A man wrote the following after reading our introduction letter to The Issues of Life:
Please Unsubscribe,
Please also be advised that any false prophet was required to be stoned to stand before Almighty God and answer. Since I believe the Canon of Scripture to be Closed I do not accept your prophetic testimony as true or valid for any other. Consider Humbly.
In Christ’s service
Dave
Our response:
Dave,
It never ceases to amaze me how people like you profess to have faith in God and to believe the Bible, then utterly deny Him and the Bible as you do in your letter to us. The Bible itself is God’s Consummate Record of His ways with mankind, the historical and spiritual evidence of His speaking to chosen persons of mankind. All of the fathers of the faith heard from Him personally, directly. The saints and prophets mentioned in Scripture are recorded to have heard His Voice. Indeed, that is how we received the Bible.
Jesus said this: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).
You say otherwise, and that if anyone claims to hear His voice, that person deserves to be stoned as a false prophet. You “believe the Canon of Scripture to be Closed.” Did Jesus Christ say, “My sheep read My voice” or did He say, “My sheep hear My voice”? Where in the Bible, which you profess to believe, do you find support for your conclusions that God no longer speaks to people? Give me specific, Scriptural evidence, if you can. Turn me from my error, as you see it; give me substance from God’s Word, and fulfill your duty to God by speaking the truth to those who need to hear, which is all, me included.
Tell me, David, how is it that you call Jesus Christ a liar? Perhaps you should consider that you are not of His sheep because if you were, you would hear His voice, even as He declared. Because you have never heard His voice, you deny that He speaks to His own. As you ask of me, I encourage you to “consider humbly” yourself. Read Diabolical Doctrine: Believers No Longer Hear God’s Voice.
Furthermore, as an unbeliever who takes upon himself the Name of the Lord in vain, professing faith yet not knowing Him, you presume to be a part of a political party (the Christian Heritage Party) which thinks itself capable of representing God’s interests in Canada! And you think that I should be stoned for heresy?!
I prove to you, by Scripture, by testimony, and by fruits that I, and not you, am the one in Christ’s service, and that you serve “another Jesus,” believing “another gospel.” Again, endeavor to prove me wrong, by Scripture. I will listen and respond, Lord willing. Have you red Our Testimonies?
Washed in His blood, worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth,
Victor Hafichuk
Dave, Paul here. You also deny the testimony of the apostle Paul, who, inspired by the Spirit of God, urged those born of the Spirit to learn to prophesy for the edification of the church (1 Corinthians 14:3). If, as you suggest, the compilation of documents during the first century times would be all the prophetic words we are meant to have, why then were not the words of those who learned to prophesy also included for our edification? Doesn’t the Scripture rather mean that instruction of prophetic testimony by the saints of God is a current thing, meant for today as well as yesterday, as the other Scriptures written by Paul are also relevant in the here and now? We know this to be the truth. We too, along with our brethren from days past, are instructed to know the Lord, being born from above by His Spirit and speaking by Him, part of that great company composing His Body, even as the Lord spoke of Himself in the plural to Nicodemus:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak what we know and testify what we have seen. And you do not receive our witness” (John 3:11).
Otherwise, if all we have is what the saints of those times had recorded, why were not more sayings and works of the Lord included for our edification, as the apostle John notes that there was such a great multitude of these things that the world itself could not contain the books had all of them been recorded (John 21:25)? Why were only those who knew the Lord and had communion with Him in the days of His flesh and in the Spirit after His ascension granted to have those things, leaving us shortchanged to only the portion contained in the Bible? I will tell you why: Because we are not shortchanged and do also have those things by virtue of Christ Who lives in us, and speaks to us today, guiding us as a Father does His children, and Who commands us to shout from the rooftops those things He whispers in our ears and reveals to us out of His Holy Scriptures. You are of those who deny His coming in the flesh, He that is alive and present through His Spirit in His servants, Who is not relegated to the deadness of the letter, which is the ministry you labor in, spreading condemnation and death in all your thoughts and ways. You need to repent, Dave.
“And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See you do not do it: I am your fellowservant, and of your brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10).