Featured If someone holds that the healing, signs and wonders...

Hebrews 2:3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;

"was confirmed" and remains confirmed as it is now recorded in the Bible.
Not only was it confirmed but it was confirmed by eye/ear witnesses "by them that heard him".

The first missionaries were apostolic - spreading the gospel by the spoken word accompanied by signs and wonders to confirm the message, modern missionaries are also apostolic in a sense that they are sharing that message of salvation from the confirmation of that apostolic spoken word which was accompanied by signs and wonders now recorded in the completed written word.

Logically then the signs and wonders are no longer needed for the gospel confirmation having now been confirmed by the written word.

NKJV Acts 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

Note: This doesn't necessarily mean God can't use signs and wonders in this age but apparently He chooses not to do so.
Perhaps He will at the end of the age which intersects "The Day of the Lord".


HankD

 

First of all, no missionaries I know use the Macedonian vision to explain their call to be a missionary. I certainly do not. At that time Paul and Barnabas had already been sent out as missionaries from the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-4). So the Macedonian call is what I call a locational call (where to preach) rather than a vocational call (what to do with my life).

Secondly, independent Baptist missionaries don't usually relate their calls in terms of visions or other miracles. My own call was simply the Lord speaking (not verbally) to my heart: "Would you go to Tokyo, Japan, if I wanted you to?" So I don't connect the call of God in this dispensation to miracles. These are two different subjects.

I have never had a vision, but have had distinctive calls to preach and to be a missionary.

A Bible college teacher like my son may have a call like other full time servants of God (Eph. 4:11-12). A deacon or Sunday School teacher should certainly have and can have the clear leading of the Holy Spirit. God has a plan and a will for every believer.

 

The Macedonian Call is not a call to world missions. It was a call for Paul and his companions to preach the Gospel in Macedonia. End of story. Can application be made for missions? Yes. But that is not what the passage is about.

Matthew 28:19, 20 is a more specific passage about missions.

Matthew 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

What makes Jesus' command to his eleven disciples different than the Macedonian Call? Paul told Timothy, who went with him to Macedonia, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). The point being that what Christ commanded His disciples to do has, by extension, been commanded to the Church.

Ephesians 2:19-22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (emphasis mine)

 

No, the two terms are not the same. A calling is when God directly communicates (though not through revelation) with one of His servants, instructing that servant about his life's work.

The clear leading of the Holy Spirit does not have to do with a calling like pastoring, teaching or being a missionary or evangelist. It has to do with where or how to minister. Acts 16:6-7, before the Macedonian vision. The Holy Spirit clearly directed them where not to go. Then came the Macedonian vision wherein they were directed to Macedonia by the Holy Spirit by means of a vision. The passage does say that God "called" them to Macedonia, so I do use the term "locational call" for this one as opposed to a vocational call.

 

I believe (as do most of the missionaries I know) that "apostle" in the Bible is the same as the modern evangelistic, church-planting "missionary" (without the need in modern times for miracles). Therefore, when Paul says "called to be an apostle" (Rom. 1:1, 1 Cor. 1:1) he means "called to be a missionary."

 

In my experience, if you are called to a ministry you will know it without question, 100% assurance. I have never doubted my call to preach or my call to be a missionary. God gives assurance.

 

4 p4k .....

I stand on this verse, as well as believe it with my heart to be as it says! "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.…" John 14:12-14 (NIV)

Briefly, I had an ongoing problem with large toe ingrown toenails. In 1978, while living in Nebraska and attending an Assembly of God church, I had once again incurred a bad ingrown nail, and along with the low-grade temperature from the humongous infection in the toe, was excruciating pain. I did everything I was supposed to do to treat it at home, as I did not have medical insurance, and it was going to cost me for minor, in-office surgery to have it removed.

I broke down and visited the doctor on Thursday, and he set me up for Monday morning to remove it. I should also say, the money and insurance were one issue, the surgery and pain to follow were another reason I tried Epsom salt foot bathes.

It was so bad; the doc gave me crutches and told me to keep the foot up, and not bear weight on the foot. It was three, maybe four times its normal size, and come Sunday morning; it was now oozing bloody pus (opposed to the pus that was coming out when I saw the doc on Thursday0.

As it so happened, the preacher spoke on the above verse, which I believe is not an accident as I look back. He then had an alter call for healing needs. Probably, 40 people went forward, out of the 1200 in attendance, and he prayed individually for each one! Well, I knew that medicine was going to give me relief in less than 24 hours, so I sat there, until the pastor saw me sitting there, and he called me out to come up and have my toe prayed for. I was humiliated and embarrassed, and didn't really believe in healing via prayer as much as I did through medicine, so I reluctantly went forward, and purposely stood at the far end of the line! Well, I sat on the steps.

He was praying for people, and as he prayed, the all forty of them, one by one, fell to the ground, slain in the spirit (as they called it), and that irritated me, as I didn't buy into that little production either! When he got to me, he hugged me and then laid hands on my head and prayed the nail be healed and that my body no longer be affected by ingrown nails. Man was I embarrassed to have 200 people know I was there for a stupid nail!

Well, he ended, and gave me a gentle touch or push backwards, and of course, I didn't follow suit of the others. So he went back to the stage and prayed and dismissed everyone for the day!

That afternoon, he called me to tell me that I had been disobedient to the moving of the spirit, and that I would not be healed. I didn't know why he said that, but would understand the next morning, what a foolish statement that was.

I went to bed in dire pain that night, looking forward to my 8AM appointment, as it would bring me the needed medical relief from more than two weeks of progressive suffering!

Here's your miracle brother, and you knew this was coming, but when I woke at 6:30 AM to shower, I didn't realize at first that my toe had been healed. I was so used to the pain, that it wasn't until I stubbed that sucker on the doorway into the bathroom that I looked down in amazement and thought, wow, it didn't hurt. Of course, I figured it stopped hurting because it may have grown numb from the swelling.

So I sat on the toilet and pulled off the two pairs of socks, and unwrapped the gauze. To my amazement, the two was as normal as the toe on the other foot. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, so I even squeezed it, and hit it, to make sure I was not seeing a hallucination! There it was, all healed. I called for my wife, and she couldn't believe her eyes. BTW - she was an RN. She touched it too, and we both started praising God!

Well, I followed through with the doctor appointment, just to make sure something weird wasn't happening, and a visit charge was cheaper than the procedure, and it would ease my mind of all worries. He too, couldn't believe what he saw. He asked what I did, and I said nothing, other than the church pray for me the day before. He said, "Paul, you just witnessed an honest to good miracle." Like he said that things was so bad just four days earlier, there was no other explanation for the healing, than a miracle.

I called the pastor that morning, and even though I felt like sticking my tongue out at him, I was matter of fact when I told him, even though I didn't get slained in the psirit, and regardless of his comments about God not healing a disobedient believer, the toe was healed. He too, gave God the praise, and in his way apologized.

Now here is the greatest part of this miracle of my ingrown toenail healing. To this day, it's been 46 years without one more ingrown toenail! I have had no more, and I used to average five or six a year. And that was for approximately 11 years!

You can take this one to the bank and deposit it under faith-based healing. Had it not happened to me, I'd never believed it could have happened, which is why I firmly believe in and practice the words of that verse. I believe we not only can, but do experience even far greater things now that He has returned to the Father, and my faith in healing has never looked back!


SORRY .... it was not so brief, but, it was what happened, and it changed my entire view on healing, miracles and signs and wonders!

That pastor and his arrogance was one reason I left the AOG organization. At that time and place, I was the Adult sunday School CLass teacher, and I had about 100 people in the class studying a wonderful book titled, "Destined for the Throne!"

Ain't GOD just awesome?:thumbsup:​

 

RD2, do you think you nailed it with your personal story?

 

I'll bet ....

.... you have a different view? Which shouldn't surpise me. As for "nailing" it as a pun on "nail", yes! As for a testimony of what God can do, most definitely! :applause::applause: