The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Cessationism Debate ｜ Remnant Radio & Doug Wilson

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel

00:00:03.740 Webin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome to the show

00:00:08.400 simultaneously three different guests. We have Pastor Michael Roundtree, Pastor Joshua Lewis,

00:00:14.400 and Pastor Doug Wilson. Josh and Michael are the co-hosts for Remnant Radio, and Doug Wilson,

00:00:21.000 he's the pastor of Christ Church and works with Canon, and Blog and Mayblog is probably where

00:00:26.800 you're familiar with him. So what we're doing in this episode is Pastor Doug and I are on the side

00:00:32.340 of cessationism, and Pastor Josh and Pastor Michael are on the side of continuationism.

00:00:38.440 And we are not having a formal heated debate, but we are arguing. We are disagreeing with one

00:00:43.500 another in a charitable, loving manner and talking about where do we agree and also where do we

00:00:48.340 disagree on the issue of the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit. That's the conversation.

00:00:55.760 What do we think about prophecy?

00:00:57.400 That's where we spend the majority of our time on the gift of prophecy,

00:01:00.620 but we also talk about healing, a little bit about tongues.

00:01:03.640 And that's the conversation for today.

00:01:05.160 Pastor Doug and I on the cessationist side,

00:01:07.880 Pastor Josh and Pastor Michael on the continuationist side,

00:01:11.580 ashing it out in a brotherly discourse on the gifts of the Spirit.

00:01:15.440 Enjoy the show.

00:01:16.740 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:01:19.340 This is Theology Applied.

00:01:24.860 all right welcome back to another episode of theology applied in this particular episode

00:01:31.580 i'm privileged to welcome three guests we have pastor doug wilson from moscow idaho christ church

00:01:36.160 we also have uh josh remind me your last name joshua lewis it's right there on the screen

00:01:41.300 joshua lewis and then remind our listeners real quick the name of the church that you're currently

00:01:45.560 pastoring sure i i'm the pastor of king's fellowship church in ada oklahoma great and

00:01:50.720 then we have Michael Roundtree, long friend of mine, and you're the pastor of Sam Storm's Old

00:01:55.800 Church, which I also don't know the name of, so I call it Sam Storm's Old Church. But what's the

00:02:00.120 name of your church? That's actually the name of it. It's called First Old Sam Storm's Church

00:02:05.120 of Oklahoma City. So Bridgeway Church is the name of it. And as you know, Joel,

00:02:11.060 Michael Roundtree is my name. Great. On the sign, it says Ichabod. Sam Storm's used to pastor here.

00:02:16.980 great um and so and for those of i probably most of our listeners recognize josh and michael but

00:02:25.700 they are a co-host of the remnant radio that focuses a lot on on different things it's not

00:02:32.460 just a one-trick pony but a lot of emphasis it's fair to say is gifts signed gifts of the spirit

00:02:36.820 correct you know we don't love the term signed gifts but yeah oh you don't okay what uh weird

00:02:42.740 gifts of the spirit uh i'm just kidding what what do you call them we're content with the

00:02:48.360 what we would view as the biblical categories as just gifts of the holy spirit gifts of the

00:02:53.180 holy spirit yeah we can talk about okay fair enough and then uh doug and i would be of the

00:02:59.080 persuasion that um that god is dead right doug that's your position that's right holy spirit

00:03:05.100 left yeah he's gone he's gone we'll catch back up with him you know in 10 000 years

00:03:09.720 you're on your own guys right so doug and i are uh we're being facetious there but we are

00:03:17.140 cessationists but we don't believe that all the gifts have ceased i don't know of really any

00:03:21.240 orthodox christian that does doug do you want to take a moment and just explain cessationism

00:03:25.640 uh sure i i would say maybe we could um find agreement on the phrase authenticating gifts

00:03:34.700 So there are gifts that simply minister to the saints, gift of encouragement, gift of administration, and that would look the same in every era.

00:03:45.440 But then Paul says in Corinthians, the things that mark an apostle, signs, wonders, and various miracles were done among you with great perseverance.

00:03:53.500 So those were authenticating gifts.

00:03:55.740 They were calling card gifts.

00:03:57.360 If a man says, I'm here to speak to you in the name of God, and this is the word of God, I'm going to want to see some credentials.

00:04:06.620 And I believe that the authenticating gifts were part of those credentials.

00:04:11.640 And there comes a time when the credentialing is no longer necessary because the foundation is poured and the building is going up on that foundation.

00:04:20.040 So if you say sign gifts, then you're sort of excluding God doing anything marvelous later.

00:04:31.400 I just don't want anything marvelous later that authenticates someone as an apostle who isn't one.

00:04:38.180 Okay, Michael and Josh.

00:04:40.200 So just for the listener real quick, just because we're hopping right in.

00:04:42.960 It's not a formal debate.

00:04:44.680 Mainly, we wanted to talk to our friends.

00:04:46.880 we love each other and have a lot in common and right now i don't know it seems like every 10

00:04:53.420 years you got to sell out a conference and uh you know we did strange fire and so now we're doing

00:04:58.100 strange fire part two um with the cessationism thing coming up and uh i was continuationist for

00:05:04.540 several years and i've got a lot of continuationist friends and continuationists in the local church

00:05:08.840 that i pastor and uh and i actually kind of like them and so i wanted to have a conversation with

00:05:14.740 guys that I disagree with, but that I like, but Doug's given his, you know, overarching

00:05:20.380 definition of cessationism. So Michael and Josh, it only seems fair. You guys go ahead and poke

00:05:25.260 some friendly holes. Sure. Okay, absolutely. So I guess I'll start, you know, funny, normally on

00:05:34.080 our show, Josh will start and I'll, I'll bat second, but here we go. Yeah, I mean, I think

00:05:40.880 what i would say so i heard you alluding doug to several passages second corinthians 12 12

00:05:46.260 uh with the signs of the apostle there's obviously some i say obviously i probably

00:05:51.740 not all of our viewers know there's some debate over that translation uh there and is he saying

00:05:58.320 that these are the signs that authenticate an apostle or is he talking about signs that

00:06:05.240 accompanied his apostleship and in his ministry. And contextually, we would contend, and the NASB

00:06:13.820 translates it in a way more along the lines of the latter than other versions, the former.

00:06:20.480 So there's a reasonable debate over that. And what we would say is that 2 Corinthians

00:06:25.180 chapter 12, verse 12, he's not contrasting, say, apostle Christians versus non-apostle

00:06:34.800 Christians, but rather apostles who are Christians with complete non-Christians,

00:06:43.080 false apostles altogether. And we would say that the signs are accompanying, but we can

00:06:48.700 certainly talk about that and we'd have to get into Greek text. But that's not the biggest. I

00:06:53.760 would just say that jumping into Ephesians chapter two, I would say that this is maybe

00:07:01.540 kind of like the linchpin of cessationist arguments that i've heard that god gave

00:07:06.180 apostle uh apostles and prophets as the foundation with christ as the chief cornerstone with this

00:07:12.580 image of the temple which is still being built and so the argument goes like hey you don't lay

00:07:17.300 a foundation twice so i heard you use language like that like boring of the cement in the early

00:07:21.460 church and um and so uh what we would contend is contextually these apostles and prophets

00:07:30.820 are what their their association with the foundation is explained in ephesians 3 5

00:07:38.500 where it says that god gave his apostles and a prophet and his prophets a revelation of

00:07:45.300 gentile inclusion into the church and since that's really the theme of ephesians 2 11 toward the end

00:07:52.740 of the chapter i guess verse 22 and then continuing into chapter 3 um since that's the theme this

00:07:59.380 gentile inclusion we would say that the apostles and prophets of the first century who received a

00:08:07.780 revelation of gentile inclusion were foundational in the sense that they brought this new revelation

00:08:14.660 that had been a mystery before the old testament prophets did not see this mystery playing out

00:08:21.660 quite like it did. And so we would say that that is different from the ongoing gift of prophecy

00:08:30.780 in the church. Not every time someone prophesied, was it a foundational, a foundation laying of

00:08:39.480 joint heirs of Jews and Gentiles. But, you know, when Agabus prophesied or when the people in

00:08:46.780 corinth prophesied or when philip's daughters prophesied or when the sons and daughters and

00:08:51.960 men and men servants and maid servants and so on when all of these people prophesied this was not

00:08:56.920 church foundation stuff this was uh so we would make a distinction there but i've talked here

00:09:04.280 what you're doing is you're saying the foundation is a particular prophecy or set of prophecies

00:09:10.020 that are foundational and not that the office is foundational so the the ephesians 2 20 when the

00:09:17.260 the was established on the foundation of the apostles and prophets we would say that

00:09:20.920 what was being talked about is the revelation itself was the foundation of the church that

00:09:24.920 the gentiles were included um now we would we would say that i think that the ground that

00:09:30.700 you're trying to say hey let's have some common ground and we're like ah maybe not maybe not that

00:09:34.320 common um we'll can help you build some of that common ground and that we will acknowledge that

00:09:39.420 there are only 12 apostles of the lamb, if you will. There's only 12 apostles of Christ being

00:09:45.240 the 11 and Paul, maybe Paul and Matthias are half-cheeking it on the throne in heaven somewhere.

00:09:50.100 I'm not really sure how that works, but those generally being the collection of foundation

00:09:56.080 laying specie unique kind of prophets. Like there's lots of prophets in the Old Testament.

00:10:01.960 Moses is kind of specie unique among them and Christ being this kind of second covenant keeper

00:10:06.880 with humanity. He's like this second kind of prophet. In the same way, we would say that the

00:10:12.240 apostles of the Lamb are specie unique. Certainly, we would all acknowledge that there are people who

00:10:17.780 are probably graced by God to go plant churches and establish elders. And those would be missionaries.

00:10:24.700 They would certainly be sent ones, but we wouldn't talk of them as apostles, such as Christ's 12

00:10:29.440 apostles. So if you're saying there are 12 apostles, they're completely unique. No one else

00:10:34.820 has that kind of authority as those 12, we would concede that ground and say yes and amen to that.

00:10:39.940 Right. To me, the authority of the apostle is, he's a sent one, so the question is who sent him?

00:10:44.920 If he's an apostle of the church, that's different than an apostle of Christ. Go ahead, Pastor.

00:10:48.300 Sure. Agreed.

00:10:49.060 Right. So apostello is the verb that simply means I send. So an apostle has the authority of the

00:10:56.040 sending body. So in Hebrews, Christ is an apostle of God. He has the authority of God. The 12 are

00:11:03.660 apostles of Christ. Paul and Barnabas and Paul and Silas were an apostle. Well, Paul was an

00:11:10.180 apostle of Christ, but he was also sent out by the church at Antioch. So you have the authority

00:11:16.540 of the sending body, right? So in that sense, there are small a apostles today, church planters,

00:11:24.040 missionaries, that sort of thing. But like you, I don't use the word because then you've got 10

00:11:29.780 minutes of explaining exactly exactly yeah i people all the time i'm like yeah i believe in

00:11:34.200 church planters and yes technically i think lowercase a apostle is perfectly uh fine it's

00:11:39.300 a good word but i don't use it uh just because i don't always have to know yeah but the hurdle

00:11:43.880 we're on the same page on all that okay as far as that goes we're we're good so there's our

00:11:47.800 common ground we there's one piece of common ground there you go so uh the the hurdle i can't

00:11:52.940 get over, is when you have this distinction between foundational revelation and just ordinary

00:12:02.780 Agabus or Philip's daughter's revelation, which wasn't of great enough importance to be included

00:12:12.660 in the Bible, at least not that we know. When you make that distinction, we have to recognize that

00:12:20.760 there are prophecies in Scripture that are not foundational in the sense of the Gentiles will

00:12:28.740 come in. They're true, they're inspired, and they're tucked away in a corner of Haggai somewhere

00:12:35.300 or tucked away in a corner of the Old Testament somewhere. But it's still the Word of God and

00:12:42.320 needs to be treated as the Word of God. I don't know how to have someone stand up in a Christian

00:12:49.740 assembly today and say, let's say it's the Lord, and then not treat it as though God just spoke to

00:12:59.460 us in English. And you look around and say, why isn't anybody recording this? Why aren't people

00:13:07.440 taking notes? Why aren't we going to publish it? Right? So the revelation, you have to have a

00:13:16.240 criterion for distinguishing the foundational revelation from the, you might say, ongoing or

00:13:23.140 era-specific revelation or this congregation-specific revelation. But I still have to

00:13:29.620 treat it like it's the Word of God. I can treat it like it's the Word of God, or I cannot treat

00:13:34.620 it like it's the Word of God. What I can't do is both. Right. Yeah. Well, I think we still have

00:13:41.840 some common ground in that um we want to honor the word of god we want to preserve the uniqueness

00:13:49.120 of uh holy scripture and so we we do have that common ground and we so we believe

00:13:55.680 the scripture is authoritative is inerrant is uh inspired is sufficient is necessary

00:14:03.840 is uh clear and all the doctrines of scripture uh historically by the church so we believe

00:14:10.160 all of those things uh i would say can i ask you about sufficiency in that sure if if it is

00:14:18.140 sufficient then what is the modern prophecy doing well i would ask the same question every bible

00:14:24.700 verse that you would have to say those scriptures are sufficient right like second timothy 3 16

00:14:30.660 right like every verse that you would find in the bible that says the bible is sufficient

00:14:34.400 all of those verses were existing during a time when modern day prophecy was taking place

00:14:39.540 so the scriptures themselves that say that the bible is sufficient coexisted during a time when

00:14:45.780 modern revelation was taking place well modern as it was being written and it didn't undermine

00:14:51.020 the sufficiency of scripture at that time so i would just make the case that the same kind of

00:14:55.200 sufficiency it was in the day it was been written can still maintain today the canon can still be

00:15:00.500 sufficient and there being present revelation taking place i think that's a good answer but

00:15:06.380 I'm not sufficient. Sure, sure. Well, I mean, the question is like, hey, is is the scripture

00:15:12.460 sufficient? And I would say, yes, this is scripture is sufficient in all that it claims to do. Right.

00:15:17.240 Like we still we still certainly hold to sciences. We certainly hold to, you know, categories of

00:15:22.920 zoology. Right. The Bible is not like, well, there's no zebras in the Bible. Therefore,

00:15:27.440 there are no zebras. It's sufficient in all that it claims to do. It's sufficient for our

00:15:31.380 life and practice and faith in Jesus. But we could say that could God give a modern revelation,

00:15:38.140 and I'm kind of pulling on maybe one of your stories, where the Lord might highlight something

00:15:43.140 or expose sin so that you could confront something in order to call someone to repentance? Well,

00:15:47.920 isn't the word of God sufficient to call people to repentance? Well, the answer would be yes,

00:15:51.740 but could God reveal something in a way to highlight a need in that moment for repentance,

00:15:57.280 in that moment to call you know to apply god's word to someone's life certainly right and and

00:16:02.780 we would believe that as well when it comes to we've in michael's church for example prophecy

00:16:08.100 takes place where people who've been vetted and seem to have a gift of prophecy um they would

00:16:13.760 hey uh someone has this condition this is your name this is your you know your age your date of

00:16:17.860 birth that kind of thing like they'll give some kind of specific prophetic words at times and

00:16:21.860 people will get healed and get transformed so yeah the word of god is sufficient to save us

00:16:27.300 to reveal the knowledge of jesus um to to to give us normative uh practice in life in the church

00:16:34.160 and our conduct at home but that's not to say that there aren't other things that god couldn't

00:16:38.420 reveal um in the first century in the same way that he would today so do you with that last

00:16:46.400 example, do you require 100% accuracy for someone to be treated as an authentic, vetted prophet?

00:16:55.600 So, and this is where things get maybe a little bit hairier. Michael, please feel free to jump

00:17:00.660 in if I overstep or overspeak here. In the same way that I would say that a teacher is teaching

00:17:08.040 God's infallible, inerrant word, in the same way, if a prophet is speaking, we believe that the

00:17:13.940 word that God is speaking is infallible and inerrant. But as like Joel, not Joel, Job,

00:17:22.000 you know, 33 speaks of, hey, God speaks here way in their way, though man does not perceive it,

00:17:27.640 or God speaks to Moses face to face, but with the other prophets, he speaks in riddles and in dark

00:17:31.880 sayings. You know, 1 Corinthians says that we maybe prophesy in part, we know in part,

00:17:36.980 and that prophetic words are to be weighed and judged. In fact, even in the New Testament,

00:17:40.020 it, it seemed right to us in the Holy spirit, like speaking in terms of maybe not all the time,

00:17:46.520 there's being this level of perspicuity within revelation. The scriptures seem to, to, to speak

00:17:51.260 at times that prophecy might be hard at times to understand. And I think that the measure of

00:17:56.320 confidence in which a revelation is given to you should be the way that you deliver that revelation.

00:18:01.100 For example, you know, in the new Testament, we've got verses about head coverings, right?

00:18:05.440 Now, sometimes, you know, people take those verses and they go, hey, I for sure know what

00:18:10.080 this means.

00:18:10.580 And other times people go, ah, maybe it means this, maybe it means that.

00:18:13.520 And I think the level of confidence you have when approaching the scripture should be the

00:18:16.900 level of confidence by which you deliver that teaching of that scripture.

00:18:21.340 Just to maybe take one moment to pause on that prophecy reference.

00:18:26.540 A good example of that would be John 12.

00:18:28.840 In John 12, there is a voice that speaks from heaven.

00:18:32.060 Jesus is speaking to the father.

00:18:33.120 He says, Lord, glorify your name. Father speaks from heaven. I have glorified it. I will glorify

00:18:37.740 it again. John records that it was the voice of God. Some thought it was an angel. Others only

00:18:43.300 heard it thunder. What's really interesting is some people didn't know what was being said,

00:18:48.260 even though it was God speaking. So I'm only making the case that at times revelation as it

00:18:54.180 is inscripturated can be hard to understand as Peter tells people of Paul's writings,

00:18:59.140 but to the same capacity, the revelation of God, though it may be infallible, can be at times

00:19:04.800 misinterpreted by the one receiving that revelation.

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00:21:29.380 Thank you, Josh. Go ahead, Pastor Doug. Take some time, because I know you've probably got a lot to

00:21:32.980 say. So William Perkins, the great Puritan, his book on preaching is called The Art of Prophesying,

00:21:40.960 and the historic reformed understanding of preaching is that preachers are the heir of the

00:21:48.580 prophets and i think it's the helvetic that says the preaching of the word of god is the word of

00:21:54.120 god um and the illustration i use is what the neo-orthodox say about scriptures where the

00:22:01.860 scriptures are not the word of god but they're a place where you can expect to encounter the word

00:22:06.520 of God. So, or the word of God becomes alive to you there. You can encounter the word of God

00:22:11.980 there. What the New Orthodox say about scripture, I would say about preaching. So the preacher does

00:22:18.420 not stand up and expect someone to record his sermon, typeset it, and transcribe it as the

00:22:24.940 word of God, volume two. The word of God doesn't come in preaching that way, but it's a place where

00:22:32.600 the preacher should expect the Word of God to go forth, and the congregation should come expecting

00:22:38.580 to encounter the Word of God in the proclamation of the Word. All right, so what I'm claiming about

00:22:45.420 the preaching office, I'm just clarifying here. I'm hearing you say something very similar about

00:22:53.760 someone exercising the gift of prophecy. Which would make sense, I think, because

00:22:59.900 Paul tells, Hey, I don't permit a woman to preach teacher exercise authority over a man, right? Like

00:23:05.100 so he didn't want people to teach and even of not just women, but just of all people, man, it's

00:23:09.720 probably not great that all of you be teachers. There's a stricter judgment and yet all are

00:23:14.220 commanded to pursue prophecy and earnestly desire spiritual gifts. So it actually makes sense in

00:23:19.100 accordance with what you're saying. Yeah. Teaching is a higher office for me. Teaching is something

00:23:23.260 that we're, we're handling the word of God. Not everyone should do this. This is something that's

00:23:27.360 exclusive for male eldership, but then also all of God's people should pursue prophecy. So to the

00:23:33.500 same capacity, I'm saying, yeah, I think prophecy can be, and I think that we see a kind of

00:23:38.040 patterning of that in the scriptures. I think the point that you're making, Josh, is a point

00:23:42.920 about authority, that the one who prophesies doesn't speak with, so maybe we could put it

00:23:52.840 like this so um we would distinguish between revelation interpretation application uh as we

00:23:59.200 can with scripture okay i mean this is right here this bible is the perfectly revealed word of god

00:24:06.100 and it is inerrant we believe that even if god speaks uh in uh by a revelation that is spontaneous

00:24:14.280 in nature not a written revelation but a spontaneous a prophecy we we believe that it

00:24:20.340 it can be on the interpretation application level missed.

00:24:24.600 That doesn't mean that God was wrong.

00:24:27.260 It means that we were wrong in interpreting what God was saying.

00:24:32.220 And so,

00:24:32.920 and so I think you're right,

00:24:35.940 Doug,

00:24:36.160 to say there is some similarity in the preaching.

00:24:39.260 Cause you're not saying the person preaching is literally doing Bible part

00:24:42.880 two.

00:24:43.240 We are saying the same with prophecy.

00:24:44.920 It's not Bible part two.

00:24:47.200 But to be clear,

00:24:48.280 We definitely believe that when it comes from the mouth of God, it is his pure and true revelation.

00:24:54.940 Nor would we deny that prophets can, prophets, like 2020 prophets, Trump is president still, you know, I went to a Jell-O kingdom, right, like high on a kite prophet, you know, can say that they're prophesying and not be coming from God at all, right?

00:25:08.420 So like that, that is also an option that we will 100% agree that there are people who

00:25:12.820 come in the name of the Lord saying they're, they're hearing from God and it's not the

00:25:16.660 interpretation and application they're getting wrong.

00:25:18.420 It is the revelation itself is not coming from God.

00:25:21.020 That is also an option.

00:25:22.560 A media, as he stands up and says, a meteor is going to hit Kansas city tomorrow.

00:25:27.460 And it doesn't happen.

00:25:29.220 It doesn't happen.

00:25:30.300 Then you guys remove that guy from the roster.

00:25:33.900 We would, I mean, we would, we would, we just did a video recently where, um,

00:25:38.200 We were reviewing like Kurt Landry.

00:25:40.040 We were reviewing prophetic words from, you know, 2023.

00:25:43.920 And we were like, these guys need to sit down.

00:25:45.300 They need to stop doing this because they're saying, let's say it, the Lord every year.

00:25:49.460 And these things aren't coming to pass.

00:25:51.120 They need to stop.

00:25:52.220 So can I ask a couple of questions?

00:25:54.460 Well, I'll make a statement, but, and then ask some questions.

00:25:57.880 But one thing that switched for me when I ended up embracing cessationism as my view.

00:26:04.520 um for the longest time you know i thought of like first corinthians two or three should prophesy

00:26:09.380 while the rest are what you know weigh what's being said and so i didn't have a huge problem

00:26:12.660 because i thought there was this built-in mechanism you know with i for one i i would

00:26:17.120 bifurcate you know old testament prophecy and then there's new testament prophecy and that's

00:26:20.760 somehow distinct and different the very nature of it that was my view i i would reject that now

00:26:25.500 um but you know i would say there's this different thing new testament prophecy two or three

00:26:29.800 are prophesying the rest are weighing what's being said and so there's a built-in safeguard

00:26:33.440 that at the end of the day, you know, we're weighing this. And so we're not just going to

00:26:38.320 swallow poison, hook, line, and sinker, but we're going to exercise discernment and we'll take the

00:26:43.040 good and, you know, chew up the meat, spit out the bones. But then one of the things I started

00:26:47.480 to struggle with is, is I don't think that that's what the rest are doing. The two or three are

00:26:51.640 prophesying. I don't think the rest, the congregation as a whole is weighing one singular prophetic

00:26:57.420 words based off of percentages in terms of, well, 70% of this word is correct and 30%

00:27:03.180 is false.

00:27:03.640 I think the rest are actually weighing in a pass-fail system.

00:27:07.060 Is this a word from the Lord or is it not?

00:27:08.960 Now, I do concede that God speaks in various forms.

00:27:13.340 You have dreams, you have visions.

00:27:15.680 There are different ways that the Lord speaks in terms of the means by which the revelation

00:27:20.680 comes.

00:27:21.480 And I agree with the basic premise of revelation interpretation application.

00:27:25.620 we do the very same thing whenever we preach the word of god revelation is the written word and

00:27:30.060 then i'm going to interpret that uh to the best of my ability and that may be right it may be wrong

00:27:34.560 and then i'm going to apply that to the people of god in my preaching that may be right and helpful

00:27:38.240 or wrong um and and so too with you know this idea of prophecy you guys are using that same

00:27:43.140 metric revelation interpretation application but but for me in my understanding think of like

00:27:48.360 deuteronomy um and other old testament texts that talk about what prophecy is in my assessment

00:27:54.320 regardless of the means by which the prophetic revelation comes.

00:27:57.600 It could be a dream.

00:27:58.440 It could be abstract.

00:27:59.540 It could be really clear.

00:28:00.860 It could be fuzzy.

00:28:01.940 It could be, you know, it could be whatever.

00:28:03.740 But regardless of how it comes, when the prophet opens his mouth,

00:28:08.240 so not how he receives the revelation, that's God's prerogative.

00:28:12.120 But when he opens his mouth and now speaks it forth,

00:28:15.340 that the very utterance of his words is carried along by the Spirit

00:28:18.780 to where when he says, thus saith the Lord, such and such and such and such, that actually is

00:28:26.260 infallible. So not just the revelation, the dream, the means, but actually when it comes out of his

00:28:32.780 mouth to the people, God carried him along in such a way that he actually nailed it. He nailed it.

00:28:40.520 And he either nailed it or he didn't nail it. And there's no in between. It's not a sliding scale

00:28:45.760 of percentage-based points of accuracy, but rather a pass-fail kind of system, that became

00:28:53.380 my view of, and there was nothing in 1 Corinthians that I was aware of that would refuse that

00:29:01.380 as a fair exegesis of, you know, two or three prophesy, the rest weigh what's being said.

00:29:07.820 Nothing mandates me to say that the rest are weighing percentages rather than just weighing

00:29:13.660 yay or nay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. I'm not sure it changes much,

00:29:20.860 whether it's a percentage or a yay or nay, because it doesn't appear to me that Paul has in mind,

00:29:27.540 these are either poser Christian, wolves in sheep clothing, false prophets,

00:29:32.860 or they're true prophets of God. If so, we would surely expect some kind of conversation of

00:29:39.620 excommunication in 1 Corinthians 14, especially in the chapter about order in the church.

00:29:44.600 But instead, he just says, weigh it. That's all he says. Same with 1 Corinthians. And I think this

00:29:49.860 is really key because it comes down to, like, we don't see anything in the Bible that says,

00:29:57.020 test the Bible, make sure it's really the word of God. What we see is the Bible,

00:30:04.120 The Bible does, it self-authenticates the Bible because there is no higher authority.

00:30:10.740 And when Paul is in 1 Corinthians 14, he says in verse 37, like, by what criteria do we judge?

00:30:17.220 1 Corinthians 14, 37.

00:30:18.340 If anyone is a prophet or thinks he is a prophet, let him acknowledge that what I say to you is the Lord's command.

00:30:25.220 And so Paul has a space in his theology as he's writing to a Christian church.

00:30:30.780 He has a space in his theology for, now, could he have a false prophet in mind? He could. Could he have a Christian prophet in mind? I think he also could because he's writing to a Christian church.

00:30:44.740 I think he's leaving that ambiguous. Less ambiguous even than that, I think, is 1 Thessalonians 5, where he says, you know, don't quench the spirit, don't despise prophecy, so those go together, test everything, hold on to what is good.

00:31:01.360 And so, again, he's telling us to test prophecy.

00:31:05.020 And even if your point is true, Joel, hey, it's not about a percentage deal.

00:31:08.900 It's about a true or false.

00:31:10.320 It doesn't change the fact that the context is he's talking to churches and he's talking to Christians who are in danger of putting out the spirits of fire by saying no to prophecy altogether or by refusing to test it.

00:31:26.340 We're saying yes to prophecy, but let's test it by what criteria, by the Lord's command, because written revelation always trumps spontaneous revelation, because the spontaneous revelation, unlike written revelation, the spontaneous revelation has not been validated by centuries of church history as binding on the conscience for all people everywhere.

00:31:52.300 Those are a few things that I would say.

00:31:53.820 Why don't we? I guess we've got tape recorders, and we have video cams now, and the spontaneous prophecy can be recorded and then transcribed, written down.

00:32:05.140 And the thing that I'm – when we say cessationist, what is it that ceases?

00:32:11.340 What I'm arguing that – what I want to not be going on is ongoing revelation, ongoing propositional revelation from God.

00:32:20.740 I don't –

00:32:21.820 Hold on.

00:32:22.640 And by propositional, are you talking like doctrinal?

00:32:25.080 Because we agree with that.

00:32:26.720 Yeah, we agree with that for sure.

00:32:28.760 Okay.

00:32:29.080 No, propositional would include a meteor is going to land on Kansas City tomorrow.

00:32:34.940 Sure.

00:32:35.960 What I'm resisting is comma, quotation mark, verbatim, close quote, and that was God speaking.

00:32:44.560 That's the thing.

00:32:45.560 Now, everybody are joking at the beginning of the Holy Spirit being gone and everything.

00:32:50.180 every christian knows what it is to have a burden for somebody um true and you just can't shake them

00:32:56.500 get them off your mind and you pray for them all day and then um you meet them and they say oh i

00:33:02.400 was hoping you would come and i you know i was i've really and it's very obvious that god was

00:33:09.340 moving you to pray for that person but what i don't want to do is say god told me comma quote

00:33:15.120 pray for that guy close quote um because that's to me is the threshold of i i don't know what to

00:33:24.400 do with that quotation i don't know where to file it i don't or our the greater problem is i do know

00:33:31.860 where to file it and i want i'm a better christian than wanting to have the bible part two right

00:33:38.060 That's the issue with promptings and leadings and having a Calvinistic trip where everything clicks together and God's obviously in it and his hand is obvious.

00:33:51.280 All of those things, I think, should be more ordinarily experienced and expected by Christians, including George Mueller type answers to prayer.

00:34:02.740 All of those things.

00:34:04.020 God's obviously at work.

00:34:05.140 but what i don't want any what i don't want is anything that i am unable to distinguish from

00:34:11.460 bible yeah yeah i i would say i want to i want to as much as possible like in build that ground

00:34:17.780 with you on those areas and maybe michael can pick up on the second part here but when you when you

00:34:22.440 say this is the kind of cessationist i am and i'll be real honest like yourself doug um jeff durbin

00:34:30.320 even rc sproles got a story in the middle of the night someone called him go take this you

00:34:34.400 you know, you applied at this job, you know, you should go take this job. He goes, I don't know

00:34:37.100 what that was. You know, like there are, there are these like kind of fun, mysterious, like

00:34:40.300 some people will call them leading. Some of them call them, you know, like Jeff Durbin,

00:34:43.740 I was thinking about adopting this kid and he keeps having these dream people in the church

00:34:47.220 having dreams that adopt this kid and you're name him August or Augustine or whatever. And

00:34:51.360 him and his wife had had that conversation privately. And it's just like, oh, wow, how cool

00:34:54.640 God is leading and guiding his people to confirm that God wants us to do this thing. And people,

00:34:59.300 I get it. Don't want to call it prophecy. I would just say that the Bible uses an umbrella

00:35:05.340 of category for revelation, such as dreams and visions, such as leading guidings that it calls

00:35:11.980 prophecy. And I just want to, I mean, this is, this is the area where I'm, I am trying to be

00:35:16.700 sympathetic to both sides here. I don't want a kind of Christianity that says, you know, I am,

00:35:23.520 I'm going to add a new chapter to the Bible. I'm getting, you know, John chapter, you know,

00:35:28.140 26, 8, 9, 10, 11, you know, like, like, I don't, I don't need like extra books of the Bible. I don't

00:35:33.180 need extra chapters. The passion translation dude is, you know, talking about, uh, in heaven,

00:35:37.440 God showed him an extra chapter of John, which I think is absurd. You know, like we're all about

00:35:41.940 like, Hey, let's shut that mess down. We don't need it. Um, but, but at the same time, trying to

00:35:48.940 submit to the kind of biblical categories that I see in scripture to your point. Yeah. I see people

00:35:54.000 get healed and the Bible calls that healing. I understand that we could call it a miracle,

00:35:58.380 but like the Bible called it healing. I want to call it healing. You know, uh, this is a leading

00:36:02.840 dream of providence. And I go, but the Bible kind of calls that prophecy. Like I'm just, okay. I

00:36:07.980 just want to call it that while simultaneously acknowledging in the first century, there was

00:36:13.100 scripture and prophecy. And those two things were separate. And I just think that they can still be

00:36:18.320 separate. We can have canonized scripture and prophecy. And those two things don't have to

00:36:23.160 endanger one another right but the scripture they had at that time was scripture that was being

00:36:28.300 formed and it was being formed by means of the prophecies that were being given and so i want

00:36:34.960 which one specifically i well i don't have a i don't have a category for a closed canon

00:36:40.580 and ongoing prophecy what you're pointing to is an open open canon and ongoing prophecy

00:36:48.140 right okay so theoretically if there was a tape recorder when the sons and daughters and the young

00:36:55.520 men and old men and the men servants and maid servants and the women and uh first corinthians

00:37:01.260 11 prophesying faithfully with that uh head covered and uh and the two or three prophets

00:37:07.180 in corinth and all you know thessalonians all that like if if there had theoretically been a

00:37:12.840 tape recorder would we be obligated to include that as an appendix to our bible or somewhere

00:37:17.820 in there i'll make it a little bit simpler but yeah the answer is yes so if let's say i'm an

00:37:23.620 archaeologist and i find the file cabinet of philip's daughters yeah okay and and we let's

00:37:33.540 say we authenticate it or let's say i'm back in the first century and i'm i've got the i own the

00:37:38.620 house where the file cabinet of all their prophecies is contained my responsibility

00:37:44.220 responsibility would be to treat those prophecies as though they were prophecies and the word of

00:37:49.200 god now if in the providence of god the house burns down and i mean it's the word of the lord

00:37:56.300 he can dispense what he can give it and withdraw it and dispense with it as he sees fit but as long

00:38:03.000 as i'm in possession of it and if i believe if i'm in possession of a revelation however narrow

00:38:09.220 however specific, that it is the Word of God to a fallen man, in my native language,

00:38:14.320 I believe I'm obligated to treasure it and hold it and treat it like what I think it is.

00:38:22.840 That's the issue. I wanted to not let this get

00:38:26.240 scooted off to the side, but you mentioned healing. I absolutely believe that God heals today.

00:38:33.560 The issue for me is not healing. The issue is the gift of healing.

00:38:38.420 So when Jesus healed the woman with the hemorrhage, he felt power going out of him, like draining a battery.

00:38:46.700 So the healing authoritative power flowed from Christ to the person being healed.

00:38:54.460 So after a day of healing and casting out demons, Christ was exhausted.

00:38:59.640 It was like a drain on him.

00:39:01.680 He had the gift of healing.

00:39:03.500 But I've been in situations where one time our elders gathered around a boy in a hospital with a raging fever, like 104, and we gathered James 5 and prayed for him.

00:39:17.220 And within seconds, he was sitting up in bed asking for a cheeseburger.

00:39:22.880 And it was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.

00:39:27.500 But it was not power.

00:39:29.060 Power didn't flow from us to him.

00:39:31.060 It was not the gift of healing.

00:39:32.260 It was us making a request of God in heaven who answered the prayer.

00:39:37.160 And we could see the correlation between our request and the answer in a remarkable way.

00:39:41.700 But although I prayed over him and he was healed and healed immediately, I don't have the gift of healing.

00:39:50.320 Yeah. Praise God.

00:39:51.460 Well, I would say that that was the gift of healing in operation, but I don't, I wouldn't suggest that because you saw a gift of healing that it would pre-require you to be able to do that on command.

00:40:04.140 Or, but it didn't tire me out at all, but I'm saying.

00:40:07.200 Sure, but like Jesus threw mud in people's eyes to heal them, but it doesn't mean that he threw mud in people's eyes every time he prayed for them when they were blind.

00:40:13.000 And so just because one time when Jesus prayed for someone in power left him, I don't think

00:40:17.160 we should approach that text reductionistically and suppose that every time you pray for a

00:40:21.640 sick person that you feel power come through you.

00:40:24.400 I think that's probably reading more into the text than the text is allotting for.

00:40:29.480 Well, there appears to me to be a pretty consistent pattern of touching where the healing goes

00:40:38.340 from the healer to the healee, as opposed to a vertical transaction where we pray to God,

00:40:44.480 and then God does what he wills. So one is an appeal to heaven, and the other is the authority

00:40:50.940 to heal has been delegated. Now, Paul was able to heal, and he left Trophimus sick in Miletus,

00:40:59.460 and I don't know why. So I know that there are glitches in this, and there's no tidy way of

00:41:08.340 wrapping it all up but it seems to me to be a pattern of the i just want to distinguish the

00:41:12.900 gift of healing from the request for healing okay can we move back to the the phillips daughters

00:41:18.360 because i'm i'm curious how as a complementarian which i think all four of us are i mean patriarchy

00:41:23.020 right joel that not not complimentary he wouldn't but i'm just saying generally speaking distinctions

00:41:27.740 between male and female roles i'm using that term for complementarian very broad definition

00:41:31.380 i know i know what you're doing yeah yeah okay so to say that okay um how how would you go okay

00:41:39.020 philip's daughters can inscripturate revelation they have scripture level revelation so they can

00:41:44.660 speak infallible inscripturated canonized revelation but they can't teach it no they

00:41:51.040 how does that so long as their head is covered okay well there you go now i get it my bad and

00:41:58.600 the hair is enough to concede you're out yeah so i have an answer on this but go ahead you can go

00:42:03.800 first the answer is the magnificat and hannah's song we we have scripture uh deborah's song

00:42:11.680 hannah's song mary's song we have scripture spoken by women and they were submissive godly

00:42:19.020 women so they were not usurping any kind of authority but the the bible does contain prophetesses

00:42:26.600 yeah okay so i my my understanding of first corinthians you know 11 and first corinthians 0.97

00:42:32.780 14 it's shameful for a woman to speak in church uh philip's daughters uh never would have delivered

00:42:37.500 a prophetic word in church um i i don't believe that uh the woman covering her head as she

00:42:42.480 prophesies i think is speaking of all the women in the church uh that the church the very nature

00:42:46.940 of the church is that it is prophetic um that when the church gathers together um it is it is

00:42:52.700 prophecy it's prayer and prophecy that's what the church does i think just about every function of

00:42:57.100 the church in this lord's day worship gathering could be boiled down to one of those two categories

00:43:00.620 prayer and prophecy uh speaking to god or speaking for god um in the preaching of the word of those

00:43:06.220 things and so i don't believe that uh women were delivering uh like an individual uh woman standing

00:43:11.660 up you know on the stage in front of the congregation delivering a word from the lord

00:43:15.340 i do believe that there were probably several instances of people such as philip's daughters

00:43:19.980 who received a prophetic revelation and then submitted that prophetic revelation outside of

00:43:25.080 the Lord's Day gathering to the proper male authorities of the church who then delivered

00:43:30.080 the word for them. Same with in scripturation. So that, you know, that if you have Miriam or if you

00:43:35.520 have, you know, a woman prophetess that God gives a revelation to, that that revelation could be

00:43:41.740 recorded in scripture, but that's different than the woman actually standing up in front of men

00:43:46.660 um and and telling them thus saith the lord this is god's authoritative word coming out of my mouth

00:43:51.720 to you um so i i would just see that as different and then of course also the same holy spirit that

00:43:56.560 inspires the scripture also is the same holy spirit who um who preserves the scripture um

00:44:02.040 we have we have that which the spirit uh sovereignly determined throughout the course

00:44:07.160 of history uh to preserve and with preserve or doesn't preserve or exactly what doesn't and we

00:44:12.880 have 40 books of the Bible or 66 books of the Bible, 40 men as the authors. And I don't think

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00:46:08.800 The last thing though, that I want to do, because I know that Doug is running out of time here. We're

00:46:12.620 going to have to land the plane, but I just thought it could be really helpful just getting

00:46:15.940 into the practical. Like I wanted to ask Doug and, you know, I guess asking Doug and myself,

00:46:21.160 but then also hear a response. So maybe Doug gets to go first and then Michael and Josh respond.

00:46:25.420 but i wanted to hear like doug you know uh at the practical level what do you feel like you're

00:46:30.400 missing out on you know in 40 plus years of ministry you know and and not having a gift of

00:46:35.840 prophecy despising prophecy over there you know um what you know what what are the the glories that

00:46:41.140 you feel like you've missed out on um all the people who you know who haven't been helped that

00:46:45.880 could have been you know like because i i'm being you know i'm being sarcastic in the way that i'm

00:46:49.680 i'm being funny but that's that for me that's part of the reason why i let go of the position

00:46:54.040 that i used to hold because i just i don't feel like i miss anything not a single thing and i'd

00:46:58.800 love to be able to talk about that but doug i'd love to hear you first i would want to frame it

00:47:02.520 and divide it in two i think every christian minister feels like he's missing something in

00:47:10.220 that if i had only understood more or preached more effectively or ministered you know uh more

00:47:17.320 more could have been done you know um we always feel like uh just a little bit you know lord

00:47:24.380 Enlarge my heart.

00:47:25.360 You know, I need more.

00:47:27.580 All of us feel that way.

00:47:29.000 But in terms of what I've seen in terms of fruit in our congregation and in our community,

00:47:38.240 and I've been around and have charismatic friends and acquaintances and so forth,

00:47:42.740 I'm not feeling at all shortchanged.

00:47:48.120 And I think that's what's behind your question, Joel.

00:47:51.480 Yes, sir.

00:47:51.820 Um, is I, if someone says, well, don't you, don't you miss this?

00:47:58.540 And I would say, well, not really, because, um, no, not really, because I, I don't know

00:48:05.300 what the lack is.

00:48:06.380 I don't, I wouldn't know where to, where to categorize it.

00:48:11.080 Right.

00:48:11.360 For, for me, I'll, I'll give my answer.

00:48:13.440 And then Josh and Michael, um, I would love to hear just the, you know, phrasing the question

00:48:17.520 in the reverse, saying, what are the glories that you believe by God's grace that you have

00:48:24.520 got to benefit from because of, in your view, embracing these gifts of the Spirit?

00:48:30.140 But real quick, to give my answer, part of this is, you know, I came to a point where

00:48:37.300 I felt like scripture plus discernment plus providence equaled prophecy.

00:48:45.680 And now what I mean at that end of this little formula here is what I used to call prophecy,

00:48:52.820 what I would have considered a prophetic word, a New Testament prophetic word, a word of

00:48:57.940 knowledge, right?

00:48:58.940 So kind of think information or word of wisdom, think instruction, how, you know, in both

00:49:04.580 of those categories, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, the best ones that I ever mustered,

00:49:08.860 you know um i felt like uh good theology an open bible with with good theology being able to

00:49:15.980 interpret read that bible properly um and apply it with wisdom and discernment plus providence

00:49:21.760 that's a key uh ingredient in the equation uh because because scripture would narrow things

00:49:26.180 down substantially and then whatever was not narrowed down by scripture like if i was asking

00:49:30.460 a really specific question like should i work for dell or should i work for apple well providence

00:49:34.900 you know would get me the rest of the way there and so you know from scripture uh and then and

00:49:39.740 then discernment and providence i it it just there's there was not one question pastorally

00:49:46.720 as i'm seeking to counsel and shepherd and guide congregants there was just there was i never came

00:49:52.520 up dry there was there was not one thing that i did in my prophecy days that i couldn't do in my

00:49:58.500 uh bible plus discernment plus prof uh providence days and uh and then and then when i started

00:50:04.760 thinking about if there is new testament prophecy like we've already discussed on this episode

00:50:08.500 um you know it always goes to the agabus and then the you know the age-old question that we didn't

00:50:12.840 have time to get to but was agabus wrong or was he right you know but but the point is putting

00:50:17.140 that aside for a second we actually think what did you say we agree with you on that the people

00:50:21.800 who are wrong were in what acts 21 4 but we didn't have time but with that my point is agabus you

00:50:27.780 know a famine uh that makes sense to me like if you know so that was one of the biggest things

00:50:31.920 that i was still kind of grappling with was if there is new testament prophecy ongoing revelation

00:50:36.220 taking place a day it's certainly not doctrine it's you know the foundation uh you know ephesians

00:50:41.300 220 the prophets and apostles that that's my view in terms of doctrine and and and jesus he's the

00:50:46.800 final revelation the exact imprint you know of the father's nature the final word uh but you know

00:50:52.620 what it would be super helpful to know uh a famine is coming in seven years you know that you can

00:50:59.580 prepare have seven years of plenty and then you know and so that that totally made sense to me

00:51:04.040 but then here's the the problem and and i recognize this is not an exegetical argument

00:51:08.400 but uh thinking of famines and disasters and those kinds of things covid felt like a big one

00:51:13.020 who who got that one whose whose bingo card was that on like you know what i mean with all these

00:51:19.360 prophets out there i i would have been nice if one of them picked up on this thing that affected

00:51:25.380 everyone but if you would have i wouldn't have listened to him amen i'm just kidding okay so

00:51:33.660 michael and josh you why didn't you guys land the plane me and doug have you know we've given our

00:51:36.880 view and but uh what do you guys think about that you know this you know what are we missing what

00:51:41.700 have been the benefits that you guys have enjoyed oh sure well i mean i think um for me like take

00:51:49.240 this sunday for instance after service uh i talked to two different people who because we have people

00:51:55.620 come up for prayer after service it could be for healing or it can just be responding to the sermon

00:52:00.380 receiving prayer whatever two separate people uh who came forward and had demons cast out now i'm

00:52:06.380 suspecting you guys are probably still on board for demons cast out but um i think you are but

00:52:12.040 But anyway, that kind of thing is, I think, can be more commonplace in a setting where it's talked about.

00:52:22.880 I mean, I was part of a cessationist church where that kind of thing was never talked about.

00:52:26.140 And I'm quite confident plenty of people had demons who visited that church.

00:52:30.960 And, you know, another one from Sunday.

00:52:33.080 Someone had a prophetic word, and this one was from the stage of someone with the initials J-H, who was there, who had some issue with their foot.

00:52:42.040 Uh, and, uh, somebody raised their hand. Oh, and the number six, two, uh, a 60, uh, a 62 year old person with the initials JH, uh, had that exact same foot issue.

00:52:54.640 Another one was actually this one, Josh, was from our remnant radio conference that we did at Bridgeway.

00:53:03.580 Somebody stood up and said, gosh, there were multiple pretty profound ones I could I could share.

00:53:10.960 But I'll just go with this one.

00:53:14.580 There's somebody here that the numbers nine and 17 are significant and you have you have like a healing need in your back.

00:53:22.560 and um somebody raises their hand she says she says nine and 17 is significant for me it's my

00:53:29.220 birthday and that is today and i have a back issue we prayed over her and uh followed up with her

00:53:34.800 afterward and her back was healed uh and uh and so those kinds of things i mean i just think

00:53:40.680 for us it's really about uh i define a spiritual gift as empowered love and so why the code why

00:53:47.960 the code uh because we uh yeah yeah i mean the even the language speaks any way he wants

00:53:58.060 yeah like for us it's we're not we're not determining how god speaks we're just conveying

00:54:03.480 what we heard and i think that we would concede the ground that at times that god speaks in ways

00:54:07.980 that we don't understand no it is very i would say it's uncommon at michael's church for people

00:54:12.720 to get up and be like this number and that number and be very random in fact the guy who gave the

00:54:17.480 word was the same guy who gave a word that described a specific medical condition and

00:54:22.360 i think the name of the person and so anyway so like at times yeah sometimes it seems vague

00:54:28.660 at other times it seems very very specific and it seems vague maybe in a small room of people but

00:54:33.680 to the person that it bears witness to it makes a ton of sense right yeah i i need to go in two

00:54:40.980 So I want everybody to know it's nothing anybody said.

00:54:46.360 No, Michael, that's helpful.

00:54:47.660 Josh, go ahead.

00:54:48.180 Do you want to give a couple?

00:54:49.180 And then I'd love to just...

00:54:50.920 Yeah, so I just want to say that I actually think that the things that you guys are benefiting

00:54:55.860 are not necessarily from necessarily the cessationism per se.

00:54:59.220 Like Doug's story of reading his Bible one day while trying to get this lady out of a cult

00:55:03.000 and God supernaturally showed him that this lady was in a sexual relationship with this man.

00:55:07.540 He was able to address that.

00:55:08.640 and doug do i remember the story correctly that this actually caused repentance in this lady

00:55:12.360 yeah and i know you wouldn't be comfortable calling that prophecy but and i get that

00:55:16.180 she dissolved into tears yeah yeah so like the bible said in first corinthians 14 that when

00:55:23.060 prophecy is given it exposes the contents and intentions of people's heart and they fall on

00:55:27.520 their face and declare surely god is among you so you're asking like hey what am i missing out on

00:55:30.980 that like not not just because that can still happen and i would concede the ground that the

00:55:36.740 story of Augustine being adopted by Jeff Durbin or Doug's story of God supernaturally revealing

00:55:41.280 this in scripture, or the story of R.C. Sproul, someone calling him up from childhood, reminding

00:55:46.720 him about a job opportunity he had at a seminary. All of those are examples of God breaking through

00:55:53.340 our theology, right? And that's fine. That's totally cool. But the Bible also tells us to

00:55:57.460 pursue these things. And I think the pursuit of those things makes them more normative in our

00:56:02.760 life. We have not because we ask not. And if we're knocking and asking, he'll give us a good gift.

00:56:07.980 He'll give us the Holy Spirit to those who ask. And I would just say that, you know, what are we

00:56:11.780 missing out on? Like the Presbyterians in Scotland, like the crazy stuff that Alexander

00:56:17.880 Peden was seeing, that Samuel Rutherford was seeing. Alexander Peden, this story is probably

00:56:22.480 familiar to you guys if y'all saw the Essential Church documentary, which I thought was fantastic,

00:56:27.140 by the way um you know there's a story of john and elizabeth brown and cutbert coming and shooting

00:56:32.960 john brown in the head because he wouldn't kind of recant and kind of give his life and devotion to

00:56:37.860 the king's rules in regards to church polity well three years before this alexander peden

00:56:43.300 tells elizabeth to keep a linen sheet nearby and cherish her husband while she would get him

00:56:47.200 because he'd come to a bloody end you know time and time again throughout the scottish presbyterian

00:56:51.260 revivals supernatural revelation was given to these men to avoid certain areas to avoid death

00:56:56.080 to avoid persecution, to declare over specific individuals of the way and the way that they

00:57:03.120 would die and the time in which they would die, the location they would die in. And this to the

00:57:07.360 community, expose their hearts like, wow, surely God is leading us. Surely God is comforting us.

00:57:12.760 The scriptures are enough, man. The scriptures are enough to, you know, point us to salvation,

00:57:17.680 to point us to Christ finished work, the distinctions between law and gospel that, hey,

00:57:21.860 this is how we are to please God, but Christ fully pleased God by fulfilling the law. Like

00:57:26.740 all of those things are sufficient in the scriptures and the scriptures alone. But in

00:57:30.540 the same way that in times past that God has led and guided his people, I would just say,

00:57:34.840 if you pursue those things, there is a, I don't know, a greater, a greater possibility that you'll

00:57:40.820 be used in those things. So, and I think that's why God is, you know, calling us to contend for

00:57:45.560 that. And I would say that wasn't because they were charismatic. I would say it was because

00:57:49.100 they were scottish i mean hey if we all started wearing kilts we might prophesy more yeah there

00:57:55.200 you go all right well thank you guys thanks yeah doug thank you for coming on and josh and michael

00:57:59.360 thank you so much for your time i think this has been helpful for the listener i hope it has been

00:58:03.520 and uh to recognize that i think at the end of the day um there is uh plenty of common ground

00:58:09.760 that we have and for me i guess you know the big thing the reason i wanted to do it is because um

00:58:14.800 I think that I side theologically with a cessationist, but I don't necessarily side

00:58:20.820 with the attitude of many cessationists. I think that cessationists are often too quick

00:58:26.100 to write off the lion's share of Christians. And maybe it's the correlation between cessationist

00:58:37.020 and disby premillennial theology. They're already perfectly content to lose, so it doesn't

00:58:44.700 bother them to write off 75% of our teammates. But I actually want to win. I'm actually hopeful

00:58:52.000 that Christ will be victorious progressively and gradually through human history, through the

00:58:56.720 church. And I don't think we win without the charismatics. So now, of course, there's a

00:59:02.440 sliding scale and some of those charismatics are really, really, really crazy, but some of them

00:59:06.180 are not. And I'd like to think that the two of you are not. So thank you for your time and your

00:59:10.100 ministry. Thanks, Joel. I'd like to think that we're not as well. Michael, any final thought?

00:59:17.600 No, man. It's a joy to be with you on your show. Thanks for inviting us in, inviting us on. It's

00:59:23.300 good to see you again. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks, guys. God bless.

The NXR Podcast - January 01, 2024

THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Cessationism Debate ｜ Remnant Radio & Doug Wilson

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