Featured Feel the Spirit?

Iluvit, lol, so brother, was your heart burning within you, while he spake to you in the way, while he opened to you the scriptures? Praise the Lord.

Yeah, I get the drift. This is an old ‘evil under the sun’, the same evil brought to light and expounded on in Ezek 34 & Mt 23, that burdens and gives no rest or comfort, that muddies the water and fouls the pasture and drives the sheep away. There’s little real nourishment or rest or comfort or joy or peace or edification for His little lambs in the man-centric religion of our day.

 

Thanks Luke. I’m curious, you say “God can mystically impart the knowledge of Christ apart from the written word and the witness of the Christian…”, to which I know no example of in the scriptures. The gospel is the only means that I’m aware of that conveys the knowledge of Christ, whether it’s read or heard. BUT, God does, and always has, mystically imparted the Spirit of Christ apart from the Church or the written word or the witness of the Christian or any other means.

But I agree with you that God has chosen to reveal the knowledge of Christ through means, that being the gospel, whether preached or read.

 

It is always mystical. It is the mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ revealed. One can say the words and stimulate the eardrums and nervous systems of others all he wants. Without ears to hear what the Spirit says, it is vain.

And, the statement "God uses means" is meaningless. Stop using it. I clarified your meaning in the quote.

 

The point is Luke that without the Spirit there is no peace, joy, inner witness, etc.. Without the Spirit there's only the things of the flesh.

??? MANY are such passages, for starters Jn 3:7,8:

...It behoveth you to be born from above; the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.`YLT

Man is totally passive in this:

who -- not of blood nor of a will of flesh, nor of a will of man but -- of God were begotten. Jn 1:13 YLT

??? It's through obedience to the gospel that lost sheep are brought home and become saved sheep!

I'm pretty sure my soteriology is right in line not only w/mainstream PB but also generally with Old School Southern Baptists and other Reformed folks.

So, I take it you don't agree with the 'immediate regeneration' that SB old schoolers like Boyce, Dagg, Carroll, or Broadus held to?

 

You don't mean the Gospel. You mean the letter.

 

What you are doing is actively inserting man as a mediator into the text. No Church nor preacher nor missionary nor parent nor Sunday School teacher nor evangelist has anything to do anyone's mother being the Jerusalem that is above. Nothing. The Church is to feed the sheep, NOT make sheep.

That might be productive until the enemies of sovereign grace start dumping on it.

 

thats cause the "Church" cant make sheep.... that is the HS's job. But remember we are charged with ....Matthew 28:19-20

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Within the second of the posting, but so what.....your defending the Faith.

 

So which Mission board are you actively involved with and financially contributing to?

Nah, nothing like that. It's crystalizing some soteriological issues among Calvinist brothers only.

 

None.....am I going to hell?

 

Then you need to take your own advice, "But remember we are charged with ....Matthew 28:19-20", and do something.

 

You want to crystalize something with "Cousin Calvie " then show them how they are really Fullerites. Wont that be enlightment.....and the sparks will fly. LOL!

 

I do that already....Cept not like a Southern Baptist. Do you?

 

I'll defer to Pink who is quoted in this excerpt from 'Immediate, Holy Spirit Regeneration' By Zack Guess:

".... the Holy Spirit is the sole agent in regeneration. Here it will be good to quote Arthur w. Pink in his book, The Holy Spirit, pp. 56,57:

In His work of "quickening," by which we mean the impartation of spiritual life to the soul, the Spirit acts immediately from within, and not by applying something from without. Quickening is a direct operation of the Spirit without the use of any instrument: the Word is used by Him afterwards to call into exercise the life then communicated…The soul, then, is quickened into newness of life by the direct and supernatural operation of the Spirit, without any medium or means whatever…No, men are not "quickened" by the Word, they must be quickened in order to receive and understand the Word.

Pink says on page forty-nine of the same book:

In regeneration one of God’s elect is the subject, and the Spirit of God is the sole agent. The subject of the new birth is wholly passive: he does not act but is acted upon. The sovereign work of the Spirit in the soul precedes all holy exercises of heart- such as sorrow for sin, faith in Christ, love toward God… This great change is not a gradual and protracted process, but is instantaneous: in an instant of time the favored subject of it passes from death unto life.

Note: A number of Sovereign Grace groups agree with what we Primitive Baptists teach on the so-called Five Points, but very few agree with us on the doctrine of Immediate Regeneration. There are some, notably the Protestant Reformed denomination, W. G. T. Shedd, a Congregationalist, A. W. Pink, W. E. Best, and a few others. Some theologians seem to talk out of both sides of their mouths. In some places in their theology books they seem to teach Immediate Regeneration while in other places they plainly teach Gospel Regeneration."

John A. Broadus,successor to Boyce at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: ".....Q. Does faith come before the new birth? A. No..."

 

"Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God!"

Luke, do you make water here to mean the written word?

 

Pink corroborates .....splendid! :thumbs: