Sample quote, not picking on any one person because it's a common thought in these parts:
quote:God could have said it all in one sentence (obviously), yet He did not. I (for one) will not question His Sovereignity, in not telling all in any one book of the bible. If He chooses not to do so, what business is that of ours??
So what we're saying when we claim that every word was dictated by God but he chose to only reveal parts of it in each book is:
God is a malicious prankster who chose to reveal His will in a series of confusing puzzles that apparently contradict each other at every turn BUT become quite clear if you start with the desired conclusion and work backwards, manipulating meanings of words in the process. And you have to find the one man of God to teach you how he manipulates the words and follow him until death or be weighed in the balances and found wanting. Yeah, I used to believe that too.
Is this like the fundamentalists that claim God buried dinosaur bones all over the place to test our faith? Not only is this jokester deity making it virtually impossible to understand his will for certain, but he's throwing obstacles in our way to keep us from ever standing a chance.
To hell with him then. I'm better off living by common sense and reason - suddenly I have a pretty good grasp of reality if I leave the fairy tales out of the equation. What kind of stupid god makes life more refreshing and liberating and peaceful and loving for those who refuse to believe in him? If he exists, maybe he should have made his will a little more clear and maybe there should be some actual undeniable benefit to following it. Other than a smug feeling of superiority, that is.
As I read things like because God did not put it all in book they do not believe in him
What foolish reason because I never heard of a teacher teaching every part of any given subjest in one lesson
They teach it as you are ready to receive it and most good teachers leave parts out hoping you will ask questions
If an teacher does not have to give you all the details in one lesson nor does God
God wants us to think as does good teachers
Yes God wants us to work to understand because he wants us to learn
People do not ready learn getting all things up front of them but they learn by putting in the time
God wants us to build realship with him one on one
About dinosaurs they are still living today and the first one came on the fifth day 4003 BC
Because some man say there bones are older than the earth means nothing
Let me say how many times have men change their views the earth was flat and then round and now more egg shape
Cancer is caused by this or that for it changes from time to time
If any one wants any answer just go to God one on one
Because I have and will kept going
Now no one has to believe in God for me to love them
But if you speak your reasons at least tell the truth which would you just choice not to believe
every time I see someone try to prove the bible wrong they just make themself look like fools
even the man who saids we came from Apes he still has the problem of were Apes came from but as for me I know were all things came from God my father-mother of heaven
I guess that is enough and I hope there are no hard feeling and all so sorry for derailing this tread
Goey has the exact right idea on the "dictation theory" being somewhat off.
Yes, God does inspire the scriptures, written in the writer's own dialect and what that writer sees as a witness, and God does inspire them to write it in a way that makes the gospel records reflect King, Servant, Man, and Son of God. But God makes sure, that while the writers write in their own language and dialect, that no scripture record contradicts the others.
I have found that while the gospel records are different, they do not contradict, but in fact, compliment each other.
quote: What foolish reason because I never heard of a teacher teaching every part of any given subject in one lesson.
They teach it as you are ready to receive it and most good teachers leave parts out hoping you will ask questions.
Roy --- Great point! I love it! :D-->
Any teachers in here?? And if there are, did you ever assign something called homework???:D--> And if you did, did you actually expect students to have to "crack the book and study"?? ;)--> And did you teach the entire semester's lesson the first day, in one class period telling all you knew about the subject?
You hit the nail on the head Roy! :)-->
"The flower unfolds, petal by petal, before it's full beauty's beheld"
What I really wonder about is how I was so gullible to hear a man make fun of the Church of the Navelites, agree with the stupidity of such nit-picking, and then turn around and believe that man when he taught me to nit-pick about these and other such things.
Ah well...
When I was a child I spoke of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
Now that I am a woman, I speak of the reasons behind the need for such fairy tales.
1: KNow that this is a concept that is not unique to TWI. Actually VPW logic in this case was pretty good. SO I would Say Yes I still believe this one to be true
2: Nope, Different witnesses see things differently, that's why the term "eye witness'" sends shivers up most lawyers backs. Christ Said Three times. If CHrist said THree then THree it is. Unless Christ didn't know what He was talking about. :(-->
3: NO NO NO, He can influence , he can destroy, he can confuse, he can twist he can do a whole host of things. But your Spirit comes from GOD. thru Jesus Christ. ONly Heavenly FAther thru Jesus Christ can create life. Satan is himself one of God's creations.
To believe this TWI claptrap you would have to believe that Michaelangelo's statue of DAvid coud in turn carve a statue.
4. Take over the HOLY SPIRIT????????? that means you believe that Satan is stronger than GOD. LIght and Dark cannot exist in the same space. Light dispels darkness. TO believe this lie of TWI you would have to believe Darkness Dispels Light.
IT is truly terrifying to believe that I at one time believed some of this rot.
I haven't read all of the posts, but what I've read sounds interesting.
#1 Yes, but I feel that the reason why it isn't clearly laid out is because God didn't think it was that important. What he wanted you to know is that Jesus was crucified and why.
#2. I could go either way on this, I've not worked it my self enough to know for sure, but the point I made above reamins. I don't think the number is as important as the fact Peter did deny Jesus and in the Peter recovered from it to become a great man of God.
#3 Don't know, But if he can, then he can stop people from being born again if they want to, God is bigger than that.
#4 I believe a Christian can be possessed, but not taken over. The holy spirit in a Christian is always more powerful than a devil spirit.
Who said the Devil's seed is LIFE? It's DEATH, and Satan is the father of it. When one commits the unforgiveable sin, i.e., becomes a child of the Devil, he will not repent, so God can't save him. (To do so, God would have to override the person's free will.)
Actually, the way LCM always described it was that the "seed" was a spiritual wedge that left the person open to spirit possession at any time. I never heard it refered to as any form of spiritual life whatsoever.
The Seed of the Serpent idea is just bogus. Wierwille says it is the "unforgivable sin". Wierwille and Wierwille alone, and not even Bullinger, made up the idea of a person being able to be "born again of the devil's seed" (exact quote from PFAL collaterals) thus TWI was unique to that doctrine and TWI was alone in all the world in that doctrine among Christians. Now offshoots share this bogus idea.
The unforgivable sin has nothing to do with the devil getting people "born again" of him. The unforgivable sin is the rejection of the holy spirit, which when Christ said it, holy spirit was soon to become available. Briefly, you are given the choice of getting born again of God and reject that, that is a sin. It stays a sin unless you later accept Christ and become born again, then you have remission of all sins (not forgiveness as forgiveness of sins comes after remission. Remission is your slate wiped clean, a pardon. To me, it is a form of forgiveness, but it means God drops all charges, so to speak and the sins are gone and you will not hear or see of them again. Since God says you are a new creation, God is stating that old creation did that sin and all other sins and that man is dead. You are a new man or woman at the new birth.) If you are born again of God's holy spirit, then you cannot commit the sin of rejecting it anymore, therefore for a Christian, this sin is impossible.
Please note that Mark 3:29 states that if you commit this sin, you are in danger of eternal damnation (death in the grave after the judgment)and the case of your salvation or damnation is not yet known when you commit it. If you keep denying the chance of God's holy spirit through Christ, or even do it once and never accept Jesus Christ, God sees this as a sin against Him and unless that sin is overturned by taking the new birth. You die committing this sin, you are held accountable to God.
Furthermore, if you committed sins in the Old Testament, God could "forgive" sins with sacrifices and things of this sort, but what kind of sacrifice do you bring to God to get THIS sin forgiven? That person rejected the real life sacrifice of Jesus Christ anyway, and even if you asked God to forgive you for rejecting Christ, and one still refused to accept Christ, the sin remains out there.
God can't forgive that.
The only way out of rejecting Christ and God's holy spirit and new birth is to later accept it and get remission of the sin and your sin is taken away. You are saved from eternal damnation or judgment because of it. If this is not done, the sin sticks and you never get rid of it.
As far as the devil and his seed, after the fall, man's physical seed went under his dominion, therefore mankind was called his "seed". They weren't "born of" the devil, the devil just pretty much had dominion of man and his seed as if he owned it. Note that in the Old Testament God called all the prophets "servants". Like it or not, the devil's dominion over man's body and soul was horrendous. Yet men still had free will and could talk to God just as Christians who have free will today and like to listen to the devil from time to time.
Christians going off half-cocked does not make them "un-born" again nor possessed. It just makes them stupid Christians and out of fellowship. They need to return to God's Word. Some do, some don't. Those that don't still maintain their salvation but do not have what we would call a very good life in the flesh.
"In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother" (1 John 3:10)
The Greek word for children in this verse (used in: children of the devil) is: teknon. Teknon is used as one who "is born". It is translated most often in the bible as: child (77 times) daughter (1 time) son (21 times). From all the other uses of this word one can easily see that "birth" is always involvled.
I don't believe the doctrine is questionable, but what may be questionable is attempting to identify exactly who is born of the devil - that certainly can be. When TWI attempted to identify those who were born of the devil today it just opened the door on the doctrine itself being questionable.
We know from God's Word Cain was of the devil (1 John 3:12). Cain had to do something other than just reject Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus wasn't around for Cain to reject Him when he was alive. The holy spirit Jesus came to make available on Pentecost wasn't around either. It had not occurred when Cain alive... so Cain had to do something other than just reject Jesus and the gift of the holy spirit in order to become born of the "wicked one".
Cain certainly was not the only old testament person born of the wicked one. The devils children have been around since the days of Cain. One interesting thing to note about the devils children is that they have always tried to get rid of the promised messiah - Jesus Christ. In the old testament they tried to accomplish this by murdering someone through whom Christ was supposed to come.
I wouldn't go so far as trying to name "names" as TWI has done in saying who today is born of the devil, but I would probably give the most credence to to those who are doing their utmost to prevent his second coming - by renouncing it and also making others renounce it. So I am not in total disagreement with the above post.
What The Hay --- Good post. Not trying to throw a monkey wrench into it, or even play devil's advocate, but here is something I have always wondered about, concerning "born of the wrong seed".
Vp taught that the devil can come up with nothing new on his own, he only copies. Now - if that is true, how could someone be "born again of wrong seed", thousands of years before it was possible to be "born again of right seed"?
I tend to believe that the advo only copies (an example would be in Exodus 7, at Pharoah's court, when the sorcerer's copied Moses' miracles, but didn't do anything he didn't do). I know Cain was "of the devil", and Jesus told some people that they were of "their father the devil", so that just compounds the uncertainty given what vp taught about the devil's originality -- which I think has some merit to it (not because vp said it, but because there are examples in the Word of such).
So -- what do you think?? Was the "seed" that caused these folks to be on the wrong side of the fence something different than what is available to us today, as far as being born again of Holy Spirit? Or was it the same thing, or was it allegorical? I don't know.
There are some people who are so totally evil, one has to think that since their malevolence transcends human nature, some sort of spiritual connection is there. Leastways I do.
This is a question I have had for almost 30 years now. It has yet to be answered.
There are actually many things that TWI taught that I still believe
How many still believe the following:
1: There were "four" others crucified with Christ. Yes
2: Peter denied Jesus "Six" times. Yes
3: The devil can really "get people born again" of him (seed of the serpent). Yes
4. That Christians, with holy spirit within, can get possessed and taken over by devil spirits, including taking over the holy spirit within. Yes
I haven't been involved with TWI for 17 years now. As bad as TWI has been, especially under the inept leadership of LCM, I still don't consider TWI a cult.
First of all, I don't focus on group, but rather doctrines. Are the Moonies a cult? Don't know, don't care. Are the Hare Krishnas a cult? Don't know, don't care. I am more concerned about ferreting the truth about different doctrines rather than dismissing or condemning an entire group or organization. There are still people on TWI that love God and hunger for God's truths. I am reasonable certain there are people in the Moonies and the Hare Krishnas that love God and hunger to know God better.
The cult label was used in the Bible by the bad guys trying to discredit the good guys. Group labels don't concern me, truth does. Thus, I never considered TWI a cult, thus had no motivation to completely renounce everything they taught.
Yep, focusing on doctrine, such as it was, was certainly The Way's way. I find it a pitiful excuse for vital religion. vital religion focuses on Jesus Christ, something The Way assiduously failed to do. Which makes it a false religion, in my book.
BTW, have you the remotest shred of evidence that the Devil could get people "born again of the wrong seed"?
I see alot of talk about Cain being son of the devil or seed and that people are born of the devil
The truth is we were all born into darkness but the differ comes in OT when they choice by their free will to live under the light of God holy spirit upon
Now they were still born unto the devil and children of darkness but my living by the spirit of God upon on them being saved became something to reach for
Now as long as they stray within the household of God's love they were God's by their hope of the first coming of Jesus Christ
And that why so many graves were open and that is who the 24 elders are in Revelation
For they reach for the first coming and were saved by it if they lived with holy spirit upon them
But if they talk outside God's wall of love the devil had power to do to them as he wish
Now because they were of darkness first they still would die because darkness can not be made light but they must be made new by ( life for a life which remade them from darkness to light )
For they were born in flesh with is what the devil is He is soul life in OT because he trick Adam into being body, and soul with an dead spirit
What are devils nothing but flesh of body and soul whether animal life or man life with dead spirit no hope and not under the living spirit of God in OT and not born unto a living spirit in NT
You see we where born into darkness but we choice to be saved by Jesus Christ giving us a body, soul, and living spirit
You say then what are devil spirits they are the evil desires of man, or animal
From germ life to a bad person Jesus Christ talk to the evil germ which was a cell of the flesh
But once you are born of God you can not get possed because you have a living spirit but your flesh can still get attack by fire-ly darts known as evil animals
Like an evil germ which causes sickness and then death
Like an evil animal or person that may bite or kill you by an attack
this is the best I can do will try to help with any problems you may see unclear
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
What scripture are you refering to Raf? There are many, is there not?
The Hurricane season is over again.
Song
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Raf
I've got no desire to pursue that argument SRS. Everyone here knows what I meant by scripture. I'm not talking about the Way Magazine.
If you meant "verses," then note that I said examinations, plural, of scripture. I did not mean just one verse.
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Jason P
Sample quote, not picking on any one person because it's a common thought in these parts:
So what we're saying when we claim that every word was dictated by God but he chose to only reveal parts of it in each book is:
God is a malicious prankster who chose to reveal His will in a series of confusing puzzles that apparently contradict each other at every turn BUT become quite clear if you start with the desired conclusion and work backwards, manipulating meanings of words in the process. And you have to find the one man of God to teach you how he manipulates the words and follow him until death or be weighed in the balances and found wanting. Yeah, I used to believe that too.
Is this like the fundamentalists that claim God buried dinosaur bones all over the place to test our faith? Not only is this jokester deity making it virtually impossible to understand his will for certain, but he's throwing obstacles in our way to keep us from ever standing a chance.
To hell with him then. I'm better off living by common sense and reason - suddenly I have a pretty good grasp of reality if I leave the fairy tales out of the equation. What kind of stupid god makes life more refreshing and liberating and peaceful and loving for those who refuse to believe in him? If he exists, maybe he should have made his will a little more clear and maybe there should be some actual undeniable benefit to following it. Other than a smug feeling of superiority, that is.
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
posted October 30, 2004 18:01
I've got no desire to pursue that argument SRS. Everyone here knows what I meant by scripture
WHOOPS RAF I am one of the everyone here... what scripture are you refering to?
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year2027
God first
Beloved friends
As I read things like because God did not put it all in book they do not believe in him
What foolish reason because I never heard of a teacher teaching every part of any given subjest in one lesson
They teach it as you are ready to receive it and most good teachers leave parts out hoping you will ask questions
If an teacher does not have to give you all the details in one lesson nor does God
God wants us to think as does good teachers
Yes God wants us to work to understand because he wants us to learn
People do not ready learn getting all things up front of them but they learn by putting in the time
God wants us to build realship with him one on one
About dinosaurs they are still living today and the first one came on the fifth day 4003 BC
Because some man say there bones are older than the earth means nothing
Let me say how many times have men change their views the earth was flat and then round and now more egg shape
Cancer is caused by this or that for it changes from time to time
If any one wants any answer just go to God one on one
Because I have and will kept going
Now no one has to believe in God for me to love them
But if you speak your reasons at least tell the truth which would you just choice not to believe
every time I see someone try to prove the bible wrong they just make themself look like fools
even the man who saids we came from Apes he still has the problem of were Apes came from but as for me I know were all things came from God my father-mother of heaven
I guess that is enough and I hope there are no hard feeling and all so sorry for derailing this tread
with love and an holy kiss Roy
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Raf
The Bible, SRTS.
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
yeah raf the bible... forgive me my misunderstanding such a thing called "The Bible"
yeah... the ultimate truth "The Bible"~~~
forgive me that every one here knows what ya mean~~~ who is the "everyone" ?
obviously i am excluded your everyone eh
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Eagle
Goey has the exact right idea on the "dictation theory" being somewhat off.
Yes, God does inspire the scriptures, written in the writer's own dialect and what that writer sees as a witness, and God does inspire them to write it in a way that makes the gospel records reflect King, Servant, Man, and Son of God. But God makes sure, that while the writers write in their own language and dialect, that no scripture record contradicts the others.
I have found that while the gospel records are different, they do not contradict, but in fact, compliment each other.
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
Raf,
We experienced hurricanes, man dude you must have an extraordinary depth understanding the Bible.
I only had a grasp of the bible for thirty five years and still wonder your depth understanding the word~~~ are you involved an offshoot twi?
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dmiller
Roy --- Great point! I love it!
:D--> 
Any teachers in here?? And if there are, did you ever assign something called homework???
:D--> And if you did, did you actually expect students to have to "crack the book and study"?? 
;)--> And did you teach the entire semester's lesson the first day, in one class period telling all you knew about the subject? 
You hit the nail on the head Roy!
:)-->
"The flower unfolds, petal by petal, before it's full beauty's beheld"
author unknown
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CoolWaters
What I really wonder about is how I was so gullible to hear a man make fun of the Church of the Navelites, agree with the stupidity of such nit-picking, and then turn around and believe that man when he taught me to nit-pick about these and other such things.
Ah well...
When I was a child I spoke of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
Now that I am a woman, I speak of the reasons behind the need for such fairy tales.
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templelady
1: KNow that this is a concept that is not unique to TWI. Actually VPW logic in this case was pretty good. SO I would Say Yes I still believe this one to be true
2: Nope, Different witnesses see things differently, that's why the term "eye witness'" sends shivers up most lawyers backs. Christ Said Three times. If CHrist said THree then THree it is. Unless Christ didn't know what He was talking about.
:(-->
3: NO NO NO, He can influence , he can destroy, he can confuse, he can twist he can do a whole host of things. But your Spirit comes from GOD. thru Jesus Christ. ONly Heavenly FAther thru Jesus Christ can create life. Satan is himself one of God's creations.
To believe this TWI claptrap you would have to believe that Michaelangelo's statue of DAvid coud in turn carve a statue.
4. Take over the HOLY SPIRIT????????? that means you believe that Satan is stronger than GOD. LIght and Dark cannot exist in the same space. Light dispels darkness. TO believe this lie of TWI you would have to believe Darkness Dispels Light.
IT is truly terrifying to believe that I at one time believed some of this rot.
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Keith
I haven't read all of the posts, but what I've read sounds interesting.
#1 Yes, but I feel that the reason why it isn't clearly laid out is because God didn't think it was that important. What he wanted you to know is that Jesus was crucified and why.
#2. I could go either way on this, I've not worked it my self enough to know for sure, but the point I made above reamins. I don't think the number is as important as the fact Peter did deny Jesus and in the Peter recovered from it to become a great man of God.
#3 Don't know, But if he can, then he can stop people from being born again if they want to, God is bigger than that.
#4 I believe a Christian can be possessed, but not taken over. The holy spirit in a Christian is always more powerful than a devil spirit.
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GeorgeStGeorge
To Templelady and Keith re point #3:
Who said the Devil's seed is LIFE? It's DEATH, and Satan is the father of it. When one commits the unforgiveable sin, i.e., becomes a child of the Devil, he will not repent, so God can't save him. (To do so, God would have to override the person's free will.)
George
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templelady
Sorry GeorgeStGeorge but the TWI teaching was really clear on this point. in their doctrine you become "BOrn of the Seed"
I was taught that you are Born of the seed of the devil the same way you are born of GOD --you becaome a new life with the devil as your parent.
A as I explained above only GOd thru Jesus Christ can create life
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GeorgeStGeorge
Actually, the way LCM always described it was that the "seed" was a spiritual wedge that left the person open to spirit possession at any time. I never heard it refered to as any form of spiritual life whatsoever.
George
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templelady
Ah--
Of course LCM"s new and updated version I left in 89 so I naver got the JOY
:D--> of LAM's Wisdom 
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Eagle
The Seed of the Serpent idea is just bogus. Wierwille says it is the "unforgivable sin". Wierwille and Wierwille alone, and not even Bullinger, made up the idea of a person being able to be "born again of the devil's seed" (exact quote from PFAL collaterals) thus TWI was unique to that doctrine and TWI was alone in all the world in that doctrine among Christians. Now offshoots share this bogus idea.
The unforgivable sin has nothing to do with the devil getting people "born again" of him. The unforgivable sin is the rejection of the holy spirit, which when Christ said it, holy spirit was soon to become available. Briefly, you are given the choice of getting born again of God and reject that, that is a sin. It stays a sin unless you later accept Christ and become born again, then you have remission of all sins (not forgiveness as forgiveness of sins comes after remission. Remission is your slate wiped clean, a pardon. To me, it is a form of forgiveness, but it means God drops all charges, so to speak and the sins are gone and you will not hear or see of them again. Since God says you are a new creation, God is stating that old creation did that sin and all other sins and that man is dead. You are a new man or woman at the new birth.) If you are born again of God's holy spirit, then you cannot commit the sin of rejecting it anymore, therefore for a Christian, this sin is impossible.
Please note that Mark 3:29 states that if you commit this sin, you are in danger of eternal damnation (death in the grave after the judgment)and the case of your salvation or damnation is not yet known when you commit it. If you keep denying the chance of God's holy spirit through Christ, or even do it once and never accept Jesus Christ, God sees this as a sin against Him and unless that sin is overturned by taking the new birth. You die committing this sin, you are held accountable to God.
Furthermore, if you committed sins in the Old Testament, God could "forgive" sins with sacrifices and things of this sort, but what kind of sacrifice do you bring to God to get THIS sin forgiven? That person rejected the real life sacrifice of Jesus Christ anyway, and even if you asked God to forgive you for rejecting Christ, and one still refused to accept Christ, the sin remains out there.
God can't forgive that.
The only way out of rejecting Christ and God's holy spirit and new birth is to later accept it and get remission of the sin and your sin is taken away. You are saved from eternal damnation or judgment because of it. If this is not done, the sin sticks and you never get rid of it.
As far as the devil and his seed, after the fall, man's physical seed went under his dominion, therefore mankind was called his "seed". They weren't "born of" the devil, the devil just pretty much had dominion of man and his seed as if he owned it. Note that in the Old Testament God called all the prophets "servants". Like it or not, the devil's dominion over man's body and soul was horrendous. Yet men still had free will and could talk to God just as Christians who have free will today and like to listen to the devil from time to time.
Christians going off half-cocked does not make them "un-born" again nor possessed. It just makes them stupid Christians and out of fellowship. They need to return to God's Word. Some do, some don't. Those that don't still maintain their salvation but do not have what we would call a very good life in the flesh.
I hope all this helps.
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What The Hay
"In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother" (1 John 3:10)
The Greek word for children in this verse (used in: children of the devil) is: teknon. Teknon is used as one who "is born". It is translated most often in the bible as: child (77 times) daughter (1 time) son (21 times). From all the other uses of this word one can easily see that "birth" is always involvled.
I don't believe the doctrine is questionable, but what may be questionable is attempting to identify exactly who is born of the devil - that certainly can be. When TWI attempted to identify those who were born of the devil today it just opened the door on the doctrine itself being questionable.
We know from God's Word Cain was of the devil (1 John 3:12). Cain had to do something other than just reject Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus wasn't around for Cain to reject Him when he was alive. The holy spirit Jesus came to make available on Pentecost wasn't around either. It had not occurred when Cain alive... so Cain had to do something other than just reject Jesus and the gift of the holy spirit in order to become born of the "wicked one".
Cain certainly was not the only old testament person born of the wicked one. The devils children have been around since the days of Cain. One interesting thing to note about the devils children is that they have always tried to get rid of the promised messiah - Jesus Christ. In the old testament they tried to accomplish this by murdering someone through whom Christ was supposed to come.
I wouldn't go so far as trying to name "names" as TWI has done in saying who today is born of the devil, but I would probably give the most credence to to those who are doing their utmost to prevent his second coming - by renouncing it and also making others renounce it. So I am not in total disagreement with the above post.
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dmiller
What The Hay --- Good post. Not trying to throw a monkey wrench into it, or even play devil's advocate, but here is something I have always wondered about, concerning "born of the wrong seed".
Vp taught that the devil can come up with nothing new on his own, he only copies. Now - if that is true, how could someone be "born again of wrong seed", thousands of years before it was possible to be "born again of right seed"?
I tend to believe that the advo only copies (an example would be in Exodus 7, at Pharoah's court, when the sorcerer's copied Moses' miracles, but didn't do anything he didn't do). I know Cain was "of the devil", and Jesus told some people that they were of "their father the devil", so that just compounds the uncertainty given what vp taught about the devil's originality -- which I think has some merit to it (not because vp said it, but because there are examples in the Word of such).
So -- what do you think?? Was the "seed" that caused these folks to be on the wrong side of the fence something different than what is available to us today, as far as being born again of Holy Spirit? Or was it the same thing, or was it allegorical? I don't know.
There are some people who are so totally evil, one has to think that since their malevolence transcends human nature, some sort of spiritual connection is there. Leastways I do.
This is a question I have had for almost 30 years now. It has yet to be answered.
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excathedra
were those 3 other dudes born of the devil and denied it 6 times ?
sorry, hi, bye
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Biblefan Dave
There are actually many things that TWI taught that I still believe
How many still believe the following:
1: There were "four" others crucified with Christ. Yes
2: Peter denied Jesus "Six" times. Yes
3: The devil can really "get people born again" of him (seed of the serpent). Yes
4. That Christians, with holy spirit within, can get possessed and taken over by devil spirits, including taking over the holy spirit within. Yes
I haven't been involved with TWI for 17 years now. As bad as TWI has been, especially under the inept leadership of LCM, I still don't consider TWI a cult.
First of all, I don't focus on group, but rather doctrines. Are the Moonies a cult? Don't know, don't care. Are the Hare Krishnas a cult? Don't know, don't care. I am more concerned about ferreting the truth about different doctrines rather than dismissing or condemning an entire group or organization. There are still people on TWI that love God and hunger for God's truths. I am reasonable certain there are people in the Moonies and the Hare Krishnas that love God and hunger to know God better.
The cult label was used in the Bible by the bad guys trying to discredit the good guys. Group labels don't concern me, truth does. Thus, I never considered TWI a cult, thus had no motivation to completely renounce everything they taught.
Love ya,
Dave
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TheEvan
Yep, focusing on doctrine, such as it was, was certainly The Way's way. I find it a pitiful excuse for vital religion. vital religion focuses on Jesus Christ, something The Way assiduously failed to do. Which makes it a false religion, in my book.
BTW, have you the remotest shred of evidence that the Devil could get people "born again of the wrong seed"?
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year2027
God first
Beloved friends
I see alot of talk about Cain being son of the devil or seed and that people are born of the devil
The truth is we were all born into darkness but the differ comes in OT when they choice by their free will to live under the light of God holy spirit upon
Now they were still born unto the devil and children of darkness but my living by the spirit of God upon on them being saved became something to reach for
Now as long as they stray within the household of God's love they were God's by their hope of the first coming of Jesus Christ
And that why so many graves were open and that is who the 24 elders are in Revelation
For they reach for the first coming and were saved by it if they lived with holy spirit upon them
But if they talk outside God's wall of love the devil had power to do to them as he wish
Now because they were of darkness first they still would die because darkness can not be made light but they must be made new by ( life for a life which remade them from darkness to light )
For they were born in flesh with is what the devil is He is soul life in OT because he trick Adam into being body, and soul with an dead spirit
What are devils nothing but flesh of body and soul whether animal life or man life with dead spirit no hope and not under the living spirit of God in OT and not born unto a living spirit in NT
You see we where born into darkness but we choice to be saved by Jesus Christ giving us a body, soul, and living spirit
You say then what are devil spirits they are the evil desires of man, or animal
From germ life to a bad person Jesus Christ talk to the evil germ which was a cell of the flesh
But once you are born of God you can not get possed because you have a living spirit but your flesh can still get attack by fire-ly darts known as evil animals
Like an evil germ which causes sickness and then death
Like an evil animal or person that may bite or kill you by an attack
this is the best I can do will try to help with any problems you may see unclear
with love and an holy kiss Roy
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