What do you guys make of this?

[Claudiu]

How do you guys respond to this story, and others similar to this one? Coming from a Pentecostal background, these are examples that are often provided to me to show how God still performs miracles today by people "hearing God's [or the Holy Spirit's] voice." Edit: I want to state that I do believe that God performs miracles. But what I specifically said before was God performing miracles through people "hearing God's (or the Holy Spirit's) voice. I have my own response, but I was wondering what others, put in similar situations, have said. Or looking at this video what you would say about it.

[video=youtube;fIjrTslbsXA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIjrTslbsXA&feature=fl_lolz&playnext=1&list=FL4edXmge2Og8[/video]

 

[JonathanHunt]

Well, God heals people. Miracles are real, as the doctor says.

I wonder what the doctor means by 'I heard a voice'. I have been strongly compelled of the Spirit to do things, like pray, or whatever, but I don't hear an audible voice.

 

[Boosterseat_91]

Well, maybe none of us will understand what exactly happened here. However, there was no gospel, there was no accurate description of hell, there was nothing about sin...Hell is not a place where you are "disappointed" at least not according to the way Jesus describes it. I would simply ask any person who believes that charismatic gifts are still around today if they told me to watch this video, "Is the Bible our source and foundation for truth?" Hopefully, they would say yes otherwise that's a whole different issue, but then I would ask "Then why would you believe this account to prove divine healings when there are things contrary to Scripture [such as the way hell is described, no mention of sin, no mention of repentance and faith, no law or gospel]?" That would bring the conversation around to an exegetical discussion of Scripture which is the primary flaw in any person who accepts this as proof for gifts of healing and such.

Also, if I were feeling especially clever that day, I might turn the whole conversation around as follows: So this man, you believe, was dead right? So he had absolutely no ability to save himself right? Something had to happen before he could be "saved"... Basically try to teach them to get their soteriology right so that their other false beliefs will fall more easily in line.

 

[Andres]

I can't see the video (blocked at work) but this recent thread is pretty similar and has several posts where people explain their views on hearing from God.

I believe that God speaks to us through His Word. Scripture is sufficient and we do not need to hear an audible voice.

 

[Grillsy]

Balderdash.

 

[Andres]

Okay gentleman, but what do these have to do with hearing from God?

 

[AThornquist]

I don't want to doubt the sincerity of the people involved, but at the same time I'm not going to say I swallow the story hook, line, and sinker. The Lord does amazing things; however, I don't know what the truth of this situation is, and I'm not obligated to believe it. May the true God bless them and use this account to His glory.

 

[Claudiu]

I can't see the video (blocked at work) but this recent thread is pretty similar and has several posts where people explain their views on hearing from God.

I believe that God speaks to us through His Word. Scripture is sufficient and we do not need to hear an audible voice.

The "audible voice" adherents usually reject this claim I make too by saying that in life threatening situations the bible can't do what the "the voice" can. The "voice" is there to guide them in special circumstances where nothing else can. For example, my mom was in the hospital with my brother when he was a couple months old and I don't know exactly what was the case, but my mom says she heard a voice (what she claims to be the Holy Spirit) to get the nurses quickly to unplug whatever my brother was hooked up to and, indeed, he could of died. However, whenever I hear examples like that about someones experience it's hard to tell them anything that runs contrary to it. They always say: "but I experienced it and I know what I experienced." So it's hard to tell them that the bible is sufficient.

 

[Esther W.]

I do not think this supports a Pentecostal view of "gifts" but evidence of a Christian view of the Holy Spirit at work in the hearts and minds of believers. Note that it was not the Dr's voice that commanded the man to rise from the dead- but the voice of the Holy Spirit causing him to pray for the man and to shock, one last time, the mans heart with the defibrillator.

 

[Andres]

I can't see the video (blocked at work) but this recent thread is pretty similar and has several posts where people explain their views on hearing from God.

I believe that God speaks to us through His Word. Scripture is sufficient and we do not need to hear an audible voice.

The "audible voice" adherents usually reject this claim I make too by saying that in life threatening situations the bible can't do what the "the voice" can. The "voice" is there to guide them in special circumstances where nothing else can. For example, my mom was in the hospital with my brother when he was a couple months old and I don't know exactly what was the case, but my mom says she heard a voice (what she claims to be the Holy Spirit) to get the nurses quickly to unplug whatever my brother was hooked up to and, indeed, he could of died. However, whenever I hear examples like that about someones experience it's hard to tell them anything that runs contrary to it. They always say: "but I experienced it and I know what I experienced." So it's hard to tell them that the bible is sufficient and they don't need to hear anything.

In cases where people make God subjective, i.e. He spoke to ME, I ask them how they know that the voice they heard was God. How do they know it wasn't their own thoughts or worse, the devil?

 

[Notthemama1984]

How do they know it wasn't their own thoughts

The few times in life when I thought I "heard" God's voice, it turned out to be my voice.

 

[Esther W.]

I can't see the video (blocked at work) but this recent thread is pretty similar and has several posts where people explain their views on hearing from God.

I believe that God speaks to us through His Word. Scripture is sufficient and we do not need to hear an audible voice.

The "audible voice" adherents usually reject this claim I make too by saying that in life threatening situations the bible can't do what the "the voice" can. The "voice" is there to guide them in special circumstances where nothing else can. For example, my mom was in the hospital with my brother when he was a couple months old and I don't know exactly what was the case, but my mom says she heard a voice (what she claims to be the Holy Spirit) to get the nurses quickly to unplug whatever my brother was hooked up to and, indeed, he could of died. However, whenever I hear examples like that about someones experience it's hard to tell them anything that runs contrary to it. They always say: "but I experienced it and I know what I experienced." So it's hard to tell them that the bible is sufficient and they don't need to hear anything.

In cases where people make God subjective, i.e. He spoke to ME, I ask them how they know that the voice they heard was God. How do they know it wasn't their own thoughts or worse, the devil?

We test it against the scriptures- The Holy Spirit speaks to us through God's Word. If the Holy Spirit is telling me to go back and pray for a man and further to shock his heart one last time-I can see no mischief or satanic motive in doing so...I instead I say "God spoke to me/compelled me through his Spirit". I do understand the danger of this kind of behavior and agree that indeed we have seen the rise of cults that have grown out of charismatic mumbo-jumbo, but that is the way of wicked men through all the ages.

 

[Andres]

We test it against the scriptures- The Holy Spirit speaks to us through God's Word.

This seems to be the classic Pentecostal/Charismatic (not that you are one) response to the problem of the subjectivity of revelation apart from Scripture. They always say, "well we test what God says to us against Scripture." For my response to that claim, I defer to the venerable John Owen: "If private 'revelations' agree with scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."

 

[Esther W.]

We test it against the scriptures- The Holy Spirit speaks to us through God's Word.

This seems to be the classic Pentecostal/Charismatic (not that you are one) response to the problem of the subjectivity of revelation apart from Scripture. They always say, "well we test what God says to us against Scripture." For my response to that claim, I defer to the venerable John Owen: "If private 'revelations' agree with scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."

I would disagree with that as a blanket statement and agree with it if such revelation were contrary to, or apart from, corporate biblical teaching- Certainly the Holy Spirit compels us as believers to do something so basic as to pray for someone- or for a doctor to believe that another go at using a defibrillator on a patients heart would be something he could be compelled of the Spirit to do? This does not, in my opinion, pass the test as something being "subjectively apart from scripture" does it? Sometimes it seems to me that as Calvinist's we forget that we have a God who is active in our lives for His own glory and good pleasure-delighting in us.

 

[Grillsy]

This seems to be the classic Pentecostal/Charismatic (not that you are one) response to the problem of the subjectivity of revelation apart from Scripture. They always say, "well we test what God says to us against Scripture." For my response to that claim, I defer to the venerable John Owen: "If private 'revelations' agree with scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."

You hit the nail on the head Andrew. Yet the Pentecostal/Charismatics when confronted with Owen's logic, as you well know, tend to become offended by that phrase. Most likely because it strikes so close to the heart of the Charismatic need for experience outside of what is defined in the Scriptures.
Men like us who come from a Charismatic background, and who were once immersed in that world of false signs and experiences, know all too well the damage done by their grievous theological errors. It takes the emphasis away from Christ and Gospel and instead makes experience and signs and wonders the end all and be all of the Christian's life.

On another note, assuming the man really did have a heart attack it is indeed wonderful that the Lord saw fit, in his providence, to allow this man to live. That being said it is disconcerting that the man asked "God into his heart". Was he told a Christ-less gospel? He continually said "God in his heart" with no mention of Jesus.

 

[Goodcheer68]

Certainly the Holy Spirit compels us as believers to do something so basic as to pray for someone- or for a doctor to believe that another go at using a defibrillator on a patients heart would be something he could be compelled of the Spirit to do? This does not, in my opinion, pass the test as something being "subjectively apart from scripture" does it? Sometimes it seems to me that as Calvinist's we forget that we have a God who is active in our lives for His own glory and good pleasure-delighting in us.

I would agree with Esther's quote and don't see her statement as being charismatic at all. Haven't all of us prayed at some point that God would give doctors wisdom, to make right decisions, etc. I believe the Holy spirit does compel us to pray for certain things and certain people sometimes.

 

[Grillsy]

I would agree with Esther's quote and don't see her statement as being charismatic at all. Haven't all of us prayed at some point that God would give doctors wisdom, to make right decisions, etc. I believe the Holy spirit does compel us to pray for certain things and certain people sometimes.

We might be more inclined to be more charitable to this story had it not come from a program like The 700 Club.

 

[SolaScriptura]

Some thoughts:

1. I'm leery of adopting a mindset that is suspicious and automatically dismissive whenever I'm presented with an instance of something supernatural actually happening in the empirical world.

2. I'm not prepared to call everyone a liar or misled who claims to have seen or heard or experienced something like a miracle or an acute sense of God's presence, etc.

3. The God in whom I believe is free to do as He pleases. And I have verses and argument that I believe gives me good reason to believe that at this point in history signs and wonders and miracles and the like are not normative, but I don't have a verse that is singularly crystal clear in saying that such things can't or won't happen after a certain point or that God binds himself to not doing such things in the present or future.

4. Thus when I encounter someone who claims to have heard or seen or experienced something, instead of saying an across the board, "no you didn't," I see if this has led them to turn to Scripture and to a greater love for and trust in Christ. It not, I call them out on their response. Of course, I have been known - including a few months ago up in a group session on the psychiatry ward here - to tell someone to quit their blasphemous lying if they claim that God told them something that is flatly contradictory to His Word.

 

[MMasztal]

The video is blocked at my work also, but we have another teacher whose wife claim she actually smells Jesus.

I tend to agree with the Owen quote.

 

[Andres]

I think perhaps I was unclear or at least incomplete in my explanations of my understanding of how God supernaturally intervenes in the lives of His creation. I still stand by my position that the gifts of the Spirit that we read about in the book of Acts, such as tongues and prophecy (including direct revelation, such as God speaking to people) have ceased with the end of the Apostolic age. Now with that being said, this does not however, mean that all miracles have ceased. I am certainly not arguing, nor have I seen anyone in this thread argue, that God cannot or does not miraculously heal people in this day and age. Now if some see this as a contradiction, let me explain...

The fact that God may choose to heal someone today through a miracle is just that - a miracle wrought by the hand of God. This is completely different than the gifts of healing that the apostles possessed. Those gifts were given to the apostles to confirm their authority and the apostles regularly displayed miraculous signs. But now in this present age, our authority is based on the word of God.

As for direct revelation, I understand the idea of desiring to by sympathetic to those who sincerely believe they have heard God speak to them, and I am not saying that everyone who makes this claim I just rebuke and call them a liar in their face. But I know that there is far too much damage that can come, both to the individual and to the corporate body of Christ, if we accept the belief that the canon of Scripture remains open or incomplete. And this is exactly what those individuals who believe God still speaks via non-canonical revelation are doing.

 

[Peairtach]

A few quotes from Jeremiah which should be read in context:

And the LORD said to me: "The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.(Jer 14:14, ESV)

Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.(Jer 23:16)

"I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.(Jer 23:21)

Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD.Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, 'declares the LORD.' (Jer 23:28-31)

The Pentecostal/Charismatic/"Third Wave" "prophets" are as much deluded as deluding. they speak about things that are "laid on their hearts" and from out of their hearts and minds - which still have sin and ignorance in them even if they are converted - rather than true dreams and visions from the Lord.

They speak about whatever they "feel" or about what they are "feeling for" in terms of discernment. Anyone can do this just as anyone can speak in modern "tongues".

According to Jeremiah prophecy doesn't come from within the prophet.

These are just delusions and red herrings on the part of some/many who may be genuinely converted.

This isn't an apostolic miracle/sign/wonder because medical means were used.

If these men are genuine Christians they can thank God for giving this man a near death experience and bringing him back through the prayer of someone who had him "laid on his heart", but this type of "prophecy" and "healing" isn't what was happening in the first century.

We may know what it is to have someone laid on our heart for prayer, or to have a prayerful burden for someone, but because we're not Charismatic we don't embellish the experience by saying that "God talked to me" so we sound like a latter day Isaiah and pump ourselves up in that way, while also causing confusion and damage to believers and unbelievers around us and damaging Christ's Church.

Pentecostalism of various types has done serious damage to the Church.

 

[lynnie]

Why can't the God who spoke to young Samuel, or Saul, do it today should He choose to?


I know of examples first hand. One was a fine Christian friend, raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, planning to be a rabbi. A landmine went off in VietNam on the man in front of him, and this guy woke up three months later in Pearl Harbor, his eye hanging from the optic nerve because the socket was gone. It took 14 surgeries to put him together, he has plastic knees ( looks pretty normal, good plastic surgeons).

Anyway, when he woke up in the hospital from three months of coma, he said God spoke to him, as a devout Jew, in an audible voice, and revealed to him that Jesus was the messiah. He became the Lord's in that moment.

The other is my sister A, who lived close to another sister J, but hadn't been in her home for two years. The latter sister J was in a church against any form of doctors, medicine, having babies in hospitals, etc.

J had just had baby #5,a cute little boy a few days old. A was in her own home, and for the one and only time in her life she said God-or an angel- spoke to her with an audible voice and said "go to J's". It was so powerful a command that she dropped everything and rushed over, wondering if J would even let her in the house ( J was estranged from all of us, thanks to her cult).

A pulled up to the home and J called to her out the window that something was wrong with the baby. J's husband and pastor and elders were all unreachable, so there was nobody to help her confess the baby was healed and stand on the confession of healing and all that creative word stuff. A looked at the baby ( turning blue), grabbed it, ran to her car and said it was going to the ER.

Turned out to be a heart defect. The baby lived for 3 weeks but had too much O2 deprivation organ injury from the hour between when symptoms started and it got to the ER so they could not operate ( 7/10 chance of success had the baby made it to surgery in time).

Because of that, there was a mellowing in J and her husband for years, they reconciled to some degree with family. They also admitted that had the baby died the state might have taken away their other kids. And they have gotten medical help for two kids with broken bones ( you are not allowed to get help in this cult for a broken bone, I kid you not, you have to confess your healing since healing is in the atonement). The husband has repented and even gone to a couple Piper conferences. (Their church folded up soon after that baby died.)

I heard a PCA missionary to Afghanistan talk about what is happening in the Muslim world with dreams and visions- God is revealing himself to Muslims all over the place, in visions and even with an audible voice. Of course they seek out bibles and Christians right away to find out more, but the calling and the regeneration seems to be happening in extraordinary ways prior to their doctrinal understanding.

This is good, on how such things are not new revelation, nor for all people at all times like the canon is. Such events do not undermine the sufficiency of scripture at all.

http://www.frame-poythress.org/Poythress_books/NPoythressSpiritualGiftsFinal.pdf

Read part 12 of this essay by Vern Poythress, an OPC prof at Westminster Theological Seminary. These things are perhaps rare, but the Reformed community of the past understood them to be very valid.


Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts

 

[J. Dean]

This is one of the things that drove me away from the pentecostals/charismatics. There is far too much emphasis on the Spirit to the point of pitting the Spirit against the Word. People in these movements (and I can say this because I've seen it firsthand) have an unhealthy dependence on the experiential and oftentimes believe that they're somehow not right with God if they're not feeling "buzzed in the Spirit" or getting hyped up somehow by speaking in tongues. You take them to a traditional church and more often than not they'll complain about a "dead" service if there aren't any drums or teary-eyed altar calls.

Again, if that sounds harsh, it's because I've seen it firsthand. It's hard to take seriously a movement that champions emotions and experiential feeling over faith alone in the written word of God.

So my advice to those who run to visions and voices: be very careful that 1.) it's really God, 2.) that you don't become dependent upon miracles and signs to bolster your faith instead of the written Scriptures, and 3.) that you don't make your Christian walk all about seeking "signs and wonders."

 

[JBaldwin]

Some thoughts:

1. I'm leery of adopting a mindset that is suspicious and automatically dismissive whenever I'm presented with an instance of something supernatural actually happening in the empirical world.

2. I'm not prepared to call everyone a liar or misled who claims to have seen or heard or experienced something like a miracle or an acute sense of God's presence, etc.

3. The God in whom I believe is free to do as He pleases. And I have verses and argument that I believe gives me good reason to believe that at this point in history signs and wonders and miracles and the like are not normative, but I don't have a verse that is singularly crystal clear in saying that such things can't or won't happen after a certain point or that God binds himself to not doing such things in the present or future.

4. Thus when I encounter someone who claims to have heard or seen or experienced something, instead of saying an across the board, "no you didn't," I see if this has led them to turn to Scripture and to a greater love for and trust in Christ. It not, I call them out on their response. Of course, I have been known - including a few months ago up in a group session on the psychiatry ward here - to tell someone to quit their blasphemous lying if they claim that God told them something that is flatly contradictory to His Word.

While it is true that there are a lot of people going around claiming miracles that didn't happen, I've seen too many in my lifetime to say that it can't happen. The "voice of God" for many is nothing more than a compelling inner sense to pray for something or to do something that is in perfect harmony with what the Scriptures instruct us to do. Are we to ignore that compelling inner voice which tells us to pray for someone or do something kind for someone because we don't believe in "special revelation"? I don't see these types of things as special revelation. In the case of this individual, he was not claiming special revelation or special power, he was simply doing what we are told to do--pray.

A few weekends ago, my friend's husband collapsed in a parking lot. The doctor's didn't expect him to live through the night, because his lungs were full of blod clots. I could hardly sleep that weekend because I was so compelled to pray for him and for my friend. I asked many people to pray. God healed the man. The doctors are now scratching their heads, because other than a few "stretched" arteries in the man's heart which they expect to return to normal size, my friend's husband is in perfect health and the blod clots have disappeared. I could easily interpret that situation as "I heard God's voice telling me to pray." or I could say. "We prayed and God healed him."

Do I think there are nuts out there? Yes. Do I think we should ignore an "impression", "voice" or whatever you want to call it to pray? No.

 

[J. Dean]

Do I think there are nuts out there? Yes. Do I think we should ignore an "impression", "voice" or whatever you want to call it to pray? No.

Correct. But what I and others are saying is that we don't go the Beth Moore route and assume out of hand that every whim or feeling is a revelation from God.

 

[JBaldwin]

Let me add that I believe we are to discern these situations, and a good way to do that is to see who is getting the glory. Though even Jesus performed miracles where the individuals walked away and did not give Him glory for what He had done. I am speaking specifically of a situation where He healed 10 lepers, and only one came back to give praise to Him (Luke 17). Ultimately, God will always get the glory for His work, but it is not always apparent to us.

 

[Peairtach]

Do I think we should ignore an "impression", "voice" or whatever you want to call it to pray? No.

It's important what we call it because a lot of pentecostalism is based on and sustained by a misuse of language.

E.g. they call speaking in gobbledegook, which even the speaker doesn't understand, "tongues". "Tongues" itself is an Elisabethan word for "languages", but they don't call it "the gift of languages".

They say that God is speaking to them when they have a burden to pray for someone.

They call illumination "revelation".

They say that a miracle (remember that miracles are also callled signs and wonders in Scripture) has happened when someone with back pain is prayed for and recovers after surgery.

 

[earl40]

From Calvin's Prefatory address in his Institutes (referring to the Roman Catholic Church):

3. In demanding miracles from us, they act dishonestly; for we have not coined some new gospel, but retain the very one the truth of which is confirmed by all the miracles which Christ and the apostles ever wrought. But they have a peculiarity which we have not - they can confirm their faith by constant miracles down to the present day! Nay rather, they allege miracles which might produce wavering in minds otherwise well disposed; they are so frivolous and ridiculous, so vain and false.


I wonder if Calvin would echo the above in response to this thread?

---------- Post added at 10:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 AM ----------

A few weekends ago, my friend's husband collapsed in a parking lot. The doctor's didn't expect him to live through the night, because his lungs were full of blod clots. I could hardly sleep that weekend because I was so compelled to pray for him and for my friend. I asked many people to pray. God healed the man. The doctors are now scratching their heads, because other than a few "stretched" arteries in the man's heart which they expect to return to normal size, my friend's husband is in perfect health and the blod clots have disappeared. I could easily interpret that situation as "I heard God's voice telling me to pray." or I could say. "We prayed and God healed him."

Do I think there are nuts out there? Yes. Do I think we should ignore an "impression", "voice" or whatever you want to call it to pray? No.

I take it the Dr gave him some blood thinners? I so that was indeed an answer to prayer.

 

[JBaldwin]

Do I think we should ignore an "impression", "voice" or whatever you want to call it to pray? No.

It's important what we call it because a lot of pentecostalism is based on and sustained by a misuse of language.

E.g. they call speaking in gobbledegook, which even the speaker doesn't understand, "tongues". "Tongues" itself is an Elisabethan word for "languages", but they don't call it "the gift of languages".

They say that God is speaking to them when they have a burden to pray for someone.

They call illumination "revelation".

They say that a miracle (remember that miracles are also callled signs and wonders in Scripture) has happened when someone with back pain is prayed for and recovers after surgery.

I agree with you, and you make a valid point. We should be careful what we call it, and in my own personal experience, I shy away from anything that sounds penecostal or charismatic.

The thinking behind my comments (which were directed more at other comments on this thread that simply dismiss it with out discussion) was that we should be careful not to dismiss any talk of God's work even if it comes fromt he mouths of pentecostals until we have taken the time to discern the situation.

Many on this board, and even on this thread, have admitted coming from a penecostal background. I, too, was involved at one time with a group that was constantly claiming to hear God's voice. I was a believer at the time, immature, yes, but I know that the vocabulary I used did not change how God answered my prayers.

---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 AM ----------

I take it the Dr gave him some blood thinners? I so that was indeed an answer to prayer.

No, actually, they did not give him blood thinners, because of another health issue. But that really isn't the discussion here. The point is, God answered prayer.

 

[Notthemama1984]

Balloon Juice.

Fruit punch or tropical?