TheMatmanReturns
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No, dead faith means that you have faith, but that the faith is dead--its of no use.
symantics, I know.
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No, dead faith means that you have faith, but that the faith is dead--its of no use.it actually does say where is your faith, when it says that faith without actions is dead. Dead faith means you don't have any faith.
When I attended Happy Caldwell's church in Little Rock, Arkansas, a prominent WOF evangelist and his wife, who were from Tulsa, lost their daughter to cancer. If I said their names, you would know who they were.I've been hearing this said about faith ppl. But, the preachers I sit under don't say this at all. It's not a lack of faith, it's a lack of word. But, you don't say it that way to condemn. I've been pretty much word of faith for the past 30 years even when I went to Charismatic or Vineyard churches. And I was never told I had a lack of faith. Ken Copeland teaches we just need to sit under the word, and the faith will auto come. Faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing the word. It's nothing magical about it, and it's not really that hard. Just sit under the word and faith comes.
I'm sorry you have been condemned by so called faith ppl.... But, that's not what our head leaders are teaching.
It's so wrong to tell a person they don't have faith. How would someone know? Only God knows your heart, unless He gives someone a word. And if He does give a word? It is always to assist someone, never to condemn. Just saying, You don't have faith...When I attended Happy Caldwell's church in Little Rock, Arkansas, a prominent WOF evangelist and his wife, who were from Tulsa, lost their daughter to cancer. If I said their names, you would know who they were.
Anyway, they came to my church and recounted a story about how, shortly after their daughter had died, they went to their home church (Rhema Church) for a service. After the service was over, a woman, whom they did not know, approached them and said, "Your daughter died because you didn't have faith."
Now, to Pastor Hagin's credit, when he learned about this (or maybe he was speaking by way of the Spirit and didn't learn until later) he publically applauded the evangelist and his wife for their faith, and told them in front of the whole church that they didn't lack faith.
I think this anecdote illustrates everything that we have been saying.
When I attended Happy Caldwell's church in Little Rock, Arkansas, a prominent WOF evangelist and his wife, who were from Tulsa, lost their daughter to cancer. If I said their names, you would know who they were.
Anyway, they came to my church and recounted a story about how, shortly after their daughter had died, they went to their home church (Rhema Church) for a service. After the service was over, a woman, whom they did not know, approached them and said, "Your daughter died because you didn't have faith.".
It's so wrong to tell a person they don't have faith.
What I think about their particular situation is completely irrelevant.So......... Matman..
Why do YOU think their daughter died?
If it wasn't their lack of faith... and the Word says if you have faith ALL that you ask will be granted... what exactly caused their daughter to die?
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
What I think about their particular situation is completely irrelevant.
My purpose for mentioning it is to illustrate that charismatics tend to judge people who experience natural weakness by correlating their situation to a spiritual deficiency.
It's the same paradigm that the disciples expressed in John 9.
In the aforesaid passage, the disciples saw a person with natural weakness (i.e. blindness). They immediately correlated the same with a spiritual deficiency (i.e. sin). They must have assumed that Jesus adopted the same worldview, because their only question to Jesus was "who sinned?" Jesus burst their bubble when he told them that no one sinned.
Returning to the story of the WOF preacher who lost his daughter to cancer, you see his natural weakness (i.e., the loss of his daughter) and correlate the same to a spiritual deficiency (i.e. doubt) Like the disciples, your question presupposes that sin (i.e. doubt) was to blame for the child's passing.
Without naming names, I'll give you some background about these ministers. The mother had her leg grow miraculously at a Kenneth Hagin seminar back in the 1970's. The daughter was personally prayed for by Benny Hinn during one of his crusades. She was on Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Jesse Duplantis, and Kenneth Copeland's personal prayer lists. Billy Joe and Sharon Daughtery would come by their home just to pray for them. (I know this because these ministers were close friends of her parents, and some of them attended her funeral.)
Now, if you are going to say that doubt and unbelief were the cause of her passing, whose doubt was it? Was it Benny Hinn's? Oral Roberts? Kenneth Copeland's? The father's? The mother's? The child's?
That's a question I would not venture to answer.
Matman said:Without naming names, I'll give you some background about these ministers. The mother had her leg grow miraculously at a Kenneth Hagin seminar back in the 1970's. The daughter was personally prayed for by Benny Hinn during one of his crusades. She was on Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Jesse Duplantis, and Kenneth Copeland's personal prayer lists. Billy Joe and Sharon Daughtery would come by their home just to pray for them. (I know this because these ministers were close friends of her parents, and some of them attended her funeral.)
What I think about their particular situation is completely irrelevant.
age six
I know exactly who you are talking about... I am a member of ICBM and was in attendance in Tulsa when Lindsay Roberts received the word from God that the girl would live. Benny laid hands on her and said she would not die. Several months later she died.
I believe it does more damage for us NOT to answer the question. Either the Word works or it doesn't. If it doesn't appear to work, it is not God's fault - so it has to be on our human end.
To say, as these parents now go around the country saying, "well, yes, we prayed but our daughter didn't get healed in this life... however she got the 'ultimate healing'" is a cop-out.
WOFers believe the Word. It would be far better to say they missed it somewhere than to do that "oh, you never know what that God will do".That puts us in the same category as those who teach about Casino God - maybe He will, maybe He won't.
(FYI, folks, I have asked for an icon change to WOF.... )I know exactly who you are talking about... I am a member of ICBM and was in attendance in Tulsa when Lindsay Roberts received the word from God that the girl would live. Benny laid hands on her and said she would not die. Several months later she died.
I believe it does more damage for us NOT to answer the question. Either the Word works or it doesn't. If it doesn't appear to work, it is not God's fault - so it has to be on our human end.
To say, as these parents now go around the country saying, "well, yes, we prayed but our daughter didn't get healed in this life... however she got the 'ultimate healing'" is a cop-out.
WOFers believe the Word. It would be far better to say they missed it somewhere than to do that "oh, you never know what that God will do".That puts us in the same category as those who teach about Casino God - maybe He will, maybe He won't.
(FYI, folks, I have asked for an icon change to WOF.... )
But is it possible, just possible, that we do not understand the Word like we should?
For example, the Jews read the book of Isaiah and believed that the Messiah would come and liberate them from Roman oppression. When the Messiah came and died on a Roman cross, they couldn't believe their eyes. And so they rejected Christ.
If they had truly understood the Word, they would have accepted Christ. But because they thought they understood the Word already, they were not open to what God was doing.
Now, to some extent, we all have a bit of pride when it comes to our understanding of things religious. We all are pretty set in our ways. And certainly, being set in one's way makes it difficult for the Devil to come and take away one's faith. But it also makes it difficult for God to come in and make one's faith grow.
Many years ago, a particular WoF preacher lost his daughter in a tragic accident. She and her WoF preacher husband died in a plane crash. Naturally, this loss was devistating. Beyond the personal loss, however, were questions not unlike the ones raised herewith: Did God fail or did the preacher's faith fail?
I wondered myself. Then I learned that about ten years before this crash, the mother and daughter had had a conversation about airplanes. The mother was concerned about her daughter's safety as she and her husband flew from city to city. The daughter said that she was not afraid of being in a plane crash. In fact, she said, she would much rather be in a plane crash with her husband than to be a widow without him.
I recounted this to a WoF friend who works for a major ministry. My friend immediately replied that the plane crash must have been a product of the lady's bad confession. Now, that may well be the case, but I think the answer may be more simple than that. This woman's hearts desire was to die with her husband. I believe that God granted her desire.
Now, this brings me back to my original point. The death of the aforesaid little girl may have nothing to do with doubt or unbelief. The little girl may well have seen a glimpse of God's glory and decided that she wanted to go home.
If this were indeed the case, does this make the Word not work? If she wanted to go home, then did God fail by not healing her? Conversely, if she wanted to go home, did her parent's faith fail?
I am not saying that this is the reason she died. For all I know, she may have been praying to live up until the very moment she died. I don't know.
But what I do know is that there is a reason--a reason which may transcend our two-dimensional theological paradigm. And if we continue to force everything we see or hear into this theological construct, we may end up doing what the Jews did. We may know the Word (Scripture) inside and out, but still miss the Word (Jesus) when He walks in our midsts.
But you may have missed one possibility. What if the girl wanted to go home?Lets try narrowing the possibilities down a little.
Let's see if we can unqualifiedly agree on the following.
1. Jesus suffered all sickness and disease so we wouldn't have to.
2. Jesus made healing from all sickness and disease available to us all.
3. The sickness didn't come from God.
4. God wanted her healed.
5. It wasn't God's fault that the child was sick.
6. It wasn't God's fault that the child wasn't healed.
7. God placed the child's welfare primarily in the hands of the parents.
8. The people who said she would live simply missed it which just goes to prove that no one is infallible except God..
9. Just because we don't know the answer, doesn't mean that the answer isn't knowable, however I think the possibilities have now been narrowed sufficiently to take a shot at the few possibilities left.
Be that as it may, hearing and understanding must be something more than an intellectual assent to what the Bible says.None of know exactly what is going on between someone else and God. Many times we don't even see our own errors, much less others errors.
One thing that is rarely brought up is that ignorance is equal to unbelief. Whether you hear the Word and don't believe it, or don't know what to believe because of ignorance of God's Word, results in the same end, which is unbelief. You can't believe when you don't know what is available to you.
In the end, healing and protection are both available in God's word equally for all who can hear, and in hearing, understand and in understanding, believe and receive.
Now that is profound.It all boils down to "my people perish for lack of knowledge".....
when you've done all you know to do, perhaps there is more you need to know.
But you may have missed one possibility. What if the girl wanted to go home?
The whole point of what I am saying is that we do not know what is in the hearts of other people. Therefore, it is very dangerous for us to judge whether a parent had enough faith.
Jesus has said that the standard by which we judge others is the standard by which we will be judged.
If I say that XYZ person died because her parents didn't confess the Word enough or didn't give enough money or didn't pray enough or didn't worship enough---if I say that XYZ person died because her parents failed to miss a particular standard, then I am setting myself up for a fall. Because, if my son gets sick and I do not meet that same standard of faith--the one I set for XYZ's parents--then my son may suffer the same fate.
Until I get to a level of faith where my own leg will grow back, I don't think I need to judge the mother of this little girl for lacking faith. Otherwise, I may never see the miracle working power of God in my life.
when you've done all you know to do, perhaps there is more you need to know.
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