Featured Charles Stanley & Mysticism

the Holy Spirit primary mreans to lead/direct/guide/instruct us is the Bible, as it is the ONLY infallible revelation from God to us for today, but He is not limite dto just that, as at times He will confirm that to us by circumstances/people/prayer anwers/, but that however He chooses to do something apart from the Bible to lead/guide/direct/instruct us, will ALWAYS line up and agree fully with the bible!

Think we baptists at times react to ANYTHING not in the Bible as being always suspious, for right reason, as we see the gross errors in modern charasmatic Movement!

Think that is what Dr Stanley is referring to being led by the Spirit!

 

Well right now it is just an attempt to demonize anyone who is not a cal.

 

Be honest, have I ever demonized you and any other non cal here?

Disagreed sure, but demonized?

 

I think you are correctly distinguishing between Biblical revelation and a personal relationship with God. This is something the Charismatics miss, with their extra-Biblical revelation. The traditional evangelical belief in Sola Scriptura is about revelation, not about the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit.

There are many places in the NT where the Spirit leads in a non-miraculous, non-revelatory way, such as Acts 16:7--"After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not." This is not at all the Charismatic view, and has nothing to do with cessationism and Charismatic excesses.

 

Providence, as it applies to decision making, is God opening and closing doors. I cannot go through a door God has closed, so I should not stand there the rest of my life pushing on it.

If there are several doors God has opened I am to employ wisdom to choose one. I am not supposed to wait on feelings or voices bouncing around in my head.

I sent out my resume, the church called, we met, I preached, we talked about it- we utilized wisdom to decide that this was a place where we could do ministry together- and God has blessed.

What you DON'T have Brother Tom, is any scripture, ANY AT ALL, that says to wait for a "peace" or to wait for some thought to pop in your head willy nilly and call it the Holy Spirit.

You DON'T have that at all.

That is mysticism.

We are, instead, to make decisions based on wisdom- not voices in our heads or emotional feelings in our hearts.

 

There is no biblical precedent for this.

I go by the Bible; not by stories people tell about things that happened to them.

 

Sola Scriptura was meant to establish that God does NOT speak to popes and that God Word, not tradition or any other such nonsense, should be the only rule for faith and practice.

What we have today in this mystic age is a hundred million popes running around with new revelation they got from God in their prayer closet or in their cars on the way to work or whatever.

The Bible is the Word of God- not thoughts bouncing around in your head, and not feelings flying around in your heart.

There is absolutely NO biblical precedent for being led by EITHER of those things. NONE.

 

These accusations are just myths. Same tactics used by liberals; i.e. they pull out the 'race card' when it doesn't apply and the sheeple believe them and join in.

 

Actually what you described is exactly what most of us mean when we talk about being led to do something.

So what about these Scriptures:

I am not talking about mysticism. I am not talking about hearing any voices. I am talking about sensing the Holy Spirit's leadership in a certain direction such as Him leading you to pastor the church you minister to.

 

Paul had a vision- a real vision.

What he did not have was "God spoke to me in my heart and told me to..."

There is no instance of that in the Bible.

That is what most people are talking about when they talk about being led by the Holy Spirit today.

What actually happens is that they are pondering a decision they need to make. They are looking for answers. Their brain begins to do what brains do- flood their minds with all kinds of words and emotions.

"Go here and do this."

And mystics say, "THERE IT IS! The Holy Ghost has just given me a word!"

It is not the Holy Ghost leading them- it is their brains doing what brains do.

They should not make decision based on such things.

They should utilize the wisdom of Proverbs and the rest of Scripture and make a sensible, well-informed decision.

That's how God told us to make decisions- to make them by wisdom; not by feelings or thoughts bouncing around in our heads that we call "God speaking to us."

 

You hit the nail on the head. There is no doubt that scripture does not tell us which church t pastor. And while we check all things out it still may not be where God wants us. But we move forward as the Lord, through His Spirit, gives us a peace to do so. And we do not move forward when we have no peace in our hearts.


1Jn_4:13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

1Jn_5:6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.


Joh_14:26 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.


Joh_15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:


There is no doubt that the HG speaks to us in our minds and Spirits to guide us. This is Christianity 101.

 

There is no doubt that those passages of Scripture do not in any way, shape or form say anything even remotely close to what you purport about getting a "peace" or whatever.

The Holy Spirit who gave us the Bible to reassure our hopes of salvation comforts and reminds us the words of Christ. That's all those passages are saying.

To make it say this mystic stuff is a blatant abuse of Scripture.

 

Luke,

How do you have the "confidence" that you should be where you are and doing what you do as a Pastor?

 

If God through the Holy Spirit does not lead people, then I've been doing it wrong all these years.

NOT!

 

Mexdeaf, this has always been a question, seemingly unanswerable to me. I have for most of my life taken the perspective of the "wisdom approach" illuminated by Gary Friesen. I have often seen throughout my life, well intentioned people disagree over questions regarding "the will of God". I must say, I have had many sensations, usually "later" that "oh that was you God" type moments in my life. All in all, I tend to think that some have specific guidance from God regarding specific decisions and life events, but that seems to me to be "limited", but undeniable in those situations. For most people and most decisions, I think the wisdom approach in the most tenable.

 

I was wondering why this thread kept going on, then I started reading through it...sheesh...

 

The Bible doesn't teach you to worry about such things.

The Bible tells you what to do- you do it.

The Bible REPEATEDLY declares the importance of wisdom in determining the when, where and how of it.

The Bible no where says that you should EVER rely on subjective experience- random thoughts and notions and feelings and such to make decisions.

God, through providence, opens doors and closes doors. You put your hand on various knobs and pull. You take a peek and see if wisdom dictates this is a good opportunity for you to serve God in the capacity whereby he has both gifted you and given you a passion to serve him.

Then you just do it.

Just do it.

Leave subjective feelings out.

The Bible does.

 

Bible- that's what we want- Bible.

Not subjective experience which has no precedent in the Bible.

Bible.

The Apostles just went. They did not rely on liver shivers or any other such nonsense. When God did not want them in a particular area he would close the door. Rarely even he would send them visions and speak audibly to them. They were, after all, Apostles. But they just went to work for God using wisdom to search out the best opportunities.

If God does not want you somewhere, He will close the door.

Just serve him wherever the best and wisest opportunity presents itself.

Wisdom.

God help us to be guided by it once again and deliver us from mysticism.

 

Most people understand this. In fact this is the first I have ever experienced anyone who had such an abject failure to understand this biblical principle. Especially one who stand behind the pulpit every week. All I can say is wow! Of course it most likely has more to do with trashing a non cal than anything else.

 

If I point you to some open doors will you walk through them? Just "do it."
There are still mission fields that are not completely closed: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, and many others just like them.
The problem is that most able young men qualified enough to go to the mission will not obey the Great Commission, no matter how clearly it is written in the Bible, because the sacrifice is too great. It is too comfy at home than to obey the Word.
If there is no subjectiveness involved you have no excuse to not to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."