I am not lead at this time to share all the details of the vision and dream shared with me .
Why did God give me the vision , my timing is not God's timing . It was @ 5 years before I had any idea what the vision connected to .
As I've been trying to explain, though,
hawkman, I've no solid ground on which to rest a belief that what you think was God, actually was. Surely, you can't think your mere assertion that it was, is sufficient to persuade others? I certainly could not accept such an assertion until it was possible to demonstrate that God's priorities and purpose for His children and Church were clearly served by the experience you believe was from God.
Know this @Tenchi you do not have to believe me . I am not here to convince anyone , if God wants to He will . But only to share what is STILL possible in the age we live in .
Brother, I'm not at all opposed to God acting as He wishes in ways I'm not expecting. He does this regularly in my life. But part of the reason He's given us His word is to exclude what isn't of Him, to expose falsehood, to reveal what is against His will and way. We cannot know what is false, what is against God, what has nothing to do with Him, unless we know what is true, what is in accord with God's nature and purposes. God's word provides to us this knowledge but in doing so rules out a great many things, exposing and denying the claims of those falsely proclaiming "Thus says the Lord," denying any and every spiritual claim that does not comport with itself.
I remain agnostic about the experiences you've claimed to have had. I can't get close enough to you and your circumstances to make an appropriate assessment of your claims and give an unequivocal "Yea," or "Nay" to them.
I appreciate that you don't want to crowd God into human limits,
hawkman. At the same time, God
has given us His word in no small part to define and
confine what we can say about Him and what is and isn't of Him. It isn't going against God to recognize this and acknowledge that we can't just declare whatever we like about who God is and what He's doing.
I serve a God that is unlimited in power . The limits you would place on God are foreign to me
.
They may be foreign to you but they aren't foreign to God's word. In Scripture, God has clearly outlined even His own limits (He can't lie, for example -
Titus 1:2) so that we don't stray into making claims about Him that are false. Why are you so opposed to this vital standard God has given to us by which we can distinguish truth from error, what is of God from what isn't?
Who am I to question the way God would communicate with me ! Am I to say , no God don't communicate with me in this form it ain't in the Bible .
Well, what of the "false messenger (apostle)" and the demonic "angel of light," brother?
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.
Couldn't these deceitful agents of the devil not say to you, "Who are you to question how God might communicate? Don't put your limits on God! Just accept that what we're telling you is from Him." Sure they could. On what objective, authoritative basis would you be able to discern the truth of their claims to being "of God"? Here's what God says in His word ought to be the basis:
Psalm 119:104-105
104 From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:130
130 The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
But it still baffles me as to why you confine God to what has happened before and even then we do not know ALL that has happened , everything is NOT in the Bible !
Of course, not
everything is in the Bible. I've not suggested that this was the case. We don't find principles of engineering, or advanced chemistry, or the technical details of brain surgery in the Bible, right? But in all matters pertaining to
God and spiritual Truth, the Bible is our sole source of detailed information, issued
from God Himself, and so bearing an authority far, far above any claim a modern Christian might want to make that God has given them some "new message" for the Church. The Bible is the "straight line" against which all "crooked lines" may be compared and shown to be crooked. Pointing this out doesn't mean that I think
everything is in the Bible or that God will
only act as He's already done in the record of Scripture.
What it
does mean is that God will act in the myriad ways that He does in the lives of His children
always within the boundaries of His truth about Himself and His will that He's revealed in His word. And so, we can say entirely confidently, "God will never lie," and "God is utterly, perfectly holy and will never do what is morally evil," and "God is always opposed to the sinful, rebellious Christian," and "the power of the flesh cannot produce the life of Spirit," and so on.
As a result, when we encounter a liar who's attempting to speak for God, we have solid, biblical ground from which to say, "Stick a sock in it. You're not from God." When we encounter a believer whose life is sensual, and fleshly, and who knows little of God's word, we've got very good reason from Scripture to tell them to stuff it when they attempt to persuade us they've got a message from God. And so on.
And that is ok . I did not expect you would . You are an admitted "soft" cessationist if I remember correctly .
Yes, that's right. I don't entirely rule out God acting in miraculous ways in the present, using things like supernatural discernment/knowledge and supply, miraculous healing, even angelic appearances, as it serves His purposes today to do. But these are by no means common events; certainly they are not performed for the mere stimulation and thrill of sign-seeking "Christians," as is often claimed these days.
Now I have something to say about me , I have been a Christian for over 3 decades and I have seen God work miracles of healing , I have seen evidence God's Devine protection over my life and family more than once , I have had dreams of my future that came true . I believe this was preparing me for even more of the power of God to be revealed to me , pray for me that I will be ready to perform the task God desires of me .
Okay. My response is simply to ask how you can be at all certain on any objective, genuinely-authoritative basis that any of what you believe here is actually the case? Without such a basis, it seems to me all you're going on is subjective opinion which is tantamount to imagination and superstition.
I'm not trying to "rain on your parade," brother, but help keep you from falling prey to self-deception and the deceptions of the Evil One.
