Free will does not mean you have the power to carry out your decision. I may choose to follow the Lord, but I am doing what He had asked me to do and that is to trust Him to help me to follow Him. That is how I get to know Him and the power of His resurrection when I see Him helping me to follow Him.
One time, I had read something from the Daily Bread or the Upper Room where the statement at the bottom posed the question; decide this day Whom you will serve; the Lord Jesus Christ or something else in His name. There was a sense of urgency about this; I did not know why and so I said out loud "You, of course," but the sense of urgency remained. Then I said "Please help me to do this" and that sense of urgnecy was replaced with His peace.
About a week later, I was on vacation to another state to visit my Aunt with my folks. My aunt's community church just had a supernatural phenomenon that had happened in her church the Sunday prior as the church showed the video to us of what had happened. A guest was trying to give a sermon on the tragedy of Samson & Delilah but he did not get far as he began to smirk, giggle, then laugh a little at various times within that short interval and pretty soon, the congregation was doing it too, and then he laughed our loud, calling every body forward saying, I do not know what the Holy Spirit is doing , but come forward.." to that effect. Those that came forward were all laughing and could not stop laughing. Some fell down and did some body twitching and stuff. That was the end of the video.
So then comes the service where the pastor allowed several young members to relay their personal experience of the "Holy Spirit" coming over them, and he did his own speech that went kind of like this "I do not know what the Holy Spirit is doing, but man must move out of the way, and the Holy Spirit will move in."
Yeah.. I know. Sounds like new age mentality or the rudiment thereof.
After calling people to come forward, my Dad left. Mom stayed because it was her sister's church as they both remained. I stood there wondering about all of this ( yeah.. I know. I did not connect that warning from the Lord to this crisis of faith upon me. ) and then I felt a hand pushed me from behind on my shoulder. I looked back to see no one was there to have done that. Then it happened two more times. Then I was thinking, Lord? Did you want me to go forward and ask for healing? No answer. So I went forward, and that one guy pushed me and I fell back from him pushing me on my forehead while another ( maybe two ) catch me and lower me to the floor. I was on the floor briefly because I was not healed and I had gotten up mad for I was asking for healing on my deaf ear and the tinnitus in my right ear.
When I had marched from the church to my aunt's house where we were staying, I happened upon a newsletter from David Wilkerson where the main article was about the role of the Holy Spirit how He will always keep the spotlight on the Son to testify of Him in seeking His glory. That was when I knew that phenomenon was not of Him. I was not on solid ground yet but I did preach against it to my aunt and her family that the Holy Spirit is in me and whatever is outside of us is the spirit of the antichrist. Later on, I learned from the Lord that because the Holy Spirit is in us, any spirit that comes over us is not the Holy Spirit as 1 John 4:1-6 was teaching believers about in not believing every spirit but test them. More scripture came along to expose other works of darkness like this another baptism with the Holy Ghost that comes with evidence of tongues but Ephesians 4:4-6 opposes that whereas some are preaching in this forum that believers do not receive the Holy Spirit at salvation, but later on in life with evidence of tongues, but Romans 8:9 opposes that while both call is reproved by 2 Corinthians 11;1-4 as preaching another spirit to receive..
Anyway,.... see how unaware I was in the face of spirit of the antichrist? The Lord kept me from falling for it to serve that "holy laughter movement" in seeking the glory of that movement instead of preaching the Lord Jesus Christ & Him crucified. That is Him being faithful as my Good Shepherd and so regardless of my decision, I trusted Him to help me serve Him and Him only in seeking His glory.
True, but better to trust Jesus Christ as our Good Shepherd now in getting us ready before the Bridegroom comes so as to be received.
I had made a commitment to follow Christ and I was doing the best I can and failing miserably. I had quit being a deacon twice for feeling like a fraud. One day I came across a pamphlet to address the words of my mouth and by the scriptures, I was convicted because I had developed a habit to cuss outloud in the warehouse when no one else was around. The back page of that pamphlet led me to make a covenant with my mouth. The very next day, I was worse than I ever was before. A voice in my head said that I was not His for if I was His, He would have helped me to keep my covenant. I stopped listening to the devil, but I was still at my wits' end. I had asked the Lord why He was not helping me for I said that YOU knew I do not want to do this. I heard Him inside of me say.. not audibly, but I did hear Him say "You made the covenant. You said you were going to do it. I made the Covenant and said I was going to do it. All I ask from you is to believe n Me."
When Promise Keepers came into the valley, I trued to warn them. One of the 2 Bible studies I went to, one, a Catholic Mason said, "Isn't a commitment to follow Christ like a promise? Sure it is." That was then I knew what I was doing wrong the whole time. Then I confessed that I will no longer be under that commitment to follow Christ and somewhat said that I will believe in Him to help me follow Him.
So the Lord forgiven me of all those religious bondages and had set me free to rest in Him & all His promises to me in helping me follow Him. That is why it is not I who live, but Christ Who lives in me is how I am following Him by faith alone.
Thx for sharing. I for one do not discount people's different experiences in life. We are all different and unique to God and therefore He knows the better way of how to reach everyone of us individually. I have had my own experiences, God talking to me as if standing beside or behind me, a vision He gave me back in 2004, which is the subject of a book I wrote, and other lesser things. Experiences are valuable as they stamp a strong sense of realness on our lives and specifically on our relationship with Him.
However, I will caution you in that whatever conclusion we draw or learn from our experiences, they must align with the truth of the word. You mentioned an experience with David Wilkerson that in conclusion reinforce to you that the phenomenon of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was wrong. So we see here a conclusion that you have drawn based not on God's Word but on something an individual has said. Now I know that D. Wilkerson is not just anybody but still isn't perfect and he could have said something the was incorrect and now you have conclude something based on his incorrectness. Or D.W. could have been correct in what he said but you, in light of preconceived theology, interpreted it to mean one thing when it actually meant something else. You know what I mean, What one says is not always what one means and what one understand is not always what was conveyed.
You have hence concluded that the Baptism of the H.G. is wrong or unbiblical, when the Bible is full of this experience. If you do not believe in this Baptism you might as well tear out the pages from 1Cor. 12-14 from your Bible. Take out Acts 2, 8,9,10, 19 and at that point you might as well throw out the whole book since that many chapters are wrong.
The Bible clearly speak of many Baptisms, but the main Three, that are true witnesses, are Baptism in water [note water] (which the outward testimony and evidence of a believers conversion to Christ, Mark 16:16 ), The Baptism into the Body of Christ at the very point of belief and conversion [note blood] (This is the one Baptism that counts, the only one that leads to Salvation,1 Cor. 12:13-14, it is the Baptism that Paul is referring to in Ephesians 4:4-6), finally the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, performed by Jesus as He takes the believer and immerses him in the Spirit [note Spirit]
These are the three witnesses I alluded to above. (1 John 5:7-8) "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
(Matt. 3:11),and is available following conversion.
So you to say that there is only one Baptism is a gross misunderstanding of scripture no matter what experience you've had. So as I was saying, we must not use our experiences to guide our theology. We must always apply our beliefs against the Word to see if they hold true.The Doctrines of Baptisms should be something that every Christian has a firm grasp on along with other things so that we can move unto perfection says Paul in Hebrews 6.1
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