Dear Greg (Sermon Index moderator),

I want to thank you very much for your point-by-point reply to my post. That was very gracious of you, as was your genuine kindness in the content of what you wrote to me.

As I initially wrote, I choose not to feed on the writings of such men because of their heterodoxy from the Bible, but I do not impose that choice upon others; we all must take personal responsibility for our decisions.

As much as I love the anointing of God and the doctrine in His living Word, I especially love the character of Christ. It is so important that we assimilate that character; it is available to us, and God wishes to impart it. In John 13:35 Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

Greg, I believe that you know that I have not responded to your quotes from Finney or Chrysostom in order to 'dog your steps' or to vex you, but as a cautionary warning to you and to others. Whether you or others agree with me or not is out of my hands, but I am delighted when we can dialogue, though never having met face to face, with genuine charity (agape love), and I see this in your response to me. Thank you!

Blessings in Christ Jesus,

Alec

The Word of God is, according to John Chrysostom:
"The second best course"???????

Thanks John for your OPINION... now, let us look at what the "second best course": says:

“I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: FOR THOU HAST MAGNIFIED THY WORD ABOVE ALL THY NAME." Psalms 138:2, KJV.

It seems the LORD exalts HIS WORD to a VERY high realm. (NOT "a second best course")

I don't think there is a "class system" when it comes to His Spirit and His Word.

Thank you, Frank! I resigned from the music ministry (after 7 years) and left Times Square Church last August (after 20 years in various ministries), and presently attend another church in northern New Jersey which is closer to my home.

Kind regards in Christ Jesus,

Alec

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by FrankLira on 2016/12/15 20:55:29

Brother Alec

Always enjoyed your guitar playing and Robin Mark hairdo at TSC!

In my opinion, the saints who have posted on this thread have displayed a refreshing maturity and humility toward one another that has greatly encouraged and edified my spirit and nourished my soul.

Thank each of you SO MUCH!

It "smells" of Heaven to me and I am rejoicing on a cold and snowy night in Minnesota!

Though many lengthy threads have gotten locked on this forum, threads like this give me great hope in God.

I love you all and look forward to hugging you in person some day!

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Caleb

Would any of these men who believed TULIP execute heretics?


Jonathan Edwards
Paul Washer
John Bunyan
George Mueller
Arthur W. Pink: 1886-1952 (Bible teacher and theologian)
Augustus Toplady: 1740-1778 (author of "Rock Of Ages" and other hymns)
Benjamin Keach: 1640-1704 (1689 Baptist Confession)
B.H. Carroll: 1843-1914 (founder south Western Theological Seminary)
Charles Spurgeon: 1834-1892 (famous Baptist preacher)
Francis Schaeffer: 1912-1984 (author of "How Shall We Then Live" video series)
George Whitefield:1714-1770 (evangelist & preacher)
J.C. Ryle: 1816-1900 (writer, pastor, evangelical preacher)
J.P. Boyce: 1827-1888 ( founder Souther Baptist Theological Seminary)
John Foxe: 1516-1587 (author of Foxe's Book Of Martyrs)
John Gill: 1697-1771 (renowned theologian and Bible commentator)
John Knox: 1513-1572 (founder of Presbyterianism)
John Newton: 1725-1807 (wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace")
John Owen: 1616-1683 (theologian and author)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones: 1834-1892 (pastor and theologian)
Martin Luther: 1483-1546 (Protestant Reformer)
Matthew Henry: 1662-1712 (famous Bible commentator)
Roger Willilams: 1603-1683 (founded the first Baptist church in America)
William Carey: 1761-1834 (missionary)
William Wilberforce: 1759-1833 (slavery abolitionist)
D.A. Carson
D. James Kennedy
James Montgomery Boice
James White
John F. MacArthur
John Piper
Loraine Boettner
R.C. Sproul
Voddie Bachham

The Doctrine of Grace which all these men believe do not lead to the execution of heretics. If you do not believe TULIP, what makes you differ from another who may do such things.

John Knox's writings against the Anabaptists

Already in 1557, Calvin's faithful student the great Scottish Reformer Knox had written some letters to his brethren and 'lords professing the truth' in Scotland. One such letter was recently republished under the title: A Warning Against the Anabaptists.348 There,349 Knox condemned those who "have separated themselves from the society and communion of their brethren in[to] sects damnable and most pernicious."

Those sectarian Anabaptists, conceded Knox, really do "have a zeal.... But alas, it is not according to knowledge.... This sort of men fall from the society of Christ's little flock, with contempt of His sacraments and holy ordinances by us truly maintained." Indeed, "they require a greater purity than ever was found in any congregation since the beginning."

Knox then immediately went on to insist that the Anabaptists "shall not escape judgment and condemnation." This is so, declared Knox, "because they do despise Christ Jesus and His[!] holy ordinances."

Indeed, the Anabaptists were not at all like the apostolic-age Christians who had been ejected from Judaism's "synagogue of Satan." Mark 13:9-13 and Revelation 2:9 & 3:9. Nor were the Anabaptists like the Protestants who had just been removed from the Romish Neo-Babylon. Revelation 17:5 and 18:4; compare Second Thessalonians 2:3-17f. Rather were the Anabaptists exactly analogous to the post-ascensional Gnostics, who opposed Christianity and who castigated its infant baptism. Colossians 2:9-23 (q.v.).

Just a few paragraphs after penning his above-cited words, Knox wrote that even though "the Papists are busy to espy our offences, faults and infirmities..., they are not the enemies most to be feared. For...of the other [Anabaptist] sort of whom before we have somewhat spoken, the craft and malice of the devil fighting against Christ is more covert and therefore more to be feared."

Think of it -- the Anabaptists more to be feared than the Romanists! For the Anabaptists, insisted Knox, were "privy blasphemers of Christ Jesus; supplanters of His dignity; and manifest enemies to the free justification which comes by faith in His blood."

In 1560, Knox himself wrote a considerable treatise with the title: An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations Written by an Anabaptist and Adversary. There, he told the Anabaptists that "with the Pelagians and Papists, you have become teachers of free will and defenders of your own justice.... Your poison is more pestilent than that of the Papistry was in the beginning."350

To Knox, the "poison" of the Anabaptists was "more pestilent" --yes more pestilent! -- than that of "the Papistry." Again, just think of it -- Anabaptism more poisonous and more 'pestilent' than the Papacy!

Indeed, Knox added elsewhere: "We damn the error of the Anabaptists who deny baptism to appertain to children."351 He damns the Anabaptists' error!

In his 1560 Scots Confession, Knox and his associates added: "We hold that baptism applies as much to the [infant] children of the faithful as to those who are of age and discretion. And so we condemn the error of the Anabaptists, who deny that [infant] children should be baptized."352 Again in their First Book of Discipline, the Knoxians insisted: "Anabaptists, Arians, or other such -- [are] enemies of the Christian religion."353

http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/lee/anab_007.html

Brother Frank,

Although the OP can be a bit shocking to the system and can be perceived to say the the scriptures preserved for us are not as important as having the Spirit Himself I think there is food for thought and lessons to be learned.

Remember the Pharisees? They had the complete scriptures until the appearing of the savior Jesus Christ but could not find Him or see Him there. Even we today, having the complete canon of scriptures written down and available to us, could fail to find the Living Word there...were it not for the Holy Spirit. In that sense, the Spirit is " superior" to the written words, because without Him they would never be able to save us or give us life.
Paul say that the Spirit has revealed to them the things freely given us by God. Jesus said: When He ( the Spirit) is come, He will guide you into all truth and bring to your remembrance all that Jesus had taught.

The newly born church in Acts continued in the apostles teaching ( revealed by the Holy Spirit) and Paul said the churches were a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit.

Thank God for the whole scripture, which is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and for training in godliness...but without the Spirit it would all be dead words.

Blessings,

_________________
William

The problem is not with the Holy Scriptures nor with the Holy Law of God. For if man were to live by every Word of God, as Jesus did, we'd be perfect men. Jesus fulfilled the Law as a perfect man, and died for us who were helplessly and hopelessly in Adam, making us alive in Him.

The Holy Scriptures are perfect as is the Holy Law of God. But being born in Adam, we are unable to be as Jesus, who was not born in Adam. His Father being God Himself. As one creed says of Him, that He is very God of very God. As it is well known that the seed determines the nature and being.

He is a Life giving Spirit. And we know that if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ he is not His.

Yet, the Spirit is not without the Word, and the Word is not without the Spirit. It is the Word and the Spirit.

Similarly, the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man. New life in the flesh cannot be without the one or the other. So it is that new life in the Spirit cannot be without the one (Spirit) or the other (Word).

There must be a birthing from above. And it is by grace through faith. And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And without faith it is impossible to please God.

Because there's only been One Perfect Man. There never can and never will be another. Yet, in Him I am accepted as perfect, by His grace and through faith in Him which has been given to me.

Oh alleluia...praise the Lamb who was slain! I am perfected forevermore and loved by the Father as Jesus is loved.

Wow! No wonder John Newton could sing, Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I join him and sing the same daily. Oh what a blessed salvation, oh what a blessed redemption!

Soli Deo Gloria - My beloved is mine and I am His!

John 5:39-40 ..You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

Jesus is clearly stating that there is no life in the Scriptures. It does not matter whether it is in the Old or the New Testament, there is no life in the Scriptures. If there was life in the words themselves and the knowledge of these words then the Pharisees would be men full of life. Yet what did Jesus say about these men? They were full of dead men’s bones, whitewashed tombs. They knew the word but they did not know God.

Words are vehicles for communicating. The word itself is a symbol of what is real. You may read about the truth or even hear about the truth and they may be precursors to life, but they are not life itself. Life comes to those who willingly come to Jesus and meet Him personally. And so the word without Jesus is empty and meaningless to the readers.

It is in the person of Jesus that we are saved, and then He illuminates the word. The word of God must never be worshipped, how silly to worship the description rather that what is described. All of the word of God is useful to point us towards God, but it is only in His presence that anything is achieved. A man could read the sermon on the mount and rightly conclude that this was a masterpiece of teaching. Yet, outside of Gods presence, outside of His Spirit, all those who try and live by these commands will fail miserably or have some success and become self-righteous.

The Bible is a treasure from God, but it is Jesus Himself, of whom the whole Bible testifies, who is the Word. Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever. Heaven and earth will pass away but the Word, Jesus, is eternal.

I was saved knowing virtually nothing of Scripture. Men were saved in the first three hundred years of the church by the declaration of Truth, Jesus being the truth, by the Holy Spirit of the living God. After I was saved I devoured the Scriptures and as I read it I saw my own story in it. All the promises, the new heart, the love, the joy, my Jesus, it testified to it in all of the word. The Spirit had laid it all on my heart and every page was a confirmation and it was exciting. I had no intellectual battles. My spirit witnessed with the word of God. I read many parts that I did not understand but there was no resisting in my spirit, just a sense that somewhere down the line, if it pleased my Lord, I would understand.

So to have life we must come to Jesus. The word “come ,” does not mean one time just as the word “abide,” is a continuous action verb better stated “keep abiding.” So we ought to keep coming to Jesus. Not keep getting saved, but keep seeking Him out. He is a treasure to be sought after, just “as the deer panteth for the water brooks,” then so my soul continually panteths after Him.

He is my light and I detest the darkness. He is perfect light and I live in shades of gray at best. How could it be otherwise for in my flesh there is no good thing. Until it is raised in incorruption I can only know Him in measure. That is an agony and a despair that can be hard to live with. The only thing that makes it bearable is the measure I receive from Him daily, His blessings are new every morning and His steadfast love never ceases and His grace is sufficient to keep me wanting more.

And every so often I am enraptured and filled to capacity, a continual baptism of the Holy Spirit if you like. And I am strengthened and encouraged and changed in the fire of His manifest presence. Gratefulness and thankfulness keeps me in this place. I have found eternal life in the person and the manifest presence of Jesus and the Scriptures testify to that and in this there is unity…………………… bro Frank