WESLEYGOSPEL.COM

Both the Old and New Testaments clearly teach that the gay lifestyle is sinful and detestable, but transformation is possible through repentant faith in Jesus. The church should be kind and helpful to those trying to forsake this lifestyle, but those who refuse to turn away from it will not inherit the kingdom of God. We totally reject the claims of psychiatrists who say that homosexual orientation and sex are healthy, natural things. While original sin inclines the human body to sinful desires, it does not mean that homosexual orientation is a part of God’s creation. Scripture even suggests that diseases such as HIV and AIDS are divine punishment for gay sex (Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:24-27; 7:14-25; 1 Timothy 1:8-10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Jude 1:7; Galatians 6:1; 1 John 1:9).

Retractions: I would just like to mention that it has come to my attention that Steve Harper (The Way to Heaven) affirms same-sex marriage, as of 2018. This book has had a tremendous impact on my view of the Gospel and spiritual life and helped me to formulate my views in my book The Gospel of Jesus Christ (2015). God has used this book in an amazing way, but sadly I will have to part ways with Harper, even as Wesley had to part with Count Zinzendorf, although he was influenced by his theology. “The man of the world will let you down, but Jesus never fails.” I used to believe that Harper was part of an evangelical renewal movement in the UMC called the Confessing Movement. At the very least, it looks like Harper is not confessing evangelicalism anymore. Remaining influences from that book would be Kenneth Collins’ Wesley on Salvation and The Scripture Way of Salvation, Harold Lindstrom’s Wesley and Sanctification (1946), which was written before the UMC was founded in 1968: and is favorably quoted by Vinson Synan in The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition (p. 5), and Thomas C. Oden’s John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity. Oden was interviewed by Al Mohler in 2016 and affirmed the UMC stance against gay marriage. So Harper has fallen. So sad, he also had a good presentation of the “Wesleyan Arminian” view of conditional security in Four Views on Eternal Security. As a replacement, I would suggest Life in the Son by Robert Shank.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything here, but some of their observations might be valuable. Most of them are by Sword of the Lord:–which is fundamental Baptist.

1. Ignacio Palacios’ Biblical Apparel. Allegheny Publications. Wesleyan.

2. Elizabeth Handford’s Your Clothes Say It for You. Sword of the Lord Pub.

3. John R. Rice’s Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers. Sword. Chs. 2, 5

4. Mike Allison’s Preaching Standards. Sword. ch. 5.

5. John and Donna Bishop’s What’s the Big Deal About My Clothes? Sword. 

6. —. The Witness of Your Wardrobe. Sword.

7. The Works of John Wesley, Baker, 3rd ed., vol. 14, “Dress,” p. 410

8. Adam Clarke’s Clarke’s Christian Theology, “Dress,” p. 401

I regard both Protestant and Catholic publishers to have good light to shine on the nature of miraculous gifts. Although I reject Marian dogmas, prayers to saints, Purgatory, and extreme asceticism, I still believe there is a great deal of written material that shows evidence of the true Holy Spirit at work in the lives of certain Catholic saints, which informed the Catholic charismatic books below, usually with the language of mysticism. The Catholic Church is the natural habitat for charismatic Christianity. After the Protestant Reformation, it became harder to find charismatics that held to Protestant beliefs. Only during revivals did they appear and then disappear into obscurity. The list of books below is the most conservative that I can think of with regard to Protestant and Catholic views of miraculous gifts. All of them are charismatic. For the sake of curiosity, I am going to provide a numbering system below for the frequency of certain publishers’ names, so as to bring them to light. These books are the result of years of rumination on this subject. Only those with a “3” and above will be highlighted in red. The blue “H” means available in hardcover, which usually means its publication was more costly, and was taken more seriously. Paulist Press is the most attention getting, for me, of the Catholic charismatic publishers on miraculous gifts. They are the ones that do the “Classics of Western Spirituality” series; on the Protestant side, we have Gospel Publishing House (GPH), which is the publishing wing of the Assemblies of God; and HarperCollins, which is very mainstream and published John Wimber’s Power series as well as Richard J. Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Prayer. It comes out that there is significant representation of these three denominations: 

• The Roman Catholic Church
• The Assemblies of God
• The Association of Vineyard Churches

CATHOLIC PUBLISHERS

Paulist Press – 4

PROTESTANT PUBLISHERS

GPH – 5

HarperCollins – 4

—

H – Paulist Press – Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle

H – Paulist Press – Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus

H – Paulist Press – Celtic Spirituality: “The Life of Patrick”

H – Paulist Press – Bonaventure: The Life of St. Francis

H – GPH – Harold Horton’s The Gifts of the Spirit

H – GPH – Stanley Frodsham’s Smith Wigglesworth: Apostle of Faith

H – HarperCollins – John Wimber’s Power Evangelism

H – HarperCollins – —. Power Healing

H – HarperCollins – —. Power Points

GPH – Donald Gee’s Concerning Spiritual Gifts

GPH – Howard Carter’s Spiritual Gifts and Their Operation

GPH – Smith Wigglesworth’s Ever Increasing Faith

HarperCollins – John Wimber’s Power Encounters

H – Banner of Truth Trust – A. Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience (1996)

H – Banner of Truth Trust – John Howie’s The Scots Worthies (1996)

H – R. & T. Washbourne – Arthur Devine’s A Manual of Mystical Theology

H – Routledge and Kegan Paul – A. Poulain’s The Graces of Interior Prayer (1957)

H – Burns Oates – Albert Farges’ Mystical Phenomena (cf. John Arnott)

H – TAN Books – John Arintero’s The Mystical Evolution

H – Burns Oates – H. Thurston’s The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism

H – Princeton University Press – Jacobus de Voragine’s The Golden Legend (2 vols)

H – Eerdmans – Nicene and Post-Nicene (1956) – St. Jerome’s “Life of  Hilarion”

H – Eerdmans – Nicene and Post-Nicene (1956) – St. Jerome’s “Life of Paul”

H – Thomas Nelson – Alan Orr Anderson, ed. – Adomnan’s The Life of Columba (1961)

H – Cosimo – Gregory the Great’s The Life and Miracles of St. Benedict (2007)

H – Hamilton, Adams, and Co. – Thomas Boys’ The Suppressed Evidence

H – Howard Gannett – A. J. Gordon’s The Ministry of Healing

H – Whitaker House – Frank Bartleman’s Azusa Street

H – Whitaker House – R. Liardon, ed. Smith Wigglesworth: The Complete Collection 

H – Albury Publishing – —. Maria Woodworth-Etter: The Complete Collection

H – Voice of Healing Publishing – Gordon Lindsay’s The Gordon Lindsay Story

H – Pyramid Books – John Sherrill’s They Speak with Other Tongues

H – Regal Books – Gary Greig’s The Kingdom and the Power

H – Baker Academic – Craig Keener’s Miracles (2 vols)

H – Zondervan – Jack Deere’s Surprised by the Voice of God – except for ch. 12 when he argues in favor of covering theology; and for the salvation of “Christian” suicides.

H – Zondervan – —. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit

Chosen Books – —. The Beginner’s Guide to the Gift of Prophecy

Charisma House – Mike Bickle’s Growing in the Prophetic

Crossway Books – Wayne Grudem’s The Gift of Prophecy

InterVarsity Press – George Mallone’s Those Controversial Gifts

Hendrickson Publishers – Max Turner’s The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts

SEAN Multimedia – Daniel Jennings’ The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley

Chosen Books – Sam Storms’ The Beginner’s Guide to Spiritual Gifts

TAN Books – Joan Carroll Cruz’s Mysteries Marvels Miracles

Liturgical Press – Gottfried and Theoderic’s The Life of the Holy Hildegard

Christ for the Nations – Gordon Lindsay’s Commissioned with Power

Walking Barefoot Ministries – Jeff Doles’ Miracles and Manifestations

In the above video, I love when Steve Fraley challenges Derek Webb at 1:17:00: “Become an atheist to the god that is false and believe in the God that is real.”

Also see below, my Wesleyan Arminian take on Romans 9:

Taking my lead from John Wesley’s Notes Upon the New Testament, I approach this chapter with an Arminian view of God’s saving grace (synergism). God does not show favoritism in election or judgment. Whether you are a Jew or Gentile, it doesn’t matter:–all people who repent and believe in the Gospel will be elected and saved for Heaven, but all who reject the Gospel will be hardened and damned to Hell.

In the beginning, I say, “You will find similar things being said by many of the early church fathers.” An introduction to this would be found in chs 7-8 of Thomas Oden’s The Transforming Power of Grace.

CORRECTION: At 46:49, I said, “God foresaw that Moses was impenitent and unbelieving.” PRETTY BIG MISTAKE! WOW! No, I meant to say, “God foresaw that Pharaoh was impenitent and unbelieving.”

Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?

Adam Clarke comments on Exodus 2:23: “Amenophis, who was drowned in the Red Sea when pursuing the Israelites, but Abul Farajius says it was Amunfathis, (Amenophis,) he who made the cruel edict against the Hebrew children.”

Modern archaeology identifies Amenophis as Akhenaten, who died around 1336 B.C.

But if we side with the ancient Muslim scholar Abul Farajius, then Amenophis’ descendant, Ramesses II, would be the next likely candidate for who died in the Red Sea. I’m guessing this is due to the amount of years that passed between the massacre of the innocents and the Red Sea incident.

1. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, better known in theology as “lordship salvation,” is not popularly accepted by American evangelical and Pentecostal denominations. Instead it is a watered down easy-believism with a hint of antinomianism. Any pastor who tries to preach at length on the subjects of Hell, repentance, the cross, the Holy Spirit, and obedience to New Testament commandments, is probably going to be persecuted by church leaders instead of encouraged by them.

2. Prophecy, healing, and deliverance are looked on with skepticism by church leaders. Rather than encouraging such experiences, they do their best to keep people from falling into such fanaticism. These gifts and ministries are so abused, they say, that it is not worth risking public embarrassment or damaging someone’s life over it. So, it is avoided because they fear these things. Not only that, but there seems to be a lack of genuine knowledge or information about how these miraculous gifts are used, because of the gross negligence of the subject by pastors due to these fears. 1 Corinthians 14 and James 5:14-15 are relegated to the pages of historical theology, to the study of movements like the faith cure movement or the Azusa Street Revival–to “back in the day” when those things used to happen. But they can happen today if we had more risk-taking pastors who didn’t fear the repercussions of opening their churches up to these ministries. All they would have to do, is let people in their churches hear from God and share what they heard, pray for healings, discern evil spirits, and pray for their expulsion. This last one, casting out demons, being considered as the most odious, improper, and ill-mannered of such ministries.

3. Anti-theological attitudes seem to prevail with pastors, even with those who went to seminary a long time ago, or recently. They looked on their theology, their seminary courses, as a chore. They hated theology and in-depth Bible study. And whenever you have a guy like that, a theological nut, come into your church: and by golly, he wants to TALK ABOUT JESUS, well, the pastor tends to ignore him and shun him. Maybe he’ll cool off eventually, they think. But they never do, because the Holy Spirit makes him keep thinking about these things; and the very man who is supposed to be his buddy in such matters–the pastor–never comes up to the plate and fulfills that task. He’s too busy thinking about sports, or church administration, or his family like everyone else.

4. Anti-evangelistic attitudes are also prevalent with pastors. These same pastors that hate theology, and hate talking one-on-one with parishioners about God, the Bible, and Jesus, also despise the idea of doing evangelism activities, like going to the town square and doing street preaching, or open-air meetings. They hate the idea of preparing care packs and handing them out to homeless bums on the street. They hate food pantries. They hate homeless ministries. They hate really anything to do with evangelism, because they hate the Gospel, they hate theology, and really actually hate people.

5. Profanity is becoming more popular with American pastors. I’ve noticed this in the past year or so. When I gave my life to Jesus in 1999, thankfully I had a friend who asked me not to cuss when I was around him; and this had a huge impact on me. Colossians 3:8: “Now you must also rid yourselves of…filthy language from your lips.” But I’ve heard some youth pastors and others use the d-word in the pulpit, “what the h-word” in the pulpit, and another say, “There’s nothing wrong with cussing. Words in the apostle Paul’s time were not the same as words in our time.” With relativism, it was argued, that words change their meaning over time, so Scripture can’t really condemn the f-word, the s-word, the d-word, and the a-word, because it never condemns them specifically. But yes it does! If it’s considered “filthy language” today, it would plainly fall under the category of Colossians 3:8, Ephesians 5:4, and Matthew 12:36. Today, you can’t tell the difference between some of these younger pastors, in relaxed contexts, and a cussin’ soldier.

6. Arrogant, cocky authoritarianism. This problem goes all the way back to the Puritan movement, the reformation, and the time of Jesus. This has always been the most obvious characteristic of the Pharisees. If the other points I mentioned don’t appear to be obvious, then sooner or later, if you get involved in any church ministries; and you are in communication with a pastor or second-level church leader, I promise that you will encounter these spirits of control and pride operating in him or her eventually. If he has already demonstrated a hate for the true Gospel, charismatic ministry, theological conversations, evangelism, and people who don’t cuss–then why should we be surprised if he’s also a total jerk? Melanchthon’s Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Pt 19, says:

The cruelty of the bishops is the reason why the canonical government, which we greatly desired to maintain, is in some places dissolved. Let them see to it how they will give an account to God for dispersing the church. In this matter our consciences are not in danger, because since we know that our confession is true, godly, and catholic, we ought not to approve the cruelty of those who persecute this doctrine. And we know that the church is among those who teach the Word of God aright.

So, when people ask me, “John, how come you’re not in the ministry?” I would like to answer them, “I’ve tried many times; and in many different churches. I have seen these problems in every one, with every pastor. It is hard to preach the Gospel, it is impossible to do charismatic ministry, it is impossible to make theological buddies of and talk about the Bible with pastors, rarely will you find a Ray Comfort pastor that likes open air preaching, many pastors cuss and watch uncensored movies with profanity and partial nudity, and most of the time pastors are arrogant, bossy jerks. So, why do you ask me, how come I’m not in the ministry right now? Can you really blame me?”