Speakers on Faith

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Bishop Barron on What Faith Is and What Faith Isn't
YouTube·Bishop Robert Barron·19 Oct 2011

"Pope Benedict wants a year of faith

When you know someone, watch for a while, find about her,
find a lot by reason, knowledge...
If you really want to know her, you have to meet her, something like
She will speak.... confirm what you thought...the more intimate is revealved
So you learn deeper stuff. Disclose to you , her free decisions to speak
Do I believe this person and trust her as true.
Apt analogy, what we mean by faith.

I conclude God exists, true, logical, carer of universe.
True faith never requires you to sacrifice your mind.
God is a person. Ground of all person-hood. Therefore to really know God
you have to wait for this free Person to speak.
He reveals to us things we can’t know....do I trust Him...
Faith that moment of trust.

I accept the truth of the God who speaks.

God is a person, He invites you to have faith.... you cannot have total control over that person

I have to trust, faith is not opposed to reason"...

I can agree with some of these thoughts...how many of us actually hear God speak to us daily, as a friend to a friend? Is this even possible?

Somethings are missing here, such as how do you know you are trusting God and how does God know you are trusting Him? What are the steps of the process of faith as communion with God?

Shalom

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Comments about the sermon “A Living Working Faith!”

A Living Working Faith! — The Gospel's Final Work — By Pastor Charles D. Mills — Red Boiling Springs, TN — At HIS Vine Free Seventh-day Adventist Church

Rob: A transcript is really good, as this makes the listening correct and true.


37:14 (Ellen White) continues she says the work for us to do is to come out and be ye  separate

Rob: The world lives by the faith in the Opposer, to live by their own religion, doing as they please, a life without rules running on self human power.  The opposite of this is living under faith, the process where you choose to be empowered by God in every specific need and want for your life, something sadly Pastor Mills does not explain in this sermon.

39:53 no matter how careful you

are there's still going to be weeds

41:48 it is our work also to make the seeds grow
I can educate myself in some of the best methods of soil
preparation , etc

I cannot make those seeds germinate
only our heavenly father gives that power to the plant



43:44 every action in planting a garden is is an act of

faith and trust in God's design for our lives


Rob: Interesting idea.



45:11 Jones, he brings out things and results
I've been in just two chapters of the book
we need to study and to learn of ourselves


Rob: I have not read much of Jones or Waggoner, Sure they were our pioneers, but they are not inspired as the messages that came from Ellen White. I did notice Waggoner and Jones do get very close to understanding faith, but do they explain the process in very child like terms? Hmm?


48:05 there's not a single person who's listening to a sermon I've ever spoke for the last 12 years that has the right
to say ...Pastor Mill said this

49:33 because I speak nothing but what the go Lord has already written

Rob: We must learn the Hebrew, not the English, study the teachings as best as you can under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We have no excuse, for we have a Hebrew English translator for deeper understanding of the Hebrew torah.

a strong living faith is only and strictly only because
it is founded in Jesus Christ the son of God .Amen .




50:00 Jesus through the Holy Spirit has empowered us and is working through us and that is a living working
Faith but we must meet the conditions laid
down in the word of God or die in our sins

Rob: What conditions ?, our Pastor does not explain.




50:59 I don't have the authority ,

51:22 have you really studied it for yourself ?


Rob: Yes have we studied the Scriptures for ourselves?

52:58 those who live to gratify appetite
and selfish desire will lose the favor of
God




55:41 Desiring the plain word of God without human inventions and excuses and yet it is us right
here that must have that Living Faith of Jesus working
within


59:07 CoVID was a practice run
these Universal University riots are practice riots




1:00:49 (Noah) is building an ark was there any sign of rain

no every scientific person in the entire known inhabited World said it was impossible to rain

God had created this world for no need of rain


I'm going to change the atmosphere
from what you know to what you do not know

1:02:23 Noah accepted that as truth 

as seventh day Adventist there's things God has told us 

that the world says that can't happen

there's a storm soon to flood this world because the spirit of God and his Mercy is being withdrawn



1:04:57 mercy there's a war going to happen that brings in the close
probation and under the close of probation there's another War that's going to happen and this is going to be
because the spirit of God has been withdrawn no mercy


Rob: "Do we take from our Pastor, that Faith is trusting things God says to us to do that we do not fully understand ?



1:06:46 do we live solely by the voice of
Christ ?

we accept Christ as a

redeemer we must accept him as a ?What ? ruler

Rob: "By faith we must claim the precious promise that we need rescue from our own wills. Hence we wish to be under another ruler apart from exercising free will to do things by self human power. This is your first faith principle to claim. Do you wish Jesus to rescue you from free will powers of self?

1:08:00 until we acknowledge Him and are obedient to his
Commandments thus we have evidence of our allegiance

to God when we have then the genuine ring in our faith it works by love

Rob: "I do not see the Ten Words as strictly to "obey". The Hebrew word is "shamar" to "guard". We must watch which faith promises we choose, and ask for their powers because we choose to ask. The word "obedience" implies a human power of self will to surrender something impossible for us to do. When you ask for a precious promise to be appropriated to yourself as a power from Jesus, you are by definition guarding the promise because you see your needs of weakness and ask for Jesus to make you stronger. God never forces the will, unlike the assumption of the word "to obey".

1:09:17 I want to graft you into me that you may produce living fruit but if we are not obedient then we are not
living a genuine in faith because we are not anchored by God

Rob: If you receive the powers because you asked humbly in Jesus, it is a genuine flow of faith, and you are supporting your Divine Saviour because your mind freely asks for His presence and power. If you don't ask, the power of divinity does not flow and you do what your self humans powers will do.

1:15:20 (some) teach speculative theories rather than the simple truths

1:15:47 they get with a little bit of Truth
most of the time way out of context

1:16:53 built on human theories


Rob: "Our Pastor Mills does not explain the process for getting this living faith from Jesus....so where is the simple truth proclaimed?


1:17:56 great nations of today by Jones a powerful dissertation on political history political future of this world
and all of God's Last Day messages of Revelation

such a powerful presentation

1:18:45 (if) you haven't read the
book you have no idea what you're talking about

as a third generation 7 Day Adventist

1:19:22 Jones addresses and I do not know anyone who
has ever put it together like he did

ROB: "Really? I would consider the Scroll of Yashah explains the process of faith better than any human who ever lived. Not Jones. I will check this book written by Jones.

1:20:40 America love to hire for ministers those with degrees of philosophy


1:23:22 we are living in a faith of
a religion that is true before for God


1:29:03 we spend one hour Faithfully in daily personal communion with God when we live our lives in complete surrendered Devotion to our Heavenly Father

1:30:33 have dead formalism religiosity at its
finest

1:30:47 this is what the vast majority of who profess
Christianity this is what they are before God
dead men and women walking

1:30:55 Walking Dead

ROB:" Where is the simple truth, explaining how we get a living faith from Jesus?


1:32:12 world you see if we are spotted from the world doesn't matter how many times we go to the fatherless and the widows in their Affliction you can't pick and choose
choose what you want to do it's
everything or nothing

ROB: "Hmm? The free will is free to choose. We are not all the same. We have all different gifts. However the Ten Words are Ten principles of faith, that all under Jesus will choose to ask when we need them. Where in the Ten Words does it empower the supporter of Jesus to show care to the fatherless and the widow?

Ex 22:22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child

Here in the judgements about how the broader Ten Principles of Faith work.

Jas 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

 So James, a writer of faith, explains some details of how we can choose precious promises. Do we avoid with our eyes, and not claim a precious promise?

What does James say?

Jas 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

What you are doing by avoiding to ask a precious promise is to neglect God and thus your support of God, you could be ignorant, or not listening to God speak, or of a divided mind, or...

The Opposer know these things and floods the world around you with confusion and people in need on TV, in cities, and places where you feel helpless and without sufficient faith to meet all the needs. One can only live by experience and child like training. Praise the Lord for whoever comes to Him, He does not cast out.

1:33:16 Faith it affects our actions our motives our thoughts because we are being in the very presence of the will and design of our heavenly father and how he lived and
how Jesus Jesus lived on this Earth is our example

ROB:" Yes faith does affect our character, because we ask for such change.


1:34:35 Wagner stated these things present truth

Rob: " Waggoner writes well, but does he nail the messages of faith clearly?

1:37:35 so take the first steps making God's word the principles of our life now

ROB: The first steps are not explained...

that's going to be hard for some people
because self has to die

Rob" The rescue of self is our first precious promise from the Ten Commandments, which are principles of faith, not strict rules we obey our of fear. The first precious promise is written in the Scroll of Yashah

Ho 13:4 Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

Jesus promises to rescue us from free will to choose self. Ask Him. You do not have to make some higher process to surrender, just ask Him, knowing this unknown power of victory will come because you asked in prayer.  Shalom

1:38:05 we can have a living thriving working Faith

1:38:35 May each of us surrender to that
will Moment by moment day by day. amen amen

Rob Summary: "Pastor Mills and the Vine Free Seventh Day Adventist Church is an assembly separate to the General Conference Assembly, and while this may not matter, the sermon suggests that "a living faith" is more about "talking" than genuine faith in Jesus. He does not present what "a living faith" is, because, simply he may not experience the nature of a child like faith in God. We must all work out our own salvation in Jesus with fear and trembling, for we may be as Ellen White said, 

Almost Christians, yet not fully Christians, they seem near the kingdom of heaven, but they can not enter there. Almost, but not wholly saved, means to be wholly lost. {ST January 6, 1904, par. 3}

May God help all His servants to grapple and experience such a vital theme, for we are all trained by child training under the Lord and His Holy Spirit. 

May God have mercy on all of us, with our ignorance and in experience.

Shalom

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Here the Author read A.T. Jones messages on Faith

www.1888mpm.org/files/Lessons%20on%20Faith-AT%20Jones.pdf

Now what did the centurion expect would do the work? "The word ONLY." Upon what did he depend for the healing of his servant? Upon "the word ONLY."

Now, brother, sister, what is faith?

to inculcate faith, must teach that the word has in it power to accomplish what itself says.

For he spoke, and it was." Psalm 33:6-9. Before He spoke, it was not; after He spoke, "it was." Only by speaking, it was. What caused it to be? The word only.

But darkness was upon all the face of the deep. God wished light to be there, but how could there be light when all was darkness? Again He spoke. "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." Whence came the light? The word, which was spoken, itself produced the light. "The entrance of thy words gives light." Psalm 119:130


It is the very characteristic of the word of God that it possesses the divine power by which itself accomplishes the thing, which is spoken.

The teaching of faith is the teaching that such is the nature of the word of God; the teaching of people to exercise faith is the teaching them to expect the word of God to do what it says and to depend upon it to do the thing which is by it spoken; the cultivating of faith is by practice to cause to grow confidence in the power of the word of God itself to do what in that word is said and dependence upon that word itself to

accomplish what the word says; Are you cultivating faith?

Rob: "Is faith just a flow from divine words, or from the Divine because the words were spoken? A T Jones does not understand this verse:

Ps 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath "ruwach" "Holy Spirit" of his mouth. (KJV)

The word "ruwach" means "medium" for all contexts, so how was the power Jesus spoke come into existence?

Hab 3:4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.

This Hebrew word is used only once here, The KJV does a great job in translating this word.

When Jesus spoke He used faith, so the words spoken came with power, because the Holy Spirit did what was asked and from Jesus hand came this unknown hiding, the power of the Father flowed from Jesus hand. Therefore Faith is a Divine Effort, a flow gifted to mankind by God. The biological simile for faith is the manna from heaven. The spiritual manna from heaven is the precious promises in the Word.

O, the word of God is divine! In it is creative energy. It is "living and powerful." The word of God is self-fulfilling, and to trust it and depend upon it as such, that is to

exercise faith. "Hast thou faith?"

Say that - and exercise the faith, which God has given to you, as to every other person in the world, for "understanding how to exercise faith, this is the science of the gospel."

"The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of
cultivating faith is more important than any other knowledge that can be obtained."

And Abraham did it, hoping against hope. God had said: Thy seed shall be as the
stars of heaven; In Isaac shall thy seed be called. Offer Isaac for a burnt offering.
Abraham did not insist that God should "harmonize these passages." It was all
sufficient for him to know that the statements were all the word of God. Knowing this,
he would trust that word, would follow that word, and would let the Lord "harmonize
these passages," or "explain these texts," if any such thing were needed.

Said Abraham: God has said, Offer Isaac for a burnt offering. That I will do. God has
said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." And, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude. I interfered once in the promise and hindered it till I repudiated all that I had done and came back to the word only. Then, by a miracle, God gave me Isaac, the promised seed. Now He says, Offer Isaac, the promised seed, for a burnt offering. I will do it. By a miracle God gave him at the first, and by a miracle God can restore him. Yet when I shall have offered him for a burnt offering, he will be dead, and the only miracle that can then restore him is a miracle that will bring him back from the dead. But God is able to do even that, and He will do it, for His word is spoken, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude, and In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And even the bringing back of Isaac from the dead will be to God no more than He has already done, for, as to offspring, both my body and Sarah's were as good as dead, and yet God brought forth Isaac from us. He can raise Isaac from the dead, and He will. Bless the Lord!


Abraham expected to offer Isaac for a burnt offering and expected then to see Isaac
rise from the ashes and go back with him. For the word of God had gone forth, In
Isaac shall thy seed be called, and, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for
multitude. And Abraham would trust that word only that it could never fail. Hebrews
11:17-19
THIS IS FAITH.

Rob: "I would not wholeheartedly agree with AT Jones, that this is faith.

Jones is presenting here that GOD can and does ask his servants to do things that make no sense in our present time, or are beyond our current understanding. So faith is also trusting God. However, this is a special time when GOD wanted to test the sincerity of Abraham. I do not see this as the definition of faith.

For forever it stands written, "To him that works not but believeth on him that justifies
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." "Even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ." "Whom God hath set forth . . . to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past."
This is what it is to exercise faith. Are you exercising faith? For "understanding how to exercise faith: this is the science of the gospel.

Faith is complete dependence upon the word of God only for the accomplishment of

what that word says.

So, where there is no word of God, there cannot be any faith

.
Many people pray but do not know whether it is the will of the Lord that they should
have what they pray for and so do not know whether they can certainly claim it; and
not knowing whether they can claim it, they are all at sea as to whether their prayers

are answered or not.

The Lord does not want anybody to move uncertainly. Therefore, He has given His
word, which thoroughly furnishes every one unto all good works and by which are
given all things that pertain unto life and godliness.

Anyone who seeks in the word of God for the specific things which God has provided and then bows upon that specific word for that thing, is asking according to the plainly expressed will of God, and knows that his prayer is heard and that he has the thing for which he prayed.

So doing, the prayers will be always certain, the life will be filled with the direct gifts of God, and the faith will be sure and strong and will be ever increasing in strength

ROB: Wow, this is a wonderful and true statement by A.T. Jones, but not elaborated upon. Mrs White has much to say of this aspect of faith in our lives.

Some messages from Ellen White:

When Brother Waggoner brought out these ideas in the Minneapolis Conference, it was the first clear teaching of the subject from any human lips I had heard, excepting the communication between myself and my husband. I have said to myself, it is because God has presented it to me in vision that I see it so clearly, and they cannot see it because they have not had it presented to them as I have, and when another presented it, every fibre of my heart said 'Amen.' " -- MS 5, 1889.

Ellen White endorsed the messages of righteousness by faith and the light of these two men at the time in 1888. God have given them light, and they presented it to the Church, some received it gladly, others did not. Some rejected the truth, basking on the Old Covenant of human works.

Here are some somber messages, application to human fragility:-

“Our Counselor then laid his hands on the shoulders of Elder A. T. Jones and Elder E. J. Waggoner and said, ‘You are confused. You are in the mist and fog. You have need of the heavenly anointing.’ To Brother Jones He said, ‘Why have you permitted your mind to be worked as it has been? I warned you not to permit this.’ He said to Brother Waggoner, ‘Leave the place where you now are, and walk in the path that I have pointed out. Living Temple is full of seductive sentiments, which if received, will tear down the foundations of your faith, and weaken your perceptions of truth and righteousness.’

In 1906 Elder Waggoner, after his wife had divorced him because of his attentions to a nurse with whom he had become acquainted in England, married the lady. This, of course, terminated his connection with the church. A few years later we find him at the Battle Creek Sanitarium working in medical and religious lines. There is no record that he ever opposed the church. On May 28, 1916, at the age of 61 years, he died at his home of a heart attack after a full day of activity. Word of his death was given to the church in a back-page note in the The Review and Herald, June 29, 1916.


It is quite possible that Elder Jones or Waggoner may be overthrown by the temptations of the enemy; but if they should be, this would not prove that they had had no message from God, or that the work that they had done was all a mistake.... I pray that these men upon whom God has laid the burden of a solemn work, may be able to give the trumpet a certain sound, and honor God at every step, and that their path at every step may grow brighter and brighter until the close of time.”—Letter 24, 1892.


It is the pleasure of God that Brother A. T. Jones should serve this Conference another year as president. It is His pleasure that A. T. Jones should put away all appearance of a magisterial, domineering, authoritative manner. He is not to think that by virtue of his position as president of a Conference, he has arbitrary authority. True, he is to have authority, but it is to be just such an authority as Jesus had, an authority that is hid in the meekness and lowliness of Christ.—MS 120, 1902 (October 6) {PCL 130.1}



I am sending you two letters written to Elder A. T. Jones. They have not as yet been sent to him. If you see anything in them that you think would better be left out, I hope that you will feel free to use your judgment. There are some things which, though quite true, it might not be best to present now. We must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. {Lt 163, 1903, par. 9



Another scene passed before me. I seemed to be in a large assembly of people. The influence of the Holy Spirit was present and was felt by those in the room. But Brother A. T. Jones pushed himself to the front and read some things that had a bearing upon Elder Prescott. With a look of sadness, the angels of God seemed to be departing from the room, while evil angels pressed to the front. {Lt 242, 1906, par. 56}


Rob : " The messages of Jones and Waggoner on faith are most impressive, and correct light as they saw and presented it. However, if you compare their message to the writings of Ellen White, not all that could be said about faith as a process was not explained by Jones or Waggoner. There is much more from studying Scripture that Jones and Waggoner did not describe about faith and the process of getting more faith from Jesus. Shalom