Author: theparacleteshammer

Why is it every time this season comes around, we get to butchering the text of Isaiah 9:6?  For the sake of traditions of men, we continually perpetuate the concept that God’s name is called Wonderful Counselor.  To the contrary, his name is not Wonderful Counselor, but rather Wonderful and, seperately, His name is Counselor.  We like to have this habit of overlooking during the Xmas season, overlooking the concept of giving, overlooking the concept of reading Scripture for all it’s worth, and overlooking the meaning of His names.

In so conjoining Wonderful and Counselor, we forget the meaning of both.

What does it mean to say God is Wonderful?
God is the Wonderful.  For this, consider that God manifested Himself to Moses and delivered Israel’s offspring from the hand of Mizraim (Egypt).  We forget that He, appropriate to the birth of the Messiah, showed Pharaoh His wonders.  This passage and account of Israel’s deliverance is appropriate to the account of the birth of Christ, since God called His son out of Egypt, and during the time of Moses, called His people Israel out of the Egyptian wilderness.  

For He is full of wonders.

He is not some trite part Xmas cantata.  A fixture or decoration of the tree idol we seek to set up in our homes, but rather, He and His wonders are the heart and heartbeat of the Xmas season.  

Moreover, He is the Counselor, the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside and encourages and exhorts.  He is the Baptizer with fire and the near present Immanuel, the God in, with, and among us.

He is the one who gives comfort and counsel to the abandoned, orphan, widow, fatherless, sufferers of neuroses and psychoses, far more effectively than any therapist, psychiatrist, or scrip for antidepressants.  He speaks and influences and, if, by His very words the heavens and earth were formed (Heb 11), then surely His speaking into our individual lives is that much more effective and…wonderful.

Okay, so, I have heard this story a zillion times before and only four years ago did I ever hear someone challenge the traditional interpretation of it (you know, from the perspective of Esau, that Jacob deceived Esau of his birthright).  The challenger was my wife, Kresha, and the comment was “Jacob was not being a deceiver.  He was just being a good businessman.”  Jacob’s name means literally “he who grabs the heel.”  He was named for the incident in which he grabbed Esau’s heel as Esau was coming out of Rebekah’s womb.


Since we in the church seem to so frequently have a socialistic interpretation on Scripture that God be fair, though God never purported or confessed to be fair.  He seems to occasionally behave, from our POV, much like a benevolent dictator, which, since He is God, befits Him.


And then we come to Esau’s assessment in Gen  27:36.

Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

And we mindlessly agree with that perspective and move along, because after all, it’s written in the Bible.  Everything that is said by someone in the Bible is exactly in agreement and in line with God’s thinking, and needs no other interpretation.

However, this time, when I heard the comment, it got me thinking, is there any evidence of Jacob’s being just a good businessman or a deciever?

Let’s look at the passage together recounting the birth of the twins and the birthright issue.  God says the following:


²³ And the LORD said to her:

      “Two nations are in your womb,
      Two peoples shall be separated from your body;
      One people shall be stronger than the other,
      And the older shall serve the younger.”
²⁴ So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. ²⁵ And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau.<sup class="footnote" value="[a]”>[a] ²⁶ Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob.<sup class="footnote" value="[b]”>[b] Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
²⁷ So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. ²⁸ And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
²⁹ Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom.<sup class="footnote" value="[c]”>[c]
³¹ But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.”
³² And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”
³³ Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.”
So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

So, Esau was a skilled hunter who could have found his own food and roasted it over the fire that Jacob had prepared for his soup or made a fire for himself in the wilderness, if Jacob did not have a fire (we are not told Jacob has a fire, but perhaps we may assume a fire is present for soup to be warmed).  But instead, Esau wants soup.  Jacob wants the birthright, and did not steal it away as by stealth.  Esau SOLD the birthright.  Moreover, for us to say that Esau despised his birthright (v. 34) only to turn around and agree tacitly with Esau that Jacob “deceived” him of his birthright, is contradictory.  Esau, who could have shot that tasty venison that he got two chapters later for his father Isaac, instead was feeling lazy and the soup was smelling nice.  It would be nice to sit on his can and get a bowl of chow without having to work for it.

So, no, church, Jacob did not deceive Esau, unless you consider a broad daylight sale and trade in full knowledge and complete competence and sanity to be deception.  Moreover, when the writer says Esau despised his birthright, that means that Esau did not care about his birthright and was willing to give it in exchange.  

Why should we pitch sound exegesis out the window just because someone pitches a fit in the Bible, the way Esau did?

Now as for the blessing, we know that Jacob did dress himself up, and Isaac was blind, so that can be considered legitimate deception.  However, Rebekah had received a prophecy that the “older [would] serve the younger,” (v. 23) though we are not told that Isaac knew of the prophecy.  Given Rebekah’s favor of Jacob and her help in deceiving of Isaac, it is possible she held this secret and did not tell Isaac, in case it would work to Jacob’s advantage.  However, it was God’s plan to make Jacob greater than Isaac.  So, this deception could have been orchestrated as part of God’s plan to make Jacob into the nation of Israel, since He would have known the heart of Jacob as different from Esau.  Esau, as the lesson with the stew illustrates, could have had a Saul-like quality of arrogance or pride that would have kept God from choosing him.

Moreover, God, in His foreknowledge also says in Malachi that “He loved Jacob and hated Esau.”  It may be because of this incident that revealed Esau’s heart to us, that caused Malachi to pen God’s words about Jacob and Esau.

Consider this well, and know that Jacob’s work in obtaining the birthright and the blessing was permitted by God, and was used to accomplish His ends, which meant Israel was blessed.


Thoughts?

Dr. Mark Hausfeld, a mentor, friend, and former teacher from seminary, wrote and presented the following from Lausanne, a big world evangelization convention that is meeting this year in South Africa.

Dr. Mark Hausfeld on “Missional Greeting”

I struggle with anger.

Not just the kind where I cussed my Father, my dad, and pastors for every four letter word in the book.  But the kind that took those offenses and defended them militantly.

I think I am starting to understand that part from Ephesians 4:26ish that says, “Be angry but do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”  Or as the other translations say “In your anger do not sin.”  I would like to think Paul was saying “do not sin by the way of/the avenue/the means of anger.”  That is, sin done through anger has a murderous dimension that makes it especially vile, and brings the sinner to a place of blindness and enablement to do things he would otherwise not do in his right mind.

I have been there.  IN the place where I was empowered to to the wrong thing.  It’s a pitiful place to be.  It’s nothing but a dead end, or as Paul comments in another place, as fruitful as “boxing the air.” 

Reminds me of “Madea Goes to Jail” and a comment Madea makes during one of the prison meetings.  In that scene we hear that forgiveness is not for the other person.  It’s for you.  It’s for the one who has been offended, so that they can be liberated.  Madea, in this scene says to one of the embittered inmates.  “Your dad is somewhere living his life, and you’re on lockdown.”  That line just struck me between the eyes when I first heard it and it has stayed with me ever since.

I say that to say this.  Anger is the key to liberty or jail.  Anger and offense, that is, are the keys to getting in and out of jail.  In other words, if you let go of your anger and forgive the other person, then you will experience true freedom, and on the converse, if you choose to take up anger (which is always a choice for us, and yes, we can help the way we feel, bonafide chemical imbalances notwithstanding) then you will go into a place of solitude, where everyone you know will desert you.  The only way we can let this go is to give it to the Lord.  Not something else or someone else.  The Lord is the only one who has enough resources and patience to handle the fullness of our anger.

Allow me to illustrate

John and Sarah are some friends of ours from Florida.  One day John called me up to tell me that Sarah had just introduced him to Chuck and Laura, two of her old friends from youth group.  During the conversation, Chuck mentioned that he stayed at home and cleaned.  Sarah related that Chuck should teach John how to clean properly.  This made John angry, because it cast him in a lazy light in front of people he had never met.  Later, Sarah came up to John and apologized to her for saying what she said.  So John asked me what I thought.  I told him it might be best to let patience take the lead on this so that he did not say something out of anger he might regret.  I also suggested that Sarah might apologize to Chuck and Laura for saying hurtful things about him to people he does not know, since that might give them a negative first impression.

I use this illustration to make the following points about handling anger.  If your spouse/friend/parent “throws you under the bus,” you will still need to do the following

1. Forgive them. The Father has forgiven us our sins so we in turn must forgive others.  Not only does the security of our salvation depend on it, but our ability to hear from God with a soft heart hinges on our willingness to forgive others, as well as the personal freedom we experience.

2. Practice patience.  Patience is one of the major facets of love, and it is an antivenom for the poison of anger.  While anger shortens our fuse, patience lengthens our fuse, stops us, forces us to take a breath, and causes us to think over the situation before we speak.  The Proverbs prolifically espouse the benefits to the patient man of being slow to speak.  Patience is the best solution when the emotions of our prideful hearts have charged the atmosphere.

3.  Speaking of emotions, consider the following verses, since emotions flow from the heart (Proverbs label these the issues of life-Proverbs 4:23).  Place a guard over your heart according to Proverbs 4:23, and remember the verse out of Jeremiah 17:9.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”  If our hearts, being the seat of our emotions, are deceitful, and thus capable of deceiving us, then it is up to us to lead our hearts according to the Scriptures, and not letting our emotions and hearts lead us, mistaking those emotions for the voice of the Holy Spirit. 

Do not let your heart govern you, not for one second, because it will lead you down an undiscerned path.

ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·

Before the next blog, I would like to cite a response from Jon Greene to the last 1 Samuel post (1 Samuel 4:1-11).  He says,

“It always amazes me that Israel was able to recognize the God in the box without knowing the God of the Box. It’s a titanic example of missing the point.”


We have all heard the saying don’t put God in a box.  Fascinating that the children of Israel did just that.  They responded to God after He gave them the law and told them to put it in a box just the way the nations around them did.  Every time, up to this event, the ark went into battle, the Israelites were victorious, as it got reduced to the status of their talisman or lucky charm.  They refused to think outside the box.  Well put homoletically kosher analogy, brother Greene!  This is what happens to us and our victory in the Lord when we move from wrapping our identity in the gifts God has given, rather than wrapping the sum of our identity in God himself (and what He did on the cross for us in order for us to have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ).  


I have heard, as I am sure you have, from some well-meaning believers the idea that if we abuse the gifts God gives us that he is going to take them away from us.  The truth of that statement, though, is the one who believes that statement believes the spiritual gift or gift of God is a reward for good behaviour, instead of an actual gift.  How farcical can you get with the grace of God.  These gifts we are given are irrevocable and without repentance whatsoever.  There is no lockdown or holding tank for those of us who misuse or abuse the calling or the gift God gives us.  The gift has been freely given by Him and freely received by us.  Such is one of the tricky aspects of grace.  We are still free to abuse and neglect our gifts and callings, but the real question is, now that we have the free will to do what we will with what He has given us, knowing that He will not take those deposits away, but rather will call us to account for how we have used them, how will we respond to that?


Just because our gifts and callings are irrevocable does not mean that God does not have a way to call us to account for our use and abuse of them.  Scary thought, huh?  


I say this in light of the fact that I sat under a couple of pastors who abused me or someone I knew.  It’s a hard pill to swallow, knowing that all authority is ordained of God, even those who abuse and misuse us, and all authority can be used to serve His ends.  Think of the worst dictators you can imagine, and even in the midst of that man or woman’s rule, God is still present and will still call that person to account, and in His mercy allow them a season to repent, while they yet have a chance to use the gifts given them to glorify Him.  The question is, what does God see when He looks at you and me, and is He pleased with the way we are using that time, gift, or resource?
  

More Ken Ham stuff here…

The premise and motive for Ken Ham’s concern are admirable and reasonable:  to make sure the authority of Scripture is upheld.  For those of us with a high view of the Holy Writ, such a concern is one of the lynch-pins of our fellowship.  Thank God for those of presumably like-minded intentions.


However (let the goraning begin), the underlying philosophy of Ken Ham’s article (my young-earth view is the only way to avoid mangling Scripture) is to the thoughtful ethos of Evangelical and Spirit-filled Christianity what Glenn Beck is to Joel Watts. AVOIDED LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!!!!


Okay, now that I have used Glenn Beck and Joel Watts and the Plague in the same paragraph, I shall cease cackling maniacally, and continue with my (ahem) thoughtful discussion on this subject.

I have for the most part been pretty carefree about the subject, since the details of Creation and the timing of the Rapture, and the finer points of Ecclesiology, though they make for interesting discussion, do not count much for the scheme of things with respect to our mutual salvation.  Ken Ham, however has forced me, by this discussion to put my two cents in on the subject, since my positions in the kingdom of God, the church of Jesus Christ, and in Assemblies of God permits me freedom of belief with respect to this subject.  

Any serious study of the Scripture on these subjects must first have three things, according to John Wesley and St. Augustine,

In the essentials, unity
In the nonessentials, liberty
In all things, charity (or love)


The essentials of Christianity are as follows. The twelve points of the Apostles Creed.  Beliefs in the authority of Scripture, the triune Godhead, the deity of Jesus Christ, the reality of divine healing, the return of Jesus Christ, and our identity in Christ.  As far as Creation, there is one thing that is necessary for us to believe.  Mankind was created perfect and upright, but, through his own choice,he rebelled against God, and by this rebellion, he reaped physical death, as well as spiritual death, which is separation from God.


I believe that mankind was created on day 6 of a literal 6 day event.  Both the Young Earth Theory and the varying Gap Theories, as I interpret them, allow for that literal 6 day event, whether you call that the creation of the earth, or the recreation of the earth after some cosmic event.  


Even though I really don’t care what we believe of these two theories, just like I don’t care WHEN the Rapture takes place, since following Christ and being in relationship with him is the basis for faith, I will still state some of these things that strike me as interesting and give my opinion on these matters. 


Do try to keep in mind though, two things.  1) These are called theories for a reason.  2) We cannot speak beyond Scripture in these matters on authority, since only God know the ends and the full details of these events, and we will find out then, as we will on the rest of the mysteries of the faith.

David Falls, in his book “Foundations for the Battlefield,”begins the work of discussing spiritual warfare with the creation narrative, since it is somewhat helpful to his case.  Falls, who has made a study of warfare a central part of his hobby of knowing the Lord for the past two decades, writes two noticable things concerning the Genesis 1:1-2 passage. 

First

“In the above verse I see one apparent contradiction: our God is a God of light.  He is radiant.  When Jesus was transfigured, He glowed so brightly, he was painful to look at (Matt. !7:1-17)….  Yet, the earth is dark” (page 23).

In other words, if God is light and a God of radiance and glory, why are we introduced to the earth in verse 2, in the words of several translations as, “without form and void/formless and empty/without form and an empty waste/a soup of emptiness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”  And there is the matter of the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the dark abyss, the deep waters, the face of the deep, or the surface of the waters.  Not, the Spirit of God hovering over nothing, but rather the Spirit of God hovering over something.  Arguments against other ANE literature abound at this point.  Who knows.  The truth of the matter is that God created everything we see out of nothing.  The fancy Latin term for this is “creatio ex nihilo.”


Unless we go the route of literalizing the term “void,” which is a poetic way of saying “nonexistent,” which the Genesis account could be doing in response to the other farcical accounts, the only argument that is a literal interpretation of the balance of the vocab used in the lion’s share of translations could be some form of the Gap Theory.  Even using a word such as empty can still connote something that exists that is empty, in the way that we humans can be empty emotionally at the death of a loved one, a divorce, or a bankruptcy, though this might be stretching the analogies farther than warranted. 


Some commentators, including, if memory serves correctly, Wenham, say this phrase can be accurately translated as chaotic and formless, which still does not get us empty enough to qualify as “creatio ex nihilo.”



Second
“Second, if we read on, we see another quizzical thing. If you are reading from the [KJV], there is a spot where God says, ‘be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (Gen 1:28).’  I thought about that word replenish one day, so after some research I discovered that, sure enough, the word in Hebrew actually means “replenish.” “But how can that be?” I wondered…How can the earth be [replenished] with life when life has never existed before?”

One minor concern of mine here is what Falls’ research consisted of, I never got around to asking him.  Believe me, I am not saying he is incompetent by any means.  The book is probably the best terse discussion of spiritual warfare and our role in it based on some very hard-fought and costly experiences, the tenth of which I would not dare to discuss in this forum.  I am just saying exactly what is on my mind, no more.  Further, the word there could potentially be translated as “replenish,” though there are other ways to translate it.  

Falls then goes on to deal with the Gap Theory in a nutshell, doing a pretty decent job of explaining it. 

Overall, this is why I have a concern with Ken Ham making an issue or example out of this position paper and throwing it under the spotlight.  I get testy when people in the body of Christ go about defending their interpretation of some non-morality based issue in Word of God against supposed enemies with backhanded critical remarks that sound sophisticated but really come across as exclusivistic.  Many denominations do this.  They take a particular issue and grind it like an axe, and become that issues prophet, declaring all others heretics.  The Boston Church of Christ did it with water baptism, some pastors I encountered in my early days of involvement with the Assemblies of God treated speaking in tongues as a condition of salvation, and now Ken Ham and other groups seek to take whole denominations to task just because they give their ministers liberty in dealing with such things as the finer points of the creation narrative.  

On a personal note, it was because David Falls, who came out of the Assemblies, prayed for me, and did not preach at me me about speaking in tongues in a proselytizing way that I ended up
having a personal encounter with the risen God that broke through to my heart, and gave me the blessing of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.  

Also, on another personal note, more pertinent to the subject at hand, my first encounter with a cogent presentation of the Young Earth Theory came as a teacher at a local Christian School in Springfield, Missouri as a science teacher.  It was the same Bob Jones Science Textbook that “strawmanned” the Gap Theory, as well as an encounter with a presentation by Kent Hovind on Creation and the Flood narrative, that helped me to understand the Young Earth Theory from a well-reasoned postulation.

The reason I appreciate the new AG Position paper, is that it does not force me to defend one literal interpretation of the Scripture against all others.  I enjoy the open forum for dialogue that this paper and men like Ben Aker from the AG Seminary allow us younger generations of ministers who are up-and-coming to have the flexibility and liberty to ask the open, honest, and sometimes difficult and hard questions of the Scriptures without having to fear of retribution.  

It may be possible that Ken Ham will come to the point that he stops proselytizing us that we may become more open to his viewpoint.  Until that happens, it is impossible for those of my ilk to have open and honest dialogue with AIG and like-minded dogmatic groups who come across as judging our views.

Let us have an open forum for dialogue, not just one simple dogma that is unalterable or one way of interpreting and applying the Hebrew, especially from someone who views the Genesis narrative as holding every major doctrine of the Christianity. 

 At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. 

At the time Samuel was established as a prophet and seer before the LORD in the presence of all Israel, the Philistines and their five lords were at war with Israel. 

The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek. ² 

Ebenezer was significant, because Samuel and the children of Israel defeated the Philistines near Ebenezer later in 1 Samuel and at that point they called it (further internal evidence that 1 Samuel was written after the victory at Ebenezer, after the events described herein) Ebenezer, meaning “Thus far has the LORD helped us.”

The Philistines attacked and defeated the army of Israel, killing 4,000 men.  After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?” 

Hmmm, I wonder why.  Geez, these people are idiots, or dense.  Did they forget the idolatry they engaged.

Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it<sup class="footnote" value="[a]”>[a] will save us from our enemies.”

So the ark will save you from your enemies.  Riiiight….

 ⁴ So they sent men to Shiloh to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim. Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were also there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. ⁵ When all the Israelites saw the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord coming into the camp, their shout of joy was so loud it made the ground shake!
 ⁶ “What’s going on?” the Philistines asked. “What’s all the shouting about in the Hebrew camp?” When they were told it was because the Ark of the Lord had arrived, ⁷ they panicked. “The gods have<sup class="footnote" value="[b]”>[b] come into their camp!” they cried. “This is a disaster! We have never had to face anything like this before! ⁸ Help! Who can save us from these mighty gods of Israel? They are the same gods who destroyed the Egyptians with plagues when Israel was in the wilderness. ⁹ Fight as never before, Philistines! If you don’t, we will become the Hebrews’ slaves just as they have been ours! Stand up like men and fight!”
 ¹⁰ So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again. The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day. The survivors turned and fled to their tents. ¹¹ The Ark of God was captured, and Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were killed.

Well, we can see that strategy worked out really well for them.

And that strategy looks like it’s worked out really well for us.  We trust in so many things that are not the Lord, and we get into so much trouble as a result of trusting to those other things.  And I know I am not just preaching to my audience.  I am preaching to myself.  Really, if you and I would trust the Lord, we would make it through these obstacles and adversaries.

Are you trusting to your own lucky charms, or the Lord for deliverance?  Even the things that look good and were given to you by God, including your own God-given gifts and talents cannot deliver you. 

http://sunestauromai.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/the-ag-paper-on-creation-and-ken-ham/


I never could stand Ken Ham’s dogma that required believers to affirm his view alone of Creation in order to be truly saved or have the truth.  Such a view being required is shortsighted at best, and the strawman arguments put up by Ham and institutions such as Bob Jones University in their curriculum against their version or interpretation of the Gap Theory or any other plausible explanation of the Genesis narratives are in a word, asinine, since they do not adequately describe the minutiae of differing expressions of those theories.  BJU does not get the Gap Theory right or do it justice at all.  Their explanation is vastly oversimplified.

It reminds me of certain denominations who want to be so blasted dogmatic with a certain translations, or water baptism, or Spirit baptism, or other requirements that they place on the list of required beliefs for salvation.  Thank God we are only required to believe in Jesus Christ and the shedding of his blood for our sins.  That’s it.  Nothing else, including your interpretation on secondary issues like theories of creation, is required for salvation to be secure.  Nothing else can save you. 

Granted, this does not mean we disaffirm the account of Creation as accurate.  In fact the A/G position paper that was recently accepted and to which Ken Ham makes reference does NOTHING to undermine the authority of Scripture. Instead, it allows an openness in the denomination for allowing differing viewpoints to peacefully coexist in a forum of ideas, enriching our fellowship as we sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron, and as we learn from each other. 


Were Ken Ham’s dogma enforced among all evangelicals, it would function like a philosophical gag order and stifle the liberty we have in the Assemblies to disagree over the secondary matters, causing us to have religious and philosophical restrictions, which I as a minister would not tolerate at all.  The 16 Fundamental Truths are binding enough.


And now let the rambling cease.

Now, if only we could get some input from Kent Hovind on the matter.

As I said in the previous post on 1 Samuel 3, I think that the era of seers to which the writer of 1 Samuel is referring is an era which occurred prior to the time of his or her writing.  

Also, I submit to you that one thing I think is missing from the church in the present age is the willingness of those to whom the Lord has given gifts of sight into the realm of the Spirit (as John functioned on Patmos-Revelation 1:10-11). Yes I believe in the modern day function of apostles, prophets (seers and standard prophets), evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

The bottom line is that we need people who are willing to live consecrated lives and are willing to accept the call the Lord has placed on them to function as this.  Now at the risk of alienating a couple of my friends who are theobloggers, I am going to share my testimony, which involves a strong dose of this gifting and several prophetic words that confirmed what was already in my heart.  

I was saved at the age of four, when I witnessed the resurrected Christ.  The second person of the Trinity stood in my room and I knew it was Jesus.  He had wounds in his wrists, etc.  He was wearing a simple linen robe and had brown hair and beard, etc.  He asked me what I wanted, and I knew what I wanted.  I told him, “I want a godfather.”  To which he replied, “I will be your godfather.”  From that moment I knew (my parents divorced a few weeks later in 1984) and confessed with my  mouth that Jesus was the Son of God.  

The funny thing with me was that it was not a matter of believing without seeing.  It was seeing and knowing.  It’s like almost not having a choice to believe or not believe.  I knew and so was accountable for what I knew.  From that moment, I would have dreams where I went to heaven, and dreams where I saw hell.  I have experienced much that is glorious and much that is diabolical.  I have known joy about which I could say nothing for the magnitude of it, and I have known despair because of the fires of the lake.  I have from the age of five battled and struggled with the lust of the flesh, many times being victorious, many times falling.  All of this interaction came because I was called to flow as a seer.  I knew I had a specific calling, though I did not know how to verbalize it as a child.  

But I digress.  

If you want to know what a seer’s work looks like, examine the nature of the Revelation to John.  Examine the fact that he saw what the Lord showed him, and examine that he interpreted what was seen, and that Jesus evidently thought it important enough to show John.  

The tragic thing for me was that, while I accepted the teaching gifting to which I have also been called (the exact word is “a professor to the people”), from the age of 16 until I was 29, I rejected the seer aspect of my calling.  I was taught an overabundance of criticism that dried me out.  I left behind the truth of a large part of the way God designed me to function.  But that is no more.  If you wish to cover what the gift of a seer looks like, read 1 Samuel, the Revelation, and the life of Moses.  And if you have questions still, then shoot me an e-mail or Facebook me, and I will try to get back with you.

Now, back to the text.
19 And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. 21 And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

For those that are non-KJV or anti-KJV, I apologize for the use of the KJV.  This text is fairly straightforward, with one exception that jumped off the page.  

The Lord  “let none of his words fall to the ground.” 

Wow!!!  Every single word that Samuel spoke, because he grew in the Lord, was himself dedicated to the Lord’s work solely and the Lord was with him.  Because he was faithful to the Lord, the Lord established every single word.

Every

Single

Word.

One of my friends from college, Matt Manchester, said the following.  He was on our college campus and he saw a vision where there were words, literal words, littering the ground like trash.  Like discarded refuse.  Words that people had spoken, who were not dedicated to the Lord, that had been spoken and because they were not given to the Lord, they had fallen, ineffectively from their mouths, and did not reach their intended targets and accomplish the purpose intended.  

How many of you have said something you knew was worthless, only to regret what you have said?

The Lord offers mercy for that worthless word, if you will but confess it and repent.  He wants to help you speak words that will not fall to the ground.  He wants all of your words to be effective and to hit their intended target.