The Greatest Power In Human Experience
We live in a church period that decries all spiritual experiences. The apostate church knows that when a person has a valid encounter with Jesus Christ, they lose their hold. Calvinism is growing by appealing to the pride of human knowledge. They reject the “Born Again” life because there is no room in their twisted theology for experience. Most Calvinists will say that they do not know if they are saved. Their “god” has decided that a few are chosen and the rest are lost, and you cannot change that. You have no appeal regardless of how pure your heart might be towards God. I aired a minister’s voice on our OBD broadcast last Saturday (July 17,2010) as he attacked altar services in the great days of a Pentecostal church. He said they were praying them through and added, “There is no such thing in the Bible.” That’s a Calvinistic idea and it is absolutely false. The death of the Son of God was to redeem every living soul that will come to Him. The Holy Spirit said, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). It would be impossible to make that transformation anything but an experience. Take the man at the gate called “Beautiful.” He was saved and healed when he encountered two men right out of the Upper Room. “And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God” (Acts 3:8-9). Now, lets try to tell him to be quiet. “Come on young man, you know you did not have an experience.” His answer would be something like this, “Are you crazy? I have never walked in my life. I was never allowed to enter the Temple, because I was crippled. Now I’m saved and healed perfectly and you tell me I have not had an experience.” My friends, nothing is more anti-Biblical than to deny “praying through.” The greatest power in human experience is not your dark times, but when He invades your life. Why don’t you let Him come in?????
Gary C. Hardin, San Diego, Ca.
I don’t know what calvinism is for sure. I do believe the church no longer is in the business of saving people. Most give a altar like they due communion, once in awhile. I have seen the demise of the Assembly of God’s, which sadden’s me, I was saved in a Assembly on Oct 13, 1978. But I wouldn’t now know this church from the one I went too then. I’m from a Southern Baptist background. Even the Baptist churches are loosing it. I don’t even go to church anymore. If you know of a church here in San Diego, like yours, tell me about it and I will attend.
Sue
It is not a matter of just letting him come in, but of giving him free reign.Truly allowing him to br LORD of your life. Learning to hear his voice. Learning to “fear” him as that is the beginning of wisdom. Most of all to trust and believe, if he said it he will do it.
Beverly Burlingham
Pastor Chambers ,
Were the imperfect people not allowed in the temple in those days ?? I don’t know if the word imperfect
is the correct way to put this.. WERE the halt lame and blind etc. Not allowed ??
Thank you .
Jim S
According to a Gallup Poll in 1990, seventy-four percent of Americans thought they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, and ninety-five percent of those were willing to call it a “born again” experience. Although many evangelicals believe if someone is water baptized it is not necessarily an indication of saving faith, they do believe that going forward in an altar call and repeating a salvation prayer is an indication of saving faith. Source: The Goal: Effective Evangelism
The above excerpt from the article is saying that unbiblical evangelism promotes the idea that God saves people when they recite the sinner’s prayer during the altar call. However, evangelists agree most who pray to receive Christ drift back into the ways of the world, believing they are born again because they recited a prayer or prayed through.
What is apparent about those who pray to receive Christ is most are without any understanding of biblical truth, holiness and the need for salvation from the power of sin. There is little recognition of their need for Christ as a matter of life or death. People (both children and adults) feel (or are told they are) forgiven but do not seem to realize the depth of their sinfulness and ungodliness.
False conversions occur when people (including children) do not fully comprehend the basic truths leading to salvation. If people are led to recite a prayer to receive Christ before being led to see their own sinfulness and hopelessness in Romans 3:23, they will not see the need for Christ to save them in Romans 6:23. A two or three hour presentation of the gospel by an evangelist or pastor to the unchurched is hardly enough time to digest revelatory truth leading to repentance and salvation.
Even more sobering are those who spend a lifetime in church and never come to know Christ in a personal way. I once hear a story about a Baptist pastor who asked his congregation to stand up if they were a Christian. The entire body stood up. He then asked for those who have experienced a changed life, because of their faith in Christ, to stand up. The entire body remained seated except for a few, here and there, who stood up. Those who stood up are the ones who have been miraculously born again, a miracle performed in their life by the act of God. They are new creatures in Christ and the change is noticeable in their lives. They are the ones who carry the workload in the church. They are blood-bought saints possessing “hearts of service” to God and make Christ their Lord, expressing only to serve Him.
While “praying through” may work for some, clearly it does not work for most.
Jim,
God is no respector of persons. There is no oerson on earth that Christ did not die to save. That’s the first darkness of Calvinism. I’m going to do the next series on OBD about the “Sickness of Calvinism”. This is one of the main tenants of the Whore church.
Pastor Chambers
Jim D.
Dear Pastor Chambers,
It is true that Calvinism at its extreme, (hyper Calvinism) is not Biblical in that it takes away freedom to choose from those who are being saved. The 5 points of the TULIP have no place for man to respond and they declare that Christ died only for the elect not the whole world.
However there are genuine born again believers who hold to Calvinism and do attest to having a born again experience. And as you point out, there are those who receive the doctrine and wonder if they are truely saved or not. They don’t believe they can do anything about it so they take their live as being predetermined and wait for the outcome when they die. This is a grevious error and certainly not Biblical in any sense of its application. I don’t think it is a cut and dried as you present it as far as some Calvinists not having personal experiences of salvation. Some definitely do but the doctrine of determinism when fully thought out is not at all Biblical.
Thanks Jim,
A Calvinist cannot claim to be “Born Again” and a Calvinist at the same time.
One or the other would be false.
Pastor Chambers
Lynwood
if you are saved and you know it –say amen-my wife is divorcing me because of a son who
can’t
wait for inhertance and he wants the one half of estate–supposingly he was saved at about
seven years old. I got saved on a aircraft in a storm my wife had prayed for me to get saved,
but you would never know now she was saved as she does not follow JESUS and has done some
unreal things. I wonder if she was ever saved or had a superstious belief as she got rid of
a chair (antique) because she thought it was possesed. It makes you wonder if someone can
throw away their salvation as you can trash a gift and that is what salvation is.
I do pray for her as the scripture says pray for your enemy and WOW has she become that.
If some one knows how to travail please do as I don’t see heaven for her.
If there is a change I will blog it on this website
Mike Claydon
This is the most distorted portrayal of true Calvinism [the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men] that has been posted on the web in many a year! Obviously pastor Chambers has never met the genuine article? Such as Jonathon Edwards and Martyn Lloyd Jones?
The “Classic” penetecostal label that Pastor Chambers uses to describe himself is a misnomer – all Pentecostalism sprang from the polluted well of Azusa Street.
Renee
All PENTECOSTalism sprang from the glorious promise given us from our Lord and Savior Jesus Messiah in John 7:38.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of Living Water.
This wonderful, life changing, promise was manifested before our very eyes, once and for all, in Acts chapter 2 when the day of PENTECOST had fully come.
Let us continue to pray through until we receive the real and not the fake.
Brother Lynwood, I’m praying for you and yours.