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The Here I Stand Theology Podcast Interview with the makers of CESSATIONIST - Les Lanphere, David Lovi, and Tim Cannon
Will you recant or will you not?
It's desire a simple unless a plain reason. Popes and councils who have so often contradicted is kept in right or safe.
So we've got a great episode, Landa. We interrupt our program to bring you this important message.
Southern Baptist. Of 149 Southern Baptist churches here, 90 of them started by Saddleback Church. K and I could have not built Saddleback Church to its size and influence in any other denomination. I am a fourth generation Southern Baptist pastor.
My great-grandfather was led to Christ by Charles Spurgeon and sent to America as a church planter. Saddleback was sponsored by the North American Mission Board. I served on the staff of the California State Convention and the Texas State Convention as a teenager.
Billy Graham picked me up when I was 18 and for the next 52 years mentored me because I started at 16 years old, hired by the California Convention to preach youth revivals and I had preached over 120 Harvest Crusades before I was 20.
We baptized 56 ,631 new believers and as a Southern Baptist church sent 26 ,869 members overseas to 197 nations.
It is not the gospel and it's being exported from this country to Africa and Asia, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor. Believe this message, your pigs won't die, your wife won't have miscarriages, you have rings on your fingers and coats on your back.
That's coming out of America. The people that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called gospel.
I've had the privilege for 43 years of training 1 .1 million pastors. That, sorry friends, that's more than all the seminaries put together.
And now back to your regularly scheduled program. All right, all right. So we truly have a lot better content that we're gonna get into tonight, but we might as well get in on the jabbing of the Rick Warren.
The best meme that I saw recently was the one that said, when you look back and saw only two sets of footprints in the sand, it was Rick Warren that was carrying you.
He's a true gift to the world.
All right, this is the
Purpose driven narcissism.
Yes, this is the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. We are a podcast dedicated to a pointed and spirited debate of biblical doctrine. The Here I Stand Theology Podcast is a ministry of Rev. Mata Baptist Church, of which I serve as an elder amongst three other elders there.
We serve that body here in Knoxville, Tennessee. One other thing on top of all that, we are a member, new members of the Truth and Love Network. If you get a chance and you want to peruse the interwebs, go over to truthandlovenetwork .com.
Check out Truth and Love Network. It's a new and upcoming network. Robert Knapp has headed that thing up. But tonight we've got the makers of the movie, Cessation, is with us tonight. Cessation will be coming out in 2023.
Is that correct, guys?
Potentially.
Potentially, that's what we're hoping.
Yeah, it's still in the funding stage. So that's what we're hoping it gets funded. So we will be the makers of Cessation.
Okay, okay.
But yes, we're glad to be here, and 2023 is the goal, absolutely.
Awesome. So we've got Les Lamphere up in the top. At the bottom, with the beard, we've got David Loewe. And on the other side, on the bottom, without the beard, we have Tim Cannon. He is apparently hoping that he can have a beard.
One of these days, nothing.
So, guys, we'll get right into this tonight. If you all know anything about the Here I Stand Theology podcast, we begin when we have a guest on, particularly first-time guests, and we ask second-time guests as well.
Doug Wilson was particularly elusive in answering this question, but I'm expecting that you all will be able to be straightforward about this. So the first question, this is really gonna set the tone, this is gonna set the mood for the entire podcast.
So, of the three of you, if you had to arm wrestle, who would win?
This.
Uh-oh. There he is, over there. He's over there on the light switch. So I'm gonna say, based on that, that Tim would probably put you all down, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Just saying. Probably. He may not have a beard, but he can beat you in arm wrestling.
Yeah, I think Tim would win.
Very, very good. That's some nice artwork you got on your arms, too, Tim. Very nice.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I forget about them sometimes, actually.
So, just a couple of quick questions, moving through the icebreaker questions here. Let's start with Tim, since he's the winner of the arm wrestling match, hands down. Let's start the questions with him.
So, Tim, who's your favorite reformer?
My favorite reformer? Uh, probably John Calvin. You know, I've slowly started working through the Institutes, and I know, you know, I saw a meme that actually said Rick Warren. You know, I think it was said, I think Les posted it, something along the lines of, you know, if it weren't for Rick Warren, you know, we wouldn't have the Institutes or something.
Yeah.
Pretty ridiculous.
John Calvin says that Rick Warren taught him everything he knows.
Yeah. That's it. So, David, how about you? Who's your favorite reformer?
Well, probably for me, even though my theology more aligns with John Calvin's, I love Martin Luther because I've been to his house in Wittenberg, and they've preserved it so well. His table is still there.
Catherine von Bora's necklace is hanging on the wall. It's a really, really cool place. I think, you know, every Western Christian should take a pilgrimage to Wittenberg and check that place out. It's pretty awesome.
And I had, oh, you guys are Baptists. So anyway, I might have done what Luther did back in the day, that's all I'm going to say. What?
I'm not a Baptist.
You know what I was going to say, Les, you're Presbyterian, right?
I am, but what'd you say you did?
Well, what I was saying was you guys, as in the people who are, the man who's putting on this podcast is Baptist.
Oh, I see.
And I am too, but you know.
What did you do?
What did you do? I don't know.
I did what Luther liked to do.
So Les, what about you? Who's your favorite Reformer?
I thought you were trying to say you baptized a baby or something. That was what you were going for. I think that my favorite Reformer, we gotta stay on brand. We gotta stay on theme here. The man that's really the greatest gift to the church is Rick Warren.
He's really my favorite Reformer at this point, I think.
That might've been the better question when I asked your favorite heretic. Who's your favorite heretic?
I don't know.
All right, guys. All right. So let's get right into it here tonight. Again, these men have taken time out of their busy schedules and just basically, David particularly, literally has apparently put on the brakes and stopped driving to be on the podcast tonight.
So we are grateful for that. Let's begin with just a little bit about the idea for the movie Cessationists. So was it a collaboration amongst all three of you? How did you all get together? Let's just start with that.
How did you all get together?
I'm the new kid on the block, so I'm gonna let them go first.
Go ahead, Jim.
Yeah, so David and I are longtime friends, I would say from 2018, if that can be considered a long time. We met it together for the gospel. He was there with the Martin Lloyd-Jones Trust promoting the sermons and the teaching ministry of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones.
And I got invited to go out to dinner with him and a couple other cool kids, Matt Robinson from Media Gratia, Pat Daly from Banner. And I was like, I'm sitting with some cool people. And I met David. I sat next to David and we totally hit it off.
And I was like, this guy is goofy. And we became instant friends. And it started really when I said, hey, we should make a movie. And he said, what should we make a movie about? And I said, we should make a movie about Bethan Lloyd-Jones, the doctor's wife.
And so we were like right on the cusp of start, we were a week away from, we were gonna start filming something and COVID just really kind of put the kibosh on that. And so we had all this energy from coming off of that.
What were we gonna do? And David being a pastor said, let's make a movie on cessationism. He dealt with a lot and he can tell you, dealt with the deals with a lot of the pastor up in North Chicago. And so that's really where we said, okay, well, what can we do?
And so David, you wanna go from there?
Yeah, so yeah, for probably the majority of my life or for sure the majority of my life, I didn't have too much of a particular interest in the doctrine of cessationism. It was only after I became a pastor and I saw how false or bad pneumatology really does affect the church in a negative way.
And I realized that as the shepherd or the under shepherd of my congregation that the Lord is entrusted to me, that I had to protect the church from bad theology of the Holy Spirit. And that really set me on a course to first to really study what do I believe?
What do I believe about how the Holy Spirit works today? What is he doing today? And what isn't he doing today? And so when Tim and I were talking about making a film, I had worked on Logic on Fire that came out in 2015.
And so, and that was the only film I had ever worked on before. I mean, Les has more experience than the both of us combined in terms of making movies, but I was a producer on Logic on Fire. So Tim thought that I knew how to make movies because of that, which I don't.
My skill set is riding on the coattails of others.
I mean, I kind of do. I mean, I know like a couple of things anyway. And so I thought, you know, this is a subject matter that really is deeply important to the life of the church. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead and he is working today.
And I think people just don't really quite understand how he is working today. And a lot of the terminology around the Holy Spirit has been hijacked by segments of the church. And so I wanted to make a film that would clarify those things.
I agree. I agree a hundred percent. So the term cessation is automatically in amongst because I guess reform theology in general, being a Calvinist automatically makes people dislike you right off the bat.
But that term cessation seems to have, you know, it of course is given a very negative connotation by those who are completely opposite of the cessationist position. But many times I would say, as I put in some notes here earlier too, that even the continuationists aren't truly continuationists in the true sense of the term, but they are restorationists without even realizing it.
Roseborough, Chris Roseborough, he said this, have you ever heard the major claim of Charismatics and Pentecostals that they are continuationists? And as I read this quote, I can hear, if you listen to much of Chris Roseborough, you can just hear him speaking.
While people who are reformed or Lutheran or whatever believe the apostolic sign gifts have ceased, that they are quote cessationist and cessationist equals bad and unbiblical while continuationist equals good and biblical.
He said, that's all part of a false narrative. Now, a little bit of note here, he says, I've said it before and I will reiterate, I used to be a charismatic. Yes, 30 years ago, my wife and I were caught up in the latter rain movement, part of the third wave of the charismatic movement.
And in the latter rain, we were told about how God was restoring and had restored prophets to the earth and that God was going to be restoring in the near future, apostles to the earth and to the church.
In fact, he said, when you do your historical work, you're going to note that Charismatics and Pentecostals historically have been cessationists who believe that God has restored certain things like the charismata, prophets and evangelists and apostles.
Yes, that's what they actually believe, Roseborough said. So even that term, I think in the landscape, in the Christian world, in the landscape of Christianity, we're running into the same thing over and over and over.
Terms or words are misdefined and reiterated and reoriented to be something that they absolutely are not. So that's one of the wonderful and beautiful things I think about your all's film, Cessationist, is that you all are truly going with specifics from these solid theologically sound men of God in the recent history.
I know you all no doubt go back to past history, but in recent history, where you've got this being articulated so clearly, that's going to be such a benefit to the church.
Can I say one more thing?
Yes, sir.
So I totally agree with everything you just said that that word cessationist, and we're making a movie about cessationism, is like we're trying to prove a negative, right? But it's important for us to make this extremely clear that cessationists are not saying that the Holy Spirit doesn't work today.
Absolutely does. Cessationists are not typically saying that the Holy Spirit and God, that God doesn't do miracles today.
That's right. That's right.
God answers prayers. What we're saying is something very specific, and in some sense, it's very narrow. And what we're saying is this, that there were apostolic sign gifts that were for the purpose of showing who the apostles were and confirming the apostles' authority to do and to preach what they were preaching.
Amen. And those things were signs of an apostle, like we, like Johnson says in the trailer, now that there are no more apostles, there are no more signs of an apostle.
That's right.
And furthermore, we're also not saying that God doesn't do a healing or even, and I would think even most cessationists would say in some certain circumstance, could God give this gift of allowing a missionary in Zimbabwe to suddenly be able to speak Zimbabwean?
Sure he can. He's God. He can do whatever he wants. What we're saying is this, that there was a time in church history in which God gave this gift of tongues, and he gave this gift of the ability to heal on command.
And he gave this gift of prophecy to the apostles to confirm their apostolic calling until the word was established and now we have the final word. Now we don't need a modern prophecy anymore because the Bible, the canon is complete.
We don't need tongues anymore as a gifting because tongues were a sign of judgment, which Isaiah 28 says judgment against Jerusalem for rejecting their Messiah. That was the whole purpose of the sign gift of tongues.
And so our film is going to be making, Lord willing, if it gets funded, we're hoping that it will. We're on a good trajectory, I think. But our film is making a positive case for what were these things?
How did God use them according to the Bible? Why do we believe that they're not extant today in terms of a normative gifting to the church? And also what are the things that the Holy Spirit is doing today?
Like the regeneration of men's hearts, like the applying of the word to our heart, like reminding us of Jesus' words or guiding us into holiness. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of holiness and enabling us to live the Christian life.
Then we would not live outside of his empowerment. Absolutely not. You look at Peter, he's a different man after Pentecost than he was before Pentecost. And the difference was because he's indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
And that same Holy Spirit is doing that same work of regenerating men's hearts and enabling us to follow Jesus today that he was doing in the first century. So our film, and I don't mean to go on and on about it.
No, that's good.
Just to say that our film is going to be making a case about the apostolic gifts, but also about the true work that God is doing today in the world.
Amen, amen. Yeah, what you mentioned there, Jesus told, and it comes down to context, right? Context, context, context. Context is key in understanding the scriptures. That's what you just described. Jesus told Peter beforehand, when you are converted, strengthen the brethren, right?
After Pentecost. And here in Acts 5 .12, again, seemingly the primary argument that continuationists and restorationists put up about the sign gifts, that it should be normative. They wanna quote Acts 5 .12, but they failed to just read the context of the statement.
Many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people, true.
How?
By the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's porch. By the hands of the apostles. Not by the common people, not by everybody. Because if it had been that, then it would be chaos like it is now.
Right.
So Tim, as far as working this process out and kind of just formatting this, laying this out, and in choosing your all's subjects for the film, your speakers for the film, how did you all go about that?
Well, you know, we thought at first, kind of we thought about who would be ideal for a project like this. And I think early on, you know, we had a lot of people in mind and our list has actually grown quite extensively.
But we started off by going to G3 conference back in October. And the Lord just really worked in making all that come to be. And everything from the timing of interviews to the Lord blessing us with a ballroom at our hotel that was gonna be like $600 a night.
And we got it for two days for free. And just all these things just kind of worked together. And we got to G3 conference and we were just able to land some really solid Bible teachers and pastors, several that weren't able to do it then, but they've already committed to participating in this.
And so, you know, we got everyone from Josh Bice to Phil Johnson, Conrad and Bayway was our first interview the first night we were there. And so it was just a real blessing to see all these guys who were like absolutely interested.
And then there were some guys, you go to these conferences and they're, it's everyone's under the gun, everyone's under pressure to be here, be there. And so we knew that, you know, we were gonna be working against some people's schedules and things like that.
So everyone was real gracious with us. You know, we went in January up to Grand Rapids, Michigan and we got Dr. Joel Beakey and David Wollen, the Chief Executive Director of Reformation Heritage. So we've got guys that span all denominations, you know, within Reformed Biblical Christianity.
We've got guys, Baptists, Presbyterians, we're gonna get Chris Roseboro. We had a really great conversation with him about this project. And so we really just want the best that the church today has to offer.
That is fantastic. That is fantastic. So Les, so Calvinist Spirit and Truth came, right? So was it kind of the same formation process for you as well, working with these guys as far as the level or the approach, the creative approach to making this film?
Well, so for Calvinist and for Spirit Truth, those were ideas that I had rattling around, things that I was very passionate about and I thought that I could do a decent job of helping people understand those subjects.
And I wanted to use some of my gifts and some knowledge of filmmaking that I had at the time. I thought it'd be cool to try to make a movie. So I used Kickstarter for both of those films and people were very generous and they funded the films.
So I was a one-man show from the funding to all the production, flying around the country, editing, sound design, all that stuff, animation. So I learned that there's a lot that goes into a movie. But I love it.
It's awesome. It's so much fun. But I was thinking about maybe moving forward, not an idea. And then these guys reached out to me because they needed somebody to edit the movie or contribute animation, they needed help.
So I said that I'd help them, but I kind of put them on the back burner because I had other things going on, I wasn't really sure. And then as time went on, I think providentially it all worked out because they were able to get some interviews together.
And then they brought me basically a rough trailer. So I watched the trailer footage and I said, no, let me take a stab at just like re-editing this thing and making it a little more punchy. And so that's what I did, shortened it up.
And then as I was sort of going through that process, I was like, I wonder if they'd just partner with me. We just make the whole movie together. And so that's the conversation we had. And I also have experience, they wanted to do a Kickstarter.
I have experience with Kickstarter. So it just made a lot of sense. So the three of us just decided that we'd join forces, put our strengths together, like Captain Planet. And so that's what we're doing.
So we put the Kickstarter up, well, like two and a half weeks ago. Kickstarter is one of the most anxiety inducing experiences that you can go through because you get like really good days where it's like, oh man, this thing's totally gonna make it.
And then other days you get like nothing and you're like, oh man, this thing's totally gonna fail. So, and with Kickstarter, just so the audience knows, it's all or nothing. So if you don't raise all the money, you get no money.
So that's a lot of, immediately as soon as you put it up, you're like, oh, we should have asked for a different amount of money. But the bottom line is we asked for what we needed to make it, right? So if it doesn't get funded, that's the Lord, but it's up to the Lord whether or not it does.
But we're off to a great start. We're ahead of schedule really, but we still need help. So if people are interested hearing what they've heard so far, head over to Kickstarter, at least give the trailer a look and listen to our pitch.
And if you're so inclined, definitely help support it. We think it's gonna be an important film. It's gonna be a gift to the church.
That was a great lead in.
If somebody has the gift of miraculous healing, surely all he needs to do is to prove it. But let's face it, we've been battling with COVID and the so-called miracle workers went into hiding together with us.
Cessationism is the view that certain miraculous gifts that stood as signs of an apostle, speaking in tongues, healing, prophecies, interpretation of tongues, gifts like that, ceased with the apostles.
Cessationism has fallen out of favor because commitment to the authority of scripture has fallen out of favor.
Internal Christian TV, you don't see expositors of scripture, John MacArthur or Steve Lawson. You see Joel Osteen, Joseph Prince, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Paula White. That's who you see because that's the mainstream.
Speaking in tongues.
You're gonna speak out of your spirit. Don't worry about what it sounds like.
Our understanding of speaking in tongues must be guided by the scriptures, not our feelings.
They were known languages that were capable of interpretation and not everybody speaks in tongues.
If God speaks, it must be infallible, inerrant and authoritative.
And the Lord said to me, will you howl for me? I said, don't ask me to do that, Lord.
There's no longer the need for the gift of prophecy, speaking forth divine revelation from God.
We have now the whole counsel of God. This word is the final word. The apostolic gifts have gone. They were never intended for our generation. We have everything that we need from the Holy Spirit today.
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.
All right, guys, so what's the exact, is there a specific web address that folks can go to there?
It's kind of long. Just if you go to Kickstarter, type in cessationist, or you can Google Kickstarter cessationist. I am realizing, especially today, I was searching for it today. Kickstarter definitely does not want people to see this thing.
It's like, if you just go to Kickstarter, go to the film page or whatever, it's impossible to find, because it's like a Christian movie. But anyway, if you go to Kickstarter, type in the word cessationist, it'll bring it up.
Or you can type in my name, probably, Les Lanphier, it'll bring up my profile page. And if you know any of us on Facebook or anything, and we're posting it all the time. So it should be easy enough to find.
Yeah, and if you just go to the trailer on YouTube, it's in the information below. That link will take you right to it.
We'll include it in the show notes.
Yep, we'll drop it in the show notes here as well. So guys, just a couple of quick things as we wrap things up here. Again, I wanna respect your all's time. Again, thank you all so much for being on with us.
But guys, so bottom line, we'll start with Tim and work our way to David and then to Les, and then we'll close out here today. Tim, bottom line, what's your goal and your aim for this movie?
Yeah, mine is that lay people, I can relate to this film and would be equipped. I think all of us have that family member, that cousin, you know, that mom or dad. You know, my dad was a continuationist and he supported this film, but everyone's got relatives and friends that are on different sides of this argument.
And so to be able to equip them that this is something that just someone in the church, it doesn't, you don't have to go to seminary. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to be a teacher or preacher to be able to argue these things that those are the people we wanna equip.
That's what I wanna see happen.
Awesome. David, how about you?
Yeah, I just realized that you have my whole CD collection up here on my visor. I have a Chicago, I have some Radiohead on there. So sorry about that. And also Christian stuff. You know, I'm not a total pagan.
Anyway, so.
I don't see any Christian stuff.
Is that Mezodrath?
Hang on a minute.
Or is that Campbell Corpse?
Have you got anything like this in there? That's the hatchet.
I think I do.
Molly hatchet.
Sorry about that, David. Go ahead, sir.
Yeah, yes. So my sincere hope in making this is that God may be pleased to use it in his church. That it might be an instrument that will stand the test of time. That's the reason why someone like Martin Lloyd Jones, you can listen to his sermons today and they apply today because he's preaching timeless truths.
And we want this film to be about the timeless truth of who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in the world in the post-apostolic age. And so my great hope, and who knows, you know, maybe this won't happen.
I don't know. But my great hope is that 30 years from now, the Lord would be pleased to still be using this film. That it would be something that people will be able to look back on even after we're gone and learn something about God that perhaps they hadn't thought of before or they thought differently.
And that this film, through the scriptures and the teaching of history and pure reason, like I liked what you said in your opening of this program, the clip that you have of Lloyd Jones, unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason, here I stand.
And so what we're attempting to do here is to use both scripture and plain reason, as well as the vast, vast majority of church history, the historical position of the church has been that the miraculous sign gifts of the apostles have ceased.
And even anyone who believes that the canon is closed, there is a sense in which such a person is a cessationist. Because they believe that the Holy Spirit is doing something different today than he was doing when the apostles were alive.
Something is not going on, unless they are saying that the canon isn't closed, but I don't know too many charismatics who believe that. So our position really is the position that the vast majority of the church has taken throughout church history up until about 1904 or so.
And we're gonna talk about that in the film too. And I'm just hoping that the Lord will use it for his glory. We don't want any glory. We want all the glory to go to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. And Les, how about you? Main goal, main aim.
I think my mission, just as a filmmaker at this point, I think that theology matters. I don't wanna make movies that are attacking people and causing division. At least those aren't the kind of movies that I wanna make right now.
I think that theology matters and I want people who are in the church, not heretics, not people I hate, nothing like that. I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to think deeply about the character of God, and what salvation is really like.
And I wanna present it to them in a way that's digestible, that they can sit down, they can spend an hour and a half to two hours, get the gist of an argument, and think more than they've ever thought about some subject that at least I think is very, very important.
And this is yet another awesome project that I have the privilege of working on.
Well, my prayer is that this gets done. Guys, I'm looking forward to this. Man, I mean, I'm totally looking forward to this. So from Les back around here, Les wants rich, deep theological truth to come through.
Tim wants practical application to be able to be made by the common Christian. David, you said glory to God alone. I don't think there's any better goal, guys. I appreciate y 'all being on here. Do y 'all have anything that you'd like to add before we jump off?
No, thank you so much for having us.
I hope to have a beard next time.
We'll see.
Hey, I'll tell you what, you know where I'm at now. Soon as you start, soon as you grow it, you let me know. We'll get on and we'll update.
We'll update the beard progress.
Guys, appreciate you praying for y 'all regularly. If you are watching this tonight, make sure head over to, there'll be a link in the bottom here, but if you wanna go beforehand, go over straight to YouTube right now, look up the cessationist trailer.
Click on the link below that. That'll take you straight to their Kickstarter. Help them get this done. We certainly are as well. Guys, again, thanks again. We're gonna sign off here. Hang on for just a minute.