Thank you Moderators and Administrators for allowing me to reply, I am indeed grateful because I feel now I have a duty to reply. Sorry its rather late in coming but for one reason and another I have only just finished writing it.
I will do my best not to allow this discussion to overheat in future, it is also my hope and prayer that you will take care to read and understand what has been written.
B. W. wrote:Update:
For those following this thread line. oldman was temporally banned due to accusatory tone he imposed upon those responding to him as well as an unwillingness to discuss matters according to Forum Guidelines. We have shown great grace by permitting oldman to express his views, and offering him choice in the matter of his own spiritual development. Oldman did not demonstrate this toward those participating on this thread line. He falsely accused us here of blaspheming the Holy Spirit for daring to questioning his point of view.
Next, while cannabis can or may have some medical value etc, however, when used to increase ones spirituality, that medical value falls to the wayside. Such use is classed in the bible, as forbidden due to the conjuring nature of inviting spirits (demonic) into a person's life. Such drugs were used in the past for that purpose. Let me state that the Lord himself, would not induce someone to use cannabis (or alcohol, meth, etc) in order to grow one's spirituality toward himself. The bible is clear - Jesus is the only way to the Father - there are no other ways, no matter how presented. Any other way would be classed as breaking the first two of the Ten Commandants and setting up an idol to serve.
While oldman's words appear to sound nice, he denies who Jesus really is and portrays Jesus as a mere created thought of God.
Excuse me but I do not deny Jesus is God, neither do I deny the reality of the Trinity. What I do deny however is the idea that Jesus the Son of God, did not come from His Father.
Just before Christmas I posted a reply to you because of your refusal to accept that in the beginning, the Son came from His Father. What I asked you was:
How can the Son not come from His Father and still be the Father's Son?
“How can any son exist without there first being a father?”
But instead of giving me a clear answer to these questions, the reply I got was a suggestion that I should read an article by Richard Deem
http://www.godandscience.org/cults/jesuscreated.html which supported the concept of Trinity. This article also included some Bible references that speak of Jesus being God. But there was nothing there to disprove the belief that in the beginning God the Son came from His Father. I was also given some links to some old threads in another forum also supporting the concept of Trinity and was told to read them.
Well I am sorry but that sought of reply is not helpful, although I have to say that I did agree entirely with what PaulSacramento wrote in
the last post of the last thread you told me to read:
http://goo.gl/fBe9rA Thu Oct 17, 2013, PaulSacramento wrote, “
for God to be GOD His love had to be the highest form of Love and that is NEVER a self-centered love but a love that gives and sacrifices for others a love focused and centered on others.
Only the Trinity answers that issue”.
That being said, these questions still remain unanswered,
“How can the Son not come from His Father and still be the Father's Son?” “How can any son exist without there first being a father?”
In that same reply that I posted just before Christmas I also explained,
“the Son must have come from His Father because they would not have been revealed to us as “Father” and “Son” for nothing”.
A few days later I was banned with no clear answer being given to those questions.
Now that this ban has been lifted I would also like to say that simple logical deductions still keep telling me that the Son must have come from His Father because if the Son did not come from His Father
He would not have told us He was the Son of His Father!
Allow me then please, this opportunity to explain what I see God telling us...
Believing that the Son came from His Father does not mean to say the Son was merely the first created being as the JWs and others would have us believe, but rather that the Son was a facsimile of His Father, virtually the same in every way but a new free thinking mind that became another person: the Son of the Father. He came into existence but with
no conceivable beginning to our finite minds, He was and is, like His Father but not the same person. Everything about the Father's Son is like His Father except the Father existed before His Son and was the Father of His Son. Although they are virtually identical they are two free thinking persons who, because of their pure and perfect love for each other, created everything that has ever been created, instilling their Spirit of free and perfect love into all who they created.
“
In the beginning was the Word” (The Son first existed only in the thoughts of His Father.), “
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (This Word of the Father became a facsimile of the Father,
not a creation as such but
another part of the Father, a new free thinking mind with no conceivable beginning to our finite minds. This new mind became another person like the Father: The Father's Son.) “
He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him,” (through the Father and the Son's love for each other they began creating everything.) “
without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3.
In the beginning before anything was made, the Son was,
as the Nicene Creed also explains: “begotten, not made”, having no conceivable beginning to our finite minds.
The Father and the Son's love is what governs creation, “God is love”
as Scripture clearly proclaims and this God governs creation. This God would not exist without the Son, and the Son would not exist without the Father. Such is the Triune God of reason who has no conceivable beginning to our finite minds. It is this eternal God who created everything.
On the other hand, to believe that the Son never came from His Father before all things were made is, as far as I see, illogical unreasonable nonsense.
I must therefore ask again: “How can the Son not come from His Father and still be the Father's Son?”
B. W. wrote:Much of what he said is seemingly Gnostic and new age-ish. He constantly demands that we define what we believe and when he did, he either ignored this, or chooses not to read it. Oldman's comments serve as a testament of a spiritually oppressed person bound to spirit guides. Some people may have never encounter this before so let this thread serve as a learning ground. There are people, as the bible says, taken captive to do the devils will, who often come as angels of light, in order to deceive and entrap. They do speak great swelling words of emptiness too.
The bible, as shown on this thread, indeed mentions that the true Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus and glorifies him. When someone comes along, saying they have a holy spirit that does not do this, rest assured you are dealing with someone bound to spirit guides or worse. From what oldman has written, my prayer is that you see this.
Now for oldman, as I stated I would, would like to have anyone willing reading this join and agree with me in a short prayer for him:
Heavenly Father, we thank you for writing our names in the book of life, granting us authority to bear your name and walk as you being your hands, feet, your body on earth to tell good news to those afflicted, to heal the brokenhearted, to speak forth liberty to those held captive to tragic thoughts, and freedom to those held prisoner to bondages. We thank you for your ability at work in us to be able to proclaim the liberating gospel and proclaim the the reason why you disapprove of certain things clearly for there will be a day of your vengeance. We thank you for instructing us on how to bring comfort to those who mourn over the errors of their ways and how to turn sadness of loss into gladness and a garland of victory in Jesus Christ our Lord and savior. We thank you for teaching us to praise instead of faint and lose heart when we see those around choose to walk according to the ways of ruin. We thank you, for making us solid, like oaks to show case your righteousness alone and not our own personal ideas of it. We thank you for granting us the authority to rebuild from the ruins your Kingdom on earth where ever you have assigned us.
We lift up oldman according to your authority, and ask you to set him free from the deceptions of his spirit guides. Lead him to grow weary of these and wake him up to the ruin they will lead him too so that oldman can repent and turn to you alone. We ask that you keep after him, make his life miserable in order to wake him up to his deceptions because he cannot see how he will be held to account for deceiving many to follow his ways. He has given himself over to spiritual paths, not ordained by you but to those ways condemned by you and is heading for a fearful day of judgment. We ask you Lord to spare him this, and begin the process in oldman's life by which he repents and returns to You, you alone. Release your ministering angels to do battle on your behalf for him so his life be spared all at you command as you know best. Heavenly Father, we thank you for permitting oldman to come here and we know, as it is written, that you do not desire to lose anyone, and sent forth Messiah Yeshua, for that purpose, you know who will make it and who will not. Those things we don't know, but oldman came here and we did our duty to reach out in true love and true love is often tuff, in order to set the captive free. So according to your will, we plead for oldman's complete salvation at your appointed time.
In Jesus name. Amen
Please, if you really do want to help me then don't just reply to my questions with articles by other people or with links to old discussions, or with Bible references that do nothing to prove my understanding of God is wrong. If you really do care to help me then give me clear answers to my questions
in your own words. By all means use Scripture but please carefully explain
in your own words why any particular verse or verses in the Bible cause you to believe as you do. Then shall the truth be revealed more clearly here for us all to see.
How can the Son not come from His Father and still be His Son?
How can any son exist without there first being a father?
Now further to what you wrote concerning cannabis:
B. W. wrote:Next, while cannabis can or may have some medical value etc, however, when used to increase ones spirituality, that medical value falls to the wayside. Such use is classed in the bible, as forbidden due to the conjuring nature of inviting spirits (demonic) into a person's life. Such drugs were used in the past for that purpose. Let me state that the Lord himself, would not induce someone to use cannabis (or alcohol, meth, etc) in order to grow one's spirituality toward himself.
Let me state that the Lord Himself, reveals Himself to whoever He so wills, whenever He so wills, in whatever measure He so wills, irrespective of the culture a person happens to be involved in at the time.
Now let me clear up any misunderstanding there might be in what I wrote concerning cannabis...
I never said that cannabis must be used in order to have a saving knowledge of God. What I remember happening is that sometime in the early part of 1986, when deeply under the influence of cannabis, I came to realise how lost I was and that I did not know who or what to believe in. Even when the effects of cannabis had worn off I could still see how hopelessly lost and double minded I was. A determination then started growing within me to look and find out for myself whether or not the God I was told to believe in when I was a child really existed. It was this growing determination that eventually moved me to find my old Gideon's Bible given to me when I left school and to start reading the Gospel of Matthew from the beginning through to the end. I decided if this Christian God was real then I would find Him there, and if there was no convincing evidence of Him there would be no such God. As I recall, this search got under way some time in the spring or summer of 1986, and starting very slowly I would read just a few verses at a time with days and often weeks passing between each reading. As the months went by and the more I read, the more I found myself becoming fascinated by it, not least because I believed I was sensing something of God, more so when I studied it under the influence of cannabis. By the time I had finished it in late January 1987,
even though I still had some very hard lessons to learn about my deceiving fallen nature, I had become convinced of the reality of God. From that time on I have remained convinced of this reality whether under the influence of cannabis or not under the influence of cannabis.
I do not believe cannabis is needed to have a saving knowledge of God. I do however believe that God must have ultimately led me to use cannabis for He is ultimately sovereign over all and I know that during and after using cannabis
(only as I have described in my opening post http://goo.gl/mXivMZ ) I am able to reason and perceive more,
this is a fact of life I cannot ignore. Having said that though, I also know the time must be fast approaching when cannabis will no longer be needed to enhance my thought process: I will be filled with God when my thoughts are governed entirely by the only reasonable Spirit of truth. Then I will be perfect like the God of reason and truth is perfect, He does not need cannabis in order to see and perceive more freely and more clearly, and neither shall I.
B. W. wrote:The bible is clear - Jesus is the only way to the Father - there are no other ways, no matter how presented. Any other way would be classed as breaking the first two of the Ten Commandants and setting up an idol to serve.
Yes, I agree. I don't recall saying anything to the contrary, so where exactly in this discussion do you think I have denied Jesus is the only way to the Father?
What I have written here is the truth, and the truth is all I believe I have witnessed and all that logic and reason tell me. God is the author of our destinies and whether you like it or not, He has led me through this life in the way He has seen best. Along this way He has revealed to me the meaning of good and evil. He has taught me just how deceiving our fallen nature can be and the suffering we all must endure because of it. He has shown me why we are so easily deceived by evil. He has taught me the difference between good and evil whilst showing me the only way to overcome evil, and I am now free to choose between the two.
By what we choose we must be saved or condemned.
For those who know the revealed Spirit of truth and take pleasure in grieving and offending this Spirit there is no hope, it would be better for them to have large millstones hung round their necks and be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:6.
“every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him,
either in this age or in the age to come.” Matthew 12:31-32
What I must ask you now then B.W. is this, do you have faith in this Spirit...
The highest form of love is never self-centered but is a love that gives and sacrifices for the sake of others and remains faithful to love unto death. Only this love can be trusted, for only this love will have no reason to deceive and offend any of us. Such is the essence and character of the Holy Spirit, revealed to us in full through the finished work of the Father's Son.
Through the Father and the Son came their endless joy in their pure and perfect caring, sharing and giving to each other all that they are and all that they care to create. This Spirit of free and pure eternal love naturally embraces all knowledge and wisdom and would mean nothing without being the heart or the innermost ruling character of a person. This Spirit, this God, will live and rule only in those of us who will value Him above all others.
...or do you really still believe my understanding of the Triune God is a work of evil?
Freedom is the freedom to choose
