Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Learning That We Are HIs Witnesses And Servants


"You are My witnesses," says the LORD.
"And My servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe Me,
and understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
nor shall there be after Me.
I, even I, am the LORD,
and besides Me there is no savior.
Isaiah 43: 10 -- 11

            The words Isaiah wrote and spoke to the nation of Israel applied not only to them but also applies to all of those to whom God has chosen.  Christians are called the elect of God and were chosen before the foundation of the world. (Romans 8:29-30). As chosen ones of God you all are His witnesses and we must understand that God is, was, and will be, the only God and Savior.  There are those who would like to say that God formed another god and even go so far to say that this created god was formed to be the savior.  This is far from the truth of what Isaiah wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  This is mentioned so that we understand that when we do not follow the truth of Scripture then doctrines outside of the truth are formed and followed in practice as though they were truth.  God does not give the worship due to Him to it any other being.  Therefore, that which we call to be worship must be founded upon the truth of Scripture.  This is the scope of these blogs as we study the Corinthian church and all that Paul wrote and had to say to them in regard to their practice in regards to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  What we have learned up to this point is that when one except Jesus Christ as Savior, and this we do by the faith freely given them/us and not by some work that they/we may have done, they have instantly received the Holy Spirit.  There is no need for any "second baptism of the Holy Spirit."  You have all the God gives and you all are to be His witness.  Why do you think you have been left on this earth after having accepted Jesus Christ?  Why did not God just take you to heaven? So you can be His witness and ambassador? Yes! Why else leave us here?  God's disposition is not our dispensation and God's economy is not our economy.  What this means is that we must be obedient and leave all the consequences to God.  As hard as it may be, and as often as we may fail and need to repent, not because we were caught, rather that we sinned against the holy God. We have the responsibility to be His arms and legs, so that we are participants in spreading the Gospel.  This being  according to Scripture then we must live, exercise, and demonstrate this fact, that God is the Savior and desires for all whom He has elected to change their ways and follow after Him.  We do not know who the elected are and we do not know to whom we may be speaking the Gospel too: this does not matter in the long run, for we are not called to save anyone, no, we are called to spread the gospel and God saves whomever He will save.  As humans beings we have not changed from being human beings when we converted to the Lord Jesus Christ and God uses human beings to do His work.  Therefore, as workers for God we do not need to add anything to make us more acceptable, or godly.  Those who have added to the Gospel into the worship of God, and as I have been writing about, the need for people to speak in a "tongue" especially to speak in something "gibberish," and should do it, outside of how Scripture has told Christians who had that gift how and when to use this gift, also told the congregation how to use that gift. This admonition by God does not seem to be followed in this present age by those who claim the need for Christians to have this gift. So let us look further into this so-called special "gift" that is speaking in some sort of "angelic" or "spiritual," language.
            My question is: when did the Greek word glossalia, and dialectic, in the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost, which is clearly speaking of a person having the ability to speak in a tongue that they may not have learned which is only a language that others from other countries spoke and needed to hear the gospel in their language, change in the book of Corinthian's to some sort of "unintelligible gibberish?"  Record what is spoken in both congregations were people have gathered in speak in "tongues" and take them to the best linguistic scholars.  Their conclusion would be that these utterances are linguistic nonsense and not any language at all and to say that they are some sort of "angelic" language is to say something Scripture has never admitted.  How different is this charismatic, or Pentecostal, utterances of some sort of unintelligible gibberish sound from the tongue speaking, or the language speaking, that was spoken and uttered on the day of Pentecost.  (Acts 2:6, 8).  Read this carefully and even examined by the use of such books as Strong’s Concordance and find out for yourself if what has been said is not the truth.  This ability to speak in a language that a person has not studied or learn is a miraculous because the Holy Spirit gave them that utterance and, apart from Him, it could never happen.  Every person there on the day of Pentecost heard the words uttered spoken in his own language and they were amazed and marveled for it was Galilean's who were uttering and speaking their language a language foreign to the Galileans.  Well, some will say that those guests used on the day of Pentecost, and other gifts used during the beginning of the Christian Church are still to be used in our present age and others say that those guests ended.  We need to study this so that we can come to the truth based upon Scripture and this we will do them in the blogs.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
            and He who formed to from the womb;
I am the LORD, who makes all things,
            who stretches out the heavens all alone,
who spreads abroad the earth by Myself.
                                    Isaiah 44: 24

Praise God!  He goes before us

Richard L. Crumb

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