Thread: Have we become numb to miracles because of WOF and other similars?

Umm...what would you say to Uggalli concerning the topic at hand:

i.e. "Proven" and "Substantiated" by his personal experience, he believes that the panther god healed him.

Apparently God not only doesn't care about His Sabbath, he appreciates vulgarity, sexual impropriety, and foul language. And also, apparently miracles are a sign that the Eagles should win the Super Bowl

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playof...C-DT9705204233

...as commonplace for those that believe on Him.

The harm that this kind of arrogant thinking places upon the weak is simply awful. Many are driven to deep depression and despondancy because of this rubbish wondering why God does not "speak to them in this way", "why God has not healed", "has God abandoned me", "why am I not perfect". What good does this do to some Christian dying of cancer, in tremendous pain, alone wondering where is God in all this, warring inwardly with his/her flesh when alone? Do you point them back to Christ or do you bend them in upon themselves by saying "you just don't have enough faith".

What good does this do someone persecuted in China, Indonesia or some other country. Where is the high victorious living while sitting in the middle of some Asian jail or forced labor camp because one would not recant Christ.

The good thing about those persecuted overseas is that they don't have televisions to see and suffer this kind of stuff to drive them into a suicidal dispair.

The harm that this kind of arrogant thinking places upon the weak is simply awful. Many are driven to deep depression and despondancy because of this rubbish wondering why God does not "speak to them in this way", "why God has not healed", "has God abandoned me", "why am I not perfect". What good does this do to some Christian dying of cancer, in tremendous pain, alone wondering where is God in all this, warring inwardly with his/her flesh when alone? Do you point them back to Christ or do you bend them in upon themselves by saying "you just don't have enough faith".

Exactly. A dear woman from my parent's church spent a lot of money "sewing seeds" and what not when her husband was diagnosed with cancer after working around asbestos 30 years of his life. My brother tried to encourage her biblically, but she sought "new testament" miracles instead...she's still a dear woman...a widow, nonetheless.

God heals in a variety of ways...to call them miracles, theologically speaking; that means He is confirming a particular teaching or prophet...I still haven't received any miraclous monetary gifts or healing from allergies while hearing a biblical sermon in a Reformed church.

Just to dovetail what Fred said about the corrolation between healing and forgiveness of sin. The healing of the paralytic is very telling on this matter.

Matthew 9:2-6
2 Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.

3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, This fellow is blaspheming!

4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?

5 Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?

6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . . Then he said to the paralytic, Get up, take your mat and go home.

Jesus healed blind, deaf, dumb, and lame people and raised Lazarus from the dead. We are spiritually blind, deaf and dumb according to Matt 13 until he does a work in us and raises us from the dead. The pharisees didn't freak out when Jesus healed people but when he said he could forgive sins, bypassing the temple sacrifice they had a cow. No pun intended. Jesus was to be the sacrifice. In the same chapter he eats with publicans and sinners and gets this....

10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.


11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?


12But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

He definitely is not talking about physical sickness here but spiritual sickness. Also in 1 Peter 2:24 notice the colon after it talks about bearing our sins etc. :by whose stripes ye are healed. I think it may be a spiritual healing here also.

24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

As the famous theologian Rodney King said "Can't we all just get along?'

Your testimony was encouraging, CC. You gotta understand, a lot of us are in "recovery" here. We experienced stuff too, fear, confusion, the desperate need to "work" to get God to make us "spiritual", the need to keep up appearances, we're not happy campers on the subject of sign gifts. But God does heal, and we shouldn't allow ourselves to develope an attitude of doubt, we are all naturally prone to this.

Originally posted by Larry Hughes

...as commonplace for those that believe on Him.

The harm that this kind of arrogant thinking places upon the weak is simply awful. Many are driven to deep depression and despondancy because of this rubbish wondering why God does not "speak to them in this way", "why God has not healed", "has God abandoned me", "why am I not perfect". What good does this do to some Christian dying of cancer, in tremendous pain, alone wondering where is God in all this, warring inwardly with his/her flesh when alone? Do you point them back to Christ or do you bend them in upon themselves by saying "you just don't have enough faith".

What good does this do someone persecuted in China, Indonesia or some other country. Where is the high victorious living while sitting in the middle of some Asian jail or forced labor camp because one would not recant Christ.

The good thing about those persecuted overseas is that they don't have televisions to see and suffer this kind of stuff to drive them into a suicidal dispair.

(note to self...find out what a "pelagian" is so I don't quote one...find out what a cessationist is so I don't disagree with one...hmm)

Ivan...dh went to peek in the door of a middle of the night meeting at church where the sign promise everyone to be in the spirit in St Louis...they were all clucking like chickens! And at a Pentecostal convention years ago a lady next to me ended up with a sprained leg and broken arm from "being in the spirit"...I nearly had my nose broke by her...let me tell you, that convinced me it WASN'T the Spirit!

Now THAT's the higher life - in traction! Got that victory goin' on now!

Chuck,

Though I do not retract the matter of what I wrote, I should not have left my posting with such an admonishment without some encouragement behind it. Please forgive me of my sin of pride.

Nobody is doubting the reality of true miraculous workings of God and that has already been clarified. I think that everyone's concern here is with so called teachers who really are false teachers within Christianity. The same who teach the kind of false faith we see in examples like Bennie Hinn. I don't think this is directed against those ensconced or mislead under such teachings. These wolves give a deadly poison to the flock seeking their own vain glory. They especially damage the weak and less discerning in the faith and furthermore maintain the deadly deception of those truly deceived by it.

It is right, concerning such false teachers and their teachings, to discern it, weed it out and rebuke it harshly. Paul admonished us to guard ourselves. Thank God if your church has such warriors of the faith in it to guard your souls and be ready to make war against false teachers.

But Chuck, it is as much a protection for your self as for all of us as Christians. Perhaps presently some of us are in seasons of good health, growth in the faith and such - perhaps some are not. Presently you yourself have experienced a blessing concerning health and that is absolutely wonderful! But the danger comes when this is not the case. When in the future health fails us or our loved ones, or fiery darts of doubt plague us in our faith and we even wonder where is my faith, where is God, am I abandoned?

Trials will come in many ways to all Christians. We cannot narrowly define what these will be for each individual - lest we endanger the individual because they've not experienced a certain type of trial. The Lord works in us in various ways for our good and we cannot limit those ways. But as a whole as Rod Rosenbladt well said once, "If you read the NT as a whole becoming a Christian will make things worse in this life and not better." We have to be careful here and not fall into a despairing martyr syndrome. If the Lord sees fit to bless us, thank Him and enjoy His kindness on the account of Christ. But we need to also realize how to understand the trials when they come whatever they may be for each. Health, wealth and prosperity preaching; perfectionism; victorious living preaching' 5, 10, 15, X steps to victory preaching are all counter productive to the true Christian walk.

Take for example something similar you said in a post a while back about seeing your own inner struggle with indwelling sin and that being a reason for a lack of attaining to these 'charismatic higher things' (can't recall the specific quote right now & I hope I've not misunderstood it). Just in case I have let's look at a specific so that we might see a good principle to help us all: (one I struggle with) The struggle of seeing one's own sinful heart, when one says to one's self in the quite hours, "I must not be a Christian, look at all this darkness and filth and pride in my heart, how can I be a Christian at all. People may not see it but I sure do and I feel it and it plagues me so." Then, one prays and cries out for more grace. But that's a good thing. Why do I say that? Much of the Christian life is paradoxical. Take this example again. The very fact that one struggles with indwelling sin is one of the greatest signs one is in the kingdom. And that is the paradox of the despairing struggle over the misery of sin yet the encouragement that this is good sign that you are in the Kingdom. The dead in trespasses and sin do not struggle with sin as sin. They may seek moral improvement but not as sin.

As T. Hooker put it concerning the struggle with remaining flesh and remaining hardness of heart, (paraphrased from memory - ldh), "How could one know one's hard stony heart if some soft fleshy (not in the sense of sinful flesh but converted heart of flesh) heart did not already exist?" Or a 100% rock is just that, it only 'knows' (metaphorically speaking here) 'rockness' - for rock is all it is. But flesh is soft and can detect hard rock when bruised upon it. Or to look at it another way, how can cold (analogous to remaining sin) be detected if some warmth (analogous to the new nature) does not already exist whereby a difference is discerned? Such is the one struggling with indwelling sin and the Christian struggles because he/she has the Holy Spirit and dethroned yet strong flesh at times. That is why the battle rages. Now that is encouraging and faith building in times of struggle.

The victorious, health/wealth, perfectionist false teachers thieve this bread from the flock and say, "If you really have faith you could attain these higher victorious, perfectionistic, special spiritual blessings and charismatic things."

You see Christianity encourages faith when a believer is down and the other false teaching causes despair (the opposite of faith) when the believer is down. The down times are the trials that try faith and purify faith, it displays and shines forth the faith thus, "Lord, by my sight all seems hopeless but to Whom else will I turn for You alone have the words of eternal life". The false teachers of the variants of perfectionism would see this cry as a lack of faith and guide one to attempt to muster what they call "faith" from within. But in actuality this cry IS true faith. Why? For the one crying out thus is crying out to Christ Who is the Saviour. He/she IS looking to Christ, the very definition of faith.

Blessings In Christ,

Larry

That's a great post, Larry!
If I could do what the perfectionists tell us to do, I wouldn't need Christ.

I am a little annoyed with you though, Paul M, because I think you quoted CC and attributed it to some African native. It's some co-incidence that they both said the same things in the same words! What debate tactic do you call that?

CC, please think about Larry's post, it makes so much sense and gets to the problem with all this. As you know, we need to live a life of constant repentance. The stuff the "higher life" people tell us to do is precisely what we cannot do because of our depravity. This is why salvation & sanctification are initiated by God, never by us. Left to ourselves we'd never do it!

Love you guys!
Meg