Hi Folks

More on prophecy:

No true prophecy will contradict the word of God. Isaiah 8:20

Deutronomy 18:21-22 A prophet is recognized as true when the word he has spoken comes to pass. If it doesn't it is not the word of the Lord.

The sourse of ministry cannot be determined merely by signs of the miraculous see- Deuteronomy 13:1-15 Satan can perform lying signs and wonders. Exodus 7:11

1 John 4:1 SAYS " Beloved do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world." The way we test the spirits is by comparing everything with the word of God.

We are told in the word to obey our leaders, but not to the extent of not obeying the word-same as not obeying God.

interestingly, many times Jesus talks of false prophets and ravenous wolves in the same sentence, I take it these go hand in hand.
as in, if you are a false prophet you are also a wolf in sheeps clothing. Yes makes sense.

One question are these people saved? anyone out there know? Can you lose your salvation by turning away from God, after recieving salvation?

susie:

you quote "1 John 4:1 SAYS " Beloved do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world.”

but neglect to quote the next line:

"This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God”

you need to be careful in forming a conclusion based on portions of the text.

Once you combine the passage i quote its clear that his talk of “recognising the spirit of God” is written to counter the heresy of docetism. namely the teaching that
Jesus didn really come “in the flesh” - thus was divine but NOT human.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2011 01:09AM by Clive.

Hi Clive


Thank you for your input. As far as I am aware testing the spirits is not limited to just one thing, but to anything that is spiritual.
The first test would of course be that the spirit recognizes that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Followed no doubt by the fruit that the would be Christian is producing in their lives.

We must test every visitation and message with the word of God. 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22
" Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast to what is good. I used 1 John 4:1 on its own without the second verse in trying to get my point across, however point taken.

Hi Susie,

Spearhead revival? Where?


"Christian revival is a term that generally refers to a specific period of increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or many churches, either regionally or globally. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to a evangelistic meeting or series of meetings"

Is it even biblical? Where is the Scripture in God's Word?

Hi lovealways

Although I agree with what you have said, there are different kinds of revival: `personel revival, Psalms 143:1 "Revive me, O Lord for your name's sake! For your righteousness sake bring my soul out of trouble." Corporate revival: Psalm 85 :" Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"

The word revival can conjure up certain feeling. Its often used to motivate people to do better, or as I think in the case of SMC, it is used to heap guilt upon their people, as in- you need to do better you backslidders! However before we can have a real revival we must be able to tell the difference between true and false revival. In these days truth has become obfuscated by all manner of teachings. Certain churches have so darkened the understanding of the word we can no longer identify the truth. We have put our faith in the teachings of men rather in root teachings of the bible. If we do not know the bible, we will not identify the works of Satan, which in this day and age are so prevalent in the church.

Hi Susie, I agree about false teachers! I watched a documentary where Darren Brown got someone to pretend to be a faith healer, people actually believed they were healed and that he was casting out demons...it was all fake! I think he even felt guilty about duping people!

That being said, I do think there are people in Struthers who are saved. There are some that are not. The bible tells us that we will know them by the fruit they bare, love, peace, joy, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness and self control. Those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their lord and saviour are saved. Those who put gifts above giver and believe in a different Jesus from the one in the bible are not saved. Christ can heal and he does heal but he does not do so at our demand, he does so when it is his will to do so! Yes we may ask but we may never demand! 'His will be done!'

One thing I would say is that a person who is truly saved cannot lose their salvation. Edwards once said that the only thing a person can ever bring to aid their salvation is the sin that makes it necessary. I agree. My salvation was not given to me as a reward for anything I had done but rather it was a free gift from God. It is God alone who saves, He alone who sanctifies, justifies and glorifies, was it not God who gave us faith? Romans 12:3 "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." This is one of the reasons I find faith healing so abhorrent, because in blaming a person's lack of faith they are blaspheming God! For faith comes from God alone, like salvation, and he has given each of us an assigned measure of it for His glory!


When people come to know Christ as their Savior, they are brought into a relationship with God that guarantees their salvation as eternally secure; for God has given us a new spirit, he has turned our stony heart to flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). We are baptised by the spirit into the body of Christ and nothing can pluck us from his hand! " All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37-40) We already HAVE eternal life when we are born again.


As Romans 8:30 declares, "And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified." Notice he has already justified and glorified here! The work has been done and our salvation is guaranteed because God purposed it to be so! The God who saved you is the same God who will keep you. Once we are saved we are always saved. Our salvation is most definitely eternally secure!

God bless!

Sola

Here are some books on abusive churches such as Struthers Memorial Pentecostal Church, for those interested:

Amazing Grace Kathleen Norris (Riverhead Books, 1998)
By What Authority: The Rise of Personality Cults in American Christianity- Richard Quebedeaux (Harper Collins, 1981)
Charismatic Chaos John F. MacArthur, Jr. (Zondervan Publishing House, 1993)
Churches that Abuse - Ronald Enroth (Zondervan Publishing House, 1992)
Cult Proofing Your Kids - Paul Martin (Zondervan Press, 1993)
The Drift Into Deception - The Eight Characteristics of Abusive Christianity - Agnes C. Lawless with John W. Lawless (Kregel Resources, Grand Rapids, MI, 1995)
Exposing Spiritual Abuse: How to Rediscover God's Love When the Church Has Let You Down - Mike Fehlauer (Charisma House, 2001)

The Grace Awakening - Charles Swindoll. (Word Books, 1996)
Healing Spiritual Abuse : How to Break Free from Bad Church Experiences - Ken Blue (InterVarsity Press October 1993)
Letters to a Devastated Christian - Gene Edwards (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, Wheaton, IL 1984, 1992)
More Jesus, Less Religion: Moving from rules to relationship - Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton (Waterbrook Press, 2000)
Shackles of Faith - Mark Hosler (Tate Publishing February 2, 2010)
Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness - Barbara M. Orlowski (Wipf & Stock Publishers January 2010)
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse - Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority within the Church - David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen (Bethany House Publishers, Mpls. MN, 1991)
Twisted Scriptures- A Path to Freedom From Abusive Churches - Mary Alice Chrnalogar (Control Techniques, Inc. P.O. Box 8021 Chattanooga, TN 37414-8021)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2011 03:05AM by Clive.

In answer to some questions posted recently on this Forum:
Re the teaching on revival in SMC, Mr Hugh Black wrote three books about Revival which were mainly based on sermons he had given previously. In his first Revival book, he reviewed revivals from past history and also included the prophetic vision given by Jean Darnall, an American lady who was used in prophetic gifts and who was invited to speak at SMC on more than one occasion. During her visits to SMC, she related her vision which God gave her concerning revival coming to Scotland, which was endorsed by Mr Black. However, after Mr Black's death, I never heard anything said about Jean's vision.

His second book on revival covered revivals in Africa, Brazil, island of Lewis and one at a school camp he had been present at. These ocurrences certainly seemed to me to be genuine revivals where God had swept into a community and many souls found Christ as Saviour. Mr Black's third Revival book covered spiritual warfare, Christ-like behaviour, forgiving those who have wronged us and the love of God, as these topics related to revival. Always it seemed, though, that the onus was on us to bring about revival and to make sure we were so right with God that He could then send revival to SMC. Nothing was said about it being sent to other churches, despite the fact that Jean Darnall, who was approved of by the leaders, said it would come to the whole of Scotland and then the whole of the UK. Confusing, eh?

So you can judge for yourselves what is meant by revival in SMC. I didn't see it happen. Remember that other churches are praying for revival too.

Re, whether there are meetings in Coatbridge and Airdrie, to my knowledge, there are outreaches going on in these towns, but no church groupings as such. I don't know how many folk from these towns are members of Cumbernauld SMC, but I don't think it is many. There were also at one time meetings in Motherwell and in Wishaw but I don't think these are on any more. All these towns are in the North Lanarkshire area between Glasgow and Cumbrnauld (someone asked where they were). Maybe these make up the ten ? cities, I don't know.

To answer a previous question from seekingsusan, No the leaders and members of SMC do not believe in Anihilation after death. They believe in a resurrected body and new life in an eternal realm. They get many things wrong, but, to be fair, not that.

Quote
Rensil

To answer a previous question from seekingsusan, No the leaders and members of SMC do not believe in Anihilation after death. They believe in a resurrected body and new life in an eternal realm. They get many things wrong, but, to be fair, not that.

Actually I was referring to the doctrine of Hell and whether SMC teach that the UNSAVED will suffer eternal torment in Hell - ie - forever - , or whether - after the appropriate amount of punishment, they are eternally “destroyed” and thus simply cease to exist. This is referred to by many as “annihilationism”.

re:

"what is meant by revival in SMC”

I’d argue that the most widely accepted definition of REVIVAL involves masses of the unsaved feeling “conviction of sin” and becoming saved and thus born again.


This definition can be found and is widely accepted among evangelicals REGARDLESS of any charismatic manisfestations. This is what Witefield and the early evangelicals would have understood as revival. It simply refers to mass GENUINE conversions.

Clearly the SMC record on converting the unsaved is pretty appaling - given that in 30 years they have only grown to around 300 or so. And of this crowd a majority are going to be people who were already born again before they joined, or are children of SMC members.

It seems very strange that a church which supposedly strives so hard to be “obedient’ and “submissive” and “holy” that its record on going out to the masses and actually
converting the unsaved is so appalingly poor.

One wonders if SMC is in fact more of a parasitical organisation that merely preys on those already saved with the promise of greater spiritual experiences.

"One wonders if SMC is in fact more of a parasitical organisation"

See my comment about the stock market and tithes.

Back in the 80's the majority of leaders in SMC were school teachers, is this still the case ?

quote:
seekingsusan
.

"One wonders if SMC is in fact more of a parasitical organisation that merely preys on those already saved with the promise of greater spiritual experiences."



I do believe you are right in what you say about it being a parasitical organisation. Like myself many people came to SMC already saved and baptised in the Holy Spirit, were given the promise of a deeper spiritual experience. These ones of course at the start are serving the one true God, and needless to say they will bring the true anointing of God into the meeting. Like all that is parasitical they end up harming the host from which they get there nourishment from.