Was This The Greatest Supernatural Event Of The 20th Century?

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the_patriot13 said:
you have still yet to show me Biblically, where it says the saints like the virgin mary, are "saints" and set apart, and where they come back and talk to us.
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We....Believers today are SAINTS!

We do not have to perform a miracle or be a Catholic in our understanding. BIBLICALLY we are saints because we have accepted Christ.

1 Corth. 1:1
"Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's:"

2 Corth. 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia:

Ephesians 1:1
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:"

Philippians 1:1
"Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:".

Colossians 1:2
"To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
 
Glomung said:
The woman who appeared to the children at Fatima told them that she was the Virgin Mary.
Later she also told them that there would be a miracle at a particular place and time and that miracle is what avemaria was referring to.

You can say that the woman may have been lying, but to what purpose? Why would the devil appear to children as a biblical figure and foretell miracles that cause devotion to God? Bit irrational, no?
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No Glomung. I do not agree with that.

Of course she could have been lieing. To what purpose???? Money, gifts, fame!!!

Why do people lie today???? Same reason.

Maybe she was mentally ill and was dilusionary.

When my own father, a deacon of 50 years was dieing, he swore he was on a street in NY city and men were coming to kill him. He was actually in a hospital room and nurses were ministering to him. Some DID come and DID give him medicine and he DID die.

The devil will appear to any all in any way to deceive and distort the truth.
 
calvin said:
Well then; first of all, I believe that Jesus put the skids under all these visions and apparitions when He told the Pharisees : Matt 12:39. But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Mat 12:40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

"This generation" properly refers to the generation of men living in the end times. That is from then till now and beyond, till Christ shall return. We do seek signs. We are an evil and adulterous generation.
The Crucifixion, death, burial and glorious resurrection are the sign we have been given by the Christ.....is than not sufficient for us?

In post #23 you made a vague reference to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Please consider what Jesus was teaching us more fully.
Luke 16:29. But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'
Luke 16:30. And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
Luke 16:31. He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'"
So then, the rich guy asks for what? He asks for a dearly departed to return to the Earth to warn (in this case) his brothers.
And what does Abraham respond with? That is right! Unbelieving people will not be convinced even by the return of the dead.
Now if that was a lesson Jesus wanted to teach, we should believe it above any competitive idea don't you think?

Also, in that same post you mention the counsel of Jerusalem. Ave, the rules for circumcision were to induct male children into the covenant that the Lord made between Himself and Abraham. But as Christians were are heirs with Christ of a new covenant, one that involves circumcision of the spirit, not the flesh. The Apostles were not setting aside any scripture at all.
Again from your post #23, you say:"The New Testament covers a very brief period of time and a small amount of the History of the early Church and the Apostles is contained in the NT." This is true, however do not loose sight of the fact that "2Tim 3:16. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
2Tim 3:17. that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Now if the Scriptures made the servants of the Lord complete and fully equipped, then it follows that the scriptures need no future embellishment.
Ahhh that post #23 again!:) The Marriage feast at Cana was not the first miracle that Jesus should be credited with.
Consider fasting forty days and nights. Jesus resisted hunger, He resisted thirst. He resisted temptation. Now that was a miracle greater than turning a bit of water into wine. Remember that Jesus fasted forty days and nights before the devil's tempting even began.
Now, in post#29, you suggest that God thought Mary might succeed where the sign of Jonah failed.
Not good.
Also I can not remain silent on this most important issue. Mary was the mother of the man Jesus. She was not the mother of God. That is absurd. Mother being the source of life for her offspring and the source of God's life, she most emphatically was not. Jesus' Father is God the Father, why? because he was begotten of the Father. Jesus as to his human nature was Mary's son. Please do not say that Mary is the mother of God. God has no progenitor. That is as ridiculous as saying that Daffy Duck hatched out of an orange.
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Calvin, as usual is Biblically spot on! Now to take this a step further...........
Mary was a SINNER just like every other human being and she needed a Savior in order to be saved from her sin.
That Savior was her Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
avemaria said:
"a miracle concerning the sun, would have been seen by the entire world"
There was a promised sign that would be given to those who showd up at the apparition site. That promised sign took place for the crowd that showed up at the place and on the day that the sign was promised.
The sign was not promised for the whole world to see.

However, at the apparition, the world was told that the sky would be illuminated by an unknown light as a warning that God would punnish the world with a greater war. This was visible throughout Europe.

In the evening of January, 25th 1938 a brilliant aurora borealis described as "a curtain of fire" and "a huge blood-red beam of light" was visible troughout the entire old Europe...
Soon after the event, few weeks later Hitler's Third Reich annexed Austria's territories starting the chains of events that leaded to the most obscure times of the history of the human mankind.
In the evening of August, 23rd 1939 another aurora borealis phenomenon was visible in the skies of Europe, right in the day when Berlin and Moscow signed the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact.

Again I shall mention, the children knowing about future events taking place is in my opinion a greater and more important sign than the October 13 Solar miracle. If God wanted to work a solar miracle that was only visible as a sign to those who showed up when and where they were told to go, than God is perfectly capable of doing such a thing
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Ave........God bless you.

I see that you are passionate about your Catholic faith.

But I encourage you to consider Bible truth above denominational teaching. They are not always one in the same.

Consider Matthew 12:39.........
ESV
But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."

What does that say to you????????

The word ADULTEREOUS literally means ....."unfaithful to God".

It was a metaphor frequently used in the Old Test. for SPIRITUAL ADULTERY".

As the Scripture say, THE sign IS the GOSPEL of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:7....KJV

"For we walk by faith, not by sight"


 
The wedding of Cana was Christs first public miracle and he did so reluctantly but at the request of his Mother. Yes there may have been other miracles he did prior to that but it was the first public one that we know of.
In 1 Corinthians 4:6 there was no new testament canon at the time so he must have been refering to Old Testament Scriptures.

Anyway, an evil adulterous generation seeks a sign but this is an evil and adulterous generation and it is a common practice for God to work signs and wonders for an evil adulterous generation. When John the Baptist was wondering if Jesus was the Christ:
Matt 11 "When John,who was in prison,heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”...Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[b] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor."

It was signs and wonders that followed Christ that were to be the evidence of him being the Messiah.
Now could we get to the actual discussion on what this thread was designed for and maybe it will survive.
In my initial question I should have said ALLEGED "Supernatural event".

If any modern Christian is a wonder worker we dont know for certain whether the unexplainable phenomena, or the signs and wonders that follow the person come from God, the Devil, or some other source. So basically any modern Supernatural event is something God alone knows to be authentic or not.

I would consider the Fatima message to be Christian message for multiple reasons but if you disagree than please pray for me that I will do God's will and nothing but that.

Rather than picking it apart to find out if it is from God (which in my opinion none of us can prove), it can be proven that Fatima had a huge impact on millions of lives.
There have been many people who left their lives of sin and dedicated themselves to prayer and fasting for the conversion of sinners as a result of the Fatima miracle and message.
There are millions of people who make pilgrimages to the Fatima Shrine each year. Many people who were agnostic or atheist began to believe in God as a result of the event.

The miracle of Fatima was not just some children saying they saw and heard something and a town of people seeing something strange in the sky. The apparitions took place on a monthly basis for a period of six months. They gained much popularity because the Government in Portugal was communist and the children were persecuted by their relatives, friends, neigbors, and eventually kidnapped by the government authorities, threatened to be boiled in oil, and placed in an adult prison.
Many of the anti-religious authorities published and broadcast the promised miracle that was suppose to take place so that the large crowd would show up, witness nothing, and everyone's faith would be crushed, and the lives of the seers ruined.
Thousands of people from all over the country (and probably all over the continent) showed up in the pouring rain to witness the miracle that had been promised at that place and on that day.
It seems that the renewal of Faith in Portugal that followed the miracle Fatima was largely responsible for the toppling of the communist Government in that country.
So the question is do you know of any alleged "Supernatural event" that meets similar criteria to the Fatima message

A) It was promised in advance that if people show up at a certain time and place there would be a sign for all to see

B) an enourmous crowd of thousands of people showed up, along with a media crew, witnessed the miracle, and people with no religious persuasion at all wrote about it in secular newspaper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun)

C) There were important prophecies regarding the future that came true

D) there were many newspaper articles, media coverage, books, documentaries, and movies made about the event

So without arguing about whether the event is supernatural or preternatural do you know of anything like what happened at Fatima?
Whether it be related to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, or some other Faith please let me know if you know of such an event that meets some of that Criteria that I mentioned.
Then we have begun the converstation that we were suppose to be having in the first place.

One reason I mentioned a sign rather than bringing up doctrinal stuff is because I knew it would not be permitted to discuss Doctrinal things or argue about Scripture where I figured it would be okay to share something that took place and has been extensivelly documented and asking the question about whether or not people know of other such things like it happening in our modern times.
 
Dear Ava..........I do not argue!

What I do is post things that are directly related to the Scriptures because they (Scriptures) are the only source of truth, then encourage you to consider your opinioon in light of those Scriptures.

Now, as I understand the Fatima, supposedly, the Virgin Mary gave a message to 3 children. The Message of Fatima consists of an alleged number of precise predictions, requests, warnings and promises concerning the Catholic faith and the world, which were conveyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary to 3 shepherd children—Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco—in a series of ghostly apparitions at Fatima, Portugal from May to October 1917. An “apparition” means “the unexpected or unusual appearance of a ghostly figure.”

Now it is also my understanding that many Catholic cultures pass a statue of Our lady of Fatima around from house-to-house throughout the year. It's considered a good-luck charm while in their home. The statue is adorned in the center of their living room, given undivided attention by the family, and it is worshipped.

Now that is not to argue anything.......simply a statement of truth.

Now what does the Scriptures say about this????????

Exodus 20:4-5...............
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt NOT BOW DOWN THYSELF TO THEM, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of THEM THAT HATE ME.”

IS IT POSSIBLE that this event was a hoax perpatrated on the people for some unknown reason???

Does it conform to God's Word???
 
If God did not want the Israelites to carve graven images than why did he command Moses to make a fiery serpent and lift it on a pole so that those who might see it shall live. Numbers 21:7-9:
7: And the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8: And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." , 9: So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.​
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The bronze serpent prefigured Christ, for our Lord said, "just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."​
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Thus, he commands them in the very ark of the covenant in which God himself resided. Even the ark itself is gold that is refined, cut to adorn a place where God would reside in a special manner. There is a mercy seat of pure gold. That in and of itself is a graven image. Plus, it is purely done in a religious context and the making of these images was to bring more Glory to God himself.​
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Let us see when it was actually done by Solomon when he put this into practice, 1 King 6:22-29:​
22: And he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold. 23: In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high. 24: Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the length of the other wing of the cherub; it was ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. 25: The other cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same measure and the same form. 26: The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub. 27: He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house; and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one touched the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their other wings touched each other in the middle of the house. 28: And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. 29: He carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms.​
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Anyway, I do not worship any statue nor does my faith permit me to worship anyone other than God. Things are not always very clear, God says do not make of thee a graven image and later he commands them to make graven images. ​
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If you want to believe the message of Fatima is Demonic than I respect you, please pray for me....God bless!​
My personal view is that Satan would not appear as the Mother of Jesus and tell people to stop offending God and pray and fast for the conversion of sinners.​
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Im hoping we can get back to the original question I had asked​
 
Dear Ava.........In responce to your questions in post #46, allow me to say..............

A) It was promised in advance that if people show up at a certain time and place there would be a sign for all to see.

And how is that any kind of miracle or special event? It was very common in those days before TV and Email and telephines.

B) an enourmous crowd of thousands of people showed up, along with a media crew, witnessed the miracle, and people with no religious persuasion at all wrote about it in secular newspaper.

There has beeen before this event and after this event many Astronomical events seen in the sky. Sun corona's, Sun bursts, Magnetic events.

C) There were important prophecies regarding the future that came true
Who alive in 1917 DID NOT see WW1 coming??? Who in 1938 DID NOT see WW2 coming???
In fact I see WW3 coming
 
Well in 1917 world war one was ending but how would 3 illiterate shepard children know that Russia would be a threat. At that time Russia was full of poverty and was a Christian Country.
How did they know the errors of Russia (communism and socialism) would spread throughout the world?
Also there is more miraculous phenomenon that took place at the site other than the solar miracle which I have mentioned more than once elsewhere in this thread and dont feel like repeating.
Either way, this event had an enourmous impact on the world around us regardless of what other conclusions we come up with.
I have read multiple books, seen movies and documenteries on it, prayed about it and asked the Holy Spirit to guide me. There is much contained in this message that I have not mentioned. At a time where I had little faith, it was in a book on Fatima that I found much inspiration. I found much Inspiration from the quotes and the good example of the seers and inspiration from the call to conversion, prayer, and sacrifice.
I also developed a horror for sin and a love for prayer, and a love for virtue. Of course, the word of God is more important than anything but it was actually through some of these apparitions that I was lead to love God and his word.
I hate to see where I'd be now had that conversion not happened.
 
Dear Ava.........
The serpant on the pole was a symbol of salvation...it was not an idol to be worshipped. It was NOT worship and was actually destroyed by King Hezekiah so that it WOULD NOT be used as a worship idol.

I reaaly do not see how the materials used in the Ark or Temple can be used to equate Idol worship. That sounds more like someones explination to help in the acceptance of the actual worshp of the Fatima Statue.......... not your thoughts.

I am not saying the message of Fatima is Satanic.

I simply do not know. All I am doing is trying to show that there are many explinations to explain it, one of those being that it would be to the RCC benifit would it not?
 
Yes and we are never to worship anyone other than God nor are we to give adoration to any image. It is against the teachings of the Church to give the adoration that belongs to God to anything other than God.
But the Israelites did recieve healing by gazing at a graven image and if you saw a bunch of people gazing at a bronze serpent for healing it would have externally looked like Idolatry but it all depends on what is in the heart of the person not the external actions that make it Idolatrous.

The Church was not encouraging people to go there
The local priest was not supportive of it either.
It took the church more than a decade of investigating after the miracle happened before approving of it.

Well nothing in the message said you need to convert to Catholicism.
Okay, so we can offer natural explanations for many things. Please im just asking for an example of something else like Fatima that happened in modern time.
Whether it supports Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, or Hinduism im just wondering what other alleged "supernatural events" took place.
Because even if we dont know whether they come from God and we shouldnt seek "signs" such things do lead to the conversion of millions of people and therefore are very significant and can bring many non-believers to having Faith.
Our Lord and the Apostles did repeatedly use such means to convert people.
 
If a person goes from being a complete athiest to honoring the Virgin Mary as a result of a Marian apparition that is a big step in the right direction.

Each decade of the Rosary contains a meditation (mystery) on Scripture. 18 of the 20 Sacred mysteries that a person meditates on while reciting the Rosary comes from the Gospels. The joyful mysteries, Luminous mysteries, and sorrowful mysteries, and glorious mysteries contain much meditations on the birth, childhood, life, ministry, passion, death, ressurection, and ascenscion of Christ into Heaven.
That is what a person praying the Rosary is to be meditating on. The Rosary also contains the Lord's prayer, and get this, the prayer "Hail mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus" is a quote taken directly from the Gosepel of Luke. Those words were written by GOD!

You cant offend God by reciting a scripture verse. So, if a total atheist begins to pray the Rosary as a result of a Marian apparition and public miracle like Fatima, that is a huge step in the right direction.

The person now believes in God, he/she is reciting the word of God, he/she is reciting the Lord's prayer, the doxology, the apostles creed and he/she is meditating on mysteries from the Gospel. Wouldnt you admit that this person is a step closer to being an Evangelical than they were as a complete agnostic?

Isnt that a big step in the right direction? If a person goes from being an athiest to honoring the Mother of Jesus, isnt there alot of potential for good coming from that?
For instance, the Mother of Jesus was favored by God (luke 1:30, luke 1:48) she was humble, meek, full of grace, modest, pure, faithful, charitable, and a servant of God and Mother of our Redeemer.
All but one of the Apostles fled like cowards when it was time for Christ to be Crucified yet his mother was faithful to the end and present at the foot of the cross which in my opinion shows that she was more faithful to him.

So if a person loves and honors the Mother of Jesus, they honor a virtuous woman whom Jesus honored as well in obediance to the commandment "honor your Father and Mother". They may want to imitate her good example of humility, meekness, modesty, purity, faith, hope, love, and like her, be a servant of God.
So if a total unbeliever begins to honor the Mother of Jesus, to say the least, they have a much better role model than many people in our current culture.

Because the Rosary contains many meditations on the Gospel it can and does lead many unbelievers to Jesus and virtuous living.

Since approved Marian apparitions tell people to humble themselves, turn away from pride, lust, anger, greed, jealousy, sloth, gluttony, and stop offending God, that too, can and does inspire people to more virtuous living.

Even if it doesnt add up with your theology, you cant deny that it could be a huge step in the right direction and much good fruit could become of it.

If you had a child who was an unbeliever and their role model was a sleezy movie star and suddenly your child took down the posters of that Celeb and put up an image of the Virgin Mary and took her as a role model, wouldnt that be encouraging that the child wants to be like the Mother of Jesus, a lowly faithful servant of God?
 
Folks like to pick and choose their theology. The same ones who adore the Bible despise the church that gave it to them.
They will scrupulously nitpick over how a man should be baptized but will refuse to confess their sins even though they were commanded by Jesus to do so.
The church councils decided that art and statuary were permissible under certain very particular circumstances, but let's not let a bit of actual history get in the way of a good thrashing of other peoples religious practices.
 
I do not believe I have disrespected anyones belief's here and if so I am sorry.
When I read our Lord's agonizing word's from the cross, "son behold thy Mother" I believe Jesus is telling me the same thing. I see no danger in believing that of his many gifts God has given me a friend, advocate, and spiritual Mother.

What the book of Revelation chapter 12:17 says to me is that Mary is my Mother and the mother of Christians. That is my personal interpretation of those Scriptures and if you find different meaning, I respect you and have no interest in arguing with you about it.

I have had no desire that anyone's belief's get disrespected as a result of this thread and if the Mods have objections to it could you please move it rather than delete it. There must be somewhere else on this website where we could be permitted to discuss such things because as you can see this must be an interesting topic for people.
In the less than two days that this topic has been posted there have been a flood of replies and in my opinion much interesting and fruitful discussion.

So if this topic is of so much interest to people and there are so many strong passionate and educated opinions on this subject, it would be nice if there was somewhere on this website that we could discuss such things.
We are talking about the Mother of Jesus which is in my opinion relevant to the Gospel, to Jesus Christ, and to Christianity.

This thread has already gone in directions I didnt want it to but there is good coming from that as well.
So im asking you that if this thread is not permitted to remain in the General discussions area, could you please move it to another area where we are given permission to talk about such things?

I hope you will prayerfully consider my request.

Thank you and may God bless you!
 
avemaria said:
I do not believe I have disrespected anyones belief's here and if so I am sorry.

We are talking about the Mother of Jesus which is in my opinion relevant to the Gospel, to Jesus Christ, and to Christianity.
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Yes, you have been respectful of other's faiths.
You keep wanting to talk about supernatural events...OK, what exactly do you say a supernatural event is?
Unless I missed it, you have ignored my post #39 dealing with alternate supernatural events. You can google 'revivals', you can google 'evangelical crusades, evangelists' and so on.

As for not wanting to discuss other things, you spend a lot of time and energy doing so:)

Let me digress for a moment. Major raised the issue of graven images Exo 20:4. You countered with the episode of the bronze serpent. We need to be mindful of the fact that the prohibition on graven images came hot on the heels of the command not to have/worship other gods V3, and is immediately followed by a qualifier; in V5 we read that the prohibited things are or would be objects of worship. When Moses was instructed to make a flag out of a bronze serpent it was not for the purpose of idol worship, but as an inducement to the Israelites to look to the Lord for their safety and healing. And yes, it was also a foreshadowing of Christ being lifted up on the cross, though none there would be expected to have seen that.

Now back to the event you mention. It is terrific to know that you have been led to Christ through your studies of this event. And to you it must be really great thing. You need to understand that there are many other Christians who have had different experiences of other supernatural events that have led them out of darkness and into the light...for them, though perhaps more personal in nature, these supernatural occurrences far outdo the Fatima experience.

We all need to remember that the Lord does not play a numbers game. Remember the parable of the lost sheep? Just one lamb chop gone astray is enough to put the whole flock on hold. He wants 100% not 99%. The Fatima incident included such a small percentage that if should only be afforded a correspondingly small piece of the pie. That is not to say that it was of no value....it helped the Holy Spirit to bring you to Christ. For that it gets the 'gold star'. But it can not stand alone on the winners podium.
Any one of countless other supernatural events that brought home that one wayward lamb, must be allowed to stand on the winners podium and sport a gold star too.
I do see a danger though for you. Perhaps I am wrong to worry, perhaps not. Your Faith in Christ as your Saviour must not be allowed to depend on the Fatima story. For you it is real, and for you it brought you to Christ...Follow Christ now, not Fatima, just as for myself, I must be following Christ, not the events that brought me to Him.
 
Glomung said:
Folks like to pick and choose their theology. The same ones who adore the Bible despise the church that gave it to them.
They will scrupulously nitpick over how a man should be baptized but will refuse to confess their sins even though they were commanded by Jesus to do so.
The church councils decided that art and statuary were permissible under certain very particular circumstances, but let's not let a bit of actual history get in the way of a good thrashing of other peoples religious practices.
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The church, did not give us the Bible, but rather, the Bible, the church. To say such is a false doctrine and it is not Biblical. The church, is a Biblical instition, put there by God, and God spelled it out in His book, the Bible, how the church is to be run. The church, is under Gods word, if the Church, is not following the guidelines set up in the Bible, then the Church, is wrong. Church tradition does not supercede the Bible, nor is it equal to. If church tradition is in contradiction to the Bible, then the tradition is in error, the Bible should define tradition. the Lady Fatima, is not Biblical, nor is worshiping any idol-whether it be budha, or a statue of the virgin mary in your home. Just my .02 cents.
 
Once again, I do not worhip graven images nor do I believe it is okay to give the adoration (worship) that belongs to God to anyone or anything else.

Thanks Calvin,
I have respect for what you had to say because your words were not condemning of something that set me on the journey to repentance, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and growth in mental, emotional, and Spiritual maturity.

Yes God works in different ways to bring people out of the darkness and into the light and it is not important whether I know of the greatest Historically documented supernatural incident.
Nor would it be right to judge one as being greater than the other.

I see them as important because there are alot of skeptics out there who convert over such things and signs and wonders were necessary throughout the Old Testament and used repeatedly by Christ and the Apostles.

However, there is danger if a person is seeking signs and wonders rather than the giver of those gifts and a sign of Spiritual immaturity for someone to continue depending on such things for faith.
 
Im not condemning anyone, Im just explaining how I believe that this event was not from God, as the Bible says in a verse already quoted "But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Matthew 12:39)

The purpose of the signs in Biblical times, is because they did not have the Bible in written form. At that time, the only way for the people to know that something was of God, was with a sign. Now, we have the Bible-we can take events and people, and compare them to what the Bible says, is of God. We no longer need the signs, and we no longer get these signs-the last true and major sign that we needed, was Christ coming to earth, and dying for our sins, and raising 3 days later. Now, since we have the Bible, we can compare the miracle of the sun with it-and since the Bible says there will be no more such signs, per the Bible, then the miracle of the sun in 1917-and the appering of the "virgin mary" were not of God. To say otherwise, is in contradiction to scripture.
 
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