All language subtitles for Cessationist (2023).EN

The Apostle Paul
was leaving the next day,

so he spoke until late
into the night.

A young man named
Eutycus was falling asleep

while he sat in the window.

When he was sound asleep

he fell to the ground
from the third story

and he died.

Over here!
Someone fell!

What is a miracle?

The birth of a child?

A close call?

Surviving an accident?

A miracle is a supernatural
act of God

in which he interrupts
the normal course of life in an

extraordinary and remarkable way
to accomplish his purposes.

When the natural order
is reversed.

When a deaf person

is now able to hear,
a blind person is now

able to see

where out of death

someone is resurrected to life.

God can do anything he wants,

any time He wants.

When most

people think about miracles,

they think they're on every page
of Scripture.

The average person
throughout biblical history

witnessed miracles all the time.

The truth is absolutely not.

There were intermittent times
in biblical history

when God directly,
without the use of a person,

simply performed a miracle.

If we get a little bit

more specific, we might ask
What is the gift of miracles?

Or who was a miracle worker?

The gift of miracles was a gift
given

to a supernaturally endowed
person.

God worked miracles through that
individual, confirming that

that individual was a spokesman
and representative for God.

When Moses said,
What if I don't believe me,

God says, I'm going to give you
the power to work miracles

so that I will believe you that
you're speaking on my behalf.

The miracles
were given to validate

that they are a mouthpiece
for God, that He is

a man sent by God
to speak on behalf of God.

In First Kings 17,

we have Elijah meeting
with the widow.

There's a famine in the land.

And then we have the widow's
son dying.

The widow
thinks that she's under

some sort of judgment.

Through Elijah,

the Lord miraculously raises
this young boy

back to life.

The widow's response in

verse 24 is very instructive.

And the woman said to Elijah,

Now, I know that
you are a man of God,

and that the word of the Lord in
your mouth is truth.

There were times
three of them in Scripture

when God gave to men
the power to work miracles.

There is, first of all,
the time of Moses and Joshua

1400 years before Christ,
a period of about 65 years.

Then you fast forward to
the time of Elijah and Elisha.

You're about 800 years
before Christ, and there again

you have a period
of about 65 years

when God was giving men
the power to work miracles.

The next period of time
like that comes

in the time of Jesus
and the apostles.

And that stems from
the beginning of his ministry

to at the very latest,
the death of John.

There you have another period
of 65, 70 years.

Those were the three epochs.

And in each case
it was to confirm those men

as his messengers.

The purpose of miracles

in the Ministry of Christ
in the Apostles fits exactly

in line with the patterns
we see in the Old Testament.

So when God gave extraordinary

signs and wonders to people
like Moses, Elijah and Elisha,

he did the same thing
to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But here is the Son of God

coming in person
and human flesh.

He did miracles
as his day to day

work to show
that he was the Son of God,

the messenger from the Father,
the true and ultimate prophet.

We ought
to give more earnest heed

to the things that we've heard
than what people heard

under the old Testament
prophets,

because God confirmed

by signs and wonders

and gifts of the Holy Spirit,

the words of those
who heard Him,

who were the apostles.

The word apostle comes

from the Greek word Apostolos,
which means sent one.

And it wasn't something that was
unique to Jesus apostles.

If the Emperor ever sent
somebody out with a message

from the Emperor, he was called
an apostle of the Emperor.

And the message that he carried
was every bit as authoritative

as if the emperor
was speaking himself.

So if you were to reject

the message
of the emperor’s apostle,

it would be like
rejecting the Emperor.

Or if you were to attack

the apostle, it would be like
attacking Caesar himself.

And the Apostle Paul's
letter to the church of Ephesus,

he uses the metaphor

of a spiritual temple
to describe the church.

And he says in chapter two,
verse 20 that it is

built on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus himself
being the cornerstone.

So as God was establishing
the foundation of the church

upon the person and work of
Christ, he called men,

known as apostles and prophets
to be foundation builders.

As his apostles, they’re
the foundation of the church.

What they say,

Christ says, what they assert
about his ministry is true.

The Stone
that the builders rejected

has become
the cornerstone of the Church.

Jesus chose the Apostles

to further reveal
the mystery of the Church.

And finally, God provided
various other prophets

within the Church

while the New Testament
was still being written.

This is the foundation of
the church, according to Paul,

in Ephesians
2:20, the Apostles and Prophets

with Christ
as the chief cornerstone.

It doesn’t make any sense
to think that the foundation

of a building goes
all the way to the roof.

It's the foundation.

This is an historical assertion
that the Apostolate

was limited to the foundation
period of church history.

When you see the early
discussions about the canon

and which books are canonical,
as we would say,

one of the tests of
canonicity was

Does this book have apostolic
origin?

Or is it given a kind of stamp
of approval by the Apostles?

Now, why is that?

It's because the Apostles had
certain promises granted to them

by the Lord Jesus Christ,

and those promises
related to the ministry

of the Holy Spirit in their
speaking and in their writing.

And so the reason why we can say
with confidence that the canon

is closed

is because

we no longer have
those apostles.

To be a legal proxy

for Jesus, to be a true apostle,
four things had to be true.

You had to be hand
picked, chosen by Christ.

You had to be taught by Christ.

You had to witness
the resurrected Christ.

You had to see him risen.

The fourth qualification
it's found with the 11 in

Matthew 10, when Jesus said,
I'm sending you out to represent

me and I'm going to give you
the power to work miracles

to confirm the revelation that's
going to come through you.

Miraculous gifts were given
during those early years

where they were proclaiming
in many cases for the first time

in a region the event
and the significance of Christ's

life, death,
resurrection and ascension.

When Paul defends
his Apostleship

in Second Corinthians 12,

he refers to these gifts
as the signs of an apostle

miraculous abilities

that either

the apostles alone had or
there were cases where they

could lay hands on someone
and give them those gifts.

But always in the New Testament,

when those miraculous gifts
are manifest, it is in

in the presence of an apostle.

We know that

there is no apostle today
roaming around planet Earth.

So with that, the actual gifts
that were associated

with those apostles
have likewise ceased.

The gifts
that authenticated the apostles,

which were the sign gifts,

particularly gifts
of healing and miracles,

and then the gifts
that were associated

with prophets,
which were the revelatory gifts

which would have included
tongues.

A Cessationist is one
who believes

that those gifts ceased
after the apostolic age

with the death of the Apostle
John around the year 100.

Those
gifts passed off the scene.

A Continuationist

is someone who believes
that the extraordinary gifts,

prophecy, tongues and healing
have continued and therefore

they should be pursued

and exercised by
Christians today.

Continuationists,
including Pentecostal

and charismatic groups,

believe that the New Testament

encourages them to participate
in the miraculous gifts.

They find this idea in chapters
12 to 14 of First Corinthians,

where Paul discusses
the gifts of healing

tongues and prophecy at length,

and even charges
the Corinthian church

to earnestly desire
these gifts of the spirit.

Yes, we should be seeking
the gifts for sure.

We want the Holy Spirit
to gift us so that we might care

for one another
in the body of Christ.

But in the era
of the Corinthian church,

the foundation
was still being laid.

They did need the sign gifts.

We're not in that era anymore.

There is no mention
in the second half

of the first century of signs
and wonders and miracles.

Once you pass the book

of First Corinthians,
there is no more mention

of any miracles
being performed by any apostle.

He writes nine letters
to different churches, six

different churches
after the First Corinthians.

You look at the pastoral
epistles written for the ongoing

life of the church.

First Timothy.

Second Timothy
Titus instructing pastors

how to conduct life
in the church.

And there's no mention
of the miraculous gifts.

You have this lessening
of the miraculous

as the canon of Scripture moves
toward its completion.

You have in Acts, for example,

Paul would send pieces
of fabric out.

People would be healed by that.

That's not happening anymore.

And it wasn't happening
in Paul's time

either,
because when he learned that

Timothy had a stomach ailment,
he writes to him and says,

Take a little wine
for your stomach’s sake.

He doesn't
send him a handkerchief.

There's no expectation

that some healer is going
to come and heal Timothy.

Paul in Philippians, when
he was so overtaken

almost by grief

because of the sickness of his
dear friend, and certainly if

if the Apostle Paul still had
this miraculous gift of healing,

he could have done something
about it.

But instead he

recognized there's
no sense

in which that's still happening,

even at the time of Philippians.

Then you see
the next generation.

It becomes churches like ours
where there aren't apostles,

but they're looking back on that
time.

The writer of Hebrews writing
just before the destruction

of the temple, he says, the Lord
spoke this gospel.

It was confirmed to us by those
who heard meaning the Apostles

and the Apostles were allowed
to work.

Signs in miracles
to confirm that message.

And so even the writer
of Hebrews,

writing under the auspices
of the Apostles, he says,

I'm not working miracles.

That's not happening now.

The writer of Hebrews

is looking back and saying
those things were foundational.

That's not the norm anymore.

Miracles, signs,

wonders, and especially direct
Voice of God only occurs

in three significant eras,
which then was written down

and inscriptuated
in the inspired Word of God.

He spoke directly to Moses.

But then Moses
wrote those things down.

Same thing with the prophets.

God did many miraculous things,

but then those were written down
and became inspired Scripture.

Same thing with Jesus
and the Apostles.

Many miracles confirming
that Jesus was the Son of God.

But then the revelation
that was given

during that transitional period

is what we know today
as the New Testament.

And between those key eras
in the progress

of redemptive history

there are long periods
in which God did not

directly speak to people
as a normal experience.

Rather, he expected them
to trust the sufficiency

of what he had written.

And we are in one of those

periods now where we ought
to trust the confirmed word

that God has given to us,

looking for that blessed hope
when Jesus will come again.

But we ought to not expect
that God will be doing

miraculous things, signs and
speaking directly from heaven

because
we have a sufficient word.

Jesus rebuked
even those in his own day

that sought signs and wonders
to validate putting their faith

in Christ, saying in Matthew
4, a wicked

and adulterous
generation looks for a sign.

Later, the apostle Peter
described the glory

of personally seeing Jesus
during his transfiguration.

Peter was an eyewitness
of Christ glory,

but he says in the second Peter
1:19, that the prophetic word

is even more sure
than his experience.

Peter even participated
in miracles himself.

But he points to the Scripture
as a more sure

foundation.

The Bible does

not instruct us to seek
after signs and wonders.

Instead, we are told
to stop seeking those things

and to trust
in the finished Word.

The early church fathers knew
that they were not apostles.

They knew that
there was something distinct

about the apostles and distinct
about the apostolic age.

And so when you get to,
for example, John Chrysostom

in the East and Augustine
around that same time

period in the West,

both Chrysostom
and Augustine are very clear

that they believe that
the extraordinary, miraculous

sign gifts ceased after
the end of the apostolic age.

And that was the de
facto view of Bible believing

Christians throughout really
all of subsequent

church history,
including the Reformation.

The view of the church
has been decidedly Cessationist.

Then you had a group
of Continuationists,

especially
Evangelical Continuationists

who have tried
to find examples of miraculous

gifts throughout church history.

But the reality is,
in order to find evidence

of the miraculous gifts
throughout church history,

the modern continuationist
has to redefine

what those gifts are,
what those gifts were.

They generally do so

by pointing to fringe movements
and fringe groups

like the Montanist movement,
which was declared a heresy

by the early church.

Now, in the case, the

Montanists, they make claims
that they are actually

the fulfillment of Christ's
promise of the Comforter

of the Holy Spirit.

They are the ones
who are bringing new revelation

to the church,
as well as declaring that

that Christ was coming
very soon,

even right after their lifetimes
or before the

end of their lifetimes,
which didn't come to pass.

Montanus
and the Montanist movement

was soundly rejected
by the early church.

And so in the second century,
the early church rejected

what was tantamount
to the charismatic movement.

Later on, as we see,
particularly after

the periods of persecution,
Constantine has come into power.

Christianity has become
legalized.

That's the time period
where we see mass expectation

of the miraculous.

You do have a kind of

continuationism
developing in Roman Catholicism.

Their notion of

canonizing certain people
as saints was built upon

the notion of the continuation
of miraculous signs.

One story says that

when Saint Patrick
was baptized as an infant.

The priest was blind

and couldn't
read the baptismal order.

So he took the baby's

hand, made the sign of the cross
over the ground,

and a spring of water burst
forth to wash the priest's eyes.

And his vision was restored and
he could perform the baptism.

Oh, that's just crazy

legendary stuff.

Other miracle stories
are associated

with the supposed power
of relics of dead saints,

or the bread
and wine of the Eucharist,

which were, of course,
believed to be Christ's

actual body
and his actual blood.

And then you come to the
period of the Reformation.

It's very clear
that the magisterial reformers,

Lutheranism and reform movement
coming out of them

rejected on the one
side, Roman Catholicism.

On the other side,
they were rejecting

the anabaptism,

believing in the revival
of the miraculous gifts.

The Zwickau
prophets, Thomas Muntzer,

Melchior Hofmann, Jan Matthys,

all of whom demonstrated
themselves to be false prophets.

They claimed that
the Holy Spirit

was telling them
to incite revolution,

telling them

that the New Jerusalem
would be in places

like Strasbourg
or Münster, Germany.

Obvious false prophecies.

And the reformers denounced them
in no uncertain terms.

In fact, Martin Luther quipped
that the radical reformers

had swallowed the Holy Spirit
feathers and all,

which was his way of saying
they had a distorted view

of the Holy Spirit.

And then they had gone
headlong after that distortion

to be in Rome with a Roman

pontiff who believes that he's
speaking on behalf of the spirit

and in doing
so is burying the word of God.

To be
there is not to be Protestant

and biblical
and to be an Anabaptist.

The Charismatics of his day,
or someone who believes that

the Holy Spirit is speaking
through all sorts of people

outside of the Word of God
and thus bury the Word of God

is also not to be Protestant.

In other words,
to believe in Sola Scriptura

is to be a Cessationist.

That's
fundamental to Protestantism.

Thus,
if you are not a Cessationist,

you are not historically
a Protestant.

The reformed Orthodox

in the Puritans
consistently dismissed

the idea that miraculous gifts
of the Spirit continued

after the foundational period
of the Christian church.

in terms of the origins of
the modern charismatic movement.

I think we have to start

with someone like John Wesley
in the mid 18th century

in the Evangelical
Awakening in England.

He held a two stage
view of sanctification

that believers are converted
and then they live

kind of an up and down
Christian life for a while.

And then it's possible
at a later point post conversion

to have an experience
that elevates you

to a higher plane of spiritual
existence or living.

And in Wesley's view,
you could actually attain

perfection in this life
prior to glory.

He called that second experience
the second blessing.

And one of his successors,
a man named John Fletcher,

actually associated that with
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Then, a century later, during
the second Great Awakening,

you have that two stage view

of sanctification
combined with the emotionalism

that was popularized by Charles
Finney and others.

You set the stage
for Charles Parham,

who was a Wesleyan
Holiness minister, to suggest

that maybe the second blessing
ought to elevate us to a place

where, as Christians,

we experience
the same miraculous sign gifts

that the Apostles experienced
in the Book of Acts.

It wasn't really
until the beginning

of the 20th century

that the Charismatic Movement
began in earnest.

There were people
who had tinkered with

healing gifts and healing
claims up to that point.

But the gift of tongues
first manifest itself really on

the very first day
of the 20th century.

on January 1st, 1901.

Agnes Ozman,
who was one of the women

who was studying
under Charles Parham,

she began speaking in tongues.

Other students
also began speaking in tongues,

became known as Pentecostalism,

because the idea is
that they were speaking

in the very same
kinds of tongues as the apostles

on the day of Pentecost.

And that,
of course, is important

because the Apostles on

the day of Pentecost
were speaking in genuine human

foreign languages,
which they had never learned.

And Agnes Ozman, Charles Parham,
they all insisted that

they also were speaking in
genuine human foreign languages,

which they had never learned.

In fact, Agnes

Ozman claimed to be speaking
in the Chinese language.

Pictures of her
writing survived.

You look at those pictures

and it's not Chinese text
at all.

It's just scribbling.

One of his students,
William J. Seymour

came out to Los Angeles,

and it was
while he was teaching in

some of those churches
that revival broke out.

And it's known as the Azusa
Street Revival of 1906.

And it was characterized
again by speaking in tongues.

Azusa Street

is what got Pentecostalism
really started.

And you have a number
of Pentecostal denominations

that grow out of that,

such as the Foursquare Church
and the Assemblies of God.

Azusa Street Revival represents
the first wave

of the Pentecostal
and charismatic Movement.

You have

the original Pentecostal first

wave Asuza Street,

the second wave, the Charismatic
Renewal Movement,

and the third wave,
the continuationist

charismatic movement
within evangelicalism.

Some of the

best known leaders

throughout the 20th century
in the Charismatic Movement

turned out to be fakes
and frauds and

and for various reasons,
discredited themselves.

John G. Lake, Amy Semple
McPherson,

Smith Wigglesworth
or Kathryn Kuhlman

They were theological heretics.

They were prolific
false prophets.

Most of them
were sexually immoral.

So how is it
that these great generals

of the Charismatic Movement,
these men and women

that God supposedly
used to bring about the greatest

move of His Holy Spirit
since Pentecost were false

prophets, liars, charlatans,

and sexually immoral?

And now here's
the host of the PTL Club

the president of the PTL
television network, Jim Bakker.

It actually got worse
from there.

Please welcome the Colonel,

Colonel Sanders to PTL.

The once sacred
turf of television evangelism

has been slipping
and sliding of late due

to the disillusioning scandals
of some of the key players

In the eighties and nineties
you had a series of scandals

with Jim Bakker and
Jimmy Swaggart

Swaggart is stepping down
from his powerful TV ministry

while the Assembly of God Church
investigated him

for having an affair
with a prostitute.

I have
sinned against you, my Lord.

I have sinned against you,

and I beg your forgiveness.

Jim and Tammy

Faye Bakker and the continuing
saga of the PTL Club have taken

on the irresistible dimensions
of a national soap opera.

Jim Baker was found guilty
on all 24 counts

of wire
and mail fraud and conspiracy.

What's remarkable

is that every one of those men

continued in ministry
and were still accepted

by segments
of the Charismatic Movement.

Dr. Michael Brown is here.

A joy to be back
with all of you.

Thank you.

That doesn't
disqualify a Charismatic.

If you can prove he's a fraud

that works all the way
up to someone like Todd Bentley,

who is probably as despicable
a character as ever,

took the stage

in the name of religion.

He had these ugly
fascinations with violence

and low brow
means of supposedly healing.

It took a long time,
a remarkably long time

for even some of the better
Charismatics

to say, no,
this guy is not real.

He's dangerous.

I remember early on
when he came on the scene,

people asked John Piper
what he thought of him.

Piper
was reluctant to say anything.

He said, I just want to watch
and see.

To turn to

the miraculous gifts tongues,
healing, prophecy.

Where would you say
the place for those gifts

would be in the life
of the church today?

Yeah.

I would want my people to know
I believe in those things.

I want them to flourish
in those things.

You could say ‘got
a word of knowledge for us?

Got a word of prophecy?’

If you're scared of that
kind of language, you can say

has got impressed
upon you, in some way,

Something that you think
somebody in this room

or all of us need to hear
from your walk with God?

And open yourself up
to that.

Piper, Storms,

and Grudem, and Carson

describe themselves
as open but cautious.

So here you have

guys with at
least some reformed inclination.

They have been working
really hard to say

They believe in a closed canon
and Sola Scriptura,

even though they also want
to say that they in some sense

they believe in the continuation
of prophecy in tongues.

Once you open the door to the
modern charismatic teachings,

how is your urge
and your prompting

of the Spirit of God different
than Benny Hinn?

And who's to say who's right
in the issue?

I'm not suggesting that anyone
who claims to be a reformed

Charismatic should be classified
in the same category

as a Benny Hinn.

But Benny Hinn’s

positions are very much
connected to the idea

that God is still
speaking today.

So if someone says
God spoke to me, it

becomes the ace of spades
and it trumps everything.

Really,
that's the historic trap.

If you go all the way
back to the Garden of Eden,

you see that
the serpent that he tempts Eve

in such a way as to suggest
that God's Word wasn't enough.

Charismatic
theology has influenced

and affected
so much of our thinking and our

our theology in ways
that we don't often recognize.

And I think that's probably
the most true with our worship

Worship today,

there is this expectation

that if

the Holy Spirit is present
and if we are truly worshiping,

there's sort of going to be this
tangible felt presence of God

which doesn't find
any root in Scripture.

There's no description
in the New Testament of that

sort of expectation that comes
from the charismatic movement

in this expectation

of the signs and wonders
and the felt presence of God.

In fact,
the praise and worship movement,

the praise and worship
theology comes directly

out of Pentecostalism
and Charismaticism.

But it has now branched
beyond Charismaticism

to where even churches
who don't affirm

the continuation of sign gifts,
who claim to be Cessationist,

nevertheless worship
as if we are expecting

this sort of felt

presence of God in the context
of corporate worship.

The Charismatic Movement is
extraordinary in church history.

It's the first time

that these

sort of miracle claims
have moved in to the mainstream

and become what probably if you
just did a numerical count,

you'd find it's a majority
who believe these claims.

And yet most of the claims
are pretty easily falsifiable.

My name is Andreas.

I come from Switzerland
and I'm a former

Charismatic, now Cessationist.

Virgil Walker.

I have been involved in

what was called the COGIC
Church. Church of God in Christ.

I'm Kofi and for really 17
years of my life,

I grew up as a Pentecostal
charismatic.

My name is Becky,
and I come from a Pentecostal

Foursquare denomination
background.

I think what attracted me to the
denomination was the passion,

you know, the excitement
to being actually

excited to go to church,
wanting to go to church.

We went to church.

People spoke in tongues,

People laid hands on people
and they fell out.

Friday night
you would come to church.

They would have these
purging sessions

and the pastor would walk down
the aisles and lay

hands on people and they would
kind of convulse to the floor.

He was speaking in tongues
over us.

My sister was there,
and then she fell.

And then I'm like,
I'm going to fall.

I'm going to fall.
And then I just eventually fell.

People prophesied.

And for me,
that was just normal.

Everyday Christianity is what
Christians did.

You're expecting to have
those things happen to you.

Everyone else
is in this state of mind.

I want to
say it's some sort of hypnosis.

All the spiritual exercises
that are there really began

to cause cracks somewhat
in my Christian worldview.

So I had to figure out
what's really going on

in this movement.

When you compare
the biblical gift

of prophecy, tongues
and healing to the modern

continuationist version,
what you find

is that prophecy, tongues,
and healing in the New Testament

meant something way different

than the way in which
those same terms are being used

In the modern charismatic world.
Continuationists have redefined

the gifts showing the disconnect
between what's happening today

and what was actually happening,

that was truly miraculous
in the New Testament.

The first time
the word prophet is mentioned in

the Bible is in Genesis,

but there's not much definition
given to it. The first time

there's definition
given as an Exodus

chapter seven.

It's a fascinating passage
because what the Lord does

is he explains to Moses

how his relationship to Aaron
is supposed to work

and how Aaron is supposed
to preach to Pharaoh.

And what he says is Moses,
in this scenario,

you are going to be like me
and Aaron is going to be

like a prophet.

You'll speak to Aaron, and Aaron

will say
what you said to Pharaoh.

And so it shows the relationship
between the Prophet

as the recipient

of God's revelation
and what he is charged to do.

What the real prophet does
is quite simply,

he's given a message by the Lord
and he proclaims it to the one

to whom the Lord told Him
to proclaim it.

The biblical word

that we translate as prophet
literally means mouthpiece.

The prophet

became God's functional mouth
by which God would speak.

God use the man as an instrument

to immediately
deliver his exact message,

not by
bypassing the Prophet's mind,

but by preserving the exact
words that God intended for him

to speak.

A true could not speak error
in the name of the Lord

because God supernaturally
protects his own message.

As with everything else
in the Bible,

you have the real thing
and you can have counterfeits.

And so the Bible speaks a great
deal about false prophets.

I mean, they were actually
to be executed.

Why would that be?

Because God guards
his own revelation.

He magnifies his word.

Above all is his holy name,
we're told, in Scripture.

And so those who come claiming
to speak on God's behalf

in the name of God
with the very Word of God, are

held to very, very, very high
standards of accountability.

And those who are proven
false ended up therefore

having to suffer very, very,
very high forms of

punishment as a result.

You go back through
the Old Testament prophets

and you read in Ezekiel
and Jeremiah

about how the Lord describes
the false prophets

who took his name
and his word upon their mouth

and began to say things that God
had not directed them to say.

And the Lord has these
scathing rebukes

for these false prophets,
where he says,

they say that I sent them,
but I have not sent them,

and they claim to speak for me,
but I have not spoken by them.

And then the Lord says,

I will therefore
judge these false prophets.

And some of the severest
judgment is upon

those who claim to speak for God

but were not in fact
hearing from God.

What are the gravest dangers
of the Charismatic movement is

that they will put words in
God's mouth

and they think nothing of it
at all.

I believe prophecy,

if I can steal Wayne Grudem’s
simple phrase,

is simply speaking forth
in merely human words

What God has spontaneously
brought to mind.

They’re subtle faint
impressions, like little nudges

and divine hints,
and that individual then

speaking forth what they sensed
God had been saying.

They say things like,
I feel the Lord is telling me.

I sense
the Lord is speaking to my heart

and that
and He might want me to do this.

I think this is what the Lord
might be trying to tell me.

Here's what I believe

the Holy Spirit has impressed
upon my heart.

For the year of 2023,
the rise of the Wild Ones

to be able to confront systems

that have been oppressing
God's people.

The Lord's also
been speaking to me

significantly
about relationships,

and He's going to change
your circles

to change your levels.

You need to evaluate it,
need to determine whether or not

this really,

in fact,
is something that we could have

some degree of
confidence is from God.

I gave prophetic words
to people, to someone

have a word, and it was like
that adrenaline starts to come.

And I remember
just saying something like,

you know,
the Lord wants our obedience.

If we could only obey God
in 80 percent

of that obedience,

then give that 80 percent.

Give 100 percent
of that 80 percent.

You know?

So dumb.

the way it was often
explained was, yes, God

gave us the Bible for sort of
general moral direction

and telling us the truth
about him,

but for a specific direction.

This is how God acts as a loving
father to us.

You know, he doesn't just
leave us to figure out things.

Sometimes he will directly speak
to us and tell us what we need

to know, Tell us what to do,
give us direction in real time.

For example, if I say that
the Holy Spirit spoke to me.

Take this job.

Don't take this job,
but take this job.

It's a word from the Lord.

So there is love Bible,
the Word of God.

And then through history,
God has led his people,

spoken to His people,
directed his people.

He continues to do that,
but it's not the Bible.

So there are two completely
separate animals.

The view of continuing
revelation would in fact lower

people's view of Scripture.

When we have these
two sources of revelation,

the the me-specific voice
inside of my head,

and then this object of thing
that was spoken 2000 years ago

when those two things
were in conflict,

which one do you think ends up
giving way to the other?

It's always the word of God
that ends up getting redefined,

reinterpreted or pushed off
to the side or ignored in favor

of the personal, fresh, modern,
intimate revelation from God.

The problem with
the Charismatic Movement today

is that they don't have

a single prophet who has
been 100 percent accurate.

The honest Charismatics
will admit that they are wrong

far more often
than they are right.

If you used a magic eight ball
to make all of your choices,

you'd be right
at least half the time.

And charismatic prophets
are wrong more often than that.

So I ask
what is the value of this gift?

As a younger prophet,
I've tried to do the best

that I can,
you know, to kind of navigate

the plans of the Lord that
I had had a series of dreams.

At the end of 2020,

I had seen Donald Trump
being elected president.

Many of the modern day
prophets made a lot of news

with their presidential

prophecies, their prophecies
of who would win the 2020

United States
presidential election.

Of course,

all of them, 100% of them,
prophesied that Donald Trump

would win reelection
in November of 2020,

and he would serve a second

consecutive term
in the White House.

The fireman prophet
also predicts the church will

thrive. Will be an eight year
presidency?

Absolutely.

When I
woke up this morning, I heard

four years.

TRUMP!

Well, obviously
that did not happen.

And they just did this
massive face plant.

I really want to apologize,
sincerely apologize,

for missing the prophecy
about Donald Trump.

I prophesied that he would win
another term,

and I was completely wrong.

We went through this season of
me offering a letter of apology

to the Body of Christ
for what I believe was a miss.

It doesn't make me
a false prophet, but it does

actually create
a credibility gap.

I want to look into the reasons
why there is a

disconnection there.

In what I heard.

They also failed
to prophesy COVID coming

even when COVID did come

Then they began to prophesy

that it would be gone
by April of 2020.

Well, that didn't happen.

I command this this, this virus

to to to leave both,
to leave people's

minds, to leave people's hearts,
to leave, to leave the earth.

I just, I command this virus to
leave right now in Jesus’ name,

in biblical times, if you get up
and you speak in God's name

and that's not God's Word,
you were stoned to death.

But today somebody does that
and either it's inconsequential

or it doesn't come true,
nothing happens.

It's just another day ending
in Y

in the Charismatic community,

They at least should be
exocommunicated.

If the word ends up false

or wrong, let's call it wrong

False sounds like he got a demon
or something.

You know, a false word.

That means like the brothers got
horns, you know, he missed it.

He just missed it.

If they humble themselves and
say, okay, we got this wrong.

We apologize for hurting
your faith and misleading you.

Let's
figure out what went wrong.

Great.

Then we don't throw them
under the bus

and we work it out.
How did this go wrong?

How did so many
hear the wrong thing?

And I believe there are actually

some simple answers
to those questions.

I was not aware that I was under

the power of witchcraft
so severely.

I was confronted by a couple
of prophets who said, We're here

to break the power of witchcraft
off of you.

It's been a pretty wild ride.

And I was going to say,
I can see the peace on you.

We've had some different things
that are said over 30 years

and we've put out statements
and said, this was wrong.

And you know
what? We're not quitting.

But the guy said it was wrong.

It's not a big deal.

I’ve never had to make a public
apology for a bad prophetic word

that I've given.

This is my very first time.

I know I’ll learn from it.

And they're
back on TV in the next week

filling auditoriums
and conferences.

No consequences, whatever.

Charismatics will acknowledge
that Old Testament

prophets were held to a standard
of 100 percent perfection.

But they somehow say that, well,
in the New Testament,

prophets today aren’t held
to the same standard

that the Old Testament
prophets were.

The New Testament gift differs
from that which Isaiah or Daniel

or some other Old Testament
prophet spoke

in the Old Testament

If you said it wrong
once, you're false.

But in the New Testament
we judge one another.

And the reason
we judge one another,

because there are
some things said wrong.

The Charismatic scholar Wayne
Graham states

that prophecy in ordinary
New Testament churches

was not equal
to Scripture in authority,

but was simply a very human
and sometimes partially mistaken

report of something

that the Holy Spirit
brought to someone's mind.

The Continuationist view of
ongoing prophecy,

allows for modern prophets

to speak on God's behalf
with less than perfect accuracy

because they have concluded
that prophets in the New

Testament operate differently
than Old Testament prophets.

In their view,

God gives a direct revelation
to the prophet’s mind,

but the mind of the Prophet

is not protected from
mishearing, misinterpreting,

or otherwise misrepresenting
God's true revelation.

They believe that this results
in a prophecy that is a mixture

of God's true revelation
and the prophets own thoughts.

The resulting prophecy
might even be completely false,

since the prophet
so misunderstood

God's word to them.

In this way
they end up believing

that there are true prophets
who can make false prophecies.

Prophecy when it comes,
is like pure, like spring water.

It's delicious, right?

The person giving
it is like a rusty old pipe.

And then by the time
it gets to me, I'm like, Oh,

and they give me a word.

And I go, Yeah,
that's not, none of that's true.

None of that's true.

I appreciate that the brother
stepped out in faith to do it

right?

But he was, in fact, wrong.
Okay.

And that's going to happen.

I'm not saying they're false
prophets.

I'm just saying they're bad
ones.

There's a difference between a
false prophet and a bad prophet.

False prophet has an evil heart.

A bad prophet
just gets everything wrong.

The question is what

What is a false prophet?

In Acts chapter
21, Agabus prophesies about Paul

Agabus said that the,
that the Jews would bind to Paul

and they would hand him over
to the Gentiles.

What actually happened
is that the Gentiles

bound Paul
and turned him over to the Jews.

Now, what's the point?

The point is,

is that there's a difference
between a bad prophetic word and

a false prophet.

So in
attempting to make the case

for the second tier
of New Testament prophecy,

they look for examples
in the New Testament

of prophets
who got their prophecy wrong.

And the problem is
there are no examples.

but they attempt
to find an example

in chapter 21
with the Prophet Agabus.

So here's Agabus.
He predicted a famine.

He's well known as a prophet
in the Jerusalem church,

and well know
probably amongst the apostles

because of the predicting
that famine.

Agabus - a prophet - was wrong.

Agabus gave a prophecy.

He takes Paul's belt
and he says,

thus says the Holy Spirit. Paul,
when he gets to

Jerusalem, is going to be bound
by the Jews with his belt

and delivered
over to the Romans.

And then when you read later
in Acts 21,

Paul gets to Jerusalem and
he is accosted by a Jewish mob.

And then the Romans show up
and take Paul into custody.

And Continuationists
look at that.

And they say, see,
Agabus got the general scope

of his prophecy correct,
but he got the details wrong.

There are two core elements
to Agabus’ prophecy.

Number one, that he would be
bound by the Jews,

and number two, that he would be
delivered over to the Romans.

Luke says that Paul was seized

and dragged by the mob
there in the temple.

When Paul appears
before Agrippa, he again

says that the Jews seized me in
the temple.

Paul was restrained in some way

and the natural
implication of the text

is that what Agabus said
would happen did happen,

and Luke just didn't find it
necessary to repeat the detail

That was obviously predicted
from beforehand.

How did the Jews sieze Paul?

It's likely
that they tethered him

using his own belt
just as Agabus prophesied.

What about the delivering over?

When the Roman soldiers arrive,
the Jewish mob

backs away and hands
Paul over to the Romans.

And to make that point crystal
clear all the way in Acts

chapter 28, when Paul is meeting
with Jewish leaders in Rome,

he says explicitly
using the exact same word

that he was delivered over
from Jerusalem to the Romans.

Paul didn't think that Agabus

got any of the details
of his prophecy wrong.

Luke doesn't imply

that he got any of the details
of his prophecy wrong.

When you look through church
history at Bible interpreters,

no one even imagines
the possibility that Agabus

got his prophecy wrong.

It's not until the modern 20th
century Continuationist

view of prophecy
that anyone even suggests

that Agabus got the details
wrong.

It's not so much that I'm
defending Agabus’ reputation.

Agabus is in heaven.
He doesn't care.

It's that Agabus
is quoting the Holy Spirit,

and Luke records
that quote under the inspiration

of the Holy Spirit.

So we have a quote
from the Holy Spirit

recorded in the Holy Spirit
inspired Scriptures.

If you're telling me
that the details of that quote

are wrong, you're telling me
that the Holy Spirit

got something wrong
and that is blasphemous.

No new

definition of prophecy
is given by Jesus Christ.

No new definition of prophecy

can be found
any place in the New Testament.

And in fact, the Jews,
to whom the teaching of Jesus

and the Apostles came,

would have rejected
a new definition of prophecy

when they had in their canon

a very clear definition
of prophecy already.

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses
prophesies

the coming of the

ultimate New Testament
Prophet Jesus Christ himself.

He then tells the people
as they look

forward to this prophet,
exactly how they are

to differentiate false prophets
from true prophets.

He instructs.

If you say in your heart,

how may we know the word
that the Lord has not spoken?

When a prophet speaks
in the name of the Lord,

if the word does
not come to pass or come true,

That is a word
the Lord has not spoken.

The Prophet has spoken it
presumptuously.

And again Moses tells us

how such a self-proclaimed
prophet is to be viewed.

The prophet
who presumes to speak a word

in my name
that I have not commanded him

to speak,
that same prophet shall die.

Deuteronomy
18 says that a prophet

who gets his prophecy
wrong is presumptuous.

And second Peter 2

says false teachers will speak
arrogant words of presumption,

meaning
they're going to speak things

that will not come to pass out
of their own presumption.

The gift of prophecy

in the New Testament
was held to the same standard

as the gift of prophecy
in the Old Testament.

Behold, I am against
those who prophesy lying

dreams, declares the Lord,
and who tell them and lead

my people astray by their lies
and their recklessness

when I did
not send them or charge them.

Do not listen
to the words of the prophets

who prophecy to you,
filling you with vain hopes.

They speak visions
of their own minds,

not from the mouth of the Lord.

The Prophet Jeremiah makes it
abundantly clear where the

visions and dreams of today's
so-called prophets come from.

Their words are completely
coming from their own minds.

God has not spoken
to them at all.

I would go up to

someone and I would say
I have a word from the Lord,

but to me it was more of like,

I want to encourage
you and the Lord, but

looking back,
that's a scary thing.

That's a very scary thing.

While that I think often
is unintentional

and people
sort of unwittingly say,

The Holy Spirit told me this
or God told me this

when they don't mean that
in the same way that others do.

Let me just encourage you.

That is not a biblical way
to express yourself.

You're becoming, in
biblical terms, a false prophet.

Because you're saying this is
what the Holy Spirit said,

This is what God told me
when God is not

in fact the source of that.
To attribute

thoughts in your mind
to the Holy spirit you become

a Jeremiah 23 false prophet.

You have your own visions,
your own ideas, your own dreams.

They become
a false prophet, de facto,

even if that's not their heart.

Now, if you think that I'm

overemphasizing something,
maybe stressing a little bit

beyond reason,
I would just simply point you

to first Corinthians chapter 14,
verse one,

where Paul commands
the Corinthians

and all believers
earnestly the spiritual gifts,

especially that you may
prophesy.

Paul is commanding us
here, earnestly

desires spiritual gifts,
especially prophecy.

This is not optional.

If you are not earnestly
desiring spiritual

gifts, especially prophecy
you are sinning.

They keep making the argument
that we're sinning

because we're disobeying
a command of God

by not seeking
the gift of prophecy.

Sam Storms and others
who make that kind of argument

know that
all the commands of the Bible

come to us
with an assumed context.

We might go to Matthew ten

and the commands
that Jesus gave to his disciples

when they went out on mission
for Him.

And we could point after point
after point show how Paul

did not obey those commands
in his own missions.

He did take money from churches.

He did take more than one
cloak with him.

So we have to accept the fact
that biblical commands

come to certain

specific people with certain
specific assumptions.

The same thing is true
with regard to the command

to seek the gift of prophecy
and First Corinthians 12 and 14.

It came in the context

where God was still giving the
gift of prophecy to the church.

If we can show that
the gift of prophecy

is no longer
being given to the church,

the command is
no longer obligatory for us.

No one today has the ability

to see into tomorrow
and reveal that to the Church.

The aspect of foretelling

has ceased.

There is a gift of forthtelling

to stand before group of people

and to take the Scripture
that has already been given

and to declare it
with clear teaching

that is a God-given gift.

We have the comfort
of the Inspired

or authoritative inerrant
Word of God

that is always true.

It is our guide for life.

Thank God Christians
have a guide for life.

We have the privilege
of having an authority

behind us in these 66 books

that can guide us
in every area of life.

When the Day of Pentecost
arrived,

they were all together
in one place and suddenly

there came from heaven, a sound
like a mighty rushing wind,

and it filled the entire

house where they were sitting

and divided tongues as a fire

appeared to them
and rested on each one.

And they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak
in other tongues as the Spirit

gave them utterance.

The significance

of the day
of Pentecost is great.

It was the crowning event
in the life of Christ.

It's a Christ event,

and it was the pouring
out of Christ's Spirit

so that Christ is with us now
by His Spirit.

One of the manifestations
of Pentecost

was the Apostles
speaking in other languages.

The first time tongues
appears in Acts chapter two,

it's very clear that tongues in
that passage is speaking

known languages that the speaker
had never before learned.

And we know that
because there are two terms

that appear in that passage at
Pentecost in the Book of Acts.

One is the word glosses.

It literally refers
to the organ of the mouth.

That's
where we get the word tongues.

It says they spoke in tongues.
Well, what is that?

Well, later he uses the word
dialecto, which is the word

for languages, and he uses
it synonymously with glosses.

The people
who are hearing the apostles

say, each of us
hear these truths

in the language
to which we were born in.

The gift of speaking in tongues
was the miraculous ability

to speak in a foreign language

that the speaker
had never previously learned.

Why did God give this

peculiar gift to many Christians
in the early church?

Paul answers this question
In first Corinthians 14.

He explains that
the gift of tongues is a sign

not for believers,
but for unbelievers.

Some Continuationists interpret
this to mean that

people speaking in tongues

is an impressive thing
for unbelievers to witness.

But Paul immediately debunks
this idea.

He writes so if the whole church
comes together and everyone

speaks in tongues and inquirers
or unbelievers come in.

Will they not say
that you are out of your mind?

So what does Paul mean, then,

that tongues are a sign
to unbelievers?

You need to go all the way back
to the Tower of Babel

and how the various languages
and nations have warred

and murdered each other.

And God is then going to narrow
in and speak to one man

who is a Hebrew
speaking man, Abraham,

and we're going to have God
speaking to that people

and revealing himself
to that people

in their language,
the Hebrew language.

But he promises that he's
going to bless all the nations,

the language groups of the world
through his seed.

God chose the nation of Israel
and the language of Hebrew

as his primary way of revealing
himself in the Old Testament.

But in Isaiah 28, the Lord tells
the leaders of Jerusalem

that a sign of their impending
judgment

would be that He would speak

to the people with strange lips
and a foreign tongue.

The Lord speaking through
his prophets, is warning

the Israelites, I have
been sending you prophets.

If you don't
want to listen to the prophets,

people of a strange language
altogether will descend

upon you and bring destruction

to you as a people.

Isaiah was prophesying
the coming Babylonian captivity

where Jerusalem and God's
temple would be decimated

and the people would be
carried off by foreigners.

But in first Corinthians 14,
where we are told that tongues

are assigned to unbelievers
Paul references

this same prophecy again
in the context of explaining

the purpose of the New Testament
gift of tongues

by people of strange tongues,
and by the lips of foreigners.

Will I speak to this people?

And even then they will not
listen to me, says the Lord.

The gift of tongues wasn't meant
primarily to be an impressive

sign to unbelieving Gentiles
who spoke other languages.

It is actually a sign
to unbelieving Israel that.

God was judging them,
revealing himself to Gentiles

and choosing to speak in
languages other than Hebrew.

You see that

sign to unbelievers
sort of cutting both ways.

On the one hand, it was a curse.

It was a curse to the Jewish
people

who rejected their Messiah,

but at the same time
it was a sign of blessing

on the fact that God was going
to institute a new thing

in which both Jews and Gentiles
would come together.

As Paul says in Ephesians two
into one new man

Glossalalia is a term

that comes from two Greek
words. Glossa - meaning tongue

or language, and laleo -
meaning to speak.

So when we use those terms
together glossalalia is

used to refer to tongue speaking
or to speaking in tongues.

The modern charismatic
understanding

of the term allows for
glossalalia to refer to ecstatic

spiritual speech that doesn't
conform to any known language.

What many modern Pentecostals
and Charismatics don't know

is that the earliest
Pentecostals all believed

that speaking in tongues
was the supernatural ability

to speak foreign languages.

None of them thought.

It is an ecstatic speech.

Parham was in the newspaper
on multiple occasions

talking about how

now that the gift of tongues
has been restored to the church,

no one is going to have to go
to language school

to learn foreign languages
and we’ll be able

to send missionaries
all around the world

without them

having to spend years training
and learning a foreign language

in order to be effective.

And the budding
Pentecostal movement

actually sent missionaries
to foreign fields,

trusting that they would be able
to just show up,

be given the gift of languages
and communicate

with the nationals
in those foreign countries.

So they went off to China
and India and other places

thinking they were

speaking in those languages
while proclaiming the gospel,

only to figure out

that no one in the audience
was able to understand them.

And of course,
they all came back

utterly disappointed
and dejected when they realized

that what they were doing
in terms of their modern

glossalalia did not communicate
in terms of a foreign language

with the people
they were trying to reach.

And so consequently,
the Pentecostal movement

had to change

its understanding of Scripture,
to fit its experience

rather than acknowledging
that its experience

did not fit the clear
teaching of Scripture,

they opened up a second category
of tongues

that included
unintelligible speech.

You don't find the notion
that tongue

speaking in the Bible

is anything
other than real human languages

until you get to the modern
charismatic movement.

The Charismatic movement has
invented a new kind of tongues

because the tongues
that they practice don't match

what the Scripture reveals
as the real gift of tongues.

And as a result, they had to
broaden the biblical category

to make
room for their experience.

Yes,
you can speak in tongues.

The more you do it, the better
you'll be at it.

But we can at least
get you started in this.

I just want to help you
to activate your tongues.

It's very simple.

All you have to do

is just choose to step out
and speak in tongues.

Now, I don't want you
to overthink it.

Just don't speak in English.
Don't think English.

So the first thing you need to
do is just clear your mind.

I want you to flip the switch
from your mind

to your spirit, man.

Don't let your mind
take control.

Allow your spirit
to take control.

You're going to start
to feel this

almost like a bubbling up
that happens

just as you feel it
bubbling up. Begin to speak.

Don't fight it, don't resist it.

It may be a simple syllable,
but continue to release it.

Da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da, da, da, da,

Even if it sounds weird
to your mind, it doesn't matter.

It's not a language of the mind.

It's the language of the spirit.

Da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da,

I’m gonna give you the command
of faith

And at that very moment,

you're going to no longer

speak in your native language,
but you're going to speak

out of your spirit.

One, two, three!

Yes, the man mind says It's
weird, but the spirit says Hello

this is awesome.

Oh ho ho ho ho ho.

and congratulations

You've been filled with
the Spirit

and you can now
speak in tongues on demand.

I tried to speak in
tongues.

I tried for years with the hope
that that something

external would become internal

and would come out

probably the number one reason
most people don't receive

the gift is
they're just overthinking it.

People wonder,
what if this is just me

praying this or worse, what
if this is a demonic spirit?

What if this is not of God?

What if what I'm
receiving is fake?

What if it's all just hype?

What if it's all just emotion
and we become afraid?

So if you're waiting
for your mind to comprehend

everything that's going on in
praying in tongues,

you're not going to pray
in tongues.

Then I'm listening
to all of these people around me

speaking in tongues,

and I waited for this music
to kind of drive

what was happening

till the point where I kind of
grew in this emotional state,

where all of a sudden
I may said a phrase or two,

and I thought, Oh, I got it,
that's it.

I'm speaking in tongues. Right?

And it was a checkmark

for your kind of your spiritual
journey, Right.

Did I have an experience?

Absolutely. I had an experience.

Would I examine the scripture,
say that that what I experienced

looks like what
the text of scripture says?

Absolutely not.

It's just babble
for the purpose of an ecstatic

emotional experience.

You could study that language
for forever.

You're never going to come up
with a pattern.

It's just it's
just plain gibberish.

But I read Romans
chapter eight that

the Spirit speaks with groans
that are too deep for words.

Maybe that verse is
what is meant by this.

I feel this overwhelming urge
from the Spirit

to utter something,
and that's what comes out.

You have a choice.

You can choose to pray
with your spirit,

to pray in the spirit,

or you can to pray with
your mind in your own language.

So you can choose to

pray in mysteries,
or you can choose to pray

in a known language.

You have the ability
to do that, to choose that

there is no given permission
in Scripture to speak some

gibberish nonsense that no one
is going to understand it.

But think about what Jesus said
when he taught us how to pray

in Matthew 6:7,

He said, don't heap up empty
phrases like the pagans do.

And then he says, Pray
then like this.

And Jesus taught
us to pray, clear prayers.

He was never praying anything

that was some otherly language.

And if there was anyone
who was going

to pray in such a language,
it would certainly be the one

who was sent down from heaven.
Christ himself.

What do you mean by
speaking in tongues?

My sense is from reading First
Corinthians 12 that it was more

of an ecstatic utterance
that didn't have

any ordinary human meaning,

but tongues of men
and of angels.

Tongues of angels.

Often people will appeal
to First Corinthians 13,

where the Apostle Paul says,
If I speak in the tongues of men

and of angels,
but have not love,

then the practice
of speaking in tongues

is not suddenly speaking French
or suddenly speaking German,

but speaking allegedly
the tongues of angels.

You can literally say
whatever you want and justify it

when Paul is speaking of
tongues, of men and of angels,

what he's trying to do
is speak in hyperbole

or intentional exaggeration
for the sake of effect,

to illustrate the point
that even if you have the best

and the highest gifts
that reach up to heaven itself

and you have not love,
you have nothing.

For example, he says, Even
if I give my body to be burned,

but I have not love, it
profits me nothing.

Not that you ought
to speak in tongues of angels,

but that you ought to love one
another as Christ is loved you.

And that's the stress
of the text.

It's actually sad
and unfortunate

that while Paul is seeking
to direct our attention

away from the gifts
and to the grace of love,

we take one phrase

the tongues of angels
and make it

the primary focus of what tongue
speaking should look like.

First Corinthians 14’s

rules for the use of tongues
in church

are simply ignored in our day
and Continuationist churches.

The fact that only two or three
tongue speakers should speak.

They want to be trampling
on each other

and standing up
and babbling at the same time.

The fact that Paul says
in the context there

that women should not speak
in tongues in church.

Those tongues
had to be interpreted or

they were not to be permitted.

There are these rules that Paul
gives that are widely ignored.

And this is just another sign
that what's going on,

not biblical tongues.

You do have these
and I've been in these meetings

five, ten thousand people

all speaking in tongues
at the same time or,

you know, an individual
to speak in tongues

with no interpretation,
no one knows what's being said.

All we know is apparently
the Holy Spirit is at work.

I'm sorry,
that just doesn't work.

Either they’re actual languages
like the Bible

describes them to be

or this is something else
that's going on.

And yeah,

you could argue, okay, someone's
making it up as they go along.

Is it demonic?

It's just not the biblical gift.

People
say, I don't understand, Sam,

how you can preach verse
by verse through Romans

and in your private
devotional life

you speak in tongues,
which I do every day.

And I say, well,

the apostle Paul wrote Romans
and he says right here

in 1 Corinthians 14,
I thank God

I speak in tongues
more than you all.

Oh, well, I don’t think I ever
thought about it that way.

It's good enough for
Paul it’s good enough for us.

Paul says not to forbid,
to speak in tongues.

To which I would reply,

I've never in my life forbidden
anyone to speak in tongues.

As far as I know,

no Christian pastor has ever

forbidden
anybody to speak in tongues.

However, the verse

doesn't say don't forbid people
to babble incoherently.

I would forbid that,
but that's not tongues.

Even though

it comes out of people's mouths
and their tongue is involved.

It's not the gift of tongues.

And yes,
I will forbid counterfeits,

but that's just what
a faithful minister would do.

And that's why there is
no room for open but cautious

Jesus’ enemies
were on the lookout,

always trying to trap him

when he performed miracles.

One Sabbath,
Jesus entered the synagogue

and the Pharisees

watched him to see
if he would heal on the Sabbath.

Jesus came to a man

whose hand was withered.

Jesus said,
Stretch out your hand.

The Pharisees were filled
with fury

and sought to destroy
Jesus Jesus.

If somebody has the gift
of miraculous healing,

surely all he needs to do

is to prove it.

Assuming
he went into a hospital

and cleaned out
a ward of patients,

who are we to say that
he hasn't got that gift?

Jesus doesn't owe you anything.

He doesn't have to prove
anything to you,

nor does the Holy Spirit
have to prove anything to.

You when it comes
to a gift of healing.

If you've got
the gift of healing,

then come to this children's
hospital.

If you've got that kind of
prove it to me attitude,

that is not confidence
in goodness and character.

That is pride at its very core.

If somebody says,

Do you really have the gift
of teaching?

Go ahead, teach us something.

I mean, I'm
not going to balk at that.

I'm going to say, sure, let's
sit down and open the word.

You know, do you have the gift
of encouragement?

Well, encourage me.

I'm not going to say, well,

God doesn't need
to prove himself.

We think God heals.

We think God does
the miraculous.

He just doesn't do it
through these agents

to whom he gives the
power to work at will like that.

if you claim
to have the gift of healing,

if asked to go ahead
and demonstrate that

it really should be no problem

to go empty
the children's hospitals or

or look at a just a dear brother
who sits in a wheelchair

or sister sits in a wheelchair
in the

in that space, in the aisle
in church every week.

If I could just make walk,
I would.

Right.

And if there is compassion
in your heart

to help a
fellow believer walk upright,

heal the man.

First off, nobody owes you
anything

and nobody
needs to prove anything to you.

However,
I would be glad to do that.

Fly me out there

if I have open reign to pray for
people in a hospital. I'm in.

I would love that.

Prayer is not
the gift of healing.

The gift of healing,

Dare I say it,
results in healing.

In the New Testament

It's always
an authoritative command.

Get up and walk.

And he got up and walked.

To have the gift doesn't
mean to pray to have the gift.

It is his gift to wield.

What is claimed to be

the gifts that have continued

bear no resemblance to the gifts

that were in the New Testament.

The idea that somebody has
the gift of healing

is the false notion
that a person actually can have

a healing crusade
or a healing ministry.

And that's their gift.

I wish I could come down
and lay hands on

every one of the thousands
that are standing.

That's impossible.

I came all the way here
from Delton, and I just wanted

to get healed by you.

I've been waiting
so long to see you.

We see in its pretended state.

We don't see it in reality.

Jesus didn't just come

so you can have
a passport Heaven.

And this is why we're called
full gospel preachers.

Cessationists
don't believe in a full gospel.

but I'm a full gospel Christian.

Some of you are going to get
healed on this broadcast,

and I feel that anointing strong
right now,

God's
going to touch your body today

in Jesus name,
that demon of cancer is

backing off your life in Jesus
name. Any demonic assignment

against your mind, against
your body, is being broken now

in Jesus name,
whether the devil likes it

or not, he is losing your
address from today onward.

Healings in the New
Testament were immediate

and they were complete.

A man cannot walk
and now he can walk.

A man is blind
and now he can see.

Whereas the quote unquote
miracles that are claimed today

usually are things
that are not observable.

There's a claim

that there's been healing,
but there's no way to measure it

or it is something
that is only partial

or something that is gradual.

If there were truly healings
where a man who was lame

can now walk, or a man
who is blind can now see,

that would make world news,
but you never see those sorts

of things.

Healings
people claim to have happened

are gradual or secret
or non observable.

When Jesus raised Lazarus
from the dead in John Chapter

11, there were some Pharisees

and unbelieving Jews
who were present there,

and when they left

and went back to the other

Pharisees
and began to have discussions

about how they would deal with
Jesus,

none of them questioned
the legitimacy of Lazarus.

What they did instead

was plot a way
to kill Lazarus and kill Jesus

because they could not deny
that that miracle had happened.

Neither believers
nor unbelievers

ever tried to deny
that the miracles were real.

The only thing
the Pharisees could come up with

was that they

could attribute the miracles
to someone other than God,

and they attributed it to
the devil instead.

Matthew, Chapter 12.

The Blasphemy
of the Holy Spirit.

They were attributing
to the devil

the works of the Holy Spirit.

That was the best
that unbelievers could come up.

When Peter and John healed
the man who had been born lame

from his mother's womb,

and he was laid at the gate
that is called beautiful.

This was a genuine miracle,
a genuine sign and wonder.

And everyone knew it.

And seeing the man

who had been healed,
standing with them,

they had nothing to say
in reply.

What shall we do with these men

for the fact
that a noteworthy miracle

has taken place through them
is apparent

to all who live in Jerusalem,
and we cannot deny it.

The New Testament
miracles could not be refuted.

I can absolutely refute

the fake signs and wonders
being purported

in the Charismatic Movement
today.

I can absolutely refute

what Todd White does out
on the street when he lengthens

people's legs by a half an inch.

That's a parlor trick

In the time of Jesus

and the Apostles, unbelievers
were scrambling for explanations

as to how these undeniable
healings could happen.

And today
it's exactly the opposite.

The people who believe in
gifts of healers

are scrambling to explain
why nothing is happening,

as it happened
in the days of Jesus.

A lot of people report healings
and you look back a year later,

it wasn't real, was it a lie?

Some people lie.

They just lie about healings.

Other people feel pressured,

so they say they're healed
when they're not.

Other people genuinely
feel good.

They feel better two days
and then check in a month

or two later.

Well, what was that?
I don't know.

The very fact that there is
a debate

is self-evident proof that these
sign gifts do not continue.

There’s healing
in the church today.

Of course. There’s instruction
in the

letter of James about
what's to be done,

and the elders are to be called
for and prayer is to be made.

But there isn't someone
who has a gift of healing.

One of my grandsons has got
Klinefelter syndrome.

He has an extra male

chromosome.

There's nobody in the world
today, nobody in South America

or Asia or Africa or North
America that we can call for

who could heal him.

Or those that have Down
syndrome.

There's no record of
a miraculous healing like that.

That was something
that was unique

in the ministry of the Lord
and his apostles.

At the end of the day,
when we pray for the sick,

we leave the results
in God's hands.

We know that God has the power
to heal.

He's the
one that created their body.

And so
we pray for their healing,

but we accept the outcome
as the will of God.

We are getting today

of restoration
and health restored

after illness, and the church

bringing a sick child,
bringing a cancer patient

and crying to God
that God would heal and God

hearing
and answering and healing.

But everyone is going to die.

And so,
you know, let's face up to that.

We see these things
through a glass darkly now,

but in heaven we'll be at peace
and we will know

why my wife died
as she did, why I have a

grandson
who's got an incurable condition

and God will make it
plain. God is good.

There will be a day.

Jesus Christ will raise
every body.

And everybody's dust,

which is precious
in the eyes of God, will be

glorified and transformed.

They will be the resurrection
unto glory.

We look forward to that.

But we don't see that today.

And we cannot see it today
because it's not the time

for that to happen today

in the Bible,
what we see is that

Christians are told to pray
for one another,

but that's not what the modern
healing movement teaches

with the modern healing movement
teaches us that there's

some amount of faith
that we generate

or some confidence we need to
have in some particular healer

that that he can,
as it were, by his own, will

heal us because of a gift
that he's been given by God.

And the sad reality of it is

it is a tremendous source
of confusion

and disappointment for so many
people who believe the lies.

If it's
always God's will to be healed,

but the healing does not come,

then the question must be asked
Whose fault is it?

It cannot be God's fault
because he's perfect.

So the only other one to whom to
look is the one who is sick.

Lack of faith, lack
of making the right confessions,

lack of giving.

Maybe you're not even saved.

It must be your fault
because it can't be God's fault.

So for the last few years,
I have believed in miracles.

And I have believed for healing,
you know, and I'm so shocked

because every time I would pray,
nothing would happen.

It gets discouraging.

Sometimes I’d even go oversees
to where I'd hear about

all these miracles happening,
go, Let me at least see it.

And I'd get there.

Whether Africa,
India, whatever, and nothing.

And then

two weeks
ago we were in Myanmar, Burma.

So I've heard of
some evangelicals

who have gone to a place
called Myanmar or Burma.

I can't even tell you
how intense,

how amazing the experiences
we had were.

This lady had built
relationship

and somehow was able to work out

so that we could
go into the village.

and while there have claimed
that they actually came along

and healed everyone,
they touched.

Everyone who touched them was
healed.

People started coming forward
for healing.

Every person I touched
was healed.

You guys okay?

This is this is craziness to me.

I have never
experienced this in 52 years.

And what's interesting about
that story is

I actually know of men
who are church planters

on the ground in that country,

who know the men

who arrange these healings.

Unbeknownst
to the visiting preacher,

poor people of all ages in

a village are hired to act
as if they are deaf or blind,

and they are instructed
to play out a dramatic healing

when the visiting preacher
touches them.

In this elaborate scam,
the preacher is actually tricked

into believing
that he is performing miracles.

I'm talking like a little boy

and a little girl who were deaf.

We lay hands,

she starts
crying and smi -

Again these are not Christians.

These are not people
you ever heard about Jesus?

There's fees paid out
to various people to heal,

because what that does

is that brings
more American preachers

and then more money
into the country.

And so they arrange
a series of healings

and these men
come back with these stories.

And we’re like, lay
hands on your little brother.

You know, we lay hands on him
and he starts hearing

for the first time. You guys,
this is out of my comfort zone.

This is stuff I’d read about,
but I'm going, man, it happened.

It happened.

They're being suckered.

Unfortunately, we go overseas

and we lose all sense
of discernment.

Things we would never consider
acceptable here,

We just go overseas
and discernment is gone

and we just we're just suckers

for every charlatan
that comes along.

I thought I had faith,

but my faith was
at another level.

One of the reasons
I absolutely despise

the charismatic movement
and all that it does

is because it teaches people
to be gullible

and open
to the idea of fake miracles.

And as soon as they discover

this isn't real, it's fake,

they don't just abandon
their Charismatic convictions.

They sometimes abandon
faith in Christ altogether.

What I'm struck with is not just

this doesn't fit with the Bible,

although it doesn't fit in
any way with biblical teaching.

But but just the human cost,
the spiritual cost of this

kind of false
teaching at a moment

when when individuals
are at their most desperate

and have the most openness
to hearing genuine truth

God and know they need something
from God, know that they’re

that they're insufficient

in themselves
to do what needs to be done,

and they're looking to the Lord
in some way.

And yet someone steps in
and gives them this

this false,
self-aggrandizing teaching.

I've seen many other lives
be destroyed

when they finally woke up
and realized

these things aren't even real.

They think nothing is real.

They question
whether Christ is real,

and it's hard to get anyone
who's gone through that

to come back and take a serious
look at faith in Christ

focused on the Gospel
rather than focused on

these phony miracles.

For the first 15
years of my pastoral ministry,

I was a very rigid,

dogmatic, cynical, snarky,

Cessationist

who did not
believe that the Spirit of God

operates in the fashion
as he did in the early Church.

To my everlasting shame
for which I have repented many,

many times

when I read my New Testament

and I see the way in which Jesus
and the Apostles

were confirmed
through the miraculous signs

that they performed
as messengers of God,

who brought new revelation
from God.

And I read about the way in

which the gift of tongues
operated on the day of Pentecost

and the 16 different language
groups that were represented

in terms of dialects
and languages spoken

by those who were giving praise
to God

in languages they’d
never learned before

And I read about the

way in which people
were healed immediately and

undeniably with a spoken word
or with the touch of a hand.

I read that on the pages
of my New Testament,

it just makes me
want to fall down and worship

because our God is a great God
and the Spirit was doing

amazing things to confirm
the person and work of Christ.

When I compare that to

fallible, errant prophecy

to speaking gibberish.

to hucksters

getting up and pretending
to heal people.

It's my zeal

to see the true work
of the Holy Spirit magnified

that motivates me to call out,
and confront that

which uses the same language,
but is not the same thing.

I think
the most dangerous aspect

of those who believe
in the continuation

of the extraordinary
gifts of the Spirit

is ultimately to confuse

their experience
with conversion.

People can have many experiences

that maybe
look exactly the same as what

Muslims and Mormons
and other people claim.

You can look at people
exhibiting Hindu Kundalini

and those look exactly like

you see in charismatic churches
today.

They laugh uncontrollably,

they get slain in the Spirit
and they speak in tongues

in exactly the same way
that Charismatics do.

You literally cannot
tell the difference.

Ey, Ma, ma, ma, ma

They look exactly alike.

Pagans do it too.

It's very possible

for us to rest
in extraordinary experiences

that we've had
or believe that we've had,

rather than

resting safely in Jesus Christ.

Charismaticism
was invented around

the turn of the 20th century.

They've had a hundred years
to produce

anything that all Christians
would look at and say

that really validates
charismatic distinctives.

Just imagine

one person, just one

with the gift of healing
going in and empty out

just one ward of children
dying of cancer

They’ve had 100 years.

They haven't done anything
like that.

If a Charismatic
wants to make the case

that revelatory and attesting
gifts are still operative,

he has to argue that case.

If they were still continuing,
no argument would be necessary.

We'd all know it.

There is another possibility -

that these gifts did
what God meant them to do

and they've retired, successfully.

Cessationism is false doctrine.

If you're going to
a Cessationist church,

you need to go find a new church

‘cause nobody should be
going to church

hearing about what
God isn't doing anymore.

We need to be in a church

where we're talking about
what God is doing today.

Cessationism
is not about limiting

the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is instead
about magnifying the true

work of the Holy Spirit
and not being satisfied

with cheap substitutes
or counterfeits.

We've got to really back up

and ask a really fundamental
question about

who the Holy Spirit is
and what he's doing.

The Son is sent by the Father
on mission for a particular work

To redeem us.

And he pours out the Spirit
for a particular reason.

He says he's sending the promise
of the father upon us.

For what purpose?

That we would be his witnesses-

And particularly there
he means the apostles, first

and foremost - in Jerusalem,
starting there,

and then to the nations,
to Judea,

Samaria,
to the ends of the earth.

So the Holy Spirit’s mission -
his whole mission - is to come

and proclaim the work of Christ
through the Apostles,

and then the church they found

He's going to preach that

work through those preachers.

The Spirit

is going to take that Word,
and he's going to transform them

so that they believe that Word.

In John 16,
Jesus said that he would

send the Holy Spirit
and He would convict the world

concerning sin
and righteousness and judgment.

when God's Word is spoken,

and we see, according to the law
that we've broken God's law

and our hearts are convicted

and we realize I am worthy
of the judgment of God

when the Gospel is declared,
the good news that Jesus Christ

died for our sins
as an atoning sacrifice,

that he rose from the dead,
conquering the grave,

that he ascended into heaven,
and he’s seated at

the right hand of the Father,
interceding on our behalf.

We come to
receive and accept those truths

because of the power
of the Holy Spirit.

As John 6:44 says,
No man can come to me

except the Father
who sent me draws him.

Long my imprisoned spirit
lay fast bound in sin

and nature's night.

His heart is a heart of stone.

God removes that heart of stone

and He replaces it

with a heart of flesh
that is alive.

It is the work of regeneration.

God breathes into a dead man

and He brings a person to life,

Opening up somebody’s eyes

so that they see Jesus.

That is the miracle
of the new birth.

That's what the Spirit of God
is doing all over the place.

The Spirit comes into the soul

of the believer and enables
their minds

to comprehend, to receive,
with meekness, to believe,

to be impacted
and transformed by that Word.

That I think is the huge mistake
people make.

They think the Spirit

is going to speak to them
outside the Scripture

when the wonderful reality,
the joy of being a Christian

and coming to the Scripture

is the Holy Spirit
turns on the light

to the Scripture itself
and enables us to understand it

in a deep,
profound, life changing way.

We need, really, a

clarion call to the substantial.

It's a lot more exciting

to go see someone stand up
out of a wheelchair,

supposedly, than it is
to be told from the pulpit

You need to die
the self every day.

You need to take up your cross.

You need to be following
the Lord Jesus Christ.

You need greater self-control

through the Ministry
of the Holy Spirit in your life.

You need to be putting to death
obvious sins.

You need to be growing in
likeness

to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You're
not going to gather a crowd

with those sorts of emphases.

But that's where the emphasis
falls in the Bible.

The Spirit seals us,
and sanctifies us and guides

our steps providentially.

He comforts us,
he encourages us,

He illuminates
the Word of God to us.

He regenerates us, He gives us
spiritual gifts.

He empowers those for service.

He uses those gifts in the lives
of other people that we serve.

In the power of those gifts,
He builds his church.

He unites us around the truth.

All of these things,
the Spirit of God does,

and they don't necessarily
put goose bumps on our arms.

They are the unnoticed
and everyday work

that the Spirit of God

does in His people
for the glory of our God.

Peter's Pentecost sermon

He promised them
that they would receive

the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The gift that He was talking
about was the Person

of the Holy Spirit.

God has many attributes.

We talk about His love, His
mercy, his justice, His grace,

another attribute of God

is that He gives His Holy Spirit
to people, to sinners.

He gives Himself.

He gives the gift of himself.

Well, if we don't have the

miraculous gifts,
what do we have?

We have the self-authenticating
word of God

when we have Holy Spirit of God
promise to bless that word.

There's
no reason for disappointment.

Well, is that it? Yes.

We have the self-authenticating
word of God, accompanied

and attested by the Holy Spirit,

and that is all we need.

What does Jesus say?

He says,
if they don't believe the Word,

they're not going to believe

even someone who has been raised
from the dead.

This word

is the final Word.

♪ I ain't got no money ♪

♪ I ain't got no change ♪

♪ I ain't got a dollar bill ♪

♪ to my name ♪

♪ I ain't got a dime ♪

♪ I ain't got a cent. No ♪

♪ But I got a lot,
a whole lot of love ♪

♪ that I haven’t yet spent ♪

♪ wooooooooh ♪

♪ I ain’t got no rubies ♪

♪ I ain’t got no pearls ♪

♪ I ain't got no diamonds ♪

♪ to give to my girl ♪

♪ But what I do have ♪

♪ I’ll share with you ♪

♪ cuz what we got is all we need
when this life is through ♪

♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪

♪ whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa ♪

♪ whoa, whoa ♪

♪ whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa ♪

♪ Oh I ain’t got no mansion ♪

♪ Here on this earth ♪

♪ All my posessions ♪

♪ they ain’t got no worth ♪

♪ But i put my stock in ♪

♪ my future rest ♪

♪ so if you’re asking me ♪

♪ I got all I need ♪

♪ and I’m truly blessed ♪

♪ Ain't got no money ♪

♪ ain’t got no change ♪

♪ I ain't got a dollar bill ♪

♪ to my name ♪

♪ I ain’t got a dime ♪

♪ I ain’t got a cent ♪

♪ no ♪

♪ but i got a lot ♪

♪ whole lot of love ♪

♪ that I haven’t yet spent ♪