Let all Things be done for Edification

"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660

Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; we extend an especial welcome to our new subscribers.

Our main article in this issue was prepared in response to the request of a minister seeking clarification of I Corinthians 14:34. We trust you are able to glean some Spiritual vitamins from this morsel. Unless we receive an article from one of our contributing editors this Newsletter may be in abeyance for next two weeks while I devote myself to an important project that has been postponed for some considerable time.

This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.

7-Year Plan aligns US with Europe's Economy

January 16, 2008 – Six US senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the US and the European Union by 2015. . . The Transatlantic Economic Council is an official international governmental body established by executive fiat in the US and the EU without congressional approval or oversight. No new law or treaty was sought by the Bush administration to approve or implement the plan to create a Transatlantic Common Market.

The US congressmen and senators are involved only indirectly, as advisers to the influential non-governmental organization. . . Full story: worldnetdaily.com

Comment: Americans, those you have foolishly elected to office have privatized the government.

CFR unveils 59-Page 5-Year Plan for "Seamless North American Market"

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the 'security community' with a common 'outer security perimeter. . . [i.e.] wide-open borders between the US, Mexico and Canada. at this meeting [3-23-05]. President Bush pinned the epithet 'vigilantes' on the volunteers guarding our border in Arizona. the CFR document calls for 'a seamless North American market' and for 'the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico,' adopting a 'tested once' principle for pharmaceuticals, by which a product tested in Mexico will automatically be considered to have met US standards. . . putting illegal aliens into the US Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system. . . a major fund to finance 60,000 Mexican students to study in US colleges, supervision by a North American Advisory Council of 'eminent persons' – The Council on Foreign Relations.
Full story: libertypost.org

Bush: US should have acted on Auschwitz

Jerusalem, January 11, 2008 – A teary-eyed President Bush stopped in front of an aerial photo of Auschwitz on Friday at Israel's Holocaust memorial and said the US should have sent bombers to prevent the extermination of Jews there.

Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev, quoted Bush as saying the US should have "bombed it." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Bush referred to the train tracks leading to Auschwitz, not the camp itself, where between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were killed by Nazi Germany. . . Full story: yahoo.com

Comment: Dr. Franciszek Piper, senior curator and director of archives of the Auschwitz State Museum admitted on camera that 'Krema 1,' the alleged 'homicidal gas chamber' shown off to hundreds of thousands of tourists every year at the Auschwitz main camp, was, in fact, fabricated after the war by the Soviet Union—apparently on the direct orders of Josef Stalin. Full story: rense.com

What Piper said—in effect and on camera—was that the explosive 1988 Leuchter Report was correct: no homicidal gassings took place in the buildings designated as 'homicidal gas chambers' at Auschwitz.

This video is linked to an article cited as evidence against us in the Federal Court—evidence the Judge chose not to read although I informed him this facility was constructed by the Russians after the War. See Was there Really a Holocaust?

Obama and the Jews

January 4, 2008 – Ask about Barack Obama's natural constituencies, and you might hear that he's the first black with a viable shot at the White House; or about his Kenyan father and his childhood in Indonesia; or the youthfulness of his followers; or the millions of Oprah junkies swooning over his candidacy. What you might not hear is that the Illinois senator, who made history Thursday by winning the Democratic caucus in Iowa, has made Jewish leaders an early stop at every stage in his political career. . . Full story: cjnews.com jta.org

Hillary stuns Obama in New Hampshire

January 9, 2008 – Hillary Rodham Clinton won New Hampshire's Democratic primary Tuesday night in a startling upset, defeating Barack Obama. . . Full story: xpress4me.com

Comment: With a little bit of help from the occult—the stars of Mrs. Clinton's flag match the goat of Mendez/Baphomet occult pentagram. And some assistance from Diebold votescam. Full story: Hacking Democracy 1 of 9

Death Ray replaced by the Voice of God

December 17, 2007 – LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) is basically a focused beam of sound. . . Anyone whose head was touched by this beam, heard a painfully loud sound. Anyone standing next to them heard nothing. But those hit by the beam promptly fled, or fell to the ground in pain. Permanent hearing loss is possible if the beam is kept on a person for several seconds, but given the effect the sound usually has on people (they move, quickly), it is unlikely to happen. LRAD works. . . for there are now rumors in Iraq of a devilish American weapon that makes people believe they are hearing voices in their heads. . . Islamic terrorists tend to be superstitious and, of course, very religious. LRAD can put the "word of God" into their heads. If God, in the form of a voice that only you can hear, tells you to surrender, or run away, what are you gonna do? . . Full story: strategypage.com

Taped Voices may not have come from Iranian Boats

Just two days after the US Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship. (LRAD perhaps? - Ed). Full story: truthout.org ipsnews.net aljazeera.com

Comment: Further lying provocation from the United States whose warships have invaded sovereign boundaries and are not in international waters.

2008 Presidential Charade promises Deepening of Government Criminality and Expansion of War

January 10, 2008 – Every election in modern US history has been a criminal manipulation, choreographed and rigged by political elites and performed by hand-picked elite puppets, each backed by their teams of corrupt war criminals, intelligence/security "advisors" and think tank assets. The 2008 affair will be no different.

It is time once again to dispel the mass insanity and unfounded hopes as another fresh election hell ensues. There will be no savior, no end to the continuing world crisis, and absolutely no "change". . .

As Mike Ruppert wrote in Crossing The Rubicon: "That profits of crime and war, which are destructive of human life, of labor, of happy, healthy neighborhoods (whether in the US or in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq) are in effect a keystone of the global economy and a determinant of the success in a ruthless competition, is a compass needle for human civilization. One cannot expect to follow the recipe for roadkill stew and produce a cr?me brulee."

Criminals do not obey laws. Criminals do not believe in "democracy."
Criminals do not "permit" elections.
They will not permit an election in 2008. They will impose another one.
Full story: globalresearch.ca The Ron Paul Revolution is dead tomflocco.com

Let all Things be done for Edification

As the natural types the Spiritual, a woman serves God as she obeys her husband, for she is a type of the church whose head is Christ. There were to be only four Gentile world kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and finally Rome. Imperial Rome became Papal Rome, the false church that usurped the authority of the God she claims is her Husband. Papal Rome will rule the World unto the consummation. Brother Branham said, "Was there ever a time that it become a woman's world before? Yeah. According to history, in the days of Elijah, there was a woman named Jezebel. And she got rulership over the church of God, which the Bible says she will again in the last days: her spirit, through a church, an organization. And she'd be a whore, and all the other churches with her will be prostitutes just like she is. Is that right?"

"Revelation 17 said she is a whore and she's the mother of harlots. That can't be men; that's women. See? And they were all throwed alive into the lake of fire and consumed" (Revelation 2:20-23; 19:20).

"Notice. When that Jezebel rose on the scene, there was a man rose up against it. God brought a man; we don't even know where he come from. He had no background of ministry; he never was no priest or nothing. He come forth an old rugged woodsman by the name of Elijah, and he laid the axe to the root of the tree, and they hated him. Not only that, but his whole congregation hated him."

"And one time he thought he stood alone. God said, "No, I've got seven thousand yet that's right with you." See? That was that elected group. See? There's always that group. See? Said, "Don't fear, Elijah. I know you think you're run out because the denominations run you up there on top of the hill," but said, "but I got seven thousand that believes the same thing you're preaching. I've got them."

"Then after his day, Rome took over, and then it become a time it was a woman's world again. All the fashions of the women, how they come out in their bonnets and things, see. And God raised up another one with the same Spirit on him, the Spirit of Elijah. Is that right? And He said, "The axe is laid to the root of the tree" (Souls That are in Prison Now, p. 28:186-190).

pylon on Bridge over Ohio River

At the age of seven, the Angel of the Lord spoke to Brother Branham from a whirlwind in a bush, "Never drink, smoke, or defile your body in any way; there'll be a work for you to do when you get older." Two weeks later he was playing marbles with his little brother when a strange feeling came upon him. Thinking he was ill, he sat down by the side of a tree and looked down on the Ohio River: he saw a great bridge cross the river where there was no bridge, and sixteen men fall from the bridge and drown. He had seen a vision. The municipal bridge was built twenty-two years later and sixteen men perished in its construction. The pylons on the Indiana side of the river are surmounted by a light over an eagle beneath which in bas- relief a man lays the ax to the root of a tree. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, the eagle represents God's prophet, Brother Branham, anointed with the same Spirit that endued Elijah, Elisha, and John the Baptist, who laid the ax to the false spiritual principles as has his successor (Revelation 18:1-4).

Organized religion is not of God. Each Church is sovereign under its own pastor who is answerable to no man and whose word the congregation is to "receive with all readiness of mind and search the Scriptures, whether those things were so." I Corinthians demonstrates that in the primitive assembly, as in these last days since Brother Branham restored conduct, order and doctrine, there should be no formality in worship but spontaneous life with individuals exercising gifts for mutual edification under the promptings of the Spirit without the mediation of a separate ministry, since we are all "made priests unto God" and bound only to obey the ordinances of the local assembly.

Rules of conduct and order are determined by the pastor in accordance with Scripture to meet present needs and will vary from one assembly to another. For instance, Paul found it necessary to establish rules for the exercise of Spiritual gifts in the congregation, as did Brother Branham when disorder arose in the assembly concerning the exercise of the Gifts of the Spirit, particularly with regard to speaking in tongues.

Before explaining his rules for the exercise of Spiritual gifts in public worship, Paul presses a final exhortation to "pursue the love of God with all of our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength: as this is the chief commandment." The measure of our Christianity may be measured by our (Gk. 'agapao') love, which speaks of Divine love imparted by Spiritual revelation and knowledge of the one loved which we reciprocate by displaying the Token, as distinct from (Gk. 'phileo') natural love or friendly affection. I John 4:7-8, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love springs from God and whoever loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love".

Paul's objective is not to legislate the believers into the Kingdom, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point is guilty of all" (James 2:10). Paul was teaching that our main endeavor should be to become quickened by the selfless love of God in Christ; giving place to self and ambition that the whole Body may grow up into the Caagsone by dwelling together in harmony, each member contributing his gifts and abilities toward the development of the Body for its edification in love (Ephesians 4:16).

There was to be no legalistic obsession to have "all things done decently and in order," thereby placing the congregation under a nicolaitane priesthood as Rome and her denominational daughters have done, for the Brethren are individually answerable to God. The only rules to be observed were non-interference, so as to prevent confusion, and a regard for the edification of the Church as a whole rather than the individual. With respect to tongues, unlike the church of Rome, no language was to be employed that could not be understood by all alike. Rome's Latin mass though recited by rote, was unintelligible to the congregation, so that it was necessary for the priest to ring a tiny bell to signal when it should respond (I Corinthians 14:16).

I Corinthians 14:1-5, "Make love your first and chief aim (seeing that it is "the greatest" I Corinthians 13:13). Yet as a secondary aim desire zealously Spiritual gifts, but chiefly that you may prophesy (speak and exhort under inspiration, whether as to future events, or explaining obscure parts of Scripture, or setting forth and illustrating questions of Christian doctrine and practice. Zealously desire prophecy in preference to "tongues"). For whoever speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not to men, but to God (who alone understands all languages): for no one catches the meaning; he is uttering mysteries (exciting wonder unintelligible to the hearers) rather than instructing them in the Spirit. On the other hand, he who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, encouragement and consolation. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but he who prophesies edifies the congregation. I wish you all to speak with tongues, but rather that you might prophesy. He who prophesies is more useful than he who speaks with tongues, except he should interpret so that the congregation may be edified."

There is not one, even in Christ, who does not daily have to put off the old man with his lovelessness and put on the new Man with His love. We must continue the pursuit as we grow into the unity of the faith. The gift of speaking with other tongues emphasizes the fact that in Christ we are all Abraham's seed so that there is no distinction between Judahite or Gentile, and the distinctions made between the nations in Adam's race by diversity of speech, have been removed by the blessing of the Gospel and all have been brought to praise God with one heart and mouth.

I Corinthians 14:6-11, "But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, how shall I benefit you, unless I bring you some revelation unveiling Divine mysteries, or knowledge of Biblical truths which I can teach as doctrine? If even lifeless instruments, such as a flute or a harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if also the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle? So is it with your who have life, if you talk with a person in a language he does not understand, how will he know what you mean? Unless your speech is easily understood, you might as well be talking into empty space. Who knows how many different languages there are, and all are excellent for those who understand them. But if I know not the meaning of the language, I shall seem a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker seem a foreigner to me."

I Corinthians 14:12-19, "And you, since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to abound to the edifying of the congregation. Therefore he who speaks in an unknown tongue should pray also for the gift of interpretation. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful in edifying others. What then shall I do? I will pray with my spirit—by the Holy Spirit within me—but I will also pray intelligently with my mind and understanding: I will sing with my spirit—by the Holy Spirit within me—but I will sing intelligently with my mind and understanding also and, I will keep silence altogether if I cannot pray with the understanding so as to make myself understood by others. (A prescient warning against the Roman and Greek Orthodox practice of keeping liturgies in dead languages long since unintelligible to the masses; though their forefathers spoke them at a time when those liturgies were framed for general use). Otherwise, if you bless and render thanks with your spirit thoroughly aroused by the Holy Spirit, how will those who do not understand you praise God with an 'Amen' along with your thanksgiving when they do not understand what you are saying? You will be giving thanks very nicely, no doubt, but the bystander is not edified. (Prayer is not a vicarious duty as in Rome's liturgies and masses spoken in a foreign tongue by others in our behalf. We must join with the leader of the prayers and praises of the congregation, and say aloud our responsive "Amen" in assent, as was the usage of the Hebrew and Christian primitive churches – Deuteronomy 27:15-26; Nehemiah 8:6; Justin Martyr, Apology, 2. 97). I thank God, I speak with a foreign tongue more than all of you: Yet in the congregation I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that orally I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue."

When we study this chapter we find Bible teaching is not quite as the Catholic Charismatic and related movements would have people to believe, and unknown tongues, whether "of men or angels" should not be delivered in public worship unless they are interpreted into the vernacular. The person speaking under inspiration in an unknown tongue does not know what he is saying and does not possess the vocabulary to compose the message which is generated spontaneously by the Spirit of the Lord, or a demon. Neither is the one endued with the gift of interpretation equipped with a foreign vocabulary to enable him to translate the message into the vernacular, but what the speaker says in a foreign tongue, he hears in the vernacular as on the day of Pentecost when Peter and the disciples spoke in Galilean everyone heard in his mother tongue (Acts 2:1-11; 10:44-46). This signified that God had sanctified the languages of all nations of Adam's race for confession of the faith (Galatians 3:28-29).

Romans 10:17, "Faith comes by hearing and understanding the Word of God," not by speaking with other tongues as some say. Psalm 19:7, "The instruction of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."

I Corinthians 14:20-25, "Brethren, do not be so childish as to overestimate the gift of tongues which can excite great astonishment in the individual yet is non-edifying and profitless to the Church as a whole: the childlike state belongs to the Christian only in wickedness (the direct opposite of love, that fountain of all good; for in respect to wickedness babes are most innocent, being below the age of accountability), but in understanding be mature adults."

Christians are to possess childlike innocence of evil and maturity of understanding (Romans 16:19). This is the paradox of Matthew 10:16, "I am sending you out as sheep among wolves: therefore be wise as serpents, and guileless as doves." Thus Paul appeals to Isaiah 28:11-12 to instruct the Corinthians and ourselves, that by employing the gift of tongues without interpretation we invoke upon the church the divine threatening pronounced on the children of Israel for their unbelieving and contemptuous treatment of God's messengers. They asked derisively whether it was thought they ought to be treated as little children in that they were perpetually dinned with line upon line and precept upon precept after the fashion in which little children are instructed. In reply God threatened that because they had despised this simple teaching in their familiar Hebrew tongue, He would hereafter instruct them through persons of a different language and foreign utterance. He meant the Gentile nations, and especially the Assyrians, by whom they were to be treated just as contemptuously as they had treated God's Word.

God had called and separated Israel from the nations to a land where they could freely serve His Word as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But when Israel served other gods, He destroyed and dispersed the nation throughout the Assyrian empire, where they remain, defended against the self-styled Jews until Daniel's Seventieth week when they will return to the Promised Land (Jeremiah 3:12, 18). God likewise called and separated Spiritual Israel from natural Israel and the nations: I Peter 2:9, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous Light." If it was an indication of Divine judgment for Israel to fall under the dominion of those who spoke unintelligibly, then by analogy the imposition of uninterpreted foreign tongues upon the church signifies God has withdrawn Himself from those who claim to be His people—as if they, by reason of unbelief, had incurred His judgment, leaving them to confusion instead of the certainty of faith in Christ. They who speak in foreign tongues without interpretation are like "children just weaned from the milk . . . with stammering lips" speaking unintelligibly to the hearers, appearing ridiculous (Isaiah 28:9, 14) like babbling drunkards (Acts 2:13), or madmen (I Corinthians 14:23). Brother Branham also emphasized the absurdity of tongues without accompanying interpretation. Exercised in this way no gracious communication came through it from God as is the case with prophecy; but, rather, God appeared as one who shut Himself from their apprehension, as He was wont to exhibit Himself towards unbelievers. The use of language unintelligible to the hearers is a sign of God's judgment upon the churches today as it was on the tower of Babel, and when the finger of God wrote in unknown tongues on the wall of Belshazzar's banquet hall. The abundance of tongues in this day is a further proof that the Gentile dispensation is almost over and God is turning back to Israel.

Whereas Israel was invaded militarily when they departed from God's Word, Christendom has been invaded spiritually by ecumenism through the World Council of Churches, Vatican II and Gorbachev's one world religion interfaith movement (Amos 3:3; I Corinthians 6:14-18), and physically by so called multiculturalism, the global repetition of the 'original sin' of miscegenation as Jesus Christ prophesied and which is accursed of God (Genesis 1:11; 6:1-4; Matthew 24:37). Our (once Christian) nations are defenseless as we can no longer call upon government to abide by the Absolute of God's unchanging Word, which is repudiated by apostasy and hated by aggressive aliens in our midst who control our parliaments and courts, and dictate what we may think and say. Despite this overt sign of judgment our nations still do not listen to God but are hardened in their unbelief.

I Corinthians 14:21-25, "In the Law it is written, I will speak to this people by men of other tongues and by the lips of foreigners; and even so they will not listen to me, says the Lord. So then tongues are for a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers [to reinforce their unbelief], while prophesy is [for a sign] not for unbelievers but for believers. Suppose at an assembly of the whole church they should all speak with tongues [one at a time], and uninstructed or unbelieving persons came in, would they not say that you are mad? But suppose they all prophesied [one at a time], and a non-Christian or one unlearned [in the gifts] came in, he would be convicted (or made conscious of his sin and unbelief) and judged by all. The secret movements of his heart—concealed more or less even from himself—are exposed in so striking a manner as one after another goes on prophesying and deepening the impression, that the individual feels himself to be one pointed at, and is compelled to see himself in his true light and at last is forced to confess the correctness of the declaration, and so, falling face down he will worship God, declaring that the God that is in you is in truth the God."

In his analogy of Isaiah, Paul instructs us that unknown and uninterpreted tongues are a sign intended mainly as a condemnation to the majority, who, like Israel in his day, rejected the sign and the accompanying message. Since they will not understand, they shall not understand. Prophecy stands in contrast with the gift of tongues as denoting intelligible communications disclosing hidden things of the Spiritual world to the understanding in the vernacular. If what was spoken by a tongue were only interpreted, it would stand on a par with prophecy. This served as a sign not for the unbelievers, but for the believers, for prophecy is a means of Divine communication to believers or those who were disposed to believe, and is a token of favour and source of blessing and edification to believers, while it is withheld from those hardened in unbelief.

Paul lays down rules for the exercise of gifts in the congregation.

I Corinthians 14:26-33, "In summary, brethren, when you meet together, each one who is endowed with Spiritual gifts and in a state of mind inspired by the Spirit to pour forth some new psalm of praise, an exposition of Christian doctrine, a revelation in the form of prophecy, or an inspiration to speak with a tongue, and the qualification to interpret it, let all things be done for edification. If someone speaks in a tongue, let there be two, or at the most three, each in his turn, and let no more than one interpret what they are saying. But if there is no one to interpret [either in the person of he who speaks with tongues, or of any other], let each of them keep silence in the church; and speak to himself and to God. Two or three may prophesy in any one meeting, one at a time, and let the others judge (by their power of "discerning spirits" I Corinthians 12:10), what was said [by the Spirit of God, or an alien spirit]. But if a revelation comes to a hearer sitting by, let he who came to the assembly furnished with a previous ordinary revelation from God be silent and give place to him who at the assembly is moved to prophesy by a sudden revelation from the Spirit. For you can [if you will] restrain yourselves from speaking altogether, and in this way all who have the gift of prophecy can speak, one after the other, and everyone will learn and all be encouraged. For the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets (and not so hurried by the Holy Spirit as to escape their control). For He is not the God of disorder but of peace."

I Corinthians 14:34-36, "As in all churches of the saints, let your women keep silent in the churches: for they are not allowed to speak. Instead they must be subordinate as the Law says. If they wish to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home: for it is dishonourable for women to speak in church. Do you disagree? And do you think that the knowledge of God's will originated with you Corinthians, or that you are the only ones it has reached?"

Paul's question plainly exhibits the impertinence of any opposition on the part of the Corinthians in relation to the disgrace of allowing women to speak in the church. Since they are not the mother church, it was incumbent upon them, as part of a community of churches, to put themselves in agreement with the rest in regard to the rules for conduct and order. As the context implies, Paul is forbidding public speaking. In the Old Testament God foretold how under the New Testament, "your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Joel 2:28), a prophecy to which Peter referred on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17). And in Acts 21:9 we read of the four daughters of Philip who prophesied. Inasmuch as public speaking in the church would invite a certain degree of social independence, Paul adds, that women are "commanded to be under obedience" or subordinate to their own husband as commanded in the Old Testament (Genesis 3:16; Numbers 33:3-15).

The temple priests would not permit a woman to enter the court of the priests, and she was strictly forbidden to speak in the synagogues, although today there are women rabbis.

God ordained the gift of the fivefold ministry to men, not to women (Ephesians 4:8). I Corinthians 14:34-36 forbids women from teaching and preaching in public ministry. Prophecy and speaking with unknown tongues under unction of the Spirit is not preaching or teaching, and after the divine utterance the Brother or Sister resumes their seat in silence. Brother Branham explained that within the Church at Corinth were women converts who formerly ministered to the goddess Diana, and felt they should continue their ministry in the Gospel.

In I Timothy 2:9-15, Paul bases his ruling on the "original sin" which introduced the curse of death and Cain's Serpent's seed race, which through the children of Esau now holds dominion over the world as seen in Communism, the United States and other colonies of the City of London. Again, in I Corinthians 11:1-16, he demonstrates from Genesis 1 and 2 God is not a woman, God is a Man, and woman was made for man, not man for woman. Had she remained in her ordained position under preeminence to the Word, that is, to her own husband, there could have been no Fall (Ephesians 5:22-24).

I Corinthians 14:37-40, "If any man thinks he is a prophet, or gifted with spiritual discernment, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. But if anyone disregards it, he is to be disregarded. To conclude, brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not hinder the [less valuable] speaking with tongues. But let all things be done decently and in order".

Paul's appeal is not merely to one or two who may prophesiers, but to a body of Christians endowed with discernment of Spirit, for the reality of three facts about which no body of men could possibly be mistaken:

The ignorant who disregard Paul's instructions are non-elect, without the Spirit, whose lack of knowledge will imperil their salvation. Paul despairs of further instructing a person whose ignorance he is constrained to regard as a refusal to learn, and abandons him to his own self-will. As in Revelation 22:11, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he who is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still".

I Corinthians 13:8-13, "Love endures forever; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will lose its meaning. For our knowledge is fragmentary, and so is our prophesying. When that which is perfect is come at the consummation of the kingdom, then that which was fragmentary and incomplete shall be done away (Habakkuk 2:14, "For the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea"). When I was a child I spoke and reasoned and thought as a child does; but on becoming a man, I gave up childish ways. Likewise in our present state we see dimly through a mirror as though the reflection were on the other side; but when that which is perfect comes [at the consummation of the kingdom], face to face (I John 3:2, "For we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is"). Now I know in part; then shall understand fully, even as I am fully understood. Three things will never fail or pass away — faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love". nl510.htm

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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations overseas. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.

Bible Believers' Church
Gunnedah NSW
Australia 2380

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