One of the many reasons why I am not a Pentecostal Christian any longer

TONGUES WERE A SIGN TO UNBELIEVING ISRAEL

April 6, 2010 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) –

The following is excerpted from the book THE PENTECOSTAL CHARISMATIC MOVEMENTS by David Cloud. This book begins with the author’s own experience with the Pentecostal movement. The next section deals with the history of the Pentecostal movement, beginning with a survey of miraculous signs from the second to the 18th centuries. We then examine the movements in the 19th century that led up to the creation of Pentecostalism and the outbreak of “tongues-speaking” at Charles Parham’s Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901, and at William Seymour’s Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906. We examine some of the major Pentecostal denominations, the Latter Rain Covenant, the major Pentecostal healing evangelists, the Sharon Schools and the New Order of the Latter Rain, the Manifest Sons of God, the Word-Faith movement and its key leaders, the Charismatic Movement, the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the Pentecostal Prophets, the Third Wave, the Laughing Revival, and the recent Pentecostal scandals. In the last section of the book we deal with the theological errors of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements (exalting experience over Scripture, emphasis on the miraculous, Messianic and apostolic miracles can be reproduced today, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of fire, exalting the Holy Spirit, tongues speaking, sinless perfectionism, healing in the atonement, spirit slaying, spirit drunkenness, visions of Jesus, trips to heaven, women preachers, and Charismatic ecumenism). The final section of the book answers the question: “Why are people deluded by Pentecostal-Charismatic error?” 317 pages. $14.95 – Go here to buy it.
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A foundational truth about biblical tongues is that it was chiefly a sign to Israel that God was extending the gospel to all nations. Paul made this clear in his instructions to the church at Corinth:

“Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe” (1 Cor. 14:20-22).

The Corinthians were abusing the spiritual gifts and were particularly enamored with tongues. As spiritual infants (1 Cor. 3:1), they were “showing off” to one another. Paul tells them to stop being children and to be men, by understanding the true purpose of tongues. It was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 28:11-12 that was directed to the Jews.

About that mine tragedy in West Virginia

I just wanted to post something here to all my readers. I noticed that not too many Bloggers on my side of the political fence have said anything about this.

Well, once again, I will be the one to do it.

Politics is one thing, real life is another.

Losing someone to a tragedy such as this, is unimaginable. Unlike some on the left, I will NOT bring my personal politics into this. But I will say that I personally feel for this people. Mining is in my family too; sort of. My Father is from Middlesboro, Kentucky. Back when he was a young man, he drove a tri-axle dump truck down in his home town. He worked out of a strip mines down in that town. Oh, the stories he would tell, about Hazards of driving those trucks. Some of the stories were side splitting tales, some were quite scary.

Anyhow, my heart goes out to these people during their time of loss. This is where I will also deviate from my normal hard line Conservative stance, and say the following; which most likely will not do anything for my Conservative creds. Not that I quite honestly give a damn about that anyhow.

It would be a crime, if I did not mention the fact that this mine was, in fact, a non-union mine. Because of that, the safety record of this mine, was, in fact, terrible. Unions; for all their short-comings and horrible politics, are the best defense against companies who want to cut corners and allow their employees to work in unsafe conditions. I honestly believe that if the union that my Father was represented by at G.M. had not been there, my Father would have been dead ages ago. For those who are just passing through, my Father is a retired G.M. Worker and is represented by the U.A.W. The Union forces the big business owners to a very high standard of safety and if the companies do not adhere to them, they simply will not allow their employees on the job. Which I feel is a very good thing. Equipment can be replaced —- Human Lives cannot.

There are some possibly of the right, that might say my bringing this up is morbid or something silly like that. Well, too bad. As they say, all politics is local; and this my friends is a local, personal issue for me. One of the nicest things I read, was the fact that even though this mine was non-union, the President of the Union miners was sending a team of people up to the site, to offer their assistance. Because it is the human and responsible thing to do. That is what normal, sane, rational Americans do, when their fellow man is hurting. They put partisan differences aside and come together. I bet some in the world of Political Blogging could learn something from that; on both sides of the aisle.

Again, my and my family’s prayers go out to the people of MONTCOAL, W.Va. tonight.

Update: Video confirming what I wrote above:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Off to get some sleep

Once again my body clock is all “catty whompus”, which means screwed to hell.

I zonked out last night at like 10:45 P.M. and woke back up around 2:00 a.m. I’ve been up ever since and right about now; I am quite pooped. 😛

So, I shall return when I arise from my slumber.

Meanwhile, check out some of the blogs in my sidebars. 😀

Good Night…

Wake Up

President Limits Nuke Usage

I have mixed feelings about this, I will explain after the quote:

Via the NYT:

President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

As I said above, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the idea of America being stoked to the hilt with Nukes on a hair trigger is not my idea of a good time. On the other hand, the idea of the United States not being able to defend itself is not a very comforting thought. Because I am not a partisan blogger, I will simply say this; I believe Obama is trying to strike a balance and trying to keep all parties happy. Which is not easy, when the people you are trying to make happy are not your biggest fans. Either way, it has to be a tough order.

Other Bloggers from ALL sides on this: Political Punch, CBS News, Ben Smith’s Blog, Power Line, The Corner on National …, Beltway Confidential, The Caucus, PoliBlog, Commentary, ATTACKERMAN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Jihad Watch, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Independent, Fausta’s Blog, Hot Air, Pajamas Media, Scared Monkeys, Atlas Shrugs, Liberty Pundits dot net, Another Black Conservative, The Confluence, The Moderate Voice, The Atlantic Online, Israel Matzav, Guardian, News Hounds, Don Surber, YID With LID, Pundit & Pundette, The American Pundit, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, The Page, And So it Goes in Shreveport, The Anchoress, The Lonely Conservative, JammieWearingFool, Gawker and Riehl World View

Quote of the Day

I am an old Republican. I am religious, yet not a fanatic. I am a free-marketer; yet, I believe in the role of the government as a fair evenhanded referee. I am socially conservative; yet, I believe that my lesbian niece and my gay grandchild should have the full protection of the law and live as free Americans enjoying every aspect of our society with no prejudices and/or restrictions. Nowadays, my political and socio-economic profile would make me a Marxist, not a Republican.

I grew up in an era where William F. Buckley fought the John Birch society and kicked them out of the Republican Party. I grew up with -– in fact voted for the first time for –- Eisenhower. In 1956, he ran a campaign of dignity. A campaign that acknowledged that there are certain projects better suited to be handled by the government. See, business thinks in the short term, as he said. That’s the imperative of the marketplace. I invest and I expect that in a few quarters, I garner the fruits of my investment. Government, on the other hand, has the luxury to wait a few years, maybe decades, for a return on a given investment. As a former businessman, I know that first hand. Am I a Marxist for thinking that?

[….]

I do not recognize myself in the Republican Party anymore. As someone said it before, I did not leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me. I have the same ideological positions on most of the issues that I had when I voted for Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush in 2000. However, I just cannot trust the reins of our government and nation, of this formidably complicated and complex gigantic machine that is the USA, to the amateurish leadership of the Republican Party.

We are living through tough times. We are being challenged like I have never seen America being challenged before. China is a formidable foe, and it is out there competing against us on every field and beating us on several fronts. While our education budgets are being slashed in every state across the nation, China is doubling and tripling theirs. These are the challenges and challengers that we are facing. And we need our best and brightest to lead us, not a half-term governor or radio/TV talking heads.

Maybe I am too old and too cynical, but I think the Republican party is in the last stages of agony. If nothing happens, we might win an election or even two, but in the long run we will lose America.

Coming to America under Obama rule?

I have to give Kudo’s to Pamela Geller for reporting what I wanted to here.

Go read.

I mean, are white people, who Obama’s followers deem to be racist going to end up dead?

It is a fair question to ask.

UPDATED: Anti-American Journalists embed with terrorists, get killed, and Liberals whine about it

First the Video: (Warning Graphic Violence and Language)

Ed Morrissey Weighs in:

War correspondents take huge risks to bring news of a war to readers far away.  What this shows is just how risky it is to embed with terrorists, especially when their enemy controls the air.  War is not the same thing as law enforcement; the US forces had no responsibility for identifying each member of the group and determining their mens rea.  Legitimate rescue operations would have included markings on the vehicle and on uniforms to let hostile forces know to hold fire, and in the absence of that, the hostile forces have every reason to consider the second support group as a legitimate target as well.   It’s heartbreaking for the families of these journalists, but this isn’t “collateral murder” — it’s war.

Rusty over at Jawa Report also weighs in:

These people are beyond stupid, they’re evil.

Worst case scenario this is a few innocent being accidentally killed in the fog of war.

But the video doesn’t even appear to be worst case scenario. It appears, in fact, that the video shows armed insurgents engaging or about to engage US troops. The Reuters camera men had embedded themselves with the insurgents. This makes them enemy combatants themselves and should have been shot.

Reuters has a long history of its local stringers embedding themsleves with terrorist forces. Perhaps they do this because they are sympathetic, perhaps they do this to get “the story”, but it matters little to those engaging insurgents.

When you embed yourselves with terrorists you know the risk. You are producing propaganda for them. You have become one of them.

Anything less than this understanding is purposeful naivite about “objective journalism”. In war there can be no objective journalism. You’re either with us or the enemy. If you want to stay neutral stay out of the war zone.

As for those who went in to pick up the bodies? Perhaps they were innocents. I’ve no idea.

But you drive your van into an active military engagement? What the hell were you thinking?

You are stupid. Innocent, but stupid. You’re asking to be killed.

And if you brought children into the midsts of an ongoing military engagement that makes you more than stupid: it makes youcriminally negligent.

“It’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle,” says one of the Americans on the video. Indeed it is.

People, this is war. This happens in war. It can’t be avoided. If you want to end civilian casualties then end war. Start by asking armed Islamists to put down their weapons. But you won’t do that because your real objection isn’t war, it’s America. Which is why anti-war activists around the globe never protest al-Qaeda, only America.

They’re not anti-war, they’re anti-American.

I agree. If you embed yourself with terrorists, you die. Just that simple.

I humbly submit, that these so-called Journalists got just was coming to them.

Update #3: Apparently some liberals, including a gay pedophile stalker blogger, that I will never link to; cannot grasp the idea of sarcasm and are complaining about what I wrote here about Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Well, you know what liberals? I got two words; FUCK YOU. You bastards sat out here in the Blogosphere and mocked and derided Conservatives and the Tea Party protesters, to the point of using a crude sexual phrase to describe them. —– and you are going to bitch about me being a snarky bomb thrower? Please. 🙄  Just like that stupid liberal jack assed twit Maxine Waters, do as I say, not as I do. 🙄

Update: Rusty Talks back to me… (wow! 😯 )

Over at Political Byline:

“I humbly submit, that these so-called Journalists got just was coming to them”

Perhaps. This wouldn’t be the first time Reuters had sent off it’s “crack team” of locals to give the terrorists’ “point of view”.

Now why am I not surprised? 🙄

Update #2: Leave it one of my commentators to point out the obvious, From Gaven in the comments:

First off, watch the full, unedited one, without the political editorializing:

A little background is given in this one that is absent from the edited one. First off, the Apache’s mission was to support that infantry platoon. A few minutes before the video starts, that platoon takes RPG and small arms fire in that vicinity, so the Apache is called up to find the guys doing it. Source: Click here to read – See the 12th paragraph.

Our video starts. They see a large group of people, all adult males, several of whom are armed. You can see 2 AK’s and at least one actual RPG around 3:30-3:45 (Pic) . Next, they see a man peeking around the corner and pointing what looks like an RPG at the infantryman about four blocks away. Armed men? Check. Immediate threat to American lives? Check. They get permission to fire, and as soon as they have a shot, they take it.

(For what it’s worth, the actions of this group of people are very suspicious looking, especially in a combat zone mere minutes after US forces have been fired on. Including having the RPG firer simply poke around the corner and fire while everyone else hangs back to avoid backblast. See here for a slightly humorous example: Click for pic . Obviously one example does not a trend make, but I’m just bringing it to your attention)

Secondly, I have yet to see anyone say that the group of guys with the reporters were NOT insurgents. For extra emphasis, at 30:45 there is more small arms fire. At 31:10 you see guys with AK’s and body armor running away from the area. There was DEFINITELY a battle going on in this area, something that Wikileaks biased editing job carefully omits.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Reuters stringers were hanging out with insurgents for some good pictures. For instance, this picture:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/14/content_391288.htm

Was taken by none other than Namir Noor-Eldeen, one of the photographers killed in this attack. Wonder how he got that? How about THIS one:

http://blogs.reuters.com/blog/2007/07/18/losses-in-the-family/

Here, Namir is obviously standing about 10 feet away from insurgents as they commit an act of violence. I’m not passing judgement on him, I actually think it’s good to have reporters as close as possible to the conflict, but I’m merely pointing out that hanging out with insurgents is something that Noor-Eldeen had been doing for a few years prior to his death.

Anyways, back to the video.

At 19:20, someone reports finding an RPG round.

At 32:54, someone asks if it’s been defused yet, and is told “no, it’s still live”

Even if everyone in Iraq has an AK, only the bad guys have RPG rounds. The discovery of an RPG round among the bodies makes me believe that Namir Noor-Eldeen was yet again hanging out with an insurgent group looking for great shots. He and the other photographer were almost certainly innocent of actual wrongdoing, but the armed men they were with were in all likelihood some of the ACTUAL insurgents who fired on US troops before the video started.

As for the van that was attacked, I’ll admit that it’s slightly sketchier, but I’ll clarify that by noting that insurgents often clean up their own wounded, so an black van showing up with three or four adult men who immediately jump out and start aiding wounded insurgents is absolutely suspicious enough to make a case for engaging it. I don’t know that I personally would have engaged that van, but I find in totally understandable that they did. Although, again, there’s no proof that the men in the van weren’t also insurgents, since the video leaves out a lot of context.

Yes, this video is disturbing simply for the sheer violence and immediate destruction. But think about it before mindlessly jumping to conclusions regarding what actually happened that day.

Also, allow me to point something out of the liberals and weak kneed Conservatives who are reading this. Let’s go back in history a bit, shall we? During World War 2, The Korean War and during Vietnam, I do not remember ever hearing of any American or international journalists embedding with the enemy then. So, why were these loons embedded with the Terrorists? Because point blank, these so-called “journalists” and their employer, who is quite obviously liberal; have an editorial position that the United States of America deserved the attacks on 9/11 and that these fighters in Iraq were a legitimate fighting force; that’s why! That is, as far as this writer is concerned, an Anti-American stance. Because of this, these bastards got EXACTLY AND I DO MEAN EXACTLY WHAT WAS COMING TO THEM! Period, end of story.