Great message, Phil!    Thanks!

Helen

"..........Love is a cross!"


Earlier you wrote:
>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

"...........Love is a cross!"