| Author | Message | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 324 Registered: 4-2012 |
My super-duper SDA cousins informed me that the wife of them was supposed to have a heavy-duty operation. She didn't want to go under anasetic and the knife so instead they had a slew of SDA elders come to the house and and anoint her. Viola! She was instantly cured, the medical condition immediatelly to the amazement of all the doctors and everyone else was if it had never been. Now to my question. 40 years ago my toddler son was very sick. He actually spent 6 1/2 weeks in the Saint Helena San, most of that time in ICU. I asked the SDA pastor up there to anoint my baby and pray over him. The SDA pastor refused. I cried and asked him how come. He gave me his song and dance about God hears the prayers of the righteous and by observing my lifestyle i didn't qualify as one of the righteous. Never mind, i was asking prayer for my baby, not me. So, what is the SDA protocol about amounting and intercessery prayer? Or, is their no protocol and each minister makes up his own rules? BTW, my baby came out fine. Had years of therapy afterwards but has been in the US military 26 years now with no lasting ill affects from the sickness. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14317 Registered: 12-2003  |
Well, I'm not sure if there is a "protocol" regarding members being anointed if they ask for it. But EGW did say that people with known sin shouldn't be prayed for. If someone was habitually smoking of "self-abusing", for example, she said the elders should not pray for them. That's probably where that pastor got it. It's not, as far as I know, a written rule, but it's possible there are qualifications in the church manual that caution against anointing flagrant sinners. Sigh. I just don't know for sure. I'm sorry, Punababe, for that horrible experience. Colleen | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 325 Registered: 4-2012 |
For a few years i was very involved with a large extended family that included numerous JW's. I requested prayer once with them for a person i knew who was suffering. The JW matriarc told me they only will pray for non JW's to "come into the truth ". Then and only then do they pray prayers of intercession because God hears the prayers of the righteousn | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2996 Registered: 7-2007 |
Some of the things that the cults/cult leaders do are really self-defeating; such as an article I read where a man came to Ellen White asking her to pray for him to overcome his habit of "self abuse." She told him she would pray that night and ask God whether or not she should pray for him. The next day she told him no, that God had told her not to pray for him and I can't remember what else she told him, but I'm sure that he went away a very discouraged man, certain that he was going to be lost. The hold that cults have over their people keep them from realizing that the Bible says salvation is a gift and that works don't and can't add to it! (Ephesians 2:8-9) Also, JWs shunning people who leave their organization doesn't encourage them to rejoin! Also the way that SDA pastor understood anointing doesn't stand up to what James 5:14-15 seems to be saying. It says that the anointed sick person's sins will be forgiven. I'm sure though that the object of a person's faith would play a part thought - such as, is the person trusting in a Jesus Who is fully God and Who finished the work, or are they trusting in a "Jesus" who isn't quite God (refer to EGWs earliest writings) and who isn't able to save you completely because, as Ellen White taught, salvation is a joint effort between the person's ongoing diligent effort and God. | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2997 Registered: 7-2007 |
I read a testimony about a fellow who was heavily into the occult before he got saved. One of the demonic "gifts" he had was healing and he could "heal" both other people and himself of things. I'd be wary of a "healing" done by a false religion. Of course I don't know what the object of the healed person's faith was [whether they "bought" into EGWs teaching of a limited Jesus and and limited atonement, of if they believed the Bible Jesus], and from time to time a person (such as Dale Ratzlaff) gets saved even before they leave a cult. |
