The heart is
deceitful above all things,
and desperately
wicked;
who can know it?
I, the LORD, search
the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every
man
according to his
ways,
according to the
fruit of his doings.
Jeremiah 17:9 -- 10
Before I
began this blog, I recall in bringing to mind yesterday a day in which we give
special recollection, remembrance, and honor to those men and women who have
served in the armed forces in the past, present, and will in the future to
protect our country and our way of life that it has its foundation in the most
wonderful document, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights: MEMORIAL
DAY! I hope you had a wonderful and
great day and time to remember what that day is all about.
A person’s
search for the truth and/or the right way to worship God has far too often leads
a person into error and history testifies to this very fact. The Montanist and early Christian movement
of the late second century were known by its adherents as the New
Prophecy. Montanism spread rapidly to other
regions within the Roman Empire at a time before Christianity was either
tolerated or had become legal in a persisted even into the sixth century. Montanism became labeled as a heresy even
though they held similar views about the basic tenets of Christian doctrine of
those within the wider Christian Church.
It was a prophetic movement that called for a reliance on the
spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and held to a more conservative personal ethic. Some have paralleled Montanism with the
modern-day movements such as Pentecostalism, the Charismatic Movement, and the
New Apostolic Reformation.[1]
As usual with each generation, there is a decline in some cases or an incline
in other cases. Whereby culture often
allows those things that were not allowed before and often called them normal:
example: in the 1950s a song came out called; "yellow polka dot bikini," in bikinis in those days
covered much of a person's body, but as can be seen in today's bikini there is
nothing much there to call material and covers virtually nothing. I point this out only to show that if a
person does not hold to the truth or orthodoxy then there will become
allowances or beliefs that may not be good or true. For instance there is such an emphasis today on the emotions,
experiences, and dreams and they are quoted to give justification for certain
non-- biblical actions or beliefs. In
other words, people began to rely upon those things and speak of those things
coming from the heart. The opening
Scripture makes it clear that the heart is not to be trusted, for it is
"desperately wicked" and the only thing that makes it even possible to be used is
if the heart is filled with the Holy Spirit and there is a change in the
life. So often the Holy Spirit is said
to give "private interpretation" in other words a new revelation, as
though there is a plan B., in other words God is speaking to a person within
their mind or heart and now they have a special revelation. The apostle Peter makes this one thing very
clear: "And so we have the prophetic
word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark
place, until the day dawns in the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing
this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for
prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:19 -- 21). Far too many people who hold to this
special revelation of the Holy Spirit as though this is something new and what
God is doing are saying things and doing things, even if they disagree with the
plain teaching of the Bible. Emotions
are not always correct nor are they always true, or as Jeremiah said the
"heart cannot be trusted." the Holy Spirit has always been at work in
this world, its influence in power were at work before Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was not here permanently in this world until
Jesus Christ ascended into heaven the Holy Spirit came into this world, permanently. The Holy Spirit has been in this world ever since that event, the ascension of Jesus into heaven. The revelation that we need to experience is
to receive this fact; while Holy Spirit is already here and the reception of
the Holy Spirit is the maintained attitude of a believer and, what is this
attitude that a believer must maintain? That when we receive the Holy Spirit and is given to a believer upon their belief they receive the
quickening life from the ascended Jesus Christ. It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes men, but
the power of the ascended Jesus Christ coming into the lives of men by their
receiving the Holy Spirit and that is what changes them. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we must
remember that the word baptism means to be immersed, this can be used metaphorically, or actually, is not an experience apart
from Jesus Christ: it is the evidence of the ascended Jesus Christ. When the
Holy Spirit comes upon a person upon their conversion things change, and you
begin to think differently, you begin to think not of time or eternity, we
begin to live in the NOW! The receiving
of the Holy Spirit is very simple, it is life eternal and that is because we
come to know Jesus Christ. The question
then is: Are you looking for in the emotional experience, or are you looking
for the Savior Jesus Christ.
Return, return, O Shulamite;
return,
return, that we may
look upon you!
Song of Solomon 6:13
Allow the word of God to lead you
[1]
Robeck, Cecil M, Jr (2010),
"Montanism and Present Day ‘Prophets’", Pneuma: The Journal of the
Society for Pentecostal Studies 32: 413.
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