The Tree and it's Fruits, the Toronto Blessing?

Oscarr said:

When I was a young man, discipled by a Pentecostal pastor whose background was in the Methodist Holiness movement, I attended two weekend conventions, during 1970, where he ministered. In both conventions, when he started his ministry, the power and glory of God came down in those meetings, very similar to what I had read of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and David Brainerd. People fell on their knees and faces and got right with God, some of the most hardened hearts were broken before God, and sinners got saved. There were no jerking, screaming, shaking, falling backwards or any other violent physical manifestations. Everyone knew they were in the intense presence of our Holy God! And when that happens, the spirit of stupidity with its crazy manifestations don't happen! The devil, with his occult practices, is driven right out by the holiness and power of God.

I have attended many Pentecostal and Charismatic meetings since, and where some of the most well-known international ministries have preached and taught, and I have never since seen anything of the power of God that I saw in those two weekend conventions.

You have have all your hallelujah hootenannys with all the crazy, Kundalini manifestatation, and claims of healing which, afterward, are known not to have happened, but it does not come anywhere near the real thing!

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In some of the reading the manifestations are omitted, others do mention joyous elevations in the Spirit. It is in Catch the Fire by Guy Chevreau, which I expect you would have a copy of.

You still do not say how it is that people are healed by laughter and falling out at Toronto, and somehow it is Satan doing this?

In church there must be more than one style of service, and worship... because one style will not necessarily drawn in all men, women and children. And God wants them all.

So Carol Arnott, nice lady had to give us a warning, it is not like her, the Spirit enabled her to do this. It leads to repentance, but somehow it was Satan? Satan fighting himself, no catches?

Oscarr said:

You can quote all the Scriptures you like, but I have seen the real power and holiness of God fall on a gathering of people, and when that happens you don't see any of those manifestations at all. You see people on their knees and faces getting right with God!

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I read you hold this view some years ago. My first repentance came by support and discipline from my father, rels, my father's pastors... I repented in fear of God at home over several days, asking not to die, and fell on my knees in Jesus' presence and was made clean and light in my conscience. Light weight, no guilt. So I could not make much use of a service in which I was expected to repent in two hours, on my knees in God's presence. And my thoughts at home were independent of a denomination. Better if there are more formats of service for worship and preaching. And yes in all there are different applications of forms of Biblical decency and order. But old Europe with the inquisitions, witch hunts and thirty years war... did not have correct definitions.

Oscarr said:

I can read 1 Corinthians 14 too. In one of my books on the baptism with the Spirit, I have done a complete exegesis on it, so quoting that chapter to me is preaching to the choir.

I have told you in my other posts what the visitation of the Holy Spirit is really like, and it is nothing like what we see these days in Charismatic gatherings, even with the big name "superduper" guys.

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So at the end of the chapter, is mention of all things being done with decency and order. This cannot mean something Paul did not mean at the time. Also it what it means after that, is what the original audience understood it to mean, bearing in mind lost correspondence between Paul and Corinth.

Satan may then not this time ask, "Did God say?" So much as "You and I know there is more to this than it seems. You have special insight." Satan has been successfully active in Christian history, Paul's warning about the coming doctrines of demons is now behind us. I am willing to debate the fruit of those teachings were wars like the thirty years war, Northern Ireland, witch hunts, inquisitions, orders to recant, limits on speech including native language Bibles...

We do not know all the church formats. Paul's in Corinth without omissions, Apollos's growth meetings, Philip's and Pentecost, what did that look like? Are all the same? Perhaps there is a need to forgive the Holy Spirit?

Some of these big names like Benny Hinn, see youth on drugs come to the altar running, to be rested in the Spirit shaking on the floor, never to use drugs again, because the Spirit is better and clean... They also leave behind sex sins. And come back for more.

I once fell and shook as I received healing gifts. There is no harm of Satan in that.

Oscarr said:

You can read about him here:
Norman Vincent Peale - Wikipedia

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You are actually here just showing me back what I quoted for you to ask you, where in the article or better in Brittanica's article is there mention of Hinduism for NVP?

Oscarr said:

"Has God said?" Where did that come from?
It appears to me that you have never been in a gathering where the Holy Spirit has actually fallen on them, because if that had happened you would have known all about it. In my younger days in the late 1960s, I fellowshipped with an elderly man who had been in meetings in Wellington New Zealand in the 1920s where the Holy Spirit came down and really did visit them. He said, "It just spoils me for anything else!" I feel like that after experiencing the intense holiness and glory of God for myself when the Holy Spirit fell on the gatherings I attended.

There is nothing like the real thing!

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Other people recall the same origins and the same result in the near past and the present ongoing.

Paul the apostle's decent and in order was not a modern day, or pre-enlightenment decency. It is not stiff upper lipped. It is not Samurai, or Texan or French, unless we regret a lot of what we did and developed in such as Knights Templar and Crusades in the Holy Land, and the somber mass...

Everyone must repent and not all repent on their knees.

I sometimes have repented in spoken prayer and confession, out aloud in private. Using categories of sin, introspection, idealism, the scriptures, the Our Father, reverence and thinking aloud using psychology for origins of sin in my life and new resolutions about my future. For me however I missed some grace of consolidation. But also in anointed preaching, with fasting from sin and irreverence, I was permanently set free from a kind of sin. And still am free now and learn from that about my true identity, and what within me is really me and what is dross...

I think Toronto style services suit a great many people. They repent, they fall in love with God. They are healed. Some bark like dogs to announce their master's return, some shake and receive a command, some are manifesting spirits that want people distracted and offended... but it is up to the Pastor. It is not indecent, he should know to shut down demons. Keep pouring the love and joy and the Spirit can take over a meeting and that is still order. Just not arranged by Samurai... More Hebrew.

I was once prayed for to receive joy, and laughed, and at the end unfortunately the priest said, stop Holy Spirit and my infilling and laughing also stopped. Whereas more recently a young lady laughed for an our hard and overcame depression. How can that be Satan?

People are able to give control to the Spirit, if they do not, they have a natural and faulty, weak self control.

Oscarr said:

What leads to repentance is the preaching of the gospel of Christ. According to Paul that is the power that leads sinners to believe. The Jews and Pharisees all saw the miracles of Jesus, but they still plotted to kill him, so the signs, wonders and manifestations are not the actual power that brings sinners to salvation.

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It is not the same for everyone. Jesus intended the Jews to repent at signs and wonders, and some did. Some did after the resurrection. God's patience and kindness leads to repentance. Teaching or preaching the Gospel can lead to repentance, but only the Holy Spirit is to convict the people of their sins, not us.

The olden day services with people repenting on their knees look to be reverence services. But not all bend knee in reverence, others are moved by love. Maybe others by wisdom, and some by testimonies, some by the life of promises and blessings...

One method alone and many are left out in the cold.

Paul wrote in context, a people, a situation, correspondence and problems being solved. I do not think he intended to write absolutes at all times. There is more than one way to lead people to repent. Not all are alike.

Those who plotted to kill Jesus refused to repent with John's preaching. The Old Testament style.

Oscarr said:

The test about these things is that it is consistent with and clearly set out in New Testament Scripture. There are no additions permitted to what has already been written.
"Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar" (Proverbs 30:6).

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So I have studied Gordon Fee's and Douglas Stuart's How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth. And one point Fee makes is that the message from God can't mean something now, it did not at the time it was written and read. From exegesis of the meaning then and there, we may interpret what it means for us here and now. From their time and culture to our time and culture.

It is like that with decency and order. I think Samurai's have a sense of decency and order, but ours too is far removed from Paul's.

I think Toronto with careful discernment is decent and in order, and was.

Oscarr said:

Peale was into hypnotism. This is a form of Hindu mind control.

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Where can I read about Peale's Hinduism?

Hypnotism is from Freud and Jung right?

It is a bit like "church hospital" where there are invisible doctors and wounds, some in the body some in the soul. And in this case it is decent for visitors to be quiet rather than patients.

Oscarr said:

Read about him in Wikipedia.

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I looked elsewhere and found reports of him being a Freemason and taking an interest in other religions, not holding that Jesus is the only way.

I suppose people can learn from Norman's success and methods, without taking up a spirit. Otherwise the US would be full of other spirits. They cannot come through when we ask properly for the Holy Spirit.

People discuss, is God all good or all powerful, and if he is both, why do evil things happen, even to good people, and some who ask for the Spirit of grace? Can an unclean spirit enter a sane worshiper because they worship?

I have started a thread here on Continuationism and Cessationism. Looking at these posts and the matter of prophesy and vocal gifts... ceasing rendering the Toronto Blessing seeming error.

I look at the verse about when what is perfect shall have come, and explain and poll if it is about the whole Bible or Jesus' second coming.

Now historically what is the result of the Toronto Blessing, also known as the Blessing of the Father's Heart. Which at first warmed hearts and set people free and healed them, but then what, why is this good or bad?