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* PENTECOST*
THE "ONENESS" PENTECOSTALS HAVE A POINT! |
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A New Light Dawns! |
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, *ONENESS* Page 2 A Distinctive Name or Emphasis that identifies, at least to Pentecostal Christians World-wide, a group of Christian Believers who emphasize that JESUS CHRIST, through his Name, has Power to Save People above and beyond the usual emphasis on the "Divine Trinity". While other Christians may be satisfied to be baptized in the name of the "Father, Son. and Holy Ghost" (as promoted by the Nicene Creed) "Oneness Christians" mandate another Baptism, that in Jesus' Name, and promote the idea that this is more powerful and meaningfull than that promoted in the Nicene Creed.) I will represent here this important group through the stories of two of their very important and prominent preachers --
Glen Cook and Samuel N. Handcock
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WITH ANGELS! |
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Glen Cook: Oneness Apostle From Old Waymarks Website Posted on Internet As the Azusa Street meetings began to produce concentric waves of revival throughout Los Angeles and Southern California, many holiness ministers visited the mission at 312 Azusa Street to contend with William Seymour, the African American leader of the burgeoning Pentecostal group, concerning his strange new doctrine of speaking in tongues. One of the early preachers to withstand Bro. Seymour was Glenn A. Cook, who was conducting holiness tent meetings at Seventh and Spring Streets in Los Angeles. Cook was deeply impressed by Seymour’s humility and patience and began to attend the Pentecostal meetings. He eventually apologized to Bro. Seymour for his “hard sayings” and spent five weeks in heartfelt repentance and spiritual agony before receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost:
I felt that I was really lost and unless I received the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues I would miss all. When I had just about given up all hope, the Holy Ghost fell on me as I lay in bed at home. I seemed to be in a trance for about twenty-four hours and the next day in the meeting began to speak in tongues.
FIRST: Daniel the Prophet: Daniel 10:2 "In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. 3 "I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three full weeks were fulfilled. -- (Nowadays they call this a "Daniel Fast" and indeed incredible things are reported by those who try it!) 4 "And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel; 5 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: 6 His body also was like the beryl, and his face had the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude." 7 "And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision: but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves." (Anyone who has really received the Holy Gost will have felt that quaking or shaking at some time or another, also described by some as "electricity running up and down my back or arms or legs). 8 "Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me to corruption, and I retained no strength." (This, too, has been the experience of many, I may even say most, of those who have been overpowered by the Holy Ghost -- and indeed Brother Cook was describing this feeling of "no strength" , of being "in a trance" for no less than 24 hours--longer than usual). (Often there's an emotional component to such experience --- in my case it was sadness, I cried until it seemed like I had no tears left to cry!) 9 "Yet heard I the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground." (Again very much like Brother Cook's "trance" for 24 hours) 10 "And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands." (Here's where some find themselves on the floor without much recollection of how they got there. In Brother Cook's case, he discovered he now had the ability to speak in "other-worldly tongues", in "Glossilalia", which was the sign that he wanted, and was an assurance to him that he was "saved"). In Daniel's case and in Brother Cook's case, both were expecting or hoping something like this would happen! In King Saul's case, he was not wanting something like this to happen, but it happened anyway! SECOND: King Saul of Israel
Third: Ananias and Sapphira! (this story is difficult to trace due to major efforts on the part of the authors of the Gospels to "cover up" the identity of "Ananias" -- a well-known Charismatic leader of his era, who indeed exhibited all of the signs of being "filled with the Holy Ghost" -- who fell out of favor with Peter and Paul -- who had their own agenda to promote!
Let's turn now to our other Preacher of Oneness Pentecostalism
Samuel N. Handcock, Founder of the Pentecostal Church of the Apostolic Faith In 1916, Samuel Hancock was amongst the 465 members of Christ Temple who submitted to rebaptism in the Name of Jesus Christ, following Glen Cook’s fortuitous campaign throughout the Midwest spreading the message of the mighty God in Christ. Hancock felt called to the ministry and showed an aptitude for leadership. He was ordained to the ministry by G.T. Haywood and became Bishop Haywood’s assistant pastor in 1917. In 1921, Samuel Hancock was invited to pastor a small group of Apostolic believers in Detroit, Michigan. After much prayer, he agreed to accept the position and declared by faith, “I will do a great thing in Detroit, Michigan.” By 1926, the church had grown to nearly 400 members; and in 1929, a new 1,200-seat sanctuary was built at 2254 Clinton Street. Finally, in 1962, the church purchased the Jewish synagogue, Shaarey Zedek, which continues to be the present home of Clinton Street Greater Bethlehem Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith (“Bishop Samuel Nathan Hancock”). By 1940, Samuel Hancock had moved to the center of a doctrinal controversy within the PAW, and a special meeting was held in Columbus, Ohio to solidify the biblical standards of faith for the organization. Hancock was accused of teaching that Jesus Christ was only the son of God, not God Himself. Despite this notion, he was named in 1943 as a member of the Board of Directors of Aenon Bible School, the official seminary of the PAW (Golder 121-125). In 1955, Bishop Hancock, along with other members of the Executive Board, signed an affirmation of the Oneness doctrine (Golder 149). Bishop Morris E. Golder, who wrote an official history of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, portrays Samuel Hancock as doctrinally aberrant, referring to his teachings on the Godhead as “’strange’ ideas far removed from what was held as biblical by our organization.” Golder also notes that the 1955 special meeting of the Executive Board convened specifically to refute the errors of Bishop Hancock. Further, Golder believes Hancock opposed the leadership of Samuel Grimes, believing that he himself should have been appointed Presiding Bishop following the death of Bishop Haywood (140). On 20 November 1957, Bishop Hancock along with Bishops Heardie Leaston, Willie Lee, and Elder David Collins, officially incorporated the Pentecostal Churches of the Apostolic Faith. Interestingly, Bishop J.E. Moore, present Presiding Bishop of the PCAF, adamantly declares that Hancock never denied the deity of Christ. According to Bishop Moore, Hancock simply believed that the manifestation of the Son was not properly emphasized in the preaching and teaching of the PAW (“Interview”). Today, the doctrinal statement of the PCAF clearly demonstrates their strong affirmation of the revelation of the mighty God in Christ: We believe in the oneness of God; that there are three manifestations of the one God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The name by which God is known is Lord Jesus Christ. (“What We Believe”). In fact, Willie Lee later left the PCAF because he did not believe that Jesus was God, further suggesting that the PCAF position represented Oneness orthodoxy.
In this case the Holy Ghost, who knows that Jesus is indeed "only" the Son of God, not "God Himself", has provided this extraordinary Preacher, this "Father" of so many churches all over the country, with enough determination and backbone to maintain and defend what he knows to be "the truth" in spite of overwhelming pressure from his own and other churches to "cave in" and accept the more populat view. The one mandated by the Roman Catholic Church since the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD! |
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Since 1992, I, Dr. Robert Holt, MD, MPH have been able to prove to myself by repeated trips to Israel and the Dead Sea Area, that there were a group of Holy Men called the Essenes who lived by the Dead Sea in three major sites there that I have seen myself. I have personally walked all over, measured, and photographed the ruins of the synagogue with the "water-gate" and canal out into the Dead Sea at Kherbit Mazin, 6 Km south of the ruins of the Qumran Monastery, and also walked along the canal that directed fresh water from the Brook Kidron to the cisterns which provided showers there for the "Tourists" baptized there in the salt water. I know as well as anyone can know anything archaelogically that here is where Peter, Andrew, James, and John "fished for men" instead of fishes -- first for Zebedee (later called "Ananias") the first "Pentecostal Preacher" of any major importance in New Testament times -- then later for Jesus, who took over his ministry, and later supplanted it with a very different type of religious worship. One that required little or no contact with the "Holy Ghost". I'm here to tell you that the HOLY GHOST is back. And the Roman Catholic religion of symbolism and dogma and Papal Decrees is going to have to take a back seat now to the REAL THING!
"ONENESS"!
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