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http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2012/barrya81.htm
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Barry Amundsen (1 Aug 2012)
"About the idea that "Paul's gospel signs have passed away""

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http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/july2012/alant731.htm

Unless God's grace kicks in, (I pray it does) in the lives of those who hold this view (outlined in the post above and the one to which it links), I do not know if I can persuade to my view those who oppose it. However for the sake of those who wish to know the truth, and also to obey Jude's exhortation I offer the following:

When God has a powerful, special gift for His people the devil will surely want to corrupt that area with doubt and confusion in order to rob God's people of that gift or make the Word of God of none effect. Those who say that any of God's gifts are not for us today have fallen for a deception. Yes it is true that many have abused the gifts and the devil is behind this but this does not mean that the gifts are from the devil. Jesus knew that this wrong teaching would one day come and so He told us that when we ask our Father for the Holy Spirit, God will not give us a serpent or a scorpion or even a stone.

Luke 11:
9. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12. Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
14. And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered.
15. But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.

They even said that Jesus was performing His miracles by the power of the devil and Jesus said His disciples would receive the same kinds of accusations that He received, but when you ask God for the Holy Spirit you do not get a devil as these are saying you do.

When Apostle Paul said that the gifts would cease he said this would only happen "when that which is perfect comes"

1 Corinthians 13:
8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Do we know even as we are known today because the Bible is here? Yet they say that this is what Paul is saying...

Those who say that the spiritual gifts such as prophecies, tongues etc. have stopped with the apostles say that " when that which is perfect is come" is referring to the cannon of the Bible. Paul never says this but rather is pointing to the time when we will be in heaven and will see face to face where we now see through a glass (mirror) darkly. Compared to how we will understand things in heaven we are now as children knowing hardly anything so we need the spiritual gifts to help us. We will be as adults in the kingdom of heaven and will have put away these childlike gifts when we are there because we will see face to face and know even as we are known. But to suggest that we now see face to face by reason of a canonized Bible is to distort what Paul was saying. Likewise to say that the Jews require a sign but we today do not need one is another stretch of the meaning of that statement.

Jude tells us that the same original common salvation and faith that was delivered to the saints by the apostles is the same faith that we in the latter days are to be earnestly contending for because evil men will have crept in unawares and replaced this faith with one that denies the original one by removing the spiritual gifts and replacing them with purely sense-driven, human reason relying-on kind of faith.

Jude 1:
3. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
19. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit.
20. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jude is contrasting two kinds of people and faiths. One that prays with the Holy Ghost and the other that has not the spirit.
Here "praying in the Holy Ghost" is what Jude is saying will be necessary in the latter days in order to stay in the love of God and the way to contended for the faith as it was originally delivered while an aggressive opposition within the church denies the spiritual side of the original faith as being for us today. And their argument against the spirit is a very intellectual sounding one not based on the spirit of God's revelation but on the reasoning mind of man's intelligence.

If you have not the Holy Spirit will you be in darkness with a lamp going out at His appearing? Will you ask me for some of my oil? Go to them that sell now while you may still ask, seek and knock and receive freely without money and without price. But if you reject His gifts now because of fear that you would be getting a devil instead of the Holy Spirit then who has won in your life, Jesus who promised that God would not give you a devil or the devil who has claimed that that is what you would be getting? Faith, hope and love! Not fear, doubt and hate.


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Zechariah 12:3,9:
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people; And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.


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