a single miracle in his life.  I have since told some of the
> miracles he has now been a part of.  You see, as a Baptist boy in college,
> and later as a Baptist pastor, he believe there were no miracles today
> because that's what John Macarthur and a lot of others taught.  He 
> believed
> what they taught.  Thus, he never witnessed any miracles in his life,
> ministry, or in the lives of any other Christians.  I'd repeat some of 
> those
> miracles he has been a part of now ubt it wouldn't prove anything.  The
> biggest mistake I made as a Baptist, I still consider myself a Baptist by
> the way but Baptists disagree with that personal identification, was that
> the Bible was the "concluded finalized Words of God."  thus, we never 
> heard
> from God because we have the bible.  Sounds good but this would have to 
> mean
> that the indwelling Holy Spirit was a deaf mute.  Yet Jesus told His
> disciples, the Holy Spirit was no such thing and would bring all truth to
> their minds.  Let me quote what Jesus literally said so there is no
> mistaking His Words.
>
> But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
> send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to 
> your
> remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you, John. 14:26.
>
> Yes, I am aware this verse talks about what Jesus said to His disciples
> while He was upon earth.  However, unless somebody believes that 
> everything
> Jesus said and did is in the Bible and the disciples wrote everything 
> down,
> that is, every words and ever work Jesus did, we have John 21:25 that 
> sheds
> a little more light on the subject.
>
> 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.
>
> It would be proper Biblical interpretation, therefore, to openly recognize
> we don't know everything Jesus said and did.  Unless, of course, John the
> disciple was lying and I doubt that very seriously.  Regardless, I have
> personally heard from the Lord in my mind and spirit hundreds, if not
> thousands, of times.  I have always confirmed what I heard by the written
> Word.  For example, one day, as I was viewing a memory about going to 
> school
> as a 5 year old for the first time, I was scared, I thought, but it turned
> out, that wasn't my problem.  My problem was, as the Holy Spirit revealed 
> it
> to me, I was disappointed in myself for being scared because I was a big 
> boy
> now and big boys are never afraid.  This was a lie, of course, and I
> recognized it for what it truly was.  At that very moment, the Lord spoke 
> to
> me and said, "Phil, you don't have to be perfect because I am."  Of 
> course,
> I could prove this statement from the Bible without a bit of trouble yet
> those words, spoken by the Lord to me, are not written word for word in 
> the
> Scriptures as He spoke them to me.  Additionally, the Lord spoke these 
> words
> directly to me.  I can point this truth out in the Bible to anybody at any
> time but just because they see it in words does not mean they believe it.
> I've tried leading people to Christ who repeated a prayer after me but 
> when
> we finished, they were no more born again than a goose.  Why?  they didn't
> believe a word of what they said.
>
> Furthermore, it stretches the spiritual imagination beyond any reasonable
> consideration to think that God does not know any more, and say more, and
> think more, than what is written in the Bible.  So, do we toss the Bible
> out?  Of course not.  The Bible is the Word of God and confirms, or 
> refutes,
> what other's say and do.  I know lots of Baptist pastors who have sexually
> used teenage girls and secretaries in their church.  I didn't stop being a
> Baptist when I discovered what they had done.  Nor will I stop speaking in
> tongues just because some fundamental Baptist, which I am as well, thinks 
> he
> has all of his documentation, or ducks, in a row.  Charismatics, 
> regardless
> of how big of name they have and regardless of how large their church has
> become, get it wrong, too.  They just don't take the time to correct all 
> the
> Baptist that are teaching miracles and tongues died out with the last
> apostle, whoever he was.
>
> A few years ago, my children and I, along with Sandy of course, visited a
> small Charismatic church near our home.  We thought we would end up 
> joining
> after several visits.  Then one day, they had a special speaker.  What
> happened in the service, unless you are savvy to this sort of thing, would
> freak you out.  It didn't freak me out but I likewise disagreed with what
> they were doing and felt it to be unscriptural and extra Biblical and on 
> top
> of all of that, very fleshly, too.  When we got in the car and started
> pulling out after church was over, all three of my kids started asking me
> about it.  A couple of the younger ones even expressed being scared.  I
> explained what was going on and what I thought about it and what was wrong
> with it, and my oldest, who was driving, said, We aren't going to join 
> this
> church, are we, dad?  I laughed and said, Nope, we sure won't be coming
> back.
>
> Now, if you were a visitor at the Corinthian church a couple of thousand
> years ago, I would bet you'd likely freak out during one of their 
> services,
> too.  If you read both epistles careful, you will discover that God didn't
> think they were a bunch of unsaved, Biblical ignorant Charismatic
> Christians.  He did, of course, bring some wise instruction to what was
> going on but these Christians, coming from the life of male and female
> prostitutes, and all types of heathenistic pagan religious beliefs and
> practices, were some of the most dedicated Christian, I want to be like
> Jesus, Christians the world has ever seen.  They still had some problems
> though, but you'll never find a more dedicated bunch of believers wanting 
> to
> live Godly spiritual lives in any church on the planet today.
>
> Well, I've probably whipped this dead horse long enough but I'm just 
> saying,
> and my website has such articles, you can find doctrinal error any place 
> you
> hear the Gospel preached and the Bible taught.  I'm glad it is the Holy
> Spirit administrating the church and not me.  He can handle the whole 
> world.
> I once heard a guy call Hank Hanigraft's bible Answer man show.  You know,
> call 1 800, Ask Hank?  This kid had just gotten born again.  He wanted
> everything God had for him.  Kind of like the Corinthian Christians you
> might say.  He asked Hank a very simple question.  What does it mean to be
> filled with the Holy Spirit?  Hank immediately dragged the conversation 
> off
> topic.  He played a three second clip, get that, a three second clip, of a
> preacher Hank thinks is a heretic and as lost as a goose.  This proves, of
> course, Hank is right, if you get my drift.  The young man repeated his
> question two or three more times.  Hank finally told him just to stay in 
> the
> Scriptures and he'd find out for himself.  God as my witness, this was 
> what
> old Hank said.  Very said and very misleading.  Hank should be ashamed of
> building an entire ministry off the criticisms of those with whom he 
> thinks
> are weirded out Christians.  I won't send anybody a dime with that sort of
> attitude.  Regardless, my point is the young man deserved an answer but he
> received none.  If you take three seconds out of any of my recorded 
> sermons,
> you can prove I am a heretic.  You take three seconds out of the words of
> Jesus, for that matter, and you can make even Him a heretic.  Do these
> people mentioned in the article need to be corrected?  Sure.  I could take
> that same article and lift several comments out where the man is
> Scripturally dead wrong.  Would he receive it if I did so?  You know the
> answer.  So, I just keep preaching Jesus.  By the way, for anyone
> interested?  In the last two years and leading five people to Christ, I 
> have
> taught no one how to speak in tongues but I do it every day and I teach it
> in my church as a gift of the Holy Spirit and that it can be one of the 
> most
> important aspects of your spiritual relationship with the Lord.  I use the
> same bible to teach this truth while others use the same bible to say it
> died out with the last apostle, whoever he was.  When we get to Heaven, I 
> am
> going to look up whoever that last apostle was because I sure want to meet
> him.
>
> Phil.
>
> It Sounds Like God To Me.
> www.SafePlaceFellowship.com
>
>
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