Recently both Pastor Tom Schaller and Pastor John Love spoke of "the certain sound messages" that Pastor Carl Stevens has taught over the years, specifically going back 30 years or more, to when they were in the Bible Speaks ministry in South Berwick Maine.

But are these so called "certain sound messages" still valid.

It would appear that in South Berwick Maine and in Lenox Massachusetts, and even in the first few years Pastor Carl Stevens spent in Baltimore, all of Pastor Carl Stevens messages were most likely annointed by God whose name was "JEHOVAH".

Certainly it is well know that when Pastor Carl Stevens first started teaching that God had promised him that all of his message were to be annointed [e.g. by God], Pastor Carl Stevens believed and taught that God's name was "Jehovah".

However sometime in the 1990's, Pastor Carl Stevens, and I assume Pastor Tom Schaller and Pastor John Love all rejected their previous strong belief that God's name was "Jehovah" . And of course all members of GGWO were required to make the same changes to their beliefs.

I think that GGWO prides themselves on never having to have changed their teachings, but obviously this is not true. They made a drastic change in their teaching in the 1990's.

It would appear obvious that when in the 1990's, Pastor Carl Stevens rejected the name "Jehovah", and started teaching that God's name was "Yahweh", at least some of those so called "certain sound messages" were no longer valid.

While occasionally those so called "certain sound" messages are played on The Grace Hour, and acknowledged as being "Classic" messages, nobody in GGWO believes any more that they were accurate, if Pastor Carl Stevens mentioned the name Jehovah in them.

Is it time for the expression "certain sound messages" to be removed from the GGWO vocabulary?

Daved

I don't recall anyone ever saying/doing anything "requiring" me to do anything about this issue. I also don't recall it being made as big an issue as you make it, Daved. (Have you ever explained why this particular issue seems to be the beginning and end of your interest in gg, the Bible, etc.? Just curious...)

Stevens taught many squirrelly things over the years. (To my shame, I simply shoved the red flags in my pocket and merrily went on my way, never calling him on any of his nonsense. Decussation of pyramids, anyone? etc.)

Many years ago I was taught that a characteristic of cults is that they "major on the minors." Even as a gg pastor, when Stevens would suddenly over-emphasize a seemingly secondary issue, I did the same thing I believe most members and even other gg pastors did: smiled, nodded and applauded in all the right places, while pretty much ignoring the blather.

If someone doubts that, prove it for yourself. Pick 2-3 of the "gg distinctives" and ask three church members and three gg pastors to explain them. I doubt you'd get two who are even close in trying to explain the stuff.

Hi John Collins

You asked:

John

Except for a 2-3 week visit to the Bible College in South Berwick Maine, in the 1970's, I have never heard what Pastor Carl Stevens and the other instructors teach inside the walls of a Bible College.
[One exception would be when rap-sessions were played on the radio].
I did hear Pastor Carl Stevens preach at Charlotte Dunning School in Framingham , Mass but I never heard him mention the name "Jehovah" and certainly not the name "Yahweh", in those years.

After Pastor Carl Stevens moved to Baltimore in 1987, and changed his teaching on Jehovah, services were still being held in Framingham, sometimes by Pastor White. At one of these services the choir sang a song praising the name "Jehovah". I had my own thoughts about why the choir might have decided to sing a song about Jehovah, at a time when Pastor Carl Stevens was no longer teaching that name.

I was working full time during the 1990's, but I had puchased a Radio Shack radio that could record live AM broadcasts off of the airwaves. I listened to the Grace Hour during work, and after work I might replay the recording of the live broadcast.

While it appears that what Pastor Carl Stevens and Pastor Paul Stevens taught their listeners on the Grace Hour is not clearly known by those who were active members of the Bible College in Baltimore, I remember it reasonably well.

I probably am the person who started Pastor Carl Stevens to rethink his previously beliefs on the name "Jehovah".

I am a person who listened to Pastor Carl Stevens and his son Paul work as a team on The Grace Hour [for several years] to inform the listening audience how "Jehovah" was a mongrel name with no meaning, at the same time never mentioning that Pastor Carl Stevens had taught that God's name was Jehovah for over 20 years [1972-1992] at that time.

I am a person, who after the change was made, heard Pastor Paul introduce the Great Hour Broadcast one day, by praising GGWO as not being one of those Christian ministries who is always changing their teachings, with the result that all of their members have to also change their beliefs in order to agree with the change that was being made by their pastors.

John,

You may not have been told you that were required to change your beliefs,
but were you in GGWO in Baltimore when the change was made?

Some ex members of GGWO in Baltimore have posted on FACTNet that believing that God's name was Jehovah in Baltimore was ridiculed.

Some callers to the Grace Hour demonstrate how well they have been infuenced by Grace Hour Broadcasts, when they speak in a derogatory manner toward the name "Jehovah".

HOWEVER WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE.
IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE THAT GGWO IS CORRECT TO HAVE REJECTED THE NAME JEHOVAH.

GGWO CERTAINLY HAVE JEWISH BELIEFS ON THEIR SIDE ON THIS ISSUE.

Daved

P.S. It appears at least possible that Martin Luther and William Tyndale both caused Protestant Christianity to start off on the wrong foot, by teaching their strong belief that Jehovah [a.k.a. Jehouah or "Iehouah] was the actual name of God.

It is quite possibly that GGWO deserves a "praise report" for what they have done.

John, would you like to be the first ex member of GGWO to praise Pastor Carl Stevens for correcting an error in Protestant Christianity, by changing his teachings, on the name "Jehovah".

It will certainly help you at the Bema Seat Evaluation,
if what Pastor Carl Stevens is presently teaching is true.

John Collins: Where do you stand on this issue on May 30, 2008?

Not to dis your thread title daved, but I'm far more inclined to ask "Was Carl Stevens Ever Annointed bt Jehovah in Wiscasset, So. Berwick, Lenox or Baltimore?" and the declarative statement, None of Carls sound messages have been valid in the light of the christian experience.

Hi Daved.

You may be the only person known to have said/done anything to EVER get Carl to change his opinion on ANY subject.

Based on the timeline you've provided, yes, I was. So?

Hahahahahaha! ME? Praise Carl for ANYTHING? I cannot conceive of anything which could get me to come close to such a thing ever again! B)

Guess I'll just have to take my chances on eternity, w/o Carl's help.

It's a non-issue to me. I don't care, don't worry about it, don't think about it except when reading your posts, and sleep very well at night nonetheless.

First part of the question:

Was Carl Stevens annointed by Jehovah in Lenox?

A better question might be: Was Carl Stevens ever anointed (whatever "anointed" means in a system of fundamentalist religion that really only relies on its own self-determining appeals to "the Bible alone") by anyone other than his own self-aggrandizing claims?


Are "certain sound messages" still valid?

Were these messages ever "sound" in the first place? As to if they are valid or not, how would any objective person authenticate this? They are only valid in the minds and hearts of those folks who continue to venerate Carl and his crazy-making legacy.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha lol ha ha ha ... ha ha

This is insane!
Seriously. INSANE

The argument over the name of God is a fringe argument IMO. We seem to be "majoring on the minors" as John pointed out earlier.

If this argument is meant to show inconsistencies in CHS's teaching, that is fine. We can add it to the list.

If it is to show that CHS actually moved from an incorrect position to the correct position as virtuous, I disagree. Let them stop claiming to be one of very few churches that understand the "the finished work" then I might be impressed. If anything, CHS used his change of teaching regarding the name of God to increase his exclusivity from the Christian community by showing he is smarter and more precise than the rest.

Finally, I have yet to see an argument clearly demonstrating the importance of getting God's name exactly right. While none of us can claim perfect knowledge of God, we know who we are talking about whether we call him God, the Lord, Father, Jehovah, Jesus, etc. What is more important is that God knows who we are talking about and he is not offended is we use a nickname. He looks upon our hearts, not our vocabulary.

Hi Guest 2

You wrote,

Guest 2

Pastor Carl Stevens wrote a booklet about Jehovah in the 1990's.
Maybe someone who posts on DiscussGGWO may have a copy.

I am not positive that Pastor Carl Stevens was quoting from his booklet,
but he once said on the Grace Hour,
something to the effect,
that when a ministry teaches that God's name is Jehovah,
Satan receives all the glory.

Of course in previous years Pastor Carl Stevens himself taught that God's name was Jehovah,
and I myself heard Pastor Carl Stevens say rather dogmatically,
at the end of discussions on the name Jehovah on The Grace Hour, that:

I wonder if Satan received glory,
when Pastor Carl Stevens made that comment quoted above.
___________________________________________________________________

I think that it safe to say
that the controversy over whether or not God's name is "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" continues.

What is interesting to note is that
although the Roman Catholic Church has put its "seal of approval"
on two Bibles in which the name Yahweh appears about 6823 times,
the moderators of two separate Roman Catholic Discussion Boards
would not say that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that God's name is actually "Yahweh".

It appears that until the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church actually meet together
and reach the conclusion that God's name is actually "Yahweh" ,
the name "Yahweh" remains as only a guess name,
even in the Roman Catholic Church.

If anyone wants dogmatic assurance of what God's name is ask a KJBO Christian.

They will inform you that it is "Jehovah"

In the last few years a KJBO Ministry in Austrailia,
has placed an electronic text of the Pure Cambridge Edition [i.e. PCE] of the King James Bible on its website.

PCE Believers teach that this edition of the King James Bible is totally error free.
On their Discussion Board they have wriiten an article titled:

The article can be viewed at the link below:

Bible Protector Discussion Board

The 2nd sentence of the article reads:

Daved

John Collins,

Quote: 'Finally, I have yet to see an argument clearly demonstrating the importance of getting God's name exactly right. While none of us can claim perfect knowledge of God, we know who we are talking about whether we call him God, the Lord, Father, Jehovah, Jesus, etc. What is more important is that God knows who we are talking about and he is not offended is we use a nickname. He looks upon our hearts, not our vocabulary.'

Have any comments on this quote by guest 2? BTW - Your name is John, do you like being called Fred or Richard or Steve? Not your name, so get it right or maybe you dont care about getting things right and won't lose sleep if I introduce or address you as Stanley! If I am not mistaken there is a major religion based on the name Jehovah with quite a few members and over 250 false doctrines to boot.

It is good that you can show that CHS is inconsistent and a hypocrite. CHS was big on making mountains out of mole hills if it made him look superior to bible scholars and other pastors. But you seem to have a broader agenda than just pointing out the inconsistent teaching of CHS and GGWO that goes beyond the purpose of DiscussGGWO. Can you please state why this subject is so important to you.

Guest, you take my words out of context. I was speaking regarding our communication with God, not each other. I think it is very important that we communicate to one another in an understandable way.

Hi Guest 2

You wrote:

Guest 2

I remarked previously about an Austalian KJBO article titled:

A sentence further down in the article reads':

There is most definitely a spiritual war going on,
in some portions of Christianity,
between the supporters of the name "JEHOVAH"
and the supporters of the name "Yahweh"

I find myself in the middle of this spiritual warfare.
Why? I do not know.
I seem to be on both sides,
so I catch arrows fired by both sides .

I do know that Pastor Carl Stevens is certainly involved in the attack on the name "Jehovah" in spite of the fact that he apparantly worshiped Jehovah as his God, for many many years.

Should it matter to those who are presently posting on Discuss GGWO
that Pastor Carl Stevens is probably involved in this issue, up to his ears?

I can not answer that question.

Each individual member of Discuss GGWO must decide for his or her self on this issue.

Daved

CHS has his own agendas, too. He does not care about movements who believe the KJV is the only inspired version of the Bible. He does not care if the is a historic controversy over the name of God or that or that it a Spirit, not a ghost. He only focuses on these things to give himself credibility in the minds of his followers. He would have had little to talk about had he switched to a modern translation of the Bible many years ago. He had an advantage with the KJV in that it made him look good when he pointed out poor translations of certain words of phrases. It is that simple. He was not involved in any issues up to his ears for sake of the issue.

"The Jews and false Christians have attacked God's name JEHOVAH."

These particular KJBO advocates are implying that in someone disagrees with them on the name of God then that person is unsaved. They are saving you have to know this information in order to be saved. That is works salvation.

But in Judges 13:17-18, God does not act as though we have to address Him by a particular name: "Then Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, "What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass we may honor You?" And the Angel of the LORD said to him, "Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?""

'Wonderful' has the sense of miraculous, incomprehensible.

God also says in Exodus 6:3, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them."

Does it make sense that if believing His name were Jehovah were necessary for salvation, God wouldn't use that name in His interactions with Abraham?

There is no chance - none, zip, zero - that any Hebrew pronounced "Jehovah" with either a J sound or a V sound. While there are differences of interpretation on the exact nuance, it is pretty clear that the name of God in Exodus 3 is some form of "I Am". The first letter of the name - Y / Yodh - indicates ongoing action. The other three consonants - HWH - are an archaic form of the three-letter root for the verb "to be". I am unaware of any Hebrew form in which there can be an ongoning action Y at the beginning of a word and a long O between the first & second letters of the root. Daved, how to the KJBO people explain this impossibility?

On the other name, Carl's charge that Jehovah is a "mongrel name" and that Satan receives the glory whenever it is used is equally stupid. As usual, Carl was making a sweeping pronouncement about something he didn't fully understand. 'Jehovah' is the consonants of the Tetragrammaton ("I AM") plus the vowels of Adonai, "Lord". 'Lord LORD' is commonly used in the Old Testament; it's just translated 'Lord GOD' in English because it looks funny if you don't know where 'Lord LORD' came from. So if you want to argue from etymology, Jehovah is a perfectly orthodox name for God. (However, the author's intent always trumps etymology.)

Both Carl and the PCE / KJBO people Daved mentioned are trying to force other people to accept their shoddy scholarship because they're uncomfortable with there being anything less than conclusive proof in theology. It's uncomfortable not having everything nailed down as tightly as one wants. But could everything be nailed down, cut-and-dried, and us still approach God by faith?

Hodeuon

I was about to post "who the heck cares if it's Jehovah or Shemovah?" until I read Hodeuon's post...which he concludes with such a valuable point...a god that we can fit into our finite brain cavity, that has no loose ends, no paradoxes, no contradictions, is a god who requires no faith at all. That whole idea of thinking we have landed somewhere solid undermines true faith and turns people into rigid unyielding dogmatists.

Which brings us right back to the real offense of a shepherding movement...they meddle with that place of encounter between the human and divine; a place they have no business meddlng with. By splitting all these theological hairs in an attempt to nail down the "truth" or "give the true interpretation" of the scriptures, they provide people with an outward measurement of faith...something Jesus never emphasized.

I always thought it was interesting that men in the old testament built altars to commemorate their own personal encounter with God, not a theological revelation: after they built these altars, they moved on...it was personal between them and God. The whole image depicts faith as a journey full of encounters that produce a deeper quality of faith and trust no matter what the circumstances are. It was not about making that encounter into a standard for everyone else to measure up to.

But carl stevens built an entire kingdom around his Worthly Pond Liquid Waves of Love experience and then asked his followers to accept HIS encounter with God as the guiding maxim of their Christian walk...hence a golden calf was born. In some way, shape or form, everything that is done at ggwo is done to honor one man's story of an encounter. So interestingly, this name thing has relevance...when carl uses his private interpretation and that whole aura of special knowledge to manipulate people to build his ministry...people think they are doing things in the name of God. Yet in the scriptures Jesus is pictured rejecting a whole group of people who boast of doing all these things in "his name." He says in effect, "I never knew you"... maybe he is saying, "You never really had an encounter with me"... maybe they just settled for a carl stevens instead.

If one soul is worth more than all the word, if the bible describes a savior who walks mile upon dusty mile out of his way to meet with one outcast woman in Samaria, if he tells a man hiding in a tree that no one else likes, "hey, I'm coming to your house for dinner" doesn't that say something about how much value he places on having an encounter with every individual...something that is sacred precisely because it cannot be repeated or experienced the same way by anyone else?

thanks new kid....good words

Carl's worthy pond experience was lifted, to put it nicely, from Wesley (? someone correct me) it wasn't his experience at all.

What a wake up call when we realized that so much of what we got from Carl was 2nd hand or outright stolen from others.

I googled "liquid waves of love" and the 2nd hit was a 3.5 year old gg Factnet thread on this very subject! B)

Any serious discussion on this topic should include the understanding that daved has an unhealthy obsession with the name of God, be it Jehovah or Yahweh, and with what Carl Stevens taught on it. It is not really possible to have an intelligent exchange with him on it. Anyone who used to read his posts on Factnet would know what I mean.

Jesus never addressed God by either of those names, if I am not mistaken. He always called him "My Father" and when he prayed he addressed Him as "Father". He taught us to pray the same way. Of course, Jesus being God Himself, His name would have been Jehovah or Yahweh also, and perhaps He was just distinguishing between the members of the trinity. But I always address God as "Father" or "Lord" and as far as I know He has not taken offense to this.

I don't understand Daved's obsession with the name of God either.

But Daved is Daved. Either you want to talk about what he wants to talk about or you don't. But discouraging others to discuss the name of God with him seems out of line.

It's kind of like being in TBS/GGWO and telling people that someone is "off."

Daved: We love you man! I thought about posting this when I read it in April. This is just an FYI type of post, which can be ignored by uninterested partys. lol.

From NRSV notes To The Reader:

Careful readers will notice that here and there in the Old testameent the word LORD (or in certain cases GOD) is printed in capital letters. This represents the traditional manner in English versions of rendering the Divine Name, the "Tetragrammaton," following the precedent of the ancient Greek and Latin translators and the long established practice in the reading of the Hebrrew Scriptures in the synagogue. While it is almost if not quite certain that the Name was originally pronounced "Yahweh," this pronunciation was not indicated when the Masoretes added vowel sounds to the consonantal Hebrew text. To the four consonants YHWH of the Name, which had come to be regarded as too sacred to be pronounced, they attached vowel signs indicating that in its place should be read the Hebrew word Adonai meaning "Lord" or Elohim meaning "God." Ancient Greek translators employed the word Kyrios ("Lord") for the Name. The Vulgate likewise used the Latin word Dominos ("Lord"). The form "Jehovah" is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an entirely different word. Although the American Standard Version (1901) had used "Jehovah" to render the Tetragrammaton (the sound of Y being represented by J and the sound of W by V, as in Latin), for two reasons the committees that produced the RSV and the NRSV returned to the more familiar usage (LORD) of the King James Version. 1. The word "Jehovah" does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew. 2. The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is innapropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.

Houden: Stevens had a habit of making a big deal about certain things but usually would mess it up by not having his facts straight. (My personal favorite: "The Beatles brought rock music to America from Africa.") He really butchered the Greek, which was a real revelation to students after only one or two semesters of Jack Leonard's Greek classes or delving into it themselves and was the source of more than a few people leaving.

I never heard him say Jehovah was "satanic" although he could have. Of course the question would then become what other words in the Bible are "satanic" and again no one ever seemed to think any of this stuff through, better to just blurt it out and then stick to your guns later. I think the whole issue arose out of the insistance of the Jehovah's Witnesses that you had to call him by His name...Hopefully we're not falling into the same trap with the Tetragrammaton.

Jaded 2: God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!

Are there instances in the Bible of God being addressed by name (other than Jesus)? The words Father, God, Lord, Most High, etc. are not so much names as they are terms of description, aren't they? I rarely address those I love the most by their names. I call them things like Son, Dad, honey, Mom, sweetheart, etc.

Very good points New Kid!!!! These were some of GGWO's biggest problems. Carl Stevens wanted to put God in a special box uniquely designed for his own convenience and his own glory. Carl also came with this whole liquid waves of love encounter to try to make himself appear more convincing to people. He wanted people to think he really did experience God in a special way, recieved a special anointing that would put himself above scrutiny, and that his many words actually came from God. This way Carl could coerce people to blindly believe in himself, blindly obey him, and blindly serve him while thinking that was giving service to God. Carl clearly used peoples' love and devotion to God against them in a way to redirect that love and devotion towards himself. He had to become this middleman between the people and Jesus Christ by getting them to think you can't learn from Christ outside of coming to every service to hear himself or his men preach. He also coerced people to think that the way to serve Christ was to serve him and/or loyal pastors working under him. Carl became this disgusting idol in so many peoples' lives by putting God in a box in a way that make himself the ultimate go-between between the people and Jesus Christ. Truth is God will never allow Himself to be put in a box and wants His own people to know His Son directly. No go-betweens allowed; God looks at them as idols and hates idolatry. Carl and his men would do well to consider this!!!

On May 31 2008, 02:06 PM Dude posted some interesting text from "From NRSV notes To The Reader":


Hi Dude

I think that several years ago I posted that same text on a KJBO Discussion Board.

Back in the final days of the original FACTNet GGWO [there is a new one],
Cordell introduced me to an article by C. John Collins, not to be confused with John Collins.

C. John Collins wrote something similar to the text you posted.

C John Collins comments on the use of "The LORD" in the ESV

Daved

http://www.charlesgfinney.com/lawsonbio.htm

"Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians"

Charles Finney

But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Ghost descended on me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings

I notice that in the previous post, Charles Finney writes:

Did Pastor Carl Stevens ever claim that his experience was:

"a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost?"

Daved