The Means By Which God Does Talk Today

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four   Part Five

The Lord Jesus showed Himself to the Apostle Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration.  In 2 Peter, Peter reaffirmed that truth, but then he went on to say that scripture was more sure than that.  The apostates challenged or questioned supernatural divine intervention in 2 Peter 3:3-4.  Peter's answer wasn't, "No, God still talks to you."  He didn't bring that up.  If God was still talking to people other than through the written Word of God, what Peter said was superior in 2 Peter 1:19-21, why would he not bring that into the argument?  Peter didn't want believers or unbelievers expecting God to talk to them directly.  That wasn't going to happen.

In answer to uniformitarianism, a closed system, propagated by the apostates as a basis for rejection of Christ and scripture, Peter gives two types of divine intervention.  He doesn't mention God speaking directly to individual believers.  He surely would have included that if it were to be expected.  Instead, Peter says, scripture (2 Pet 3:2).  When he said that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," he was referring to inspiration, such as Genesis, Isaiah, 1 Corinthians, etc., not, "God told me to go to France."  God doesn't intervene in that way.

Creation and Conscience

God communicates still through creation to a general audience, what is called "general revelation." God still uses conscience to speak with "the law written in [men's] hearts."  Believers are free to be amazed and moved by God's creation, the heavens declaring His glory.  They can tap into that multifaceted and complex expression of God's handywork every moment without running out.  The conscience can do its part at accusing or excusing, as the Apostle Paul reveals in Romans 2.

The psalmists say a lot about God speaking through creation.  The old hymn writers wrote about God's speaking through creation, testifying to the revelation of God to men through creation. Creation isn't enough, but the Apostle Paul relied on it in his preaching on Mars Hill in Athens.  An ebb of creation proceeds from the attention on naturalism and uniformitarianism.  The founding fathers made their case based upon “the laws of nature and of nature’s God," an emphasis of a vastly different era.  The departure from creation brings chaos and confusion to individual, family, church, and government today.

Even though scripture says a lot about conscience and it was very important to the Apostle Paul with all his references to it, I heard very little about it growing up, almost nothing about it in high school, college, or even grad school.  I didn't understand the conscience until I was a pastor.  I wasn't clueless, but I didn't understand the conscience enough to explain it right.  God does speak by means of the conscience through the law of God written in the heart.

Scripture

The Holy Spirit, God, speaks through scripture.  He inspired scripture, but He also continues to speak through it, even as Ephesians 6:17 says that the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit.  The Word of God is the instrument of the Holy Spirit.  Scripture doesn't say, the voice in your head is the sword of the Spirit.  If God speaks in your head with authority, telling you specifics not found in scripture, then Ephesians 6:17 isn't the full truth, thus not the truth.

When Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by the Word of God, it isn't saying that faith comes through a voice in your head.  If that were the case, then a basis of faith is not just scripture.  If God can tell you to go to France in your head, and you can depend on that as an authority, then it is a basis of faith.   If it is God talking, you must believe the voice in your head.  You can also be sanctified by a voice in your head as a source of sanctification, even as Jesus said believers are sanctified by the Word of God.

Someone might ask, "What about being led by the Spirit?"  What is it to be "led by the Spirit?"

All believers are led by the Spirit of God.  Besides Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness for temptation by Satan, the only language of "led by the Spirit" is in Romans 8:4 and Galatians 5:18, which read: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" and "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law."  Both of those verses say that if someone is not led by the Spirit of God, he is being led by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and is under the condemnation of the law.  There is no middle ground there.

Being led by or of the Spirit is to be characteristically living a righteous life, living a life obedient to the Word of God, to have left the way of doing what one wants for doing what the Holy Spirit desires. I've heard people use the terminology, speaking of the voice in the head, as "following the leading of the Spirit."  Following the leading of the Spirit is obedience to the Word of God as a practice or lifestyle moment by moment in one's every day life.  It means we're not in charge any more, but the Holy Spirit is.  Every time you sin, you are not being led by the Spirit, so that is how you are not led by the Spirit.  You were led by something other than the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

Following the leading of the Spirit isn't hearing a voice in your head that says, "Go to France," so you go to France, because the Holy Spirit told you to go.  I've heard people saying that the Holy Spirit led them somewhere and He was doing that leading while that person was disobedient in numerous ways to the Word of God.  The leading of the Spirit looks like obedience to the Word of God, not the Holy Spirit telling someone chicken instead of beef.

You can fill your life up with the Word of God and you will be fine.  That is as personal as it can get. You can guide your life by biblical principles, depending on the Holy Spirit for that -- that is to be guided by the Holy Spirit.  You are under His authority.  You don't divert from the biblical path He has set.  You keep following everything He wants.  If someone does that, He is guided by, led by the Spirit.

Providence

Perhaps no other means by which God speaks today has been ignored by this generation more than the providence of God.  When Peter speaks of the prophets in 2 Peter 3, he also speaks of the fulfillment on earth in history of God's Words.  God intervenes in history to fulfill the prophetic texts. Those fulfillments speak.

Providence also speaks through day by day and hour by hour events of the life of a believer.  Jesus looks to the providence of God in Matthew 6 when He references the notice of the care of the Lord for the sparrow and the grass of the fields.  God is in charge.  Men can trust in God.  God speaks that message through thousands and hundreds of messages anyone should notice through history and everyday events.

Consider the revelation that is God's providence through the poetry of William Cowper:

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.

Paul writes in Romans 2:4 that the "goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance."  Men see God's goodness in providence and that leads them to repentance.  Micah the prophet wrote (6:9), "Hear the rod."  God speaks through judgment and chastisement, messages of His providence.  The psalmists said they learned through God's affliction (Psalm 119:71).  The entire book of Esther provides a veritable travelogue of God's providence, journeying through many of its sights and sounds.

All of the above are the means by which God still speaks to men today.   Even though God speaks through creation, conscience, and providence, His Word still stands as the final arbiter of those three. Any message contradictory to scripture cannot be God speaking.  We know they are God speaking, because God says they are when He speaks in His Word.  With that being said, men should depend on these and not, due to a kind of idolatrous discontent, upon other unscriptural means, such as a voice heard in one's head, giving instruction outside of the truth of God's Word.

Extra-Scriptural Divine Talk: A Common Ground for Almost All False Religion

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four

Last week out evangelizing door-to-door in the Carson River Valley in Nevada, I talked to a professing pagan, who confirmed her faith with inner divine messages from Mother Earth.  She referred to her god as "she."  This might surprise you, but I'm open to the potential truthfulness of such people, which means that I'm open minded.  What I tried to do was understand whether such thinking could be validated as true.  I couldn't.  There was no reason to believe it, because it was so entirely subjective.  The only way to believe it was to presuppose it and then invent it, afterward referring to its teachings like Mother Earth delivered them.  I believe that the teachings of Mother Earth are nothing but doctrines of demons, even as the Bible, which is confirmed as truth, tells us.

I also talked to a man, who one could characterize as a late fifty-something hippie, who has spun his own religion, which is a combination of what is called NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, and some form of Buddhism.  In this hybrid personal belief, no one can judge anything, because absolutely everything is only a perception.  No one can move outside of this perception, as NLP is the way by which everyone interprets what he encounters or doesn't encounter, depending upon whether it is real. In common with me, this man accepted supernaturalism.  However, his "god" leaves everyone in a similar condition -- assigning meaning based only upon his perception of reality.

As is fairly normal, I talked to a few Charismatics.  Charismatics hear God speaking to them, which is confirmed by their experiences.  I talked to a woman who was directed by a feeling in her intestines, which sent her messages she interpreted as divine.  That reminded me of the LDS "burning in the bosom."  Both the signs and the voices Charismatics hear are lies.  Even if what someone "hears" is a true message, that does not authenticate it as God Himself.  We know it is a lie because the signs contradict scriptural signs, sign gifts have ceased, and God has concluded His special revelation with the last book of the New Testament.

Although I reject Mormonism, the Mormons attempt to impersonate witnesses by including them at the beginning of the Book of Mormon.  They say that Joseph Smith got that book from God and that they were there to validate it.  The inner voice of many, including independent Baptists, has no validation except for the person hearing the voice. When I have questioned Charismatics, they almost unanimously accuse me of lacking in love.  The only acceptable manifestation of love to them is acceptance of their experience as true.  That also contradicts scripture in a number of ways, but that is not different than independent Baptists, who think I deny their personal relationship with God, when I question the voice in their heads.

Independent Baptists, fundamentalists, and evangelicals will say that their experiences and the voices they hear line up with scripture, which validates them as true.  I have often found this not to be the case.  I hear messages preached that are unscriptural given to the Baptist by God through the inner voice.  It sometimes has the imprimatur of the "leading of the Spirit."  I've heard it called "Holy Spirit preaching."  If you doubt it, you are questioning the authority of the man of God or in my case intruding in the autonomy of a church.

The fraudulent signs of Charismaticism are lies.  They are not true.  God is the God of truth, Who does not lie.  True worship is characterized by truth, not lies.  It cannot be of God if it is a lie.  Saying that you hear the voice of God or are called by God in some type of inner voice is not true.  It is a lie. There is no basis for believing it.  Even if the teaching were to line up with scripture, the experience itself is a lie.

Normally, if someone has an experience, I tell that person to judge it based upon scripture.  He will believe right and do right if he does what God's completed Word says.  However, there is still the matter of the experience itself.  A person perceives God speaking to him.  I recognize that some might be semantics here.  When someone says "God spoke to his heart," he means that the Holy Spirit convicted him through the Word of God.  That's fine.  However, there is such an overlap between these acceptable descriptions of God's work and the untrue ones, that the untrue ones are given credence by the true ones.

Even if someone agrees with what I've been writing in this series, the theological and exegetical sloppiness harms discernment in many.  They do not confine themselves to scripture as divine, authoritative, and sufficient.  They open the door for people to add or take away from scripture, take more authority upon themselves than what God has given, and to validate false doctrine as being true. Even if you deny specific instances, you should admit that this happens on a regular basis in churches and in the world.  This is how Satan and his demons start false religions.

I was talking to a Roman Catholic lady this week, who said she wouldn't leave the Catholic church, but she wished to continue in a parachurch Bible study led by one of her children's mother-in-law. She feels comfortable in this study, she said, but she didn't want to leave the Roman Catholic Church, even though she disagrees with a lot in and with it.  I asked her if she would reject Roman Catholicism where it contradicted the Bible.  She said that's what she was trying to learn, that is, what the Bible taught and how it differed than her religion.  I also told her that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't say that the Bible is its authority.  It says that tradition is its authority.  Tradition alone, of course, if it is not scriptural, has no authority, so tradition itself has no authority.  There is a danger looking to something as an authority that is not authority.  The Roman Catholic Church became a false religion by depending on tradition instead of the Bible.

There is danger too for any Baptist, fundamentalist, evangelical, or where the former three will overlap to look to something as an authority that is not an authority.  A voice in the head is not an authority.  I know in fact that allowing for that as the possibility of God speaking has led to an abundance of false teaching and practice.  It is itself a false teaching and practice.

I surmise that many do not want to repudiate what I am exposing.  They might even characterize what I'm writing as false, perhaps with the designation of it as cold, intellectual, logical, or unspiritual.   They do not want to lose their doctrine of the voice in the head being God speaking to them.  If they say what I'm writing is true, they will have to admit that they have been at least less than precise in their speaking.  Often church leaders, who fear admission of at least their imprecision, think that admission will result in a diminishing of their authority and/or an exodus of a family or more that enjoy hearing from God directly in their heads.  They don't know if either will happen, but they will continue embracing these "revelations" to avoid these two threats.

Part of church growth includes closer alignment to scripture.  Church leaders should lead their people to anticipate changes in light of biblical teaching.  If the Bible really is the sole authority for faith and practice, greater understanding of the Bible will bring changes that please God.  This is living by faith.  Living by faith is not a threat to the church.

The voice in the head takes less work than studying the Bible according to the ordinary means.  The voice in the head bypasses the labor and the accountability.  When someone depends on the voice in the head, at that moment he and those who agree have canonized the message of the voice.  They have agreed it is God talking, saying something not found in scripture.  Someone might say no new scripture has been written.  However, something given the authority of scripture has been practiced. This rejects the sole authority and the sufficiency of scripture.  That itself is a false doctrine.  It also rejects a biblical and historical doctrine of canonicity.  No one is allowed to continue to canonize new words from God on the spot and in this age since the completion of God's Word.

A professing evangelist or missionary could go to Mexico or Brazil or Belize.  He goes to Brazil and he says that he went because God told him.  How did God tell him and how did he know it was God? What is the basis for knowing?  I contend there is no basis for knowing, except that the doctrine of God talking to a person individually is true.  He says God told him or called him.  That has become an acceptable means for discerning God's will.  It should be repudiated.   God talks only through scripture.  He is free to go to Mexico or Brazil or Belize according to the liberty he receives from Christ and the ordinary scriptural means that God uses to direct people in a church.

Keswick's Ecumenicalism #2, in Keswick's Errors: an Analysis and Critique of So Great Salvation by Stephen Barabas, part 2 of 17

Since at Broadlands communion with devils through spiritualism found an important place, it is not surprising that Grubb was by no means the only heretic who used the ecumenicalism of Keswick to spread doctrines of demons.[1]  “James Mountain, Keswick’s early song-leader,” who led the singing at “the Brighton Convention of 1875, and at the first Keswick” and many following meetings, “subscribed to British Israelism[2] . . . for forty years.”[3]  The “liberal evangelicalism” that denied the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture and other key tenets of Christian orthodoxy found its place at Keswick among men such as John Battersby Harford, the “most prominent of the [Keswick] founder’s sons.”[4]  Keswick council members had “no agreement about the appropriateness of [the] term . . . ‘inerrancy’” for the Holy Bible; indeed, Keswick President Graham Scroggie “stated that subscription to a particular theory of inspiration was not . . . a true test of doctrinal orthodoxy.”[5]

In 1894, “John R. Mott, an American who became the foremost international and ecumenical misionary figure of his time, was at the Keswick camp.”[6]  Sadhu Sundar Singh, who “was converted to Christianity by a vision on 18 Dec. 1904 . . . and donned the robe of a Sadhu (i.e. ‘holy man’) in an endeavour to present Christianity in a Hindu form,”^[7] and who “claim[ed] to have received many visions and experienced many miracles”^[8] validating his Hindu-Christian syncretism, spoke at Keswick despite “sympathy towards Hinduism and Spiritualism.”[9]  Key Keswick leaders manifested a very spiritually dangerous willingness to share platforms at Holiness Conventions and other settings with false teachers and fanatical perfectionists—for example, shortly before speaking at Keswick in 1886, Handley Moule and other Keswick speakers preached at a Convention at Cambridge organized by Douglas Hamilton with the unabashed perfectionist Smyth-Piggott, as a result of which many Cambridge undergraduates, including Charles Harford, Canon Harford-Battersby’s youngest son,  came to believe “themselves to be quite free from all internal evil.” A few months later, Hamilton joined the Agapemonites,[10] and “[w]hen Pigott joined him . . . the extremist wing of Holiness made shipwreck.”[11]  As time passed, the Pentecostal movement found a home at Keswick, so that by the 1960s Keswick, along with its association with the wider ecumenical movement,[12] invited charismatics to speak at the Convention, while their ministers became part of the Keswick council itself.[13]  Doctrinal confusion and apostasy has found a secure home in the ecumenical atmosphere of the Keswick Convention from the time of its founding.  Keswick ecumenicalism has never been purged out.  On the contrary, ecumenicalism has constantly been rejoiced in and fostered.

  While Keswick rejects separatism for ecumenicalism, Scripture never commands individuals or true churches to ignore Biblical doctrine to come together in an ecumenical setting.  Rather, God requires a strict separation of the faithful from false teachers and even disobedient brethren. They are to be separate from all false doctrine, false teachers, and error.  So far from ignoring such, they must, to honor the Lord, specifically mark and reprove error and those who advocate it.[14]  Keswick denigrates creed to exalt conduct in relation to spiritual life, while Scripture exalts both creed and conduct (1 John 3:7, 14; 2 John 9) in relation to spiritual life.  Faithful Biblical preaching deals with all that is in the Word, whether it is “in season” or “out of season” (2 Timothy 3:16-4:2), but Keswick speakers “consider themselves pledged . . . not to teach during the course of any Keswick Convention any doctrines or opinions but those upon which there is general agreement [at the Convention]. . . . Speakers are not permitted to discuss controversial matters at the Convention.”[15]  Contrary to Keswick, true churches must tolerate “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3), not overlook doctrine to become ecumenical.  The fact that Keswick fails to expose, but rather tolerates and supports[16] the heresies of Protestant denominations, such as the baptismal regeneration that plagues the large majority of the paedobaptist world,[17] is a great failure on its part.  Keswick’s utter lack of strict association with the modern representatives of the congregations of the New Testament—historic Baptist churches—leaves the movement apart from the authority of the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) and the work of spiritual edification that God has ordained take place within that context (Ephesians 4:11-16).  The movement thus lacks the promise which the Biblical Baptist congregation possesses—that Christ would build up or edify His church (Matthew 16:18).[18]  As a result, error can take root firmly and easily at Keswick as the movement is without the special protection that Christ provides as Head of His congregation.

See here for this entire study.

TDR

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[1]              See further, e. g., the biographical studies in the section “Keswick and Continuationism” below.

[2]              British Israelism, the view adopted by the Identity Movement, Aryan and Neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan, and cults such as anti-Trinitarian segregationist Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, teaches the following:

[British Israelism is a] fanciful theory which holds that Great Britain is really the Israelite tribe of Ephraim, the United States is Manasseh, and the British throne is the throne of David. British Israelism (B.I.) has constructed a theory, which it passes off as history, that makes the British and American white populations direct descendants of the Israelites from the dispersion period. . . . [A]rguments [in its favor] are purely imaginary. . . . The entire theory of the ten lost tribes is a myth also. According to B.I., the ten northern tribes were lost and were not included in the regathering with Judah after the exile. But according to Luke 2:36, Anna was of the northern tribe of Asher. In Acts 26:7 Paul mentions the presence of “our twelve tribes,” indicating that none of them had been “lost.” B.I. exhibits an arbitrary exegesis of Scripture married to a fairy-tale tradition posing as history and has produced one of the most baseless and absurd varieties of Bible study that the human mind has yet produced. (pgs. 70-71, Dictionary of Theological Terms, Alan Cairns.  Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002)

[3]              Pgs. 83, 134, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall.  Note that early Pentecostal leaders from Charles Parham to George Jeffryes similarly believed in British Israelism (See, e. g., pg. 253, The Making of the Modern Church: Christianity in England since 1800, B. G. Worrall.  London: SPCK, 1993; “Parham, Charles Fox,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, Daniel G. Reid et al. Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 1990.).

[4]              Pg. 137, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall; pg. 150, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck.

[5]              See pgs. 64-69, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall.

[6]              Pg. 117, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall.

^[7]              Pg. 1568, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev.), F. L. Cross, & E. A. Livingstone.

^[8]              Pg. 647, Who’s Who in Christian History, ed. J. Douglas & P. W. Comfort.

[9]              Pg. 175, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall.

[10]             The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church notes:

[The] Church of the . . . Agapemone . . . [was a] small 19th-cent. English sect. It was founded by Henry James Prince (1811–99), who in 1840 was ordained as curate of Charlynch . . . in Somerset. Together with his rector, Samuel Starky, he started a revivalist movement which soon resulted in illusions of the grossest kind. Both left the Church of England and began a ministry of their own, asserting that they were the Holy Spirit personified, the Two Witnesses of Rev. 11, or Elijah. In 1849 they opened the “Agapemone” or “Abode of Love” in the village of Spaxton (in Somerset), being amply supported by their followers, who believed Prince to be a Divine being. The morals of the sect caused great scandal, and a trial in 1860 revealed the licentiousness of Prince and his followers. In the early 1890s the sect conducted a campaign in Clapton in NE London, calling themselves the “Children of the Resurrection.” J. H. Smyth-Pigott, Prince’s successor in the leadership, proclaimed himself to be Christ. The sect disappeared early in the 20th century. (pg. 27, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3^rd rev. ed., Cross & Livingstone)

Likewise, the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church records:

Agapemonism [was a] religious movement founded by Henry James Prince (1811–99), an evangelical perfectionist. Ordained in 1840, Prince became a curate first in the Bath and Wells diocese and later in the diocese of Ely. Both bishops inhibited him. It was probably in 1843 that he began to make extravagant statements which gave the impression that he was claiming to be in some sense an incarnation of God. A community was formed at Spaxton where a magnificent residence was acquired and called Agapemone (Abode of Love). Prince declared that community of goods was binding upon believers, and numerous devotees handed over their property to him. The legal case Nottidge v. Prince revealed grave disorders, and the movement was generally discredited, though Prince and a number of followers continued to live in the Agapemone. In the 1890s the movement enjoyed a revival under J.H. Smyth-Pigott, formerly a curate of St. Jude’s, Mildmay Park. Calling themselves “Children of the Resurrection,” his followers built a meeting place known as the “Ark of the Resurrection.” In 1902 Smyth-Pigott proclaimed himself to be Jesus Christ, and the movement lost its vogue. Some of Prince’s writings breathe a spirit of devotion to Christ, but they are marred by an erotic element. Regarding himself and Samuel Starky, his former Somerset rector, as the two witnesses of Revelation 11, Prince proclaimed the doom of Christendom, for example in The Council of God in Judgment. (“Agapemonism,” in The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, gen. ed. J. D. Douglas)

Since Oliphant and Smyth-Pigott held Holiness missions together, one would expect the presence of the Agapemonite sect’s erotic elements (which included “spiritual” wives with whom very physical immorality was committed).  The Agapemonites also supported many other shameful and unspeakable abominations (pg. 68, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck; cf. “Agapemone,” http://www.apologeticsindex.org/453-agapemone).

[11]             Pgs. 71-72, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck.  Charles Harford later renounced Smyth-Piggot perfectionism.

[12]             Pg. 79, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall; pg. 130, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck.

[13]             Pgs. 251-2, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall.

[14]             Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:11; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14; 2 Timothy 3:5.

[15]             Pg. 35, So Great Salvation, Barabas.

[16]             For example, Barabas records that Keswick’s influence on H. W. Webb-Peploe’s congregation resulted in their increasing ten-fold their contributions to the Anglican Church Missionary Society, where Webb-Peploe was a Committee member.  Barabas fails to mention that the Society supported both charismatics and men who preached and associated with a sacramental false gospel and other soul-damning heresies (cf. pg. 165, So Great Salvation, Barabas; pg. 11, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck pg. 158, Transforming Keswick:  The Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall).  The natural, Biblical expectation mentioned by Barabas that “the Church Missionary Society would get no more out of that church ‘now that a revivalist had come,’” was, unfortunately, disappointed.  Rather, “the C. M. S. . . . [was among] the earliest [societies] to recognize Keswick’s value” (pg. 85, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck).  Webb-Peploe had been associated with the Higher Life and Keswick theology from the time of its founding at the first Broadlands Conference (pg. 148, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple.  London:  Printed for private circulation, 1890; but see pg. 29, Forward Movements, Pierson).

[17]             Compare pgs. 1-10, Heaven Only For the Baptized? The Gospel of Christ versus Baptismal Regeneration and “Were the Reformers Heretics?” by Thomas Ross. Elec. acc. http://faithsaves.net.

[18]             The defender of Keswick ecumenicalism can appeal in vain to the alleged command of Christ for unity within the universal church, for such an entity is itself another error and false doctrine Protestantism has taken from its corrupt Roman Catholic fountain.  For representative refutations of the universal church dogma, see Ecclesia, B. H. Carroll (Emmaus, PA: Challenge Press, n. d. reprint ed.; The Myth of the Universal, Invisible Church Theory Exploded, Roy Mason (Emmaus, PA: Challenge Press, 2003) & Landmarks of Baptist Doctrine, Robert Sargent, Vol. 4 (Oak Harbor, WA: Bible Baptist Church Publications, 1990), pgs. 481-542.  Erroneous ecclesiology also leads the Keswick theology into an erroneous view of the connection of Spirit baptism and sanctification (cf. the exegetical analysis in the chapter, “Spirit Baptism: A Completed Historical Event. An Exposition and Defense of the Historic Baptist View of Spirit Baptism”).

Scripture Talks To Us and It Says Everything We Need to Hear

Part One    Part Two    Part Three

In certain ways, I don't want to write about this subject, because I think it should be obvious, but it obviously isn't obvious.  People think God is still speaking to them, and those people aren't just Charismatics.  They are also independent Baptists.  The latter say that hearing God speaking to them doesn't make them Charismatics.  They don't want to be considered Charismatic.  They just want to continue believing and saying that God is speaking to them.

There is a weasel type quality in my opinion to claiming not to be a Charismatic, but still receiving direct revelation from God like Charismatics believe.  If Charismatics took the same position, which they do, they just take the same belief to a different extreme in practice.  People who are Charismatic in belief and yet not Charismatic to the Charismatic extremes are still Charismatic.

This issue I'm addressing is a doctrinal and practical one.  God speaking to someone directly in his head is a doctrinal issue.  It is a belief about God's revelation, under the doctrine of bibliology, that is a false belief.  Does that matter?  Should we just ignore it?  It is a practice, because someone is declaring that God spoke to him.  What he says that God has said to him is supposed to be taken as a message from God.  It can't be doubted because it's God's Word.  That's very practical too, because his practice will change based on that belief that God is speaking to him.  Should this difference in belief and practice matter to fellowship?

God spoke and continues to speak through scripture.  At the end of the book of Revelation, He told us not to add anything to that last book of the Bible.   God was done.  The faith was once and for all delivered unto the saints.  The Bible has everything in it that men need to be everything they need to be and to do everything they need to do.  It throughly furnishes for every good work.

The canon of scripture is closed.  God isn't creating any more scripture.  He said He was done.  We don't get to reopen the canon for 1st Kent and 2nd Kent, even Two Kent.  Revelation ends it.

When someone says that God speaks to him, he denies the last two paragraphs, that teaching.  He is not trusting God.  He is not pleasing God by faith.  He is discontent.  He covets more from God than what God has sufficiently and completely given to him.  He's not being thankful for what God has given him.  He is doubting God.

When a person claims that he has heard directly from God, based on his testimony, that means that he is hearing from God.  What about those people who are not hearing from God?  Why are they not hearing from God?  Somehow those who do not hear from God are lacking in something spiritual.  They are a kind of spiritual have-not.  In truth, the man who says he hears from God doesn't hear from God.  He says he does, either because he is deceived or is lying.  The person who doesn't hear feels like a spiritual have-not because of someone deceived or lying.  You can see how that this affects greatly the judgment of true spirituality and spiritual discernment.

I could go further in describing the effects of this particular denial of the completion and sufficiency of scripture.  It hurts people and churches, and it dishonors God.  It should at least be discussed as to its veracity in a serious way or just eliminated from belief and practice.

I don't know how people are taking this series.  Some are agreeing.  You can see that.  I know I have people reading, because the numbers are large on the statistics on my dashboard.  For some, I'm sure that they see this as a matter to "agree to disagree," but "it shouldn't affect fellowship."  Some will disagree and say they don't like it, but it isn't a separating issue.  Others will throw down the autonomy card and say that they don't like the intervening into their church belief and practice.  They want to keep their conviction that God is talking to them directly in their head, and they don't want to be bothered with changing.  Changing will mean telling everyone that God hasn't been doing this in numbers of different ways, a kind of repentance involved.  That might make a church and its leader look like it and he didn't know what they were doing.  They think that will hurt credibility. Credibility loss will diminish success.

I've talked to people who say that what I'm writing is a separating issue, but not from the position I'm taking.  Churches won't support a missionary if God hasn't told him something.  He must report that God told him to be a missionary and told him to go to a field among other messages from God.  Men know that if they don't say these things, they aren't getting support.  If they said the position I'm espousing, they won't' get support.  Those churches make it a fellowship issue.

If You Don't Have God Talking to You, What Then?

Part One     Part Two.

For some, the idea of God not directly talking to them means that God doesn't speak to them at all, so they won't get the guidance in their Christian lives necessary for knowing the individual will of God. Since it seems like an attack on their Christian lives, they become defensive.  They aren't happy with someone saying that God isn't still talking to them.  In this case, that might be me.  They reject the thought of God not talking to them in this direct manner and then relegate those who disagree to people who will cause them failure in their Christian lives.

I want to take one very normal situation from start to finish where people will say God talked to them to explain the wrong thing being said and then what people should really expect according to scripture.  The situation I will explore on this subject is someone who says God told him to go to France as a missionary.  Perhaps the terminology he uses is "God called me to France."  He knows he is supposed to go to France as a missionary because "God called him to go there."  Since the words "go to France" aren't in the Bible, the thought here is that God communicated that to him directly.  In many, if not most, instances today, the thought of God speaking like that isn't questioned.

Related to the topic of where one goes as a missionary, I have seen this call to the field for church leaders to be the most important aspect for a missionary. I hear people say that this call is what will keep a person on the field and translate to successful missionary service on that particular mission field.  On the other hand, if he doesn't have the call, he might fail, and if he does, it will be because he wasn't called.  This is another example within the category of God speaking directly to someone.  A person says that God told him where to go.

Very often people don't want their experienced questioned.  They don't want someone rejecting their claim that God talked to them.  It's very personal to them.  They might be upset or angry, so others will not question it.  The only proof that God spoke to them, however, is that they say that God spoke to them.  No one else heard it or saw it.  They expect you just to believe what they say that they experienced in their head.

In my hypothetical, I am saying that someone says that God told him to go to France.  That's how he knows he is supposed to go there.  If that isn't true for someone, how should it occur that someone would know he should go to France, if he's supposed to go there as a missionary?

It isn't wrong for someone to go to France as an evangelist or the more modern term, missionary.  If someone wants to go there, that isn't wrong.  Should he go just because he wants?  Why is it that he wants to go evangelize France?

Here are biblical reasons why he could go.  Every Word of God and All the Words of God are inspired.  They are sufficient.  France hasn't had the gospel preached to everyone.  Not everyone is going to hear the gospel in France because there are not enough believers in France preaching the gospel to the French people. An evangelist can go to France.  It's open to go there.  He has learned French or he has learned enough French fast enough to show his commitment to learning it.  He can preach the gospel to people in the French language.  He doesn't have to explain why he wants to go there.  He wants to go.

Does the desire to go to France proceed from the Holy Spirit talking to him?  That shouldn't be the explanation.  It's good enough that he wants to go.  Someone should tell him all the negatives one has heard about France, and find out if he still wants to go.  It's fine that he just wants to.  Some people will apply a term to this.  He is burdened to go to France.  That's fine.  He wants to see the French people saved.  He wants to go to France to evangelize them.  It bothers him there is so little evangelism there.

Consider 1 Corinthians 7:39 with me:  "The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord."  The verse doesn't say she marries someone who God tells her.  She is "to be married to whom she will" -- "whom she will."  She can marry whoever she wants, "only in the Lord."  As this applies to the man who wants to go France, he can go to France if he wants to go to France with certain biblical parameters.

1 Corinthians 6-10 is a section in 1 Corinthians on Christian liberty.  The woman has liberty to marry whom she will in the Lord.  She is not regulated by any scripture from doing what she wants as long as it doesn't violate scripture.  God gives us liberty.  That is a blessing from God.  Someone has the liberty to go to France if he wants, again, with some scriptural parameters.

Is the the Holy Spirit related to his wanting to go to France?  It can be the Holy Spirit.  The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God (Eph 6:17).  The Holy Spirit speaks through the Word of God.  The following are the Holy Spirit speaking.  The Holy Spirit said to preach the gospel to everyone.  The Holy Spirit said to enter doors of evangelism that are open.  The Holy Spirit says to go to other nations. The Holy Spirit wants everyone to be saved, including French people.

If someone is to go to France as an evangelist, a church should send him.  "How shall they preach unless they be sent?"  If we are regulated by scriptural example, we see that men did not operate as free agents.  They were sent by churches.  A church should determine if he is qualified, lay hands on him, and send him.  He knows he's supposed to go because a church sends him.  How does the church know he should go?  Many biblical factors come into the decision.  The agreement of a church is an important facet of the "unity of the Spirit" (Eph 4:3).  The church is the temple of God where the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Cor 3:16).  The Holy Spirit leads through the authority of a church.

First, he should show biblical evidence that he is himself saved.  The people of a church should witness his biblical lifestyle, which evinces true conversion.  This would include being baptized into the membership of his church.

Second, he should show himself to be faithful in his church.  He should be substantial and solid in biblical doctrine, knowing the teachings of scripture.  He should manifest eagerness to serve the Lord in a number of different ways, including regular evangelism, following up with discipleship.  If he can't or won't do it here, then he won't do it there.  This would include fulfilling all scriptural qualifications.  He should prove himself at this for a period of time.

Third, he has to be able to pay for it in some manner.  Lots of references from the New Testament indicate some plan for living.  If he has a family, that would include obeying all the passages on taking care of a family.  If churches of like faith and practice want to take him on for support, that might be a way.  If he has the capacity to "tent make," that's another way.  Today we mainly see the former, but in the Bible, we mainly see the latter.

Once a man gets to France within all the scriptural parameters, as long as the biblical teachings and principles are followed, he should stay there until he has finished the work there.  He has a biblical goal.  He can express that goal.  He should go about practicing it.  He should continue with accountability to the church like we see evinced by the New Testament.  He should come home only if his church wants him to come home.  We have a basis in the Bible for not giving up once he has started there.  However, that does not mean he will never leave France.  Jesus went to certain Samaritan towns, which totally rejected His free offer of the gospel.  He dusted His feet of them. Someone who goes to France might find himself doing the same.  The Holy Spirit won't say that to him directly.  He will be obeying the example of Jesus.

Much more could be written about this subject, but this is enough for now to bring biblical comprehension to the subject of God talking to someone as it pertains to this one situation.  All like situations would be very, very similar to this one.  God is not talking directly to someone.  God speaks through scripture.

Abortion, Sodomy, and Economics Tract Updated

Part of the Christian's responsibility as salt and light (Matthew 5:13ff.) is to take a stand against the abominations done in the world.  That is certainly something seen in the Old Testament prophets; in John the Baptist's warning to King Herod; in the preaching of the Lord Jesus; and elsewhere in both Testaments.  Consider Ezekiel 9:4:

 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

Are you among those who sign and cry for the abominations done in our land, or are you merely intellectually opposed, but in actual practice you do nothing?  Certainly it is right--and very important--to cry out to the Lord in prayer about these things, but does that fulfill our responsibility? 

If we are to do more, though, what ought we to do--should we violate principles of Biblical separation to join with enemies of the cross who believe a false gospel to advance, say, a commendable pro-life goal?  Certainly not.  Should we vote for pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-liberty, pro-Constitution candidates? Yes, certainly, every time.  Can we do more?  Yes. What else can we do?

One thing that can be done is to preach against societal abominations while also proclaiming the solution--the gospel--at the same time.  With that end in view, I wrote, a number of years ago, a tract entitled "The Role of Government: Has God Spoken?"  I am not going to reproduce the entire text of that tract below; it preaches against abortion, sodomy, and unbiblical governmental economic policy (e. g., stealing),  gives a graphic illustration of abortion, summarizes the positions of the Democrat and Republican party platforms on this subject, and then preaches the gospel.  The tract fits on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper folded once in the middle--our church copier can even do the folding part automatically--so copies come out ready to go and folder.  (Perhaps yours can do the same thing.)  I have passed out thousands of copies personally and other brethren have passed out many copies also.  I believe if enough copies were passed out it could, under God's sovereign control, swing close elections. For example, I have passed out copies in overwhelmingly Democrat, minority neighborhoods filled with people that are anti-abortion and anti-sodomy who thought that, e. g., in 2012 Obama was pro-life and pro-marriage but Romney was pro-abortion and anti-marriage.  A little enlightenment might influence voting patterns in such a situation.  Even in areas with convinced leftists, such people ought to be warned about what God thinks about what they are supporting.  Whatever way elections go, God is still glorified as the truth gets out.  Furthermore, the lost can be brought under deep conviction of sin when they come to realize the wickedness they have been supporting.

Anyway, I mention all of the above because I recently updated the tract to fit the 2016 Republican and Democratic party platforms.  The Democratic platform is chillingly more extremist than it was in 2012, and thus I modified the tract so that the comparison of the two parties is now as follows:

The Republican Party plat­form is pro-life from conception until natural death. Furthermore, it specifies that people should not be punished if they cannot in good conscience assist in the murder of little babies. The Democratic Party platform believes a baby should be able to be legally killed, even if the entire baby is no longer in the womb except for his/her head. It does not condemn infanticide. It claims the government should force American taxpayers to pay for abortions in the USA and in foreign countries. The 2016 platform dropped the protection for the consciences of those who are against abortion found in the 2012 platform—help kill the babies or lose your job, or have your religious hospital shut down. The Republi­can Party likewise supports marriage between men and women and opposes punishing those who reject sexual perversion. The Democratic Party rejects true marriage and believes businesses, Christian institutions, and others who are against immorality should lose their jobs, businesses, and livelihoods if they oppose letting men who say they are women shower with real women and little girls. They believe boys who think they are girls should be encouraged in school to practice such a harmful lie even if their parents are strongly opposed. The Republican Party also_.favors more economic liberty than does the Democratic Party. Sources: https://www.demconvention.com/platform/; https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/. No candidate or political party has endorsed or contributed to this composition.

I would encourage your churches to consider using this tract and suggest that you also consider sharing its web address with others.  You can view this Biblical tract on abortion, sodomy, and economics by clicking here for the purpose of sharing it with others, and you can also download a Word document of the tract here so that you can personalize it for use in your own church.  (There is a lot on that latter page; search for "abortion" and then use the "MS Word" link to find it quickly.)  I gladly give permission to other churches to personalize the tract and distribute it.  I also do not mind if you tweak its content a bit (for example, you could add the names of the Republican and Democrat senators who are on your ballot in your state), as long as you do not change the content of its message (e. g., take repentance out of the gospel presentation or in some other way corrupt the message).

May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit get the glory as we preach the gospel and act as salt and light for His name's sake.

TDR