Apologetics and the Charismatic Movement with John Samson

Revealed Apologetics

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All right. Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and I would like to thank everyone so much for listening in.

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If you're listening through the podcast, I very much appreciate my podcast listeners. I know that there are some folks who will message me and say, hey,

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I didn't get to see the live stream, but I'm looking forward to catching up on the podcast.

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So I very much appreciate you guys. Just a real quick heads up about the podcast.

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If you have not subscribed to the Revealed Apologetics podcast on YouTube, I would strongly advise you to do so.

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There's actually content on the podcast that are not available on the YouTube channel. So sometimes

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I'll just do straight out recording and cover certain topics. I've just recently released two podcast episodes, one dealing with presuppositional apologetics applied to Roman Catholicism.

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And it's kind of, I think it's seven or eight minutes long, a nice little quick clip there. So folks might find that helpful. So be sure to subscribe to the

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Revealed Apologetics podcast, and it also is greatly appreciated if you can leave a nice review, if you've been blessed by the content.

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So there's that. Now I know that folks have been excited for my, not only the guests that I'm going to have on today, but on September 23rd,

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I'll be having Dr. Matthew Barrett on and Dr. Matthew Barrett is the author of Simply Trinity, No One Greater.

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And of course his more popular book, God's Word Alone, where he kind of provides an explanation and a historical defense of Solar Scriptura.

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And so I know folks will definitely be blessed by that, that is a very important topic. Oh, sorry,

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September 22nd, I think it's 22nd, is that a Thursday, I think it's a Thursday, Wednesday.

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Okay. All right. Well, it's posted somewhere on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, I think.

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I'm a new Twitter user, Twitter is really interesting. I need to look into that a little more, but the information is there for you guys.

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I'm looking forward to having Dr. Matthew Barrett on and of course we may, I'm still checking, we may have

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Dr. Michael Heiser on, but I know he's kind of going through some health issues. So I'll double check with respect to that.

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All right. Well, today I'm very excited to have Pastor John Sampson on.

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We're going to be talking about a very interesting topic. It's of course a popular topic. A lot of people have addressed this topic and I'm just really excited to have

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Pastor John on because he has some really great things to say about this topic specifically. And hopefully we can place this context, the context of this discussion within the context of apologetic application as well as kind of just a personal practical application.

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So let me just introduce Pastor John by reading a little bit of his information that can be found on his blog.

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I'm reading here from effectualgrace .com and if you don't know anything about John, he's a reformed pastor and he promotes a reformed theology and has some really solid content.

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He's got a great book. If I'm remembering it correctly, I don't know off the top of my head, but I think it's the

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Twelve or Thirteen Whatabouts and he addresses various objections and questions pertaining to reformed theology.

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So he's got some great content there. But Pastor John is the pastor and teacher of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, as well as an author and conference speaker.

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He has a passion for the local church and for the free offer of the gospel to be proclaimed far and wide.

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He has been a contributing writer at the monergism .com blog site of www .reformationtheology

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.com since 2005 and maintains his own internet blog here at effectualgrace .com

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and so folks totally should check that out. Well without further ado, I would like to introduce

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Pastor John Sampson. How are you doing, Pastor John? Good to be with you, sir, absolutely.

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Thank you so much for coming on and I kind of gave a brief introduction about who you are.

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Is there anything you'd like to add? No, I'm a sinner and those who know me can affirm that.

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Very grateful for God's grace in my life. That's awesome. Well, why don't you kind of give us some background about how you came to the

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Lord and maybe perhaps some context for this discussion that we're going to be having today pertaining to the charismatic movement and word of faith movement, those sorts of things.

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Yeah, I grew up in a Christian environment. It was unusual in that my father was a traveling preacher, which meant he didn't have his own church but was regularly out preaching.

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And so it wasn't normal in that I wasn't growing up in a local church, even though my dad was a preacher, very much a street preacher.

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But I had no real interest in the Lord. I remember when I was eight years old, my father reading the

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Bible as he often did in preparation for study. I went when he was out of the room and read the

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Bible just for a few minutes and there was nothing I could relate to. I didn't find it of interest at all.

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And I think even at that young age, eight or nine, I made a mental decision. I was never going to follow in my father's footsteps and become a pastor or a preacher.

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And that was just the case. I was interested in soccer, football, as we call it over in England. And at age 14, my father did ask me to go to a church service.

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It happened to be a Pentecostal church. It was called Chester Pentecostal Church in the northwest of England, about 20 miles south of Liverpool.

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There are Pentecostals in England. That's quite a few of them. Yeah. And I went not enjoying the service until about halfway through.

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Something changed. And now I can explain that theologically. But I became interested where I wasn't interested before.

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And the call was made to come to Christ to repent. And I believe a true biblical gospel was presented looking back, even in those in that scenario.

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And I did what I was asked to do, raise my hand, walk the aisle, sign the card. But more than anything, I realized

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I was exposed before a holy God and needed to come to him. And my father had not always lived the

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Christian life out very well. And so he thought, I think, that I was coming to Christ because of his influence.

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But it's almost, not even almost, it's actually in spite of his influence. I realized

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I couldn't stand before God and say, I could have served, you would have. But there's this dad fellow and I realized

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I needed to get right with God. So in that environment, I was thrust completely into the Pentecostal movement.

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But very quickly, more into the charismatic side, we went to a different church fairly quickly, which really majored in the gifts of the

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Holy Spirit as I understood them then and became very, very active so that I went to Bible College, which was a reformed, but Pentecostal Bible College, Pentecostal in terms of name and doctrine, but most of the lectures were reformed.

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But I was never exposed to why they were reformed. So I just carried on regardless and was hook, line, sinker into what we call charismatic

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Word of Faith doctrine. The man who was regarded as kind of the

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Kenneth E. Hagan of England, many people might know that name, a man called Harry Green, when

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I became his associate minister after seminary, I traveled with him for a good nine months before he died, aged 54 of a heart attack.

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But in that nine months, we'd gone to India, the United States, Australia, New Zealand.

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And I was his young Timothy being trained up in the faith. So immersed as much as you can be in it.

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And then later on, other things took place, but that was the background for our discussion. All right.

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Well, very good. That's super interesting. So you got saved in a Pentecostal church.

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Yes. Okay. So you can kind of give people a context for the sorts of things that one would see in a church that you were in.

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What is the typical Pentecostal church experience as you remember it?

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I mean, was the church that you were at a little bit more on the extreme side, or was it kind of a moderate with some, you know, every now and then you had someone speaking tongues or maybe slain in the spirit or something like that.

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Why don't you explain the details of what that looked like? That's a good question. I think in the first scenario, it was a moderate, rather than an extreme church.

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There would be tongues and interpretation of tongues and prophecy, but that would be about it.

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But quickly, I went to this charismatic church where it was all of the above and more, and you see words of knowledge and people supposedly slain in the spirit and a lot of things that it's more known for.

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So it was very early on that I was exposed to the more extreme radical deliverance from demons in the services, all kinds of things that I look back and wince on.

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But yeah, there was a difference. There was a difference.

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Sure. And what are some of the pastors and preachers, maybe famous ones, maybe not the ones that you were working in ministry under, but some of the people that you listened to?

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There would be a lot who were American, but also some English. And there's a man called

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Colin Urquhart, who's elderly now, but was a

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Church of England, Anglican minister who was filled with the spirit and was really a faith guy out there.

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Word of faith. And yet he would not emphasize the prosperity message, but he would certainly talk about healing.

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But there were certainly the American folks that are very notorious. And coming to America and starting a church,

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I became a word of faith pastor over here and was a host on the local

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TBN, Trinity Broadcasting Network here in the Phoenix area. And the people that I was listening to,

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I ended up meeting Jesse Duplanis, Jerry Savelle, Andrew Womack.

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Andrew Womack was a regular guest speaker at this church that I started and knew him very, very well.

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He stayed in my home many times. Again, he might be a name that people are familiar with.

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Sure, sure. Okay. So we mentioned some terminology here.

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So we referred to charismatic, Pentecostal, and then you threw the phrase word of faith. Now, can you differentiate for us?

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We don't want to lump everyone in because I went to a Pentecostal church. I grew up in a

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Pentecostal church, but I wouldn't call it a word of faith sort of church. Although I'm sure there were people in the congregation that were perhaps drawn to that in some way.

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But can you differentiate say the run of the mill Pentecostal church and like more specifically the word of faith movement?

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Why don't you define that for us? Yeah. In very broad terms, which I think is what we need to do with that kind of a question.

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Pentecostal would be those who believe that what happened on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter two is something that's available to us now that can speak in tongues.

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Acts 2 .4 is a key verse. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues as the

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Spirit gave them utterance. They would believe that those gifts are available. And there's kind of a spectrum.

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You can be Pentecostal and word of faith and you can be Pentecostal and avoid the word of faith.

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And that was true at the seminary I went to. They allowed for both.

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But word of faith is more God has put us in control and there's a message there.

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We have authority and by our words we can change the destiny of our lives.

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If it's been not too good right now and up till now, you can change that by the words that you speak.

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And then that is healing, not only in the atonement, but guaranteed if you'll work the laws with prosperity, health and wealth.

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And there are many people in the Pentecostal realm that would shun all of that. That is also the place where it takes place as well.

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So everyone who is word of faith would be charismatic in the sense that they believe in the gifts of the

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Holy Spirit, but not all charismatic are word of faith. Sure. Now, would you categorize Pentecostals, charismatics, and even some people within the word of faith movement, would you consider them brothers in Christ mixed in with some error?

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How do you kind of hash that whole thing out in terms of who's in, who's out perspective?

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Very good question. I would say it depends on the person you're talking to. And a lot of it is, where are they on the

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Trinity? Where are they on the big essentials of the faith? What is the gospel?

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Let's get God and the gospel right. If we're right on Christology, truly

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God, truly man, and there never was a time when Jesus was not God.

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Those things have to be in place for me to say, you're my brother. But in the Pentecostal realm, you can have something called oneness

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Pentecostalism, which is a denial of the Trinity. They would not be brothers and sisters in Christ.

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So to really hone down on that, which is a very, very good question is, depends on the person, depends on the church.

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Let's say we talk about doctrine and in many of those circles, there's not a desire to study or to even talk about these things, just that they think doctrine divides.

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There's others that are sound in the faith. And so the boundary lines is

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God and the gospel. Sure. All right. Very good. All right. Well, I want to read a scripture passage to provide some apologetic context, because this channel does focus on apologetics.

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We do come from a very presuppositional perspective, although we won't be talking too much about methodology here.

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But I want to read from Jude chapter one, verse three. And Jude chapter one, verse three is one of my favorite apologetics passages.

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It usually, when I teach, it usually comes right off the heels of first Peter three, 15, where we have set apart

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Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

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And so we're called to always be ready to defend the faith. And I like to move into Jude one, three, because it kind of adds more specificity that we are to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered.

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So we have the always being ready to make a defense. And the defense is with respect to the body of Christian truth, that apostolic teaching sort of deal.

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However, in Jude chapter one, there's an interesting thing that there's a reason why I asked you what you think in terms of Pentecostals being our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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And I'm glad you mentioned that you do believe that they are with the caveats that you made.

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Jude chapter one deals not just with the necessity of contending for the faith, but it deals with the sort of apologetics that engages internally within the context of the church.

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And so I want to read that for folks and then perhaps ask you, how do we contextualize this passage and the principles that it teaches with how to deal with and evaluate some of the aberrations, some of the weirder things that we see in the

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Pentecostal movement, the charismatic movement, things like that. So let me read you chapter one real quick. This is verse three and four.

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Okay. So Jude says, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I have found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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And folks were listening, check this out. Verse four, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our

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God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. And I want folks to focus in on verse four there for certain people have crept in, have crept in, where have they crept in?

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They've crept into the church. And so this necessity for contending for the faith deals not only with external defense, say the atheist or the agnostic or the cult, but an internal defense aberrations within the body of Christ.

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So how would you use principles from that passage and apply it to some of the things we might see and perhaps would have to be cautious of within the charismatic movement?

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I think in certainly listening to you and agreeing with all you've said, I think the phrase, the faith is key in verse three.

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We have to define it. We have to say what the faith is, and you can only contend for the faith if it's in our grasp.

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In fact, that is the final phrase of verse three that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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We know what the Bible teaches concerning God, who our God is. And that faith is known by all

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Orthodox Christians. And so when people have the pressure of coming up with something new, which is often the case in those realms, we should run.

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Fresh anointing, right? A new anointing, revelation, knowledge, that sort of thing. Yeah. The extremes say we don't need the

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Bible. I've got this from heaven. I've been on a trip to heaven. I've got this revelation.

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And we should subject all we hear to the scripture. And the faith is what we come up with as we read the scripture and interpret it correctly.

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So let's talk about the big stuff of God, the gospel. As I've said, that is the faith.

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Sometimes people can have it right on God, but get it wrong on the gospel. But we're not splitting hairs.

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These are big doctrines. You tell me Jesus became the son of God at a certain point, like his baptism.

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We have to part ways. We have to point that out as error. He was God from all eternity.

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And so these are things we have to go back to. And again, the fact that in that realm, there is all sorts of novelties, something new.

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There's a pressure to come up with something new. There's conferences three or four times every year in whatever sector you are in, whether it's

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March and June on September or December, there's something going on where the speakers are under pressure to come up with something new.

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And it's a breeding ground for heresy. And when it becomes heresy, especially when it's public, it needs to be renounced publicly.

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And a good pastor is told by Paul to watch out for your own life and for the doctrine.

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And in doing so, you'll save both yourselves and those who hear you. And so it's of help to the sheep for a pastor, a shepherd to say, this is the truth.

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And by the way, what you're hearing over there is wrong and name people. Jesus made that clear.

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Paul made that very clear. He named people, especially when they won't repent. Can you think of any other passage that speaks specifically about holding to the doctrine?

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Because I know a lot of people, like you said before, people say, well, you're focusing too much on doctrine. These sorts of things divide.

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Is there maybe another scripture that comes to mind that deals specifically with that? That perhaps if there is a

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Christian who is in conversation with folks in this movement and practice many of the things that we tend to frown upon when we say, well, what's going on there?

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What passage of scripture can we share with them that emphasizes the importance specifically on doctrine and then hold that person's feet to the fire, so to speak, to conform to what the scripture says or to interact with the text at that point?

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What other passages come to mind? Well, I think we can't read through 1 Timothy without bumping into phrases exactly of that.

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I mean, it's almost one of the themes of the epistle, but there's also Acts chapter 20, where Paul is saying farewell to some

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Ephesus elders with them and said, there will be savage wolves coming in among you, which again,

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I think is very relevant to Jude and what you just mentioned, who will not spare the flock and they will draw attention to themselves away from the faith and these are wolves among you.

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But also you've got Jesus who, in terms of doctrine, one passage that comes to mind is

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John 8, I believe it's verse 24, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

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What is that except doctrine? Sure, sure. So it's Jesus, it's the apostles, there's warnings about doctrine in just about every epistle we read in the

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New Testament and the man who says, I just want to follow the Holy Spirit, I'm not interested in doctrine, doesn't know the

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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth who leads his people into all truth and a church without a love for doctrine is a church without the

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Holy Spirit, which is the exact opposite of what the charismatic sector would say.

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No, we're united by signs and wonders, we're united by the move of the

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Holy Spirit. And so, when folk from different denominations get together, they talk about what they have in commonality rather than, let's talk about the

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Lord's Supper, let's talk about what is happening there. And so it's only when you actually go to those doctrines, okay, tell me what the gospel is.

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And in those realms, you can have someone who is basically bringing the teaching of Galatians, the heretics there, but they can speak in tongues.

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And if you look at one book of the New Testament, I remember a situation where someone who was really influential in my life was very concerned because I was kind of moving away at that point, now having moved completely away, distraught about it, and said,

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I had a little picture as I was praying for you, which is often the way conversations go. And I saw

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Jesus outside the door of your church with a clipboard checking people's doctrine before they went in.

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And you don't want that. And I said, would you allow me to reply? He said, yes.

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I said, may I reply in one word? He said, yes. I said, Galatians. And that was kind of the end of the conversation, right?

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Because what I said is happening there is Jesus is standing outside the door of the professing church and checking doctrine.

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You get the gospel wrong. You're a false brother. You're a pseudo -adelphoi.

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You may be singing the hymns, falling under the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Evidently, the Holy Spirit was working miracles among them. And Paul asked, how's he doing that?

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So they were not new to the charismatic element, if you put it in those terms.

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But Paul called them false brothers because they added one thing to the gospel, said you need to be circumcised as well as believe in Jesus.

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And so Galatians is one book. You ask for a verse. There's a book about doctrine.

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Sure. Yeah. This is interesting because I mean, growing up in a

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Pentecostal context, and I love my, I love the church that I grew up in. That's where I got my foundation. I wouldn't change my childhood one bit.

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I benefited so greatly from my time there. But it was very interesting as I got older and I began to kind of question some things,

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I would get very much into theology and the conversation would move from, look what exciting things

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God is doing, the Spirit's moving. And then when you start speaking doctrine, it kind of just glaze over. And it's like, oh, it's almost like a disdain to talk about it, which

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I always thought was very fascinating. I actually, which is going to lead to my next question. I think

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I was at a service where there were people who were falling out in the Spirit, being slain in the

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Spirit. And I remember asking, well, where is that in the Bible? And bringing up various points.

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And I remember, like it was yesterday, I won't mention the person's name, but the person looked at me and says, Eli, you know what your problem is?

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You read the Bible too much. Now, I know, I'm not trying to caricature anyone.

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I know there are Pentecostal charismatic people who, if they heard that, they would take their giant study

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Bible and knock that person upside the head. But it was interesting that this person took their experience and almost placed it over the authority of Scripture.

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And I thought that was very fascinating. So that leads me to my question. Let's deal specifically with what many people associate

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Pentecostal churches with and charismatic movements with, is this issue of being slain in the

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Spirit. What is slain in the Spirit? What do Pentecostals think is going on there?

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And how can we as Christians address that from a biblically discerning perspective?

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Can you unpack that for us? Yeah, first of all, it's a phrase not found in the New Testament. And so to build a doctrine on something that's not addressed is, again, you're building on a very shaky foundation, to say the least.

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But the idea is that when the Holy Spirit's power invades a space, so to speak, physicality submits.

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And where they go in Scripture is the Gospel of John, when Jesus was confronted by literally hundreds of Roman soldiers.

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And they said that they were seeking Jesus. And he said, I am. They all fell to the ground.

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They said, there you go. There's an evidence of people falling under the power of God. Well, first of all, the context was judgment.

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Rather than something Jesus said, come forward, and I'll lay hands on you, or I'll breathe on you or something.

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This was the judgment to show the Roman soldiers who thought they had all the power and authority in that garden, who really was in charge.

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Jesus was in charge. And if you're going to arrest Jesus, it's because he lets you, he allows you, because he can simply by his will, cause you to be on the ground.

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You'll crack troops, you're trained in warfare, you can't handle Jesus and his power. That's what's going on there.

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There's nothing in Scripture that addresses the idea of the Pentecostal charismatic idea.

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You'll be slain in the Spirit if you come forward. In fact, there's a gentleman I'm used to listen to in England.

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He's died now, but he said the way to be slain in the Spirit, if you want to actually be biblical, is to have the apostle

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Peter as your pastor and lie about what you put in the offering. He's referring to Acts chapter five, he says,

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Ananias and Sapphira were slain in the Spirit. So it's not a biblical phrase, but it's an idea and it's something that is craved and people think that they are loved by God in the process, but it's entirely unbiblical.

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And to put your faith in something unbiblical, again, the way you phrased the question was terrific because you actually started with, where is it in the

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Bible? And it's not there. You can't point to a verse, you can't point to anything in the book of Acts where people are falling under supposedly the power of God.

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So why should it be something we seek? And to me, a move of the Holy Spirit is not when people are falling, but people are doing what happened in the book of Acts and elsewhere.

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They have a desire for the word of God to be rightly taught and preached. They study it.

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The Bereans come to mind in Acts 17 who were more noble than others because they sought out the scriptures that Paul was quoting to see if these things were so, which what is that?

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But doctrine, they're checking the apostle Paul's doctrine and they were commended for it.

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That is the Holy Spirit at work. And so biblically a pastor should be able to get up and say, here's the exciting thing we're doing this week.

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We're in verse eight of this chapter. And next week, if you come back, we're in verse nine and people say, well, what else?

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That's it. The sheep will love that. But there's something in us that craves something that we think is more exciting.

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But the Holy Spirit makes the Bible exciting. Some people say to me, you know, and to others who are preachers, oh, you make the

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Bible come alive. No, the Bible makes me come alive. The Bible is alive. The word of God is living and active.

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And there's such a superficial understanding of what we have in the scripture that they feel they need more.

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That's the starting point for the So, John, if the practice of being slain in the spirit is so widespread in the

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Pentecostal movement, where did it come from? I mean, is this something that can be traced back to the early church?

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Maybe if you don't see it explicitly in the New Testament, can a historical argument be made that, hey, this is how the spirit has moved?

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Or is this a more modern phenomenon just within the past couple of centuries? And it's kind of just embedded in the culture of this sort of charismatic movement, charismatic

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Christianity? I haven't made a full study of that. I think I need to be honest and say, historically,

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I don't know where it first shows up. There seemed to be elements that were unusual in the

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Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards. And he made a critique of it and some of the things he was suspicious of himself.

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But he certainly said, these things were happening and had a kind of wait and see approach, look for fruit.

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But as to the question when it first appeared, I'm not sure I could address that. But certainly, it's something that has evolved over recent decades.

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I know that I don't know of its existence in the terms we talk about it now.

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200, 300, 400 years ago, perhaps Jonathan Edwards saw some of that. I don't know.

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Right, right. OK, so so let's give some pushback here. So, John, you know, your problem is you have never experienced it before.

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OK, John, I can tell you, I was at the altar and I didn't want to go down.

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But the power of God came upon me and I felt a strong sense of peace that God was working on me and removing chains from my life.

31:35

And as a result of that move of God in my life, I I seek God more.

31:40

I have a hunger to read the scriptures. That's your problem, John. You haven't experienced it.

31:46

You see, I have and I know my experience. How would you respond to something like that? That's very common.

31:52

It is common. I would say, well, I've experienced some of that, too. It's happened to me and I walk away from it for this reason.

32:00

I can't find it in the Bible. More than that, as a pastor, I've been in services where things were happening beyond my control, where people en masse were falling over, some even laughing for a while.

32:16

Remember the Toronto blessing of the 1990s that kind of hit us for maybe a couple of nights.

32:23

It wasn't a big thing that we emphasized at all. But I observed as a pastor, couples that were on the ground for a couple of hours laughing in the spirit, so -called, and within a week were moving out from each other, moving out of the house.

32:43

And it ended up in divorce. And this is not to be critical of their condition and the issues that needed to be resolved.

32:53

But as a pastor, I made a mental note. If this really was a true work of God, wouldn't there be deep repentance?

33:00

Wouldn't there be a desire for holiness? You know, I didn't see it. I didn't see a hunger for the

33:07

Word of God. I didn't see a desire to, oh, I encountered God tonight. No, it's a thrill.

33:13

Just as you'd go to a movie and have a thrill. Man, you need to go and see that movie. Wow, it had me on the edge of my seat.

33:19

It was that kind of thing, rather than a deep, penetrating work of the Holy Spirit. Where the

33:24

Holy Spirit is, there will be fruit. And the fruit of the Spirit, one of the things that I mentioned, is self -control.

33:34

And what I saw was the opposite of that. And in fact, what is really escalated and revered and esteemed are meetings where, you know what, we never got to preach.

33:48

The preacher never got to preach on Sunday night. The Holy Spirit came and did

33:53

His thing. And so you're saying the Holy Spirit showed up in such magnitude that He no one was fed the

34:01

Word of God. No one was built up in the most holy faith by studying the

34:07

Scriptures and hearing it accurately taught. No, God moved as He decided we needed something else.

34:14

So again, all of that is unbiblical. All of that is the opposite of what

34:19

Scripture says. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, and it mentions self -control.

34:25

You can, on the internet, just Google Toronto Blessing and Kenneth Hagan Move of the

34:31

Spirit. You'll see things you think, I can't believe that's happening in a Christian service. It's the exact opposite of what the

34:37

Scripture says the Holy Spirit does in terms of fruit in a person's life. Okay.

34:42

So one more point of pushback on this point. Okay. Now I know individuals who say the things that I just said,

34:50

God was working with me and God was moving in my life and it did produce a sense of repentance.

34:57

My life has exhibited fruit that I wasn't exhibiting before. How would we evaluate a specific practice that we don't see in Scripture, but there are what appears to be

35:08

Scriptural results after having had that experience. Now that's not always the case, but I do know some people who, yes, as a result, they felt a strong sense of repentance and it definitely did affect them in some way.

35:19

How might we evaluate that biblically? I mean, that's the key. I mean, it doesn't matter what the experience is.

35:25

I'm glad that the person was brought to repentance and whatever was going on in that situation, but how would we evaluate that even in light of this person's very genuine, what appears to be a genuine experience?

35:36

My observation is what you've described is very, very, very rare. Second thing

35:43

I'd say, I'm glad it's happened. The second thing I'd say is I'm glad it's happened, but wouldn't you as a

35:51

Christian want to base your life on Scripture regarding experience rather than an experience you've had?

35:59

Repentance can take place without that. You don't need to be on the ground rolling and laughing to use the experience we've just mentioned, to have repentance.

36:13

You can repent. I remember in the service I talked about at age 14, repenting without any dramatic signs at all.

36:21

I walked forward and they were saying, wow, it's like I've walked into this light and my life's never going to be the same and he was having all kinds of experience and I wasn't.

36:32

I was just repenting and I never saw that fellow again. I don't know if that was a one and done kind of thing with church.

36:40

I don't know. He could have gone on with the Lord, but the fact is I went on with the

36:46

Lord without the dramatic testimony that he was having. Similarly, someone can repent without this.

36:53

Why isn't there something in our hearts that says, I want to seek after what the

36:59

Bible says I should seek after. And if I held my Bible up, I'd say, show me what you're talking about in the

37:05

Bible. If you show me, I'm in for it too. I want everything the Holy Spirit wants for me.

37:11

I don't want to deny the Holy Spirit. I don't want to grieve the Holy Spirit, but I don't believe it's grieving to the

37:16

Holy Spirit to say, here's my stance, Lord. From this moment on, as I understand the word that is

37:24

God breathed the Bible, I don't want to seek after anything you don't say is good for me.

37:30

I don't want to seek after anything that I can't find here. This is my safeguard.

37:36

Outside of this, there's heresies, there's damnation, but this is what the Holy Spirit has revealed.

37:41

And he's chosen not to reveal anything about that experience in the scripture. So why should

37:48

I seek it? Should I say repentance? Yes. But this experience you're talking about, I'm very glad that during that moment, someone may have had genuine repentance as a gift come to their heart, but there's nowhere in the

38:03

Bible says you must have that experience, but seek repentance for sure.

38:09

But it's a gift of God. So I would say it's rare. I would say, but seek only that which scripture, which is of the

38:17

Holy Spirit tells us to see. Awesome. You know, your problem is John, you put God in a box and I'm just kidding.

38:23

That's something we hear. I tell people God, I don't put, not putting God in a box. God has put himself in a book and has given us the parameters as to how we are to incorporate.

38:33

Even when you just mentioned this, he's vitally important. He's even given us guidelines as to how we interpret our own experience.

38:40

Scripture trumps my own interpretation of my own experience because the heart is desperately wicked.

38:45

Who could know it? I can be deceived, but scripture provides that external standard that keeps me in check and allows me to interpret my experience properly.

38:54

So I think that's a vital point, which, uh, you know, second Timothy three, 16 and 17, it equips the man of God for every good work.

39:03

Paul saying goodbye to Timothy. He said in the time of my departures at hand, he says that in the next chapter that he says,

39:09

I'm leaving you the word of God. And it's able to equip you fully for everything you'll face in ministry.

39:15

Every good work there, eight, 19 and 20. When they say to you, seek those who are mediums and sorcerers.

39:23

Uh, if they speak not according to this word, talking of the law of God, they have no light of dawn.

39:29

There's nothing, uh, to, to seek after that it's forbidden territory. And there's this principle of scripture.

39:36

If God, and since God has spoken in the word of God, he's tell he's given us everything we need.

39:43

What that realm, the charismatic Pentecostal realm is saying is you still need more scriptures.

39:49

Not enough. Mm. No. All right. Well, let's shift gears then from, because we can talk about slain in the spirit.

39:56

You can talk about getting drunk in the spirit. You can talk about what some people have called a sticky floor where you're stuck on the ground.

40:03

There are all sorts of different things. And I think the answer, the proper biblical response will be everything along the lines of what we've just been saying.

40:09

So let's, let's shift gears to what is biblically taught, namely speaking in tongues.

40:15

You say, well, wait a minute, speaking tongues is in the Bible, bro. All right. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm kind of like, all right, you know, slain in the spirit.

40:23

It's a little weird. Maybe, maybe, maybe God's working, maybe not. But Hey, God, the

40:28

Bible gives us examples that the spirit comes upon someone. We could experience the baptism of the

40:33

Holy Spirit, the evidence of speaking in tongues. Um, what is your position with respect to the difference?

40:42

And I know, you know, there's a difference between speaking in tongues as presented in scripture and speaking in tongues as what we see in typical

40:50

Pentecostal churches. Even when I was more, um, Kara, I call myself a cautious charismatic.

40:59

I lean more towards a cessationist perspective, but I tend to be a little flexible and say, it's possible that God can do those things.

41:06

But honestly, I have never, I don't think I've ever experienced a genuine, um, observing of what

41:13

I thought was reflected in scripture. Okay. So that's where that's my personal view. What is the difference when we walk into a church and we have people speaking in tongues and say something like Acts chapter two, or in any instance, when someone is speaking in tongues in scripture, what's the difference there?

41:29

The difference is, I think it goes back to how we define, um, uh, terminology.

41:37

The, the word tongues is in, is an unfortunate expression in our English language because it simply is a word that in the original

41:45

Greek simply means, uh, languages in other languages as they were given utterance by the

41:52

Holy spirit. So what happened in Acts two, as you mentioned was on the day of Pentecost Jews from different nations came to Jerusalem and they heard those who were full of the

42:02

Holy spirit speaking to them in the languages of their vicinity, where they were marveling.

42:10

They were, what, what is this? What's going on? And they realized that the Holy spirit was, was communicating by means they had never seen before.

42:20

Um, it wasn't mumbo jumbo and someone giving a, an interpretation. This was direct languages that was supernatural.

42:30

That is not happening. And I've heard evidence of people saying it's happened, but here's my problem with that.

42:39

They say it happened in India last week, happened in Africa, even in the Rome remotest parts of the world,

42:44

South America in our day, just about everybody has a cell phone, a mobile phone, and you can record it.

42:52

You can, um, it doesn't, people may not have fridges and, um, they may not have microwaves, but they've got cell phones.

43:02

Surely someone somewhere can give me evidence of this happening. It's always, it happened out there somewhere.

43:08

Have you got video? No, the battery wasn't working. If it's happening to the, it should be happening all the time.

43:17

Sure. That's what the early Pentecostals thought they would be doing after the Azusa street revival of 1900, 1901 and all of that.

43:25

They thought they'd been given the key to missions that they could just simply go out to Africa, let's say, and stand in the village square and give their message in tongues.

43:36

And people would hear the gospel in their language and come to Christ. Well, they actually went out and did that.

43:42

No one understood them. They came back with their tails between the legs. So what we see in the book of Acts is not something we're seeing happening today.

43:52

And so the, the apostolic gifts are really not happening despite all of the hoopla, uh, the, the

44:02

Benny Hinn crusades, the, the, the healing crusades. If someone who was really, really sick, someone who was really, really debilitated, someone who's not only in a wheelchair, but has to be helped in and out of bed with no ability to, to function.

44:20

If that, if one of them was healed in the last 30 years, it would be national news. It's not happening, but the, but Jesus did those miracles.

44:30

The apostles did. And it was this blazing light of glory to show the gospel is the power of God and his evidence that you can see.

44:39

And once the gospel was established, you, you look at the life of the apostle Paul, and it seemed that the power of God was waning.

44:46

The more time that went on, people brought handkerchiefs to him and the anointing of God was so strong.

44:55

He prayed over those handkerchiefs. They went out and people were healed by the end of his ministry. He's saying to Timothy, I hear you're sick.

45:01

Take a little wine for your stomach. That's true. That's right. That's right. I forgot about that. Rather than,

45:07

Hey, with this, uh, with this letter, you'll find an enclosed envelope with, uh, with the handkerchief, just put it on.

45:14

You'll be fine. And so do you have any more of those handkerchiefs?

45:22

Bring me my scroll and my handkerchief. I remember doing that. I remember with Harry Greenwood, having 20 handkerchiefs on the table and laying hands on them and writing the words acts 1912 on them, uh, which was the verse that talked about the handkerchiefs, uh, the power of God.

45:40

And so, um, I appreciate the enthusiasm to say all of this is happening, the

45:46

Bible itself lends to the fact that the apostolic, uh, mantle has gone.

45:55

There's no one writing scripture. And if someone is saying they're hearing from God, God is absolutely authoritative.

46:04

He's not half authoritative. It should be whatever is coming out of someone's mouth saying the

46:09

Lord said to me, that should be the 67 book of our Bible. And what about people who appeal to kind of like, um, the tongues of angels, which

46:20

I have a great difficulty believing that what we are hearing are angelic tongues and a secret prayer language.

46:26

So I think, um, and this is interesting because I guess from an apologetics perspective,

46:31

I mean, when you see a weak argument, some of the reasoning responses, they become very ambiguous to kind of, well, to, you know, well, if this is a way you can't really evaluate it because this over here, which, which actually goes against the biblical command to test all things.

46:47

If I'm trying to believe that you're having a genuine experience, but it's untestable, even according to scriptural standards, then how can

46:54

I believe that's from God? Because now God is commanding me to test something that he has blessed a person in such a way that I can't test it.

47:01

Um, so, so, so how, how do we navigate this at the tongues of angels and a secret prayer language?

47:07

Um, how do we interact with that? I'd love us to go just for a moment to first Corinthians 13 and just walk through the passage.

47:16

You see, if someone's got the real thing, if someone's got genuine gold, like a gold coin or a gold ring, they're not frightened.

47:25

If you say, can we take that to the jeweler and get it tested? What I find in that realm is they think it's grieving the

47:35

Holy Spirit to test it. Whereas the Holy Spirit in the scripture says, test it.

47:42

So if I've got the real thing, you know, if I know my, my father has given me a ring and he passed it down from generations before it's the real deal.

47:50

I'm not worried if someone says, can I, you know, you come with me, John, but let's go to a jewel and check it out. Let's check out that, that phrase in scripture.

47:57

First Corinthians 13, Paul's writing, and it's the love chapter as we call it.

48:03

If I speak in the tongues, the languages of men and of angels, there it is. There it is.

48:09

There's men languages and angel languages. There it is.

48:15

All your arguments, John fall to the ground. No, no, let's just keep reading because that phrase is in a context and the context is complete hyperbole.

48:27

Okay, here we go. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, were

48:33

I to be able to do that? Were I doing that regularly, but have not love

48:38

I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. All right. Item number two, if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries, all right, that has to be hyperbole because not even

48:52

Paul claimed to know all mysteries. Sure. Because we know in part, right?

48:59

So, but he says, should that be the case that I have such prophetic powers operating in my life that I understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

49:07

Again, hyperbole, Paul never claimed no one can claim we've got all knowledge. And if I have faith, so as to remove mountains again, hyperbole, there's no one who can stand at a mountain and say, be gone and watch it move.

49:23

It's all exaggerated language to say, should I do all that, but have not love.

49:30

I am nothing. If I give away all I have. Okay. All I have. Okay. Even my socks, even my clothes,

49:37

I'm naked again, hyperbole. Okay. Why are you walking around naked?

49:42

Well, I just gave away all, all I have. It's hyperbole. It's language used to exaggerate a claim.

49:50

And if I deliver up my body to be burnt, okay. But have not love I gain nothing.

49:57

Paul hadn't done that. Certain Christians did, but he's making the point where I to do all of this, which is speak in the tongues of men and angels.

50:08

Does he there say there, there is such a thing as the tongues, the languages of angels. No, he say, where I to do that.

50:17

And so the text itself does not teach languages of angels as a real thing.

50:24

It's, it's hyperbole all the way through where I to speak in such a way that I'm speaking the languages of men and of angels, but have not love.

50:34

I'm a noisy gong and a clanging symbol. If I've got such knowledge, I understand everything possible, all mysteries, all knowledge, same thing.

50:43

If I've got faith, even to move mountains, no one's operating in that kind of power, but have not love.

50:49

I'm nothing. So the text itself does not teach languages of angels as a real thing to seek after, or that's what's going on.

50:58

That is reading into the text. Isogesis. Yes. What about a secret prayer language?

51:04

There are people who say we have a secret prayer language, and this is how God, this is how I speak in tongues.

51:10

This is my, my, my language of intimacy with God. And, and that's it.

51:15

So how would you respond to something like that? Okay. Show me the difference then between me making something up and what you think is your prayer language.

51:24

Show me the difference. I remember when I was at that Pentecostal church and a man by the name of John Lloyd, I'm sure he's long left the planet.

51:35

He had a ministry so -called of helping people receive the baptism in the

51:40

Holy Spirit. He'd stand next to them and just say, repeat after me.

51:47

And no one would say anything. And by the 15th minute, which is a long time in that scenario, someone says, he says, that's it.

51:58

Go, go home. You got it. And practice that prayer language at home. That's what happened to me. Is that what happened on the day of Pentecost?

52:07

Is that what happened in anywhere in the book of Acts, where you've got someone with a ministry of helping people into that gift?

52:14

Sure. No. Well, it seems like a gift that's divinely given, not something that you actually teach others to do.

52:22

Right. Right. So you made a very good point. It's untestable. Test all things the scripture says.

52:29

How can you test that? Yeah. Wow. This is very helpful.

52:34

And I have one more question for you and I hope you don't mind. I'm sorry.

52:40

I'm sorry to hear you got another question. Okay. Well, it's not my question. And I didn't invite people to send in questions, but there was something in the chat that I think you would be easily able to address.

52:52

And I think it's important. And I think you would actually jump on the opportunity to answer this question. Okay. One is the central focus and most important thing to you as a minister.

53:03

And the other one is related to your broader reform theology. Okay. Can you, and you can go, you can go and if you can be as specific as possible with some, some

53:15

Bible to support where you're coming from, can you define the gospel?

53:21

Okay. And you can take a couple of minutes to define it and even to do a little, Hey, this is why

53:26

I'm so excited about it. So people could hear the actual gospel. And how is your understanding of the gospel consistent with your reform theology?

53:36

Okay. And that I, we're not taking audience questions now. I want to respect your time, but I think that's a good question because it allows you to share the gospel.

53:43

We have believers and unbelievers who listened to this show. And also it'd be a way to point people to your book, the whatabouts books, because you talk about some reform theology there.

53:53

So define for us the gospel as best and as specifically as you can. And as biblically as you can. And why is this not inconsistent with your broader reforms perspective?

54:04

Remind me of that. The second part of that question, let me, let me get to the first part. The gospel.

54:11

It's a word that in Greek means good news, good tidings.

54:18

And it's the message of God, the holy Trinity who made this world put man in it to glorify and honor him.

54:30

Not only have we not done that, we have been rebellious, treasonous, scoundrels to shake our fists at God involved in something called sin, which is grievous.

54:43

This God who made us deserves absolute worship from every aspect of our lives, our will, our mind, our emotions, our actions, our talk, and we have defied him.

54:57

But God in his love for these rebel creatures that he made sent his son, the second person of the

55:04

Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ into this world. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, fully pleasing the father in everything he did, keeping the commands of God that we should have evade.

55:18

And at the cross, died in the place of sinners, bearing the anger and the wrath of God that we deserve.

55:27

He stood in their place and bore our sins in his body on the tree to quote first Peter 2, 24.

55:36

And so he absorbed the wrath due to us. So that basically what happened was our sins were laid on him on the cross, according to Isaiah 53, and he bore the punishment we deserve.

55:51

Then the righteous life of Christ is credited to the account of those who believe so that we not only can be forgiven by the death of Christ, but given righteousness by the life of Christ.

56:03

He died for us and he lived for us. And three days later, he rose again from the dead in his place of all authority in this universe and commands all people everywhere to repent and believe this good news.

56:16

And in doing so, they are delivered from their sin, forgiven, given righteousness, which is supreme and magisterial because it's not our righteousness at all.

56:26

It's the righteousness of Christ. And it's something that clothes us both now and forever.

56:32

We will always stand in someone else's righteousness in the sight of God. And on the basis of that,

56:38

God declares the sinner just and righteous in his sight. That's the good news.

56:44

Come to Christ, believe in him, repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's done.

56:51

Yeah. I really like how you explain that because what you have in, and you didn't quote the text word for word, but it was embedded in what you said is first Corinthians chapter 15, where Paul says, and this is the gospel that he was crucified, that he was buried, that he was raised again in accordance with the scripture.

57:08

So it is, the gospel is rooted. It's the good news about Jesus, but it's rooted in the person of Christ, his work, his crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection.

57:17

And you pivoted from those core elements to the, you started really with the broader story.

57:24

The gospel doesn't just start at the cross. It's this, it's the purpose in creation that history is redemptive in nature.

57:31

And so I like how you kind of pivoted to the broader narrative and then narrowed into what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.

57:40

Now, the second part of the question is, okay. And the question is a gentleman,

57:46

I won't mention his name, but he was giving the impression that Calvinists don't understand the gospel.

57:53

And so the question was, you know, we'll have them define the gospel, which I think you, I'm sure someone could, but he didn't mention this verse.

58:00

I mean, come on, you know, you've defined the gospel by quoting first Corinthians 15, which literally says, this is the gospel.

58:10

You couched it within the broader context of God's creative and redemptive purposes. So you have, you have sufficiently defined the gospel.

58:18

That's number one. Now, number two, why is it not inconsistent to have that understanding of the gospel and be a

58:27

Calvinist? Now put your shoes, John, in the, in the perspective of someone who is not reformed and has anticipatory objections to what he thinks reformed theology is, right?

58:40

How would you show that what you just said, how you define the gospel is consistent with your commitment to a reformed theology, more specifically a reformed soteriology?

58:55

It's consistent because as a reformed pastor theologian, all

59:02

I want to do is believe and teach and preach what the Bible teaches. The Reformation was a back to the

59:08

Bible movement. Sure. And so I'm telling you what the Bible says about the gospel.

59:15

If you do ask me about church membership, I've gone to the Bible on that. We haven't got to the Bible on the gospel and there's no inconsistency because I believe in a

59:26

God who will glorify himself through the preaching of the word of God. And I actually believe that his word will not return to him void.

59:33

It will accomplish everything he desires so that in the sovereignty of God, the preaching of the gospel will be used by God, by the power of the

59:45

Holy Spirit to awaken the elect. And it will also cause those who are non -elect to be hardened.

59:55

It will accomplish all that God desires. God is sovereign in who he saves and how he saves, but he saves through means.

01:00:04

And the means is the proclamation of the gospel. God doesn't save by people sitting and observing sunsets.

01:00:11

They learn of God's creation through that. They have no excuse for denying the existence of God. God has made his will known and his power known and his existence known through creation.

01:00:22

But in terms of how he saves Romans 9 is a chapter that deals with God's elect people and his purposes.

01:00:30

And it's followed up with Romans 10. Paul saw no inconsistency in believing in a sovereign

01:00:36

God who chooses and the means by which they are saved, which is how shall they hear without a preacher?

01:00:44

Paul didn't take a coffee break between chapter 9 and 10 and forget all he said in chapter 9 when he wrote 10.

01:00:52

There's no inconsistency. So Jesus was able to say, father, I thank you.

01:00:57

You've hidden these things from some, which is activity on God's part and reveal them to babes, which is his electing purposes.

01:01:06

And then in that context, the very next verse is come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

01:01:14

Jesus saw no consistency between the sovereignty of God in salvation and the proclamation of the gospel, which is come to me, everybody.

01:01:25

All right. Well, thank you so much for that. And I think that is an excellent job. Defining the gospel is broader context and within reformed theology, there is no inconsistency there.

01:01:36

And I would even argue that a non -reformed person can define the gospel accurately in the sense that there is some common agreement.

01:01:43

The details might differ, but I wouldn't say a non -reformed person doesn't even know what the gospel is.

01:01:49

I think you did an excellent job there and showed the consistency there with your reformed theology. Very good.

01:01:54

Thank you so much. Well, Pastor John, that's it. We're at the top of the hour and I very much appreciate what you've had to say.

01:02:03

It's very edifying and hopefully it is beneficial for those who listen. And for those in the comments, whether you agree or disagree,

01:02:10

I just want to let you guys know, I very much appreciate in the midst of your disagreement that there has been respect in the comments.

01:02:19

I very much do appreciate that. So thank you so much, listeners, and thank you so much,

01:02:25

Pastor John. Where can folks find your work? Where can they get some of your books? Why don't you give us some of that information before we close?

01:02:32

I have two main books so far. Twelve Whatabouts, Answering Common Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty in Election.

01:02:41

The Five Solas, another book I wrote on essential elements of the gospel.

01:02:47

It's also now available in the Spanish edition and it all can be found on my blog, effectualgrace .com.

01:02:55

I pastor in the Phoenix area and people can find me at kingschurchaz .com.

01:03:01

Wonderful. Thank you so much and thank you so much for everyone for listening in. Until next time, I may have a live stream on Friday, but I'll let you guys know, keep you guys posted.