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Allenette
Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2000 - 7:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Coleen: just wondering, where do you teach? Is it public school? or SDA (not likely) private, or where? IMO, your experieces and their outcomes, are going to be very different depending on where you teach...do you think that "GOD"
ACTUALLY CHANGES THE RESPONSES IN YOUR STUDENTS?
Just wondering since I dont see much of a difference in the students in my school, no matter WHAT the belief system is the majority.
Jude the Obscure
Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2000 - 7:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Annette,

Thanks for reminding us of instances where God does give a sign. They seem to be rare, though, and the kind of thing that God does to help out those who are weak in faith. Gideon, for example: When God called him a mighty man of valor, he replied, "IF the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about ...?"
Judges 6:13, NIV.

Weak in the faith department, but mighty in the doubt department. Gideon's faith was so weak he had to ask for TWO signs: 1. Sacrificing a goat and bread, which the Lord honored by consuming it with fire. 2. The familiar fleece story.

The Gideon story seems to be an example of what Jesus was talking about when he said, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move." Matthew 17:20, NIV. In other words, God honors even tiny faith, and we wouldn't want to deny him that. But God gets the the credit for winning the battle, not Gideon. Gideon teaches us that God doesn't honor "might" or "valor." God honors faith.

Contrast Gideon's tiny faith with the great faith of Abraham:

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

"By faith Abraham, even though he was past age -- and Sarah herself was barren -- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore." Hebrews 11:8-12, NIV.

"By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." Hebrews 11:17-19, NIV.

The contrast in faith between those two men takes your breath away.

It's interesting Gideon was included in the "the faith chapter," but only among those the author of Hebrews said he didn't have time to mention. I think the lesson of Gideon was that God sometimes honors our "little faith" which requires a sign because He is A GREAT GOD. But the greater truth remains, "Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please him." Hebrews 11:6.

The word "impression" doesn't appear in Scripture. And I think it's a rather "little faith" phenomenon, the result of people relying on their feelings rather than on faith. The fact that God sends visions and dreams occurs throughout the Bible -- and always in very important ways. But "impressions" are another matter entirely, it seems to me.

You wrote, "There are times when people receive 'impressions' such as 'leave this place and go to your husband's work.' Those kinds of direction by the Holy Spirit don't arise out of direct Bible study."

Do you know of any examples from Scripture? I'm not saying there aren't any. I just can't think of any.

And unless there are some, I wouldn't be able to accept a statement such as, "Those kinds of direction by the Holy Spirit don't arise out of direct Bible study," as Scriptural. And for that reason alone I wouldn't be able to accept such "impression experiences" as "by the Holy Spirit" at all.

Willing to be taught,

Jude
Lydell
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2000 - 3:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually Jude, the scriptures are full of examples of folks who received impressions from God. The first one that comes to mind is that we are told that the scriptures themselves were written by men who were moved by the spirit. If this had meant that they were given direct dictation of what to write, we would have no discrepancies between the four gospels on their accounts of the same incidents.

In Acts 5 in the story of Ananias and Sapphira, Peter is recorded as suddenly knowing that Ananias and Sapphira had lied. There's no indicator that any human had told him about this.

In Acts 13, we have the record of Paul, who was speaking with Elymas at the time, suddenly announcing that "you will be blind for a time." That's not something he could have gotten from the scriptures!

In Acts 14:9, Paul looks at the crippled man and "saw that he had faith to be healed." How can a man look at someone and see that he has faith? You can see that someone is anxious, willing, or eager. But faith in a person is not something we can see.

In Acts 15, the Jerusalem council is quoted as saying "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" and then comes the instructions to the Gentile believers.

I seem to remember also that Paul had plans to go somewhere, and the Holy Spirit wouldn't let him.

I hardly think Paul was one who was weak in faith, yet apparently the Spirit often gave him impressions! And that's to be expected if the Holy Spirit is truly in control of our lives. He will be the one directing our thoughts, giving us promptings of what to say to a certain individual to whom we are witnessing.

Certainly there have been many Christians through time who have had the experience of "having a feeling" that they must stay where they are and not move and discovered later that by following that prompting they avoided calamity. It happened a handful of years ago to our son who was walking in the woods one spring. He reports that he was suddenly frozen in place by the command, "don't move." He was shocked when he looked down to discover a large rattlesnake coming out of it's burrow just one step in front of him.

That God speaks to us through impressions on a regular basis really should come as no surprise to a pastor who has to prepare sermons. If he is not receiving guidance from God, then you are merely going to hear the opinions of man expressed in his sermons.

We shouldn't be surprised that the Lord speaks this way, because there have always been Christians who did not have the scriptures in their hands. Certainly the very early church wouldn't have had the complete body of writings for guidance! But in addition to them are those who aren't fortunate enough to own a Bible of their own, and there are still people groups who as yet don't have the scriptures in their own language.

I don't see any way that we can effectively present the gospel to someone without the direct promptings of the Holy Spirit. Certainly we have the written word to give us all the facts that are needed. But God loves us enough to speak to each of us in our own personal language, so to speak. Only He can know exactly where a person is in their readiness to receive the gospel. We have no way of knowing where they are in their understanding. Only He can know if this is someone who is ripe for total committment or still stuck back at level one of needing to be convinced that there IS a God at all. Those impressions that he gives can move things along much faster than we in our own wisdom could possibly hope to accomplish.

I'm reminded of the story of John Wimber told of being on a plane ride, actually planning to ignore the rest of the passengers, when he casually glanced at the man sitting beside him and heard the word "adultery". Eventually he became convinced that this had to be something from God, managed to get a time to talk to the man privately. Because the man knew that Wimber knew neither he no his wife, or the other woman with whom the man WAS in fact having an affair, he was convinced that God was real and had a real interest in reaching out to save him. Before the end of the flight, the man and his wife accepted Christ.
David
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2000 - 4:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I would like to say that God impresses us even when we don't realize it. When my wife and I were stationed in Germany we had what can only be described as a Divine impression that proved to save our lives, or at least kept us from being seriously injured.

We were out for a Sunday drive and on the way home we had to go thru the little town of Heimbach. This town is located at very narrow part of the Nahe river valley and it is practically built on one side of the canyon. The main hiway snakes thru it with the town on one side and the Nahe river on the other. For those of you who are familiar with Germany, the roadways over there offer very little in the way of a shoulder that can be used to dodge oncoming traffic which may be in your lane. When we approached one particularly long, blind curve in the road, I suddenly felt the impression, "What if a car were to come barreling around the curve in your lane? What would you do?" My answer to this question was, "I would get as close to the right as possible and I would slow down." On this particular roadway, there was a concrete retaining wall about 3 feet high and then a twenty foot drop to the river. While I was thinking about this, I noticed that I had unconciously begun to execute my plan. I remember my wife looking at me quizzically just before a large Chevy stationwagon carreened around the curve from the opposite direction, missing our car by only a few millimeters.

The following morning, my company commander said, "Dave, I thought you guys were goners when I saw that stationwagon in your lane yesterday." He had been a car or two behind us. I remember briefly explaining to him why I had done what I did and then, off to work.

What really impresses me about this episode is that I was not really paying attention to the roadway. I was enjoying the company of my wife and one of the first sunny, pleasant days of a rather dreary spring when this impression popped into my mind. So it came from outside of myself. Thank you Jesus!
Jude the Obscure
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2000 - 4:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lydell, thanks for that beautiful, thoughtful answer. I wouldn't argue with a word of it. I think the problem comes in when people don't study the Scriptures -- which we DO have now and in abundance -- and then expect their impressions to substitute for knowledge. I can certainly see God honoring the person's ignorance who DOESN'T have the Scriptures, such as Abraham. But I think there should be a stronger term than "impression" to describe the experience and to distinguish it from one's own feelings, which we know are "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" if they are not under the continual control of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in varioius ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son." Hebrews 1:1,2, NIV. How terribly sad for us if we don't make "the Christ event" as recorded in the New Testament the objective center of our lives. And why would God send correct impressions to people who consistently neglect Scripture?

I am accepting that Annette is one of those who keeps very close to Scripture and that her situation, whatever it was relating to her job, was one in which the impressions she received came from God. But her question had to do with not knowing whether the impression was from the Holy Spirit. My answer was to check it out against Scripture -- not superficially, but seeking out the principles lying behind the words.

God bless you always, Lydell,

Jude
David
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2000 - 5:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was doing some catching up on the Holy Spirit achive just now and noticed the comment, "The Holy Spirit would never tell you to do something contrary to the Scriptures." Somehow this just does not ring true to me. You see, Peter had this dream about being commanded three times to kill unclean animals and to eat them. That was contrary to the Scriptures as he understood them, YET we know that this dream set up the arrival of the gentile servants of Cornelius AND that the timing of the dream convinced Peter that salvation was indeed available to the gentiles and that he needed to let the Holy Spirit do the interpretation of the Scriptures. My point is simple: How much of the Scriptures do we think that we understand based upon our traditional understanding as opposed to the understanding that the Holy Spirit wants to reveal us. If Peter could have been so befuddle by something so "obviously" counter to the scriptures which he thought that he understood, I say to the rest of us,that we had better be very careful about what we think the Spirit will direct us to do and how He will direct us to do it.

When Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to us, it was not a promise of just a Bible teacher/interpreter. Every child needs the voice of discipline from a loving parent. I thank God for His Holy Bible, but I really get warm fuzzies when I hear Him speaking directly to me, and yes, folks, He still does that.

For example: One day I was driving to work and I would take this dirt road shortcut. One morning I noticed that the crew that trims the foliage from underneath the powerlines was working on a section of this roadway. I remember thinking, "What a waste. They will be back here in a year or two to do the same work again just because they are not taking the time to uproot the trees and plant grass under the powerlines." It wasn't two seconds later that a voice in my head said, "And what are you going to do about the trees that are sapping My energy from your life?" I had been fighting a spiritual battle every six months about a stronghold in my life. I would read in the Bible to "consider yourself dead to sin..." and then these really lustful thoughts would almost overwhelm me. I would pray and beat them back with the Word and prayer, but, just like the trees under the powerlines, they would grow back. But when that question popped into my head, my whole inner man recoiled and I realized that Jesus was verbally telling ME that He would free me from these lustful attacks if I would turn it over to Him. I am certain that some place in the Bible it tells me to do this, but believe me when I say that when I heard that voice, I KNEW that He was going to deliver me. And He did!!! What a thrill it was to hear my Daddy telling me that He was big enough to take care of my problem.

Do we have a practical God or not? Does the One Who is omnipresent; the the One who we loudly proclaim as being everywhere stoop to confine the revelation of Himself to the Bible or does he desire for us to hear Him as clearly as a Father speaking to His beloved child? I know from personal experience that He does speak to us and that He does so using both His Word and His wonderful "still small voice" of instruction. What a magnificent heavenly Father we have.

Blessings on all of my brothers and sisters.
Jude the Obscure
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2000 - 8:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

David, I see your point about Peter's dream contradicting the plain word of the Scripture against eating unclean foods. You're absolutely right about that.

However, a distinction must be made between moral law (love your neighbor as yourself, shun sexual immorality, do not lie, cheat, covet, or steal, etc.) from ceremonial and civil law (keep Sabbath from sunset to sunset, do not eat pork, do eat beetles [Leviticus 11:22 for those out there who don't think this is in the Bible], don't wear linen and wool woven together [Deuteronomy 22:11], do wear tassles at the hems of your garments, do not go out of your house on the Sabbath, etc.).

Jesus never once declared murder, adultery, theft, or any other moral prohibition to be all right under the new covenant. He only freed believers from ceremonial and civil commandments that were either fulfilled him him or were outmoded, such as circumcision, Sabbathkeeping, and the distinction between clean and unclean foods.

In Peter's case the Holy Spirit was leading the church away from the distinction between clean and unclean foods by instructing Peter, in effect, to let those Gentiles into the church who were eating ceremonially unclean foods such as ham (in addition to being uncircumcised, and failing to keep the Sabbath holy).

But you have to remember that Peter DID have Jesus' spoken word on that very point. For "Jesus declared all foods clean." Mark 7:19. Peter was there and heard Jesus say that. So his vision was in keeping with God's objectively revealed word.

There is a danger in mistaking one's own feelings for the leading of the Holy Spirit. For example, many years ago when I was in Los Angeles, the Jehovah's Witnesses were holding their world "General Conference" there. One morning the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story about a motorist who ran over a group of Jehovah's Witnesses who were crossing the street with the light on their way to the meetings. The motorist killed two of them. When the police questioned him he admitted that he had done so deliberately and had hoped to kill even more. Why? Because he had an impression from the Holy Spirit that these were heretical people and he was under divine command to destroy them in the name of God.

Now I take that to be a very dangerous position to take regarding impressions and the Holy Spirit. What do you think?

Your friend in Christ,

Jude

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