Cessationist Conference with Multiple Guest Speakers | Day 2

Good morning, good morning and welcome to the second day of Cessationist Conference.

If Andrew Rappaport would please come to the front and quit talking in the back, that would be great. We're going to sing this morning,

I know it's a little early so hope you've drank your juice and your water and your vocal cords are doing great.

We're going to sing Redeemed. Would you please stand as we sing. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the

Lamb, redeemed, redeemed, redeemed Redeemed through His infinite mercy,

His child and forever I am. Of my blessed

Redeemer, I think of Him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent,

His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the

Lamb, redeemed through His infinite mercy,

His child and forever I am. I know

I shall see in His beauty the King in whose law

I delight, who lovingly guard my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night.

Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed through His infinite mercy,

His child and forever I am. Behold the wondrous mystery in the dawning of the

King. He the theme of heaven's praises wrote in frail humanity.

In our longing, in our darkness, now the light of life has come.

Look to Christ who condescended, took on flesh to ransom us.

Come behold the wondrous mystery,

He the perfect Son of Man. In His living, in His suffering, never traced nor stained of sin.

See the true and better Adam come to save the hell -bound man.

Christ the great and sure fulfillment of the law in Him we stand.

Come behold the wondrous mystery, Christ the

Lord upon the tree. In the stead of ruined sinners hangs the

Lamb in victory. See the price of our redemption, see the

Father's plan unfold. Bringing many sons to glory, grace unmeasured, love untold.

Behold the wondrous mystery, slain by death the

God of life. But no grave could ever restrain

Him. Praise the Lord, He is alive. What a foretaste of deliverance!

How unwavering our hope! Christ in power resurrected, as we will be when

He comes. What a foretaste of deliverance!

How unwavering our hope! Christ in power resurrected, as we will be when

He comes. Amen. You may be seated.

All right, let's open our time this morning with a word of prayer. Our Father, it is our great desire to know

Your Word and to know more of You and the work and the power of Your Holy Spirit. It is our prayer that You would instruct us and inform us today in and through Your Word through those who will be speaking to us, that our hearts would be receptive and ready and that You would be glorified through all that is said here today.

We pray that You would strengthen us and our confidence in Your Word and we pray that You would continue to renew our minds by it, fix our hope and our affection upon Christ and what

He has done and our confidence upon Your Word and what it reveals. And may we walk away from here forever changed by that.

We pray that You would strengthen us through our time here and encourage our hearts together as we enjoy sweet fellowship with each other and as we listen to the truth proclaimed.

Bless this time, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. All right, one brief announcement before we begin today.

I want to thank those who have worked so diligently to make this possible with the kitchen crew, the coffee and the juice and all of the food that is put out.

I'd like to give them a round of applause and thank them for that. They worked diligently to be here before some of us are even awake to be preparing that for us and I'm grateful for their work and their labor in the

Lord. So, thank you. Andrew Rappaport is the President Director of Striving for Eternity Ministries.

He is known to most, if not all of you, and he also directs the

Christian podcast community. And this is session number three, The New Testament Case for the

Fading of Miracles. Andrew. Jim knew

I was going to wear red, so he appropriately dressed. The advantage of this is the day will just get better with me starting.

So everything after this will be good. So you have that to look forward to. Let's start with a brief word of prayer.

Lord, we are grateful for the fact that we have your word. We have something that we can trust and rely upon as an absolute authority for our faith and practice.

May we look to you, not just in this hour, but this entire conference to see what you would have to teach us that we would rest solely upon what you have revealed of yourself in your word.

And may you, by the person of the Holy Spirit, take your word and illuminate it to our understandings and to the application for us.

We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I'm very glad that yesterday

Kevin started us off with laying a foundation and that's what we're going to try to build upon now is the foundation that Kevin had laid for us.

And in dealing with this, I have to start by laying my own foundation for the question of the fading of the

New Testament miracles. What I first want to do is start off with a personal experience.

Some of you know that I grew up from a Jewish background. Being raised Jewish, I knew nothing of Christianity.

I didn't know anything of the New Testament when I got saved and didn't meet any other Christians until I got to college.

When I got to college, most of the people there were word of faith. I assumed, ignorantly, that they must know the

Bible better than me because they all grew up in church. I did not. And so I was believing what they were telling me.

I lacked discernment and in that lack of discernment what ended up happening was I was believing things that later

I would find were not true. I remember when the pressure that was put upon us, those of us, the few of us that didn't speak in tongues, to practice speaking in tongues.

I remember as a child my sister and I would be in the store with my mom and you'd hear people speaking other languages, probably

Spanish, and my sister and I decided that we would pretend like we had our own language.

So we would sit in the cart and just talk gibberish to one another. And I remember with the pressure that was upon me to speak in tongues that they were like, just try, just try.

So I went back to my childhood and spoke in gibberish. And everyone was so ecstatic as if I just got saved.

And the reality is that I remember sitting at a Bible study many years later, just listening to two men.

I wasn't even involved in the conversation. They were at the other end of the table. One gentleman says to the other gentleman that not everybody believes that the gifts continue to today.

I'd never heard anything like that. And so I went home that night, sat down with the scriptures and I read 1

Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 in one sitting. And in that process I came to realize not only was

I taught incorrectly, but Paul was actually condemning the very things that I was taught to believe. I realized that much of what they were saying they took out of context.

And I realized that Paul was actually condemning the spiritual pride that I saw in college, where when someone spoke in tongues another person had to have a word of the

Spirit. And when someone had a word of the Spirit, someone else had to have a prophecy. And so I ended up realizing that that actually led me into a four -year study in hermeneutics where I wanted to never be taught incorrectly again.

I wanted to learn how to handle the scriptures. And that's really been kind of the mark of what I'm known for as hermeneutics.

But I want to ask the question, why do charismatics get upset? We have to deal with some things. I said

I want to lay the foundation before I get to the main topic. And so we have to understand that this is a highly personal issue when you talk to continuationists.

And we have to recognize that. One of the things we have to feel that just are a little bit too, like, hey, this is what scripture says, move on.

But this is something that for many people this becomes very emotional because this is how they find their identity in their experience.

And so for that reason, it becomes emotional, it becomes personal, and often rationality you'll find goes out the window.

Not with all, but with many. And so when discussing cessationism, and with this film that's going to come out, we're going to see that there's going to be a lot of people who end up arguing the way that many charismatics do today by arguing that you first have to accept the gifts as continuing to see it in scripture.

Well, that is a begging -the -question fallacy. When you accept the conclusion, when you must accept the conclusion to prove the point.

When your conclusion has to be accepted for the premise. Begging -the -question is a type of logical fallacy that's based on an assumption rather than concrete evidence.

And you're going to see that with folks. And so let's first start by defining miracles.

When we look at this, Michael Aubrey says this, Foundational to the biblical narrative is the concept that God acts supernaturally with His created world.

Sometimes God acts directly in the world, sometimes He uses an intermediary.

Many times the supernatural acts carry with it a greater significance or meaning for the people involved.

So basically a miracle is when the natural order is disrupted by the supernatural.

That would be a basic definition of a miracle. But I think that as we look in scripture it has a more specific meaning.

It is not just the disruption of the natural world by the supernatural, but miracles function as a

God -inspired revelation to those who witness them. Miracles in the

Bible are not just merely the violation of natural law, but they are divine acts that communicate

God's Word and His purpose. And so we can see that there's actually a couple criteria that we can look at when we're thinking of what defines a miracle.

Michael Aubrey gives it four points. One is, can the supernatural event be attributed directly or indirectly to a supernatural agent?

In other words, this is primary because the agent must first be supernatural if they're going to work outside of nature.

So can they be identified back to a supernatural agent? This is necessary and leads to the second one he has.

Number two, does the event function to reveal the power or identity of that agent?

In other words, not only is it a supernatural agent, but it has to point back to the agent. So when God does a miracle, we don't look at the person doing the miracle, we look back at the

God who worked through the person. When God raises an axe head in water, people don't go, oh, look at the axe head, they go and look at God.

A third thing that he mentions is, does the event have noticeable and perhaps alarming effects in the natural world?

In other words, this is not an everyday thing. When people see a miracle, they recognize this as something unusual.

This is not normal. So we're not talking about someone who gets up in the morning and, oh, my back is hurting and I got a miracle,

I was feeling a little bit better. The fourth that he mentions is, is there a human intermediary performing the supernatural event?

This is sometimes in our day expected as the norm that people can perform miracles. We're going to see in a bit that that's not so normal.

And it's not necessary. God can do it without humans, but sometimes he can do miracles through humans.

Norman Geisler says this, each of the three words for the supernatural event, sign, wonder, and power, delineate an aspect of a miracle.

From the human vantage point, a miracle is an unusual event, that's a wonder, that conveys and confirms an unusual message, the sign, by means of an unusual power.

But from the divine vantage point, a miracle is an act of God, that's the power, that attracts attention of the people of God, wonder, to the word of God, the sign.

So what Geisler is saying is that the miracle's purpose is not to be focused on the miracle, but to point to something, to point to the word of God.

So in short, a miracle is an act of God that confirms the message as true and substantiates and verifies or vindicates the word of God.

So as we look at the purpose of miracles, we end up seeing that there's a couple of purposes that we see in scripture.

I'm going to give you the three that Geisler gives, and he says one is to glorify the nature of God, second is to give credit to certain persons as spokesmans for God, and a third is to provide evidence for a belief in God.

Now Geisler states that, those who accept biblical miracles debate among one another as to whether the special gift of miracles used to confirm revelation from God has ceased since the times of the apostles.

The issue has significance for apologetics. First, existence of apostolic sign gifts, sign gift type miracles today, raises the issue of whether New Testament miracles uniquely confirmed the truth claims of Christ and the apostles as recorded in scripture.

Second, if miracles that confirm divine truth claims exist today, the truth claims they accompany to be accepted are on par with scripture that has divine revelation ceased.

So note what he's saying, he's saying that the purpose of the miracles is to confirm revelation.

Well if the purpose of miracles is to confirm revelation, if that's the purpose when humans are most often doing miracles, then the question is, are these things that they're confirming still continuing?

If there is no more revelation, then what are the miracles pointing to?

We think about the miracles we hear people say today and we find that most often those miracles that people are claiming point to self and not

God. If miracles continue today, then they should be pointing to scripture.

If they're used to prove, if they're spoken as God, if you have prophecies then that should be in par with scripture.

We see that many continuationists want to argue that miracles done today, they'll accept that this is

God speaking, but they say that the New Testament miracles are different than Old Testament miracles in such that they're not actually scripture.

They're not God's word somehow. What makes scripture God's word?

It is that it's breathed out by God. 2 Timothy 3 .16 and 17 says this, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Paul is very clear that we do not need miracles for the completing or equipping of our faith.

We need the Word of God. He's not saying that our sanctification is based upon miracles.

He says scripture serves the purpose and is necessary to sanctify us.

There is no mention here of miracles. Now if you were here last night you'd realize maybe why, as Justin mentioned, it could be because 1 and 2

Timothy are later books so there wouldn't be the need for them. So miracles by definition are not normative.

I want to address this because this is going to be a thing that I think in the argument of the fading of miracles we have to address.

We look at the arguments of those that are proponents of continuationism and they want to claim that miracles can continue to today and we should expect them.

Geisler gives us four arguments that proponents give. One, God performed miracles in redemptive history.

They're recorded from Genesis through Revelation. There seems to be no reason to believe they would cease arbitrarily with the apostles.

Number two, God has not changed. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If a miracle working

God has not changed, why would the miracles cease? Number three, Jesus spoke of continuing miracles.

He said if anyone has faith in me they will do what I am doing.

He will do even greater things than these because I go to the Father. In his commission he recorded in Mark, Jesus said that miracles would accompany when the gospel went out.

Number four, Geisler says miracles manifest God's greatness and glory to deliver

God's children in need and to communicate God's message with his people. This needs to continue today.

So let's look at each one of these arguments because we need to know how to answer these arguments to answer the question of do the

New Testament miracles fade? So the argument that God performed miracles in redemptive history.

Miracles are not performed as often as people think. If I was to ask you to give a number of how many miracles you think are in the

Bible, I've been polling some people and most of the people are in the thousands. The answer is there's only 265 miracles mentioned in the

Bible. Over 4 ,000 years of history of the

Bible. When you limit that to humans performing the miracles, you get down to 81 miracles in 4 ,000 years.

Clearly miracles were not common in the Bible and nor should they be today. We'll see in a bit that miracles were extremely rare in Biblical history.

Therefore to argue that something that rarely happened over 4 ,000 years we should expect to see commonly today wouldn't be logically valid.

If miracles continue today, it would logically fit that they should not be as rare as they are in Scripture.

Past history as we're going to see reveals that there's only some 100 years of miracle activity in the 4 ,000 years of Bible history.

I'll give another quote from Geisler. He says, Logically there is no connection between past and present miracle occurrences.

Even during thousands of years of Bible history, miracles are clustered in three very limited periods.

One, the Mosaic period from the Exodus through the taking of the promised land with a few occurrences in the period of Judges.

Two, the prophetic period from the late kingdom of Israel and Judah during the ministry of Elijah and Elisha and to a lesser extent

Isaiah. Three, the apostolic period from the first century ministries of Christ and the apostles.

Occurrences of miracles were neither continuous nor without purpose. The fact that miracles occurred in these three times and that's it reveals that we do not see in the rest of history that these are normative.

The real problem with this argument is that miracles were an anomaly in history not the norm.

You never define things by the anomaly, by the exception. But that is what we have continuationists wanting to do today is to say that this anomaly in history should be normative, that the exception should be the norm.

If this argument was valid then we would have to see that there would have been lots of miracles in Bible history.

The second argument that they often make is God has not changed. To argue that God has not changed and we all accept this, every one of us accepts the fact that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever, that God is immutable,

He does not change in His nature. But this is a category error that we talk about in logic where you take two different categories and put them as the same.

You see, the nature of God and the way God works with people are two different categories.

So the fact that God is a miracle doing God hasn't changed.

God still does miracles today. And often when you speak to continuationists, they're going to argue that those of us that believe that these gifts have ceased are going to challenge us by saying that we don't believe

God does miracles anymore. Let me affirm this. I believe God still does miracles.

He does not do them as a gift through people. That's the distinction. And so the way

He works with people is different through time. How many of you keep kosher? No, you enjoy your bacon.

Trust me, having sausage on a cheese pizza is really enjoyable.

Some of you don't understand what it's like to keep kosher. But why don't you keep the

Passover? For in fact that was commanded to the Israelites to keep forever. Why don't we keep these festivals?

Because God has changed the way He works with His people. Those laws are not for us in the church.

And those bacon lovers say, Amen. To claim that God changed those laws, but somehow

He doesn't change the gifts isn't fitting.

See, the gifts fit within the way He works with His people. God does change over time.

Or change the way He works with us over time. The third argument people make is that Jesus spoke of continuing miracles.

This argument is again a begging the fallacy question. It's a begging the fallacy question because it assumes you have to start with the fact that in John 14 that when

Jesus says you will do greater things, they assume that's speaking of miracles.

They claim that the greater things referred to is miracles. They're interjecting that in the white space.

It's not there. There's an attempt to make the

Bible say what they wish it said rather than what it does say. The key to the greater things is tied to what

Jesus Himself said that He goes to the Father. The reason that it is a greater thing is precisely because there are no miracles attesting to what they're saying.

It's the lack of miracles that will make it greater. But don't take my word for it.

Let's take Jesus'. There's nothing in the text of John 14 speaking of miracles but let's see if you turn to John 16 we don't have time because Jim only gave me 15 minutes not 3 hours but if you look at John 16 you end up seeing that Jesus explains the meaning of the greater things and He doesn't mention miracles.

He mentions joy in suffering. That's what He says. That the greater

Jesus is stating is having joy in suffering. This argument logically ignores what

Jesus Himself said as an explanation to what He meant. I will take

Jesus' meaning over anyone else's of what He meant by what He said. We end up seeing in 2

Corinthians 12 .12 it says the signs of a I didn't put that slide in so back up that one

It says in 2 Corinthians 12 .12 the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with the utmost patience with signs and wonders and mighty works.

Now if miracles are the signs of an apostle and there are no more apostles the question should be why should there be any miracles?

Why should they continue if the apostles are no longer here? So miracles the fourth one that Geisler provided is miracles manifest

God's greatness. And as we look at this and as people argue that we need to have miracles today to see how great

God is in all His glory I would argue we have something greater.

Do we need miracles to know God is great? No. We have this.

God's self -revelation what more do we need to argue that we need something beyond what

God has revealed of Himself? It's to say that this is not sufficient. We have not only

God's self -revelation but we have something that many of us many of you

Gentiles don't appreciate. Do you appreciate that you have the indwelling

Holy Spirit that not only illuminates God's Word for you but also helps you in the application thereof?

I say that because to the Jewish mindset this is the new covenant that Jewish people look forward to Jeremiah 29 and Ezekiel 36 that we would no longer need a priesthood because God Himself would indwell us so that we can understand

His Word What more do we need than God's Word and Himself in the personal

Holy Spirit? To say we need something more? What does that do to the personal

Holy Spirit? I would say it puts Him at a lower level. I know that my continuationist friends would disagree.

But the reality is desire for miracles is often a felt need but not all felt needs are real needs

I mean Job had a felt need for healing and when he went through what he went through Did God give him a miracle?

No, God actually never told him what was happening We could look at Paul. Paul was sitting there and he prayed for relief.

God never gave it and he wrote most of the New Testament No, just because we feel a need because we want confirmation doesn't mean we get it

What is the confirmation that John the Baptist received? When he wanted to see some vindication and what was it he was told?

Go to the Scriptures. Look at what the Scriptures say about the Messiah and look at what is happening with the

Messiah and you have your answer The confirmation was not the miracle. The confirmation for John was the

Word of God Now when we compare this with the periods that prompted miracles

I would argue that there is no comparison when we look to Scripture The Scripture provides us everything we need to see

God's glory and greatness. Miracles can manifest

God's greatness is what Geisler says Though miracles can manifest

God's greatness, glory and deliverance he accomplishes these things in other ways The heavens declare the glory and greatness

Spiritual deliverance is accomplished through the power of the gospel God works through general and special providence without suspending natural laws.

So miracles are not the only way that we can see the greatness and glory and deliverance of God and oh that last one the message of God Suffering does these things.

Oh we don't like to think of that But so does evangelizing So does worship

Fearing the Lord There are many things that help us to see the greatness of God.

To reflect upon His creation and be amazed because in the New Testament times they did not understand the universe the way we do and they never understood a cell let alone an atom, let alone quantums

We have gone to the vastness of the universe to the smallest parts of cells but the reality is the more we dig the more we find the wonder of God because we look at His creation and go wow

He creates within every cell of your body this little motor called a flagellum that can go from 0 to 300 in a split second

I'd love that in a car So what we end up seeing though is we want to look at the nature of miracles because this is where much of the debate ends up becoming

The difference between what we're going to refer to as the fact of miracles and the gift of miracles because as was said last night so eloquently by both of the speakers is the fact that we all accept that miracles continue.

It is the gift of miracles that we're saying do not continue When we look at this, the fact that miracles continue we have miracles that occur any time and yet the gift of miracles were limited to Bible times

They were limited within Bible times to a few periods of time So the fact of miracles are permanent

They're all the time throughout history where the gift of miracles was temporary The fact of miracles is done without human beings

God does miracles Where the gift of miracles are done through human beings

The fact of miracles do not confirm revelation

Where the gift of miracles was their purpose of confirming revelation And so what we end up seeing is that the view that miracles ceased with the apostles does not demand that God does not perform miracles anymore

Again, a category error. We argue that the gift of miracles do not continue

And so as we look at some of the characteristics of a miracle and all this is laying the foundation

But as we do this, I want to point out some characteristics of miracles so we know how to define what a miracle is so we can recognize them

When we look at the New Testament miracles, there's some things we notice One, miracles were always instantaneous

When Jesus or the apostles performed a miracle it was not a partial healing

There was no gradual healing over days or weeks or months Now some will point to one incidence where Jesus takes a blind man and he has a partial sight

But what happens when he goes and washes his eyes as Jesus tells him? It's an immediate sight So even that one is still an immediate miracle

It's just Jesus chose to do that in two stages That's unlike the miracle of the healings that we see today

When we see these miracles done today they're usually partial or incomplete or as Justin said last night, psychosomatic

This is in contrast to the biblical miracles Biblical miracles were immediate, complete performed on anyone, believer or not

This is in sharp contrast to the supposed miracles performed by people today A second characteristic of miracles in the

Bible, in the New Testament, is they never failed And there's a reason for that Because their author is

God, who never fails A miracle is a special act of God and since God cannot fail, the miracle cannot fail

There's no record in Scripture of anyone relapsing into this condition they were before In fact,

I believe that if that had happened the Jewish leaders would have used that to discredit

Jesus and the apostles However, the prophets and apostles that claim to be that today also claim that they're only about 80 -85 % accurate in their prophecies

The Old Testament would demand their death for every one of them

For example, not one of these miracle -working prophets noticed or saw this thing, maybe you guys heard of it,

COVID Not one of them, by January 2020 predicted COVID The other thing that every one of them got wrong

Every one of them got the election wrong of 2020 They all said Trump was going to be the president at the end of the election

If you doubt me on that, I'll encourage you to go to Justin Peter's YouTube channel, he's got a great video

But that is a major failure They didn't see the elections, they missed that They got that one totally wrong

They didn't see COVID and the effects on the government That's just some major failures, wouldn't we say?

That's kind of affected the world And they missed that one, too

Two of them, I guess So what we see is that their excuse will be this

And you'll sometimes hear this Old Testament prophecies are different than New Testament prophecies

The New Testament prophecies, they can fail, it's okay And so we end up seeing that the miracle workers today have a limitation on the belief of the person that's receiving the miracle rather than we see in the

Scriptures that it's on the person performing the miracle They have it backwards A fourth credential is the fact that it was to establish the

Word of God We're going to see that throughout here I want to go through the miracles of the

Bible This I found interesting as we look at this And because I'm going to give charts and data this is not very easy

It's not very easy to explain in words, numbers And so I did put this out, it's on my website right now strivingforeturning .org

.miracles It has all these charts, actually the entire message with the data underneath So if you go to strivingforreturning .org

.miracles So there's 256 miracles in the Bible Jesus did 104 of them That's 39 % of all the miracles in the

Bible We should expect that, because something was different with Jesus This is when the infinitely holy

God became a man The infinitely holy God enters into His own creation becomes a man

And the miracles He did was for the specific purpose of putting His deity on display

So that is unique in all of history And so we would expect that He does a bulk of miracles

But there's 178 miracles of those that are done by the Godhead That's 67 % of all miracles mentioned in the

Bible That leaves 87 miracles done by created beings 6 by angels, leaving us with 81 miracles

That's 31 % of all the miracles in the Bible Now one thing we can conclude from this is that miracles definitely were not normative in the

Scriptures In 4 ,000 years of recorded history there's 81 miracles that are performed by human beings 23 of these are done in the

New Testament That's 28 % of them That's over a 30 -year period So that leaves us with 58 miracles left in the

Old Testament Most of them are done by Moses and Elijah And we're going to look at that In fact, the total number of miracles

If you take away those that are done during the writing of the Torah the law, and that first writing from Moses to Joshua you remove

Elijah and Elisha and the prophets so you take the period where the law and the prophets are being written you have a total of 8 miracles being done in history

I cannot see how you can make a case that that is normative, that we should expect them to continue

So let's look at some charts We look here, this is the 256 miracles done by 25 agents

As I mentioned, Jesus does 104 of them God does 64, and then after that the number drops drastically as you can see, to 22 by Moses So let's look just at the

Old Testament Over a 50 -60 year period of the New Testament over that 4 ,000 years we go to the

Old Testament and we see that here just two individuals, Moses and Elisha make up 59 % of all the miracles

Very few people throughout Old Testament history were agents of miracles It's a far cry from the continuationist claim that they should be normative today

We limit it just to periods of time So what I did here was, I joined Moses and Aaron together with Elijah and Elisha together and 84 % of all the miracles are done just by those four men

However, we start to see something in this chart because what makes those two time periods special?

I've already said it It's the beginning of the writing of Scripture after a period of silence

There was no Scripture being written in the time of Moses and he starts writing Scripture and you see miracles and then there's a period of silence after that period and Elijah and Elisha start and then we have the prophets

Then we have a period of silence and we have the writing of Scripture again with the apostles

Three periods of history, three times of miracles and outside of them we don't see many miracles

So what we end up seeing is that the miracles both Old and New Testament were to vindicate the writing of Scripture Now if you look at the number of miracles within the books of the

Bible you end up seeing that there's only 20 out of 66 books of the

Bible that's less than one third that contain miracles and as we look at this, this is divided by them by agent and you see that most of them are conducted by God we already mentioned

So let's limit that just to the number of miracles by human agents and you only have 12 books in the entire

Bible that contain miracles That's 18 % of the books of the Bible Just to give you a better picture of it,

I put all 66 books here and these are all the total miracles and even though that looks a little bit sparse it looks even worse once we limit it just to human miracles

Very rare Well let's look at it in time Here's a timeline, I took this in 250 year increments

It doesn't look like it, we see a lot of miracles throughout time and this is all the miracles So let's take this and let's limit it just to humans and what do we see?

This is displaying a 4500 year period, there's the 81 miracles It's not very often, they're not common

So all of this to lay the foundation for the waning of New Testament miracles

When it comes to the case of saying that the New Testament miracles have faded

I think there is a problem with the challenge I think that when people ask if the

New Testament miracles have waned I think the question is malformed It is like asking someone

Why do bad things happen to good people? You all know the problem with that, don't you?

The answer is, there are no good people You see, asking about the waning or fading of New Testament miracles assumes that miracles are common

You see, so right built into the challenge we have to first reframe the question which is what

I've been trying to lay the foundation here the foundation of Kevin's house We're building up the walls now but what we end up seeing is the miracles are not common in the first place

The challenge would actually be on the other person who would challenge us to say

Why in the world would we expect them? We expected them at no other time in history

It's not that they somehow faded It's that miracles are an anomaly

We should not expect them in the first place So the fact that we've seen that they're rare extremely rare in Scripture When we discuss the fading nature we have to first say that they're an anomaly

What do we see when we look at the other two periods of miracles? I said, as you looked on the chart we're only talking about 100 some years out of 4 ,000 years

What do we see? After the time of Moses, 30 -40 years and miracles disappear

Elijah and Elisha, 30 -40 years and miracles disappear

The apostles, 30 -40 years and miracles continue to today, 2 ,000 years

It doesn't fit the biblical pattern Why? Because the purpose of the miracles no longer exists

If you do not have the continuing revelation what are the miracles pointing to?

Now people would say to God but the way most people view miracles I would have to say to self

How do we see the miracle workers today? Look what

I did! You get a Todd White out there on the streets Who's he really giving credit to?

Himself Look at what he did The question is, if they continue to today

Why did they not continue after Moses? After Elijah? And after the apostles?

Miracles have only been active in those three short periods of history They waned every other time We should expect that they should wane today

In fact, we see Paul will encourage Timothy when he is drinking just water

He gets dysentery and Paul says this No longer drink water only but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and frequent ailments

Paul didn't say, Timothy go get healed He didn't go and heal him He says, take a little bit of wine

As we see that the gift of miracles probably were waning That is the most logical answer, why?

Because as was said last night 1 Timothy is a later writing of Scripture There was no more need to vindicate

Paul as a writer of Scripture So he says, take a little wine In 2

Timothy, a later book He leaves Trophimus ill and continues on with his missionary journey

He doesn't heal him In fact, we can see the fact that these miracles seem to wane in the life of Paul when we see that one of the best examples is

Paul's friend Epaphroditus To understand this a little bit we have to talk about the prison system in Rome In the

Roman prison system the prisoners got basic needs Some stale bread, water, no comforts

The guards had no care for the prisoners The system was set up in such a way that the prisoners' friends would have to bribe the guards to be able to get food and comforts to a prisoner

Part of the system So it was very, very difficult to survive in prison without friends on the outside Well, Epaphroditus was that person for Paul He was sent by the

Philippians to provide for food and care for Paul while in prison But he got very sick So sick that Paul states it was even unto death

This is what he says in Philippians 2 I have thought it necessary to send to you,

Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and minister to my need for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard he was ill

Indeed, he was ill, near death but God had mercy on him and not only on him but on me also lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow

I am more eager to send him to you therefore that you may rejoice in seeing him again and that I may be less anxious so receive him in the

Lord with all joy and honor and honor such men for he nearly died for the work of Christ risking his life to complete what is lacking in your service

So toward the end of Paul's life he's not healing his most necessary friend at the time he's praying for him

The most obvious answer to this is because Paul could not do any miracles at that time

It's the most fitting answer And the reason would be because he's no longer writing new scripture

So a question to ask is I'm trying to make the argument that the question of the waning of miracles is the norm

When we see the miracles in scripture they've only lasted 30 -40 years each time

But the question that I would like to ask and challenge is What does it matter?

We must ask ourselves, what's the big deal if people believe miracles continue to today and they expect to see them?

I mean, does it do much harm? Why are we having a conference and a film on the cessation of gifts?

Why? Why is it such a big issue? The question assumes that the normative of these miracles, and we don't see that as I've expressed

We don't see them through history nor in scripture However, there's something greater of issue here

When people focus on the miracles rather than that which the miracles serve they lose focus

What is it that miracles point to? They point to scripture The vindication of the writing of scripture to the message of God His self -revelation, and it has to be with miracles because how are you going to know it's actually from God?

Only if the person saying it's from God can do something that only God can do This is why the miracle workers today where miracles in the

Bible are used to qualify a person as speaking for God the miracle works done today are used to disqualify the people that say they're doing it

Because when those miracles fail, it disqualifies them as speaking for God But the reason this is an issue is because it comes down to the sufficiency of scripture

That's the issue When you look to the miracle rather than to what it points to, which is scripture you lose focus on the scripture

Now, they would say they do not but it shows a lack of the sufficiency because you need something more

This makes it sound like the foolishness of Romans 1 where they worship the creation rather than the creator

Therefore God gave them up to the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves because they exchanged the truth of God the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen God has given us all that we need for faith and practice in his word

We do not need miracles We do not need anything more

To expect miracles is to miss the sufficiency of scripture Do we need miracles to know

God exists? No, we have the word of God Do we need miracles to worship

God? No, we have the word of God Do we need miracles to know that God cares for us?

No, we have the word of God Do we need miracles to defend the faith?

No, we have the word of God Do we need miracles for anything for faith and practice?

No We have the sufficient word of God And this is what the writer of Hebrews says in his argument in Hebrews chapter 2

He says this It was declared at first by the

Lord and is attested to by those who heard while God also bore witness to signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

Holy Spirit distributed accordingly The word attested there is an aris indicative which means that the way this is is a snapshot in history in the past.

It's a past event So the writer of Hebrews is making it clear that as we've seen throughout the signs and wonders and miracles are tied to scripture

That's why he says in here that we must pay closer attention to the miracles?

No To the word of God That's the focus. The revelation of God Now if the revelation that we have from God, that self -revelation of the canon is closed, the question is why would we expect to see miracles?

Let me give you a Geisler quote. One last one is this He says What we end up seeing is that the arguments for the continuation of gifts miss the mark

They focus on the wrong thing The purpose of the miracles were to point to the revelation of God but now that we have that we don't lack these gifts because there is no need for these gifts

We have all that we need in the word of God and if the word of God is not enough for you the word of God the trice holy infinite being that spoke the universe into existence and has revealed himself and we say but we want more then we are no different than the

Israelites who roamed the wilderness as God dropped food from heaven in manna and it wasn't enough for them and we look back at them and say what is wrong with them don't they see what

God is doing God has given us all that we need

The reason the New Testament gifts faded is because they were never meant to be permanent they were meant to point to the revelation that we now have

We should not expect to see them unless God is writing new scripture So let me conclude with this if we see that the gifts that we see in the scriptures let us focus on what they focus on the scriptures let us not lose focus and think that somehow we need to look to something more than what

God has designed these gifts for We have all that we need

Scripture is sufficient Let's pray

Lord we come before you and are so amazed that you came through your creation to give us your word so we can look at it as an objective source of truth and instead of looking

Lord in a culture that doesn't want to define an absolute truth they are just wandering in a sea of subjectivism and we have an objective truth that is a firm foundation and yet some want to go back to subjectivity in miracles

Lord help us help each one of the speakers that follow me to communicate this message so strongly and boldly so that those who may believe gifts continue that they may see that the purpose of gifts have ended and that we have all that we need in your word that the foundation of our faith is based in your word we thank you for your word, we thank you for you the personal

Holy Spirit to illuminate it to our minds and I lift up my fellow brothers that will be at this pulpit that you would use them in a mighty way so that people would see the positive notion of the cessationism, we are not looking to attack those that believe in continuationism but we are seeking to see what your word teaches to see the gloriousness of the fact that you give us your word we thank you in Christ's name

Amen John Ruther is the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Lumberton, New Jersey and he is the author of The Gift of the

Holy Spirit, a hardback book that is on the table back there if you are interested in sort of a far more comprehensive take on what he is going to be presenting here in this session

John, welcome Before we pray, let me tell you something amazing about our

God He is the God who gives His Holy Spirit to us. Paul said that in 1

Thessalonians 4 and in this message I would like to tell you who that Holy Spirit is and the story of how

He gave His Holy Spirit to us for that is what biblical theology is the story of God's work while systematic theology is the system of truth, so let's pray

Our God and Father, we thank you for the privilege of gathering here today to learn more about you, particularly your

Holy Spirit so that we might have a good response a biblical response to the things that are happening all around us, so warm our hearts at this session,

O Lord, as we speak positively of the Holy Spirit and focus on Him and His work, in Jesus' name,

Amen I have four points today and the first one is that the

Spirit is a triune person with a filial name the

Trinity is a knowable mystery you can describe it, but you cannot fathom its depth.

The 4th century church father, Gregory, left us this wonderful testimony, he said

I think of Him as the whole and my eyes are filled and the greater part of what

I am thinking escapes me I cannot grasp the greatness of any one person so as to attribute a greater greatness to the other two when

I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch. Now the clearest

Old Testament statement of the Trinity is in the book of Isaiah, chapter 48 and verse 16 where Isaiah said

Now here the Son is the one speaking, the servant of the Lord. The Lord God is the

Father who sends the Son and the Lord God the Father also sends the

Spirit Now the Trinity was there at Jesus' baptism as you know,

Matthew 3, 16 Now in this scene, the

Father is speaking from Heaven, so He is present although He is not visible

The Son is on the earth and the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove and rests on the

Son of God. I understand the dove imagery here at Jesus' baptism as pointing us back to the

Spirit hovering or brooding over the creation in Genesis 1, verse 2

So that here the Spirit is coming down as a dove on Christ, God's new creation, pure and sinless.

Now further Jesus announced the Trinitarian name in the baptismal formula associated with the

Great Commission, Matthew 28 and verse 19 Godfield called this a near formal announcement of the

Trinity and it is indeed the New Testament Trinitarian name.

But let's talk for a little bit about the persons of the Trinity Millard Erickson calls the

Trinity a society of persons and I like that. Quote, he says

God is love in 1 John requires that He be more than one person

Love, to be love, must have both a subject and an object, unquote

You know, the shorter catechism asks the question, what is God? And the answer comes back,

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power holiness, justice, goodness and truth

But let's ask this question again, what is God? Well God is a triunity of co -equal persons comprising the

Godhead Colossians 2 .9 refers to the Godhead as does Romans 1 and verse 21

Colossians 2 .9 says that in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

The Godhead is the Trinity The Trinity is revealed in Scripture It's amazing to me that some modern writers deny that the

Bible really says much about the Trinity But the Trinity is revealed in Scripture and systematized in church history.

The church fathers described the Godhead as one essence one substance, that is, in three persons

They called the persons subsistences or hypostases from the

Greek word hypostasis in Hebrews 1 and verse 3 They distinguished between the persons and the essence.

The Greek word hypostasis refers to something with a concrete existence

Robert Lethem. A mode of existence by which a substance is individualized.

You see what they're saying? One substance individualized in three persons.

That's a great mystery The one essence exists in three subsistances or persons.

But the church fathers went further They stated that the three subsistances were consubstantial common substance.

One substance individualized in three persons common substance.

Lethem writes, and I quote The Son and Spirit are the same substance as the Father. All three persons are fully

God and the whole God. That's what Gregory was referring to when he spoke about one torch

They are three divine persons but they are not three personalities because personality means differences

In the Trinity it would mean differing perspectives. As divine persons of one essence, they do not look at things differently

They do not react independently They possess the same attributes and a single purpose.

The Trinitarian persons are one essence and they are not divided However, they are distinguished because they have individual properties, which is another subject which we don't have time to get into today

They have individual properties and distinct names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit They also have fulfilled distinct roles though their work is a unity

Let's talk about the names of the persons Father and Son are filial names

That is, filial describes a family relationship Have you ever thought about this question?

Why do two persons of the Trinity have filial names and the third does not? We might have expected three filial names like Father, Mother, and Son David Marshall in his book,

Lost Gospels, writes Some Gnostic texts speak of the Father, the Mother, and the

Son and continues to say Perhaps it was that kind of theology that led

Muhammad to think that the Christian Trinity consisted of Father, God, Mother, Mary, and Jesus, Son Let's talk about John 1 for a minute

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God He was in the beginning with God Now John's prologue presents only two persons of the

Trinity Yet scriptural truths about the Holy Spirit make him part of that passage in the same way that in Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2 where you only have

God the Father and the Spirit Jesus is also involved in that passage and when you tie

John 1, 1 through 3 with Genesis 1, 1 and 2, they are both Trinitarian in reality, although not in the text themselves in the text themselves they are called

Binitarian or Binitarian passages When a passage only speaks of two of the persons it's a

Binitarian or Binitarian passage but the Bible does not teach Binitarianism but it only refers to two persons but those passages are not to be understood as excluding the other divine person

So John 1, 1 portrays this face -to -face relationship of Father and Son by using the preposition pros

Now the Greek preposition pros means to or toward So when it says that Jesus is with God it could be like, well you're with the person sitting next to you right now but you're not looking at that person you're not face -to -face with that person

So when the word was with God pictures that Father and Son are in mutual relationship through the

Spirit, the third person Father and Son is an image -bearing relationship in the Trinity It is not one that denotes superiority versus inferiority,

Father and Son as it is in human life Although when I was a child, my father was greater than I When my father aged and had

Alzheimer's, in a sense I was greater than him And so what is the significance of the relationship between me and my father is

I'm in his image In eternal sonship, the son is not inferior to the father but he is the image of the father with no beginning

They are three co -equal, co -eternal persons Now commenting on John 1, 1

Leon Morris writes The literal idea comes out well

Face -to -face with God Face -to -face converse is in mind

The preposition expresses nearness combined with the sense of movement toward God and so indicates an active relationship

The logos and God do not simply exist side -by -side but are on terms of living interaction and such fellowship implies separate personality

Where does the spirit fit into this picture portrayed in John 1, 1? Well, the

Trinity as we see it in Scripture and as it was formulated in Christian history is described as a

Father and Son communion through the Holy Spirit because the

Spirit as we'll talk about in just a minute is the Spirit of the Father He's also the

Spirit of the Son So let's talk about those words the Spirit of that Spirit of construction

So the Spirit of is a genitive case construction which indicates possession rather than derivation

So there's a verse in Job that says So that's derivation

So if the Spirit is the Spirit of God it does not signify derivation It signifies possession

He is the Spirit who belongs to God He is the Spirit of the Father or He is the

Spirit belonging to the Son He belongs to the Father and Son because He proceeds from the

Father and the Son He is the Father's Spirit He is the Son's Spirit, but God only has one

Spirit It's just like you and I We have spirits My Spirit is what you see in me what you hear of me, how

I respond, how I project myself how I communicate, whether you like me or not whether I draw you to myself or I repel you from myself

Let's talk about these words for Spirit in Hebrew and Greek The word ruach and nishamah in Hebrew and numah in Greek mean to breathe or to blow and are translated as breath and wind often in Scripture referring to motion

Genesis 2 and verse 7 applies it to the creation of man Then the Lord God formed man of dust to the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living, that is animated, moving being

So our spirits describe the inner man Or in 1 Corinthians 2 .11,

the thoughts of a man A man's thoughts represent the person You know, Proverbs 23 and verse 7

For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he Our spirits are like deep wells, according to Proverbs 18 and verse 4, and sometimes it takes a man of wisdom to draw out, if you try to draw out the thoughts of a person who maybe you think is troubled or needy and you're trying to figure out what's inside Proverbs 20 and verse 5

Some people have deep plans and we try to draw them out We're trying to draw it out of their spirits

We have unique backgrounds that have shaped us Our spirits also interact with people and situations and make visible who we really are

Now prior to conversion, our spirits are unholy and some people even have demonic spirits in them

But after conversion or because of conversion our spirits become holy because we have the

Holy Spirit of God in the human spirit The Holy Spirit in the human spirit

We tend to think of spirit as invisible We may think that we can hide what is inside but we usually cannot

Someone can usually tell that something is wrong or you can see a person's spirit and they can see yours

You can see when a person is crushed in spirit You can see a person who has an angry spirit

You can see a person who has a jealous spirit Have you ever seen the look of contentment on a person?

A person with a peaceful countenance? I know some people in my life experience who are always smiling

I think they must be smiling when they sleep They're always smiling I'm sure you've met people like that We tend to think of the

Holy Spirit as the silent member of the Trinity the elusive, mysterious, hidden person and this is wrong

But we do not think of Father or Son that way But the Holy Spirit is not hidden He is not elusive and He is not mysterious as I'll show you

Now, the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is just simply called the Spirit of God But after Pentecost, when you come to the

Acts and the Epistles you read about the Spirit of Christ or the

Spirit of Jesus or the Spirit of Jesus Christ For example, Acts 16 and verse 7

The Spirit of Jesus did not permit them Philippians 1 and verse 19

Paul said, I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the

Spirit of Jesus Christ And the greatest text of all is

Romans 8 and verse 9 which mentions the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ in one verse Paul says,

If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you Now, you would have expected him to say If indeed the

Spirit of God dwells in you But if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he does not belong to him But that's not what he says

He says, If anyone does not have the Spirit of If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you

But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ He does not belong to him

So, in the history of Revelation the Spirit was known as the Spirit of God But now after Pentecost, He is known as the

Spirit of Christ So, let's summarize this non -filial name matter that I brought up The reason why the

Spirit has a non -filial or non -family name is because He is the Spirit belonging to the

Father and the Spirit belonging to the Son The creeds say that He proceeds from the

Father and the Son It's based on John 14, 26 and John 15, 26

The Spirit proceeds from the Father He proceeds from the Son It's a double procession I believe in the double procession and the addition of the filioque clause in the creed

But that's speaking of a temporal procession But there is an eternal procession as well because this is what

Spirit signifies Your Spirit proceeds from you That's you You can't hide yourself

You can lock yourself up in isolation perhaps and then your Spirit is locked up with you in that place

But our spirits proceed That's something we should think about by the way in practical terms

How do I come across to people? Theologians call this the mutual indwelling of Father, Son and Spirit Augustine, the theologian of the

Holy Spirit wrote Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the

Son Therefore the Holy Spirit is a communion of the Father and the Son And he said a lot more than that The nature of Spirit is that it is moving extending like breath and wind but also it is joining and uniting

And John 4, 24 God is Spirit means that God is life power and presence

John 4, 24, God is Spirit It's easy to think that in John 4, 24 that the

Bible is just simply saying God does not have a body like men But that is really not the point of John 4, 24

George Beasley Murray says I quote on John 4, 24 God is Spirit defines

God not in His metaphysical being but according to His work in the world The clause is parallel to God is light or God is love

All these statements describe God's mode of action and working end quote

God is Spirit means that He moves in the world He fills,

He extends, He works He has power, He has life, He is the life -giving God And as 1

Thessalonians 4 and verse 8 said He is the God who gives His Holy Spirit to us

Sinclair Ferguson wrote in his great book on the Holy Spirit Most Christians warmly respond to the description of Jesus as Son of God not only because of Jesus' humanity but also because the designation

Son indicates a relationship that we are familiar with But the name

Holy Spirit, or worse, Holy Ghost tends to convey a cold, even remote image

After all, what is Spirit? End quote Yet, we should be able to relate to God as Spirit, shouldn't we?

Ferguson is saying we can relate to God as Father We can relate to God as Son, easily But why should we not be able to relate to God as Spirit?

We think of our own spirits We certainly think of other people's spirits I don't like that person

I try to avoid that person Because Spirit is a non -filial name it doesn't mean that the

Holy Spirit is just a force or an influence He is a person He is the divine person who joins the

Trinity I used to say in my classes earlier on I used to say the Spirit is the bond of union between the

Father and the Son And the students reacted to that, they said, wait a minute That doesn't sound right to me, bond of union

So I changed it, and I always say He is the person who binds the Father and the Son He's the person who binds the

Father and the Son Here are a few examples of the personhood of the Spirit The Spirit speaks and teaches

And I won't give you the verses for the sake of time The Spirit strives with sinners He forbids movements,

He testifies He is served, He is grieved, He is insulted

We speak with the personal pronoun Him It, not it, we don't say it

Let's talk about illustrations now Still with me?

Illustrations For an illustration of the Trinity to be useful, it must show unity and diversity And I'm convinced that marriage is the best illustration of the

Trinity Not things like the three -leaf clover or the three states of water Because those illustrations

Actually support modalism, which is a heresy They only

They imply that the Trinity is a modal Is modal

So in marriage, a man and woman become one Jesus quoted

Genesis 2, 24, you remember And said, so are They are no longer two, but one flesh,

Matthew 19, 6 So think about that for a minute Jesus said they are no longer two, but one flesh

What did he mean to say that there's still not two people? That there's still not individuals?

Did he mean to say they don't have their distinctives still with them? When I brought the wedding message

At our youngest son's wedding five years ago The points of the sermon were, point one was one Point two was two, and point three was three

Point one was one Marriage joins a man and woman into one Jesus said they are no longer two, but one

Point two was two They are still two, they are still themselves

And their individuality is not removed In fact, that's why we get into problems in marriage It's that two -ness, which is still there

They retain their backgrounds, they have distinct roles from God An excellent wife, a nurturing and cherishing husband

But point three was three Because joining a man and a woman into one

Creates a third entity, if you will I don't know what else to call it, a third entity, if you will That's the marriage, the marriage is the third part

It's the something new, it's the new creation And so marriage is an earthly triunity

The marriage itself is the third part Joining the two into one When the two become one, they remain distinct

But they also become something new together Through the communion of their lives

Some couples exhibit this more than others perhaps You look at two people who have been married a long time and you say They're just like one person

Their lives merge, and their individuality is subjected One to the other in loving humility and self -denial

And they can accomplish great things together If they will just pray for more unity together

Avoid arguments, fights And do more together Use their individual gifts and distinctives together

To make their marriage the most glorious thing The third part

And so it is as the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son The Holy Spirit is the life of God extending into the world

The manifestation of Father and Son with power throughout history The Spirit carries out the work of Father and Son I love the subtitle of Michael Horton's book

On the Holy Spirit The book's a little challenging for me It's a lot of philosophical stuff in there But it's still a very good book, 2017

But I love the subtitle the best It is God's perfecting presence in creation, redemption, and everyday life

God's perfecting presence in creation, redemption, and everyday life And that's a great way to say

God is Spirit John 4 .24 So that As we understand the work of the

Spirit We find that the Spirit is the one who completes He completes the work He brings things to fruition

That's why you have the fruit of the Spirit The Spirit completes the work He doesn't compete for a prominent place among the persons of the

Trinity And He is not to be given the prominent place Among the persons of the Trinity He would not want that place because He came to glorify the

Son He, by nature, does the work of the Father and the Son Yet He is a person

And yet He is the Father's Spirit He is the Son's Spirit And that's where you're really getting into the mystery of the

Trinity You can only go that far And God has put a fence around it And New Covenant ministry is

Trinitarian Ephesians 3, verses 4 and 6 And there are so many

Trinitarian passages in the New Testament I count 35 of them I deal with the 35 in my book there, chapter 5

But there is one body and one Spirit Just as you also were called in one hope of your calling

One Lord Jesus, one faith, one baptism One God and Father That's an example of a verse that indicates that usually

When the Bible mentions God, it's mentioning the Father Not always, but in a

Trinitarian passage, it is Now, let's move on then to the second point

In that first point, I've just tried to show you that the Holy Spirit Is a divine person in the Trinity with a non -filial name

To try to explain to you what that name means And I hope I've accomplished my purpose

But moving on now, the points are a little shorter now But to the Spirit is revealed progressively in history, point number 2

The Spirit is revealed progressively in history And all we mean by this is that the

Spirit Was revealed alongside of the revelation Of God the Father and God the

Son And that's what biblical theology is It explains the progressive aspect of Bible revelation

I like to think of it as the story and the system The story and the system Biblical theology and systematic

Biblical theology doesn't mean that it's from the Bible It means that it's progressive

Now, the question is, is there an order in the historical aspect Of the revelation of the triune persons

Was it the Father who was revealed first, then the Son and then the Spirit Well, actually it was not that way It was the

Father and the Spirit who were revealed first In the history of revelation, the

Father and the Spirit are seen first in the Old Testament The opening verses of Genesis introduce us to God and the

Spirit And the order of revealing was The Father and the Spirit in the Old Testament What about Jesus then?

Well, He was revealed in terms of promise, pictures, prophecies

As the coming Messiah, the second person In the Gospel period, the Son and Spirit are manifest

As they do the work of the Son As they do the work the

Son was sent to accomplish in the Spirit The Holy Spirit brought about His virgin conception

In the womb of the Virgin Mary Luke 135, the Holy Spirit will come upon you

And the power of the Most High will overshadow you Gerald Hawthorne, his doctoral thesis was

On the work of the Spirit in the life of Jesus And it was published in book form

Republished in 1991, The Presence and the Power It's a wonderful book He writes in this book,

I quote The Holy Spirit was that divine creative element by which The fashioning of Jesus' humanity was begun

So carefully and uniquely generated by the Holy Spirit Was the very humanness that the eternal

Son made His own and within which He became incarnate That's why Jesus was virgin conceived

Because His life Is attributed directly

Not as our lives are attributed to the second cause of procreation But His life was attributed directly

To the Holy Spirit of God He is a creation of God, directly Not by second causes

We are created by God too, but His was different It was not immediate

It was immediate And the Holy Spirit was with Him throughout His life He was with Him on the cross when it says in Hebrews 9 .14

That through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without blemish to God And throughout His life

He manifested His communion with the Father in heaven In the Spirit, He was filled with the

Spirit In His ministry, in His sinless humanity And again, I quote from Hawthorne, he said it so beautifully

I quote, one might say that the Holy Spirit Was continually with Him in His silence and His speech

In His haste and in His leisure In company and in solitude, in His play and in His work

In the freshness of the morning and in the weariness of the evening Throughout all the hours and days

Of those early years of His life And naturally throughout His entire life

And this is something that we find As we understand the Holy Spirit, we have this same experience

These same comforts Jesus possessed the Spirit throughout His entire life

John 3 .34, He gives the Spirit Without measure, which means without limits

He gives all of His Holy Spirit to Jesus and to us 1

Thessalonians 4 .8 In the apostolic and post -Pentecost period Which is the age of the

Spirit, this is the fullness Of Trinitarian activity Now let's move on to the second point

To talk about John 7 for a little bit If you have your Bible there, you might want to turn to John 7 .37

-39 Because one of Jesus' Most important statements about the

Holy Spirit Came at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7 And you're familiar with the announcement

It was a great interruption in the proceedings of the festival And it turned out to be a gospel invitation as well

But it says in verse 37 And that's all

Jesus said, by the way Stop And amazingly, the next verse John 7 .39

Came 50 years later You realize there's a 50 year gap Between verse 38 and verse 39

Verse 37 and 38 is the announcement that Jesus made Verse 39 is part of John's theological reflection

That's what the gospel of John is all about It's the most theological gospel Because it represents

John's mature reflection On Christ and His work So John explains what he meant

At the feast, verse 39 This, he spoke of the Spirit Whom those who believed in Him were to receive

At that time, they were to receive For the Spirit was not yet given Because Jesus was not yet glorified

The Spirit of Christ promised to come at Pentecost Was not yet Now, the literal

Greek says just that The Spirit was not yet That translation would give the idea that either the

Spirit didn't exist in the Old Testament Or that He wasn't working So you have to include the word given

Because this is a reference to Pentecost We have many evidences of the work of the

Holy Spirit I'll just go over them quickly in the interest of time The Holy Spirit was at work in the creation week

Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2 In fact, it is the Spirit who brought the creation to its fullness during those seven days

The Spirit breathed life into man Genesis 2, 7 The Spirit is continually working in Providence Psalm 104

The Spirit was at the heart of the nation of Israel Let your good spirit lead me on level ground

The psalmist prayed, Psalm 143, 10 Psalm 51 describes the intimacy of life in the

Spirit The works of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament Actually are very similar to His works in the

New Testament The only difference is that now we have the Spirit of the Exalted Christ In the

Old Testament, you see the Spirit Granting salvation, creating, sustaining life

Filling His people to fullness Giving gifts to God's people Illuminating them in their understanding of the

Scripture He also convicts of sin and He dwells in the hearts of His people He is intimate with His chosen people in Israel And these are ministries that He continues today

As the Spirit of Christ Yet Pentecost inaugurated the age of the Spirit Jesus is the last

Adam who became a life -giving Spirit 1 Corinthians 15, verse 45

It's the age of the fullest revelation of the Trinity Warfield wrote, I quote

Have you ever noticed that in the New Testament The writers are not trying to prove the Trinity, they're not even trying to explain it

They just speak of it They believe it fully People frequently ask, what is the main difference

In the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament to the New Testament Is it that the

Spirit came and went In the Old Testament people, is that what it is? Is it that the Spirit didn't indwell the believers

Of the New Testament, is that what it is? Is it perhaps just a matter of extent?

Well again, the main difference between the Spirit And the old economy and the new economy Is that after Pentecost, He is the

Spirit of the Exalted Christ God only has one Spirit of course But He is the

Spirit of the Christ who walked on this earth Jesus the Nazarene He has become a life -giving

Spirit His presence has been extended Geographically, universally and in all ages

To all those who know Him Christ is in us You might ask, why was the

Spirit promised in the Old Testament If He is already working? Well the answer is simple

That the promises of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament have to do First of all with Him anointing the

Messiah Turn to Isaiah 11 verses 1 -3 The promises of the

Holy Spirit Concern His anointing the Messiah Isaiah 11 is such an important passage

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse And a branch from his roots will bear fruit The Spirit of the

Lord will rest on him That's capital S, uppercase, that's the Holy Spirit Now the spirits that follow here in these next three lines

Are a lowercase spirit The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him

That is, in His human spirit He will have the spirit of wisdom His spirit will be one of understanding

The spirit of counsel and strength The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord And further on it goes on to speak about His righteous judgments

This is the anointing of the Messiah The Lord says, I have put my spirit upon Him Isaiah 42 -1

The Messiah says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me Isaiah 61 -1 Acts 10 -38,

God anointed Him with the Spirit and with power But we also have an anointing of the Spirit 2

Corinthians 1, 20 -21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ And anointed us is

God Who also sealed us And gave us

His Holy Spirit As a pledge John 1 -20 1

John 2 -20, but you have an anointing from the Holy One And you all know 1 John 2 -27, as for you, the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you

And so the Isaiah passage Speaks of the Spirit resting upon Him That's the anointing for ministry

This is the human spirit That Jesus had

This makes the Messiah the pattern for His New Testament people Turn over to Colossians 1 -9 -12

Colossians 1 -9 -12 I actually did a study years ago

On the relationship of Proverbs 1 -12 Isaiah 11 -6

And Colossians 1 -9 -12 And I think they all tie together Colossians 1 -9 -12

For this reason also Since the day we heard of it We have not ceased to pray for you And to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will

And all spiritual wisdom and understanding So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the

Lord To please Him in all respects Bearing fruit in every good work And increasing in the knowledge of God Strengthened with all power according to His glorious might

For the attaining of all steadfastness and patience Joyously giving thanks to the Father Who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light

You could also add to this the two prayers in Ephesians 1 Starting at verse 15 And Ephesians 3 starting at verse 14

Where you see that the anointing that we have Is similar to the anointing that the

Messiah had But the second reason for the promise of the Spirit in the Old Testament Was that the

Spirit When He came after Pentecost would advance the covenant You have the classic passages on the new covenant

In Ezekiel 11 Ezekiel 18, 31 A new heart and a new spirit

Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31 But the classic passage here is Joel The passage that Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost Because in the

Pentecost sermon Peter said this is what was spoken of Through the prophet Joel, Acts 2 .16

And then he quotes the prediction found in Joel 2 Which is that the widespread gift of prophecy

And other spiritual gifts or manifestations Was to be part of The New Testament age to demonstrate

Not only those gifts but that there would be sweeping changes In the covenant Such as the change in the administration from the nation of Israel To the

New Testament church The New Testament church looks different doesn't it Than what you see in the

Old Testament and the worship of the nation of Israel Sweeping changes, that's what Joel was talking about Hodge shows the connection in his commentary on 1

Corinthians He says The distinctiveness of the new covenant predicted by Joel Consisted in the general diffusion of these gifts

Which were not confined to any one class of people Under circumstances so extraordinary it was unavoidable

That many disorders should arise And Paul corrected those in 1 Corinthians 12 -14

But Joel 2 is not only referring to the gift of prophecy It is referring to the sweeping changes

Which began to appear in the book of Acts And that leads us to our third point Which is that the spirit came at Pentecost The spirit came at Pentecost Pentecost is the crowning event in the history of Christ It is the end of a series begun at his conception

His birth then, his life His atoning death, his resurrection And his ascension and his exaltation

And when he was exalted to the right hand of God He poured forth of his spirit He had come forth from God and was going back to God John 13 and verse 3

Peter preached on that day It takes us back to Sinai, doesn't it?

Where there were mighty manifestations, remember? Fire, smoke, earthquake, trumpet blasts,

Exodus 19 At Pentecost it was just as dramatic But a different character

A noise like a violent rushing wind Tongues of fire resting on their heads

Language utterances, Acts 2 verse 4 Amazement, 2 verse 7 Perplexed questioning, 2 verses 7 and 8

Even mocking, Acts 2 verse 13 At Sinai there was a drawing back

At Pentecost there was a drawing near Indicating the new age of the spirit and gospel power

I want to turn just now to Four continuing manifestations of the Holy Spirit Which began on the day of Pentecost Four things that happened on the day of Pentecost which continue today

The first was the coming of Christ himself in his spirit You can turn to the upper room for some of the verses there

Running out of time. John Owen wrote It is the Holy Spirit who replaces Christ's bodily absence

And who brings to fulfillment All the promises made to the church

Christ is with us Christ Is with us by his spirit

The one he poured out at Pentecost Chadwick said, I quote, it is indeed the difference between Pentecost is the difference between the personal

Physical presence of Christ with his disciples And what his spiritual inward abiding presence

Through the person of the Holy Spirit would be Christ came on the day of Pentecost You know how

Peter talks about how we have a better word In 2 Peter 1 Well what would you rather have

Would you rather have been in Palestine and seen the Lord Jesus For those few years

Or be living today when Christ is with us by his spirit Well to ask the question is to answer it

Christ in you the hope of glory The second manifestation was spirit empowered communication

These are called languages at the first In Acts 2 and verse 4 which drew the attention of the people groups

So that Peter could address the crowd interestingly In one single language So it's not that those languages were really needed except to point to What was going to happen

They were signs and when you read that Expression that began to speak with other languages two things are certain

First they were known human languages and second The Spirit's gift of communication at Pentecost Was much bigger than that it was for thrusting

Forth the gospel throughout the world and still it is today It was the gift let's settle

On this it was the gift of gospel communication Through evangelism edification

And encouragement of God's people And also for apologetics the third manifestation of the spirit

Is the triangle of conviction Conversion and confession They were converted

Well first of all they were convicted what shall we do They were converted when they had received his word

And they confessed they were baptized And fourthly

The fourth manifestation of the spirit on the day of Pentecost Is the constitution of churches

And communion of saints this is the crowning blessing Of the day of Pentecost The inauguration of the

Christian church the creation of churches The first church was in Jerusalem That was a mega church by the way 3000 5000 they met in the temple mount very spacious You could fit that many people in there portico of Solomon Their preachers were the apostles their pastors were the apostles

They continually devoted themselves to the apostles teaching And a fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayer

And you can remember these four manifestations Simply easily Christ Communication Conversion and constitution that is constitution of churches

Christ communication Conversion and constitution

And let's tie this all together in the few minutes remaining Number four the spirits completed works

Commence his continuing works Well this is a conference on cessationism

And certainly no accident that when you look at the story of the

Holy Spirit That this is what you're going to find That some things cease and some things continue

But I'm stating it in this way that the spirits completed works Commence his continuing works

Which is just what we see throughout redemptive history Some things change and some things remain the same

If changes if developments Some things reach their goal and thus are completed other things remain the same

There's always continuity and discontinuity Continuation and cessation So the first thing that the

Holy Spirit completed Was the baptism of the spirit First the baptism of the spirit was an accomplishment of history

Which can never be repeated you can't repeat Pentecost Because This is an accomplishment of history the

Pentecost baptism Is like Christ's death on the cross He died once for all he's never to die again

And the spirit came on Pentecost and he poured himself He was poured out and that baptism

Is completed It's not that we don't participate in the cross of Christ An accomplished event we do and it's not that we don't participate

In the Pentecost baptism which is a completed event For we do The completed baptism commences a continuing work

In individuals who are converted and baptized In the spirit 1st Corinthians 12 13

For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body Whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free

And we were all made to drink of one spirit Conversion is the sinners

Pentecost Let's turn to Titus chapter 3 verses 4 through 7 And as you're turning to that passage

Keep in mind that in the Few verses in the New Testament where you see this language

Of pouring out or poured out These are references to Pentecost Titus 3 verse 4 when the kindness of God And our

Savior and his love for mankind appeared He saved us not on the basis of deeds

Which we have done in righteousness but according to his mercy By the washing of regeneration and renewing by the

Holy Spirit whom he poured out Upon us richly through Jesus Christ Our Savior so that being

Justified by his grace we would be made Heirs according to the hope of eternal life

That's Pentecost In a person's life the sinners

Pentecost his conversion I was going to talk about subsequence but I'm going to pass that up Others have have addressed that I will go to the second

Accomplishment of the Holy Spirit of Christ on the day of Pentecost Which was the inauguration of the church

This is an accomplishment of Pentecost Not only Christ sending his spirit permanently

With us but also the inauguration of the church Some groups say that Pentecost was the birthday of the church and thus

Disassociated from Israel But the reality is that God only has one people and I know there are some differences

Of course but it's more precise to speak of The inauguration or dedication of the church

Because it is connected To kingdom building in the Old Testament But the completed work of inaugurating the church

On the day of Pentecost commences his continuing work Which is the building of the church

And building up or edifying the body 1 Corinthians 12 -14 means to build up the body

So that is the spirit's continuing work And thirdly and finally the third accomplishment of the

Holy Spirit Is the completion of the canon of scripture Baptism of the spirit completed

Continues through the sinner's Pentecost And his experience of the Holy Spirit throughout his life Completed work, the inauguration of the church

Continuing work, I will build my church Thirdly, completed work of the Holy Spirit The canon of scripture which of course took place

Over the apostolic age You know that one of his names is Spirit of Truth In the

Old Testament the canon was attributed To the spirit of God. David said on his deathbed The spirit of the

Lord spoke by me His word was on my tongue And David was a writer of scripture 2

Peter 1 -21 men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke by God The classic text 2

Timothy 3 -16 Which Andrew put up behind us All scripture is

God breathed So inscripturation is the completed work of the Holy Spirit What is the continuing work of the

Holy Spirit? Illumination Illumination is the continuing work of the Holy Spirit Not prophecy but illumination

Without the illumination of the spirit none of us can rightly understand Nor can we adequately apply

As the word is needed by us Either for reproof, correction, instruction

And righteousness because the Holy Spirit is the paraclete The paraclete

You know Jesus was a paraclete A paraclete means he comes alongside of us to help us

And he helps us in so many different ways Raymond Brown in his commentary on John Suggests that we just retain the

Greek word paraclete Because words like comforter, counselor They're just one part of his word

So paraclete, that's his official name I call it his Pentecost name And in illumination he's just functioning as the paraclete

To reveal scripture to us And so I close

With the verse with which I started With which I began I thought how do I land this sermon

And I landed on one of the great Holy Spirit texts Which sums it up beautifully God has many glorious attributes, doesn't he?

Love, justice, mercy, grace So many attributes

The Puritans just wrote volumes on the attributes of God But he has this other attribute

That we may lose sight of What is God like? What kind of God do we have?

Well it's this He is the God who gives his

Holy Spirit to us We give gifts to people And we even love giving gifts, birthdays,

Christmas And all the occasions for us to give gifts But we all know

That as wonderful as gifts are The best gift is to give yourself

Give yourself A listening ear, a helping hand

A financial benevolence Give yourself love, mercy, compassion

And that's what God does By giving us his Holy Spirit Let's pray

We thank you Lord for the story of the Spirit's person and work

Throughout history And Lord we are humbled that you have given us

Your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the exalted Christ Forgive us

Lord for the many times In which we have grieved and even quenched the Spirit Where we have hurt him personally who indwells us

And where we may have also hindered his work By quenching his activity in the church

Help us Lord to Commune with you through the

Spirit So that the Trinitarian presence in our lives Will be manifested always

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen Thank you

John, that was excellent And again I would just point you back to the table back there If you want his book on that subject,

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Which has that outline in much more detail That's available back there And for the next session you will need the outline from Dan Phillips That you were given when you came in and registered

So if you don't have that or you missed that or you took it home and forgot to bring it back Go out, it is available on the table out front

And you will need that for the next session We'll take a 10 minute break and then we'll proceed Alright if you'll find your place we'll begin again with our next session

Alright this session has to do with a different Biblical approach to correcting the error of continuationism

Our speaker for this session is Dan Phillips He's the author of these two books The World Tilting Gospel and God's Wisdom in the

Book of Proverbs So please welcome Dan Phillips Thank you, before we pray let me just say

How very grateful I am to be here How grateful I am to all of you for the great care

And welcome you're giving to all of us To Jim and to David And I'm very much enjoying the talks right alongside you

So let's look to the Lord in prayer together Heavenly Father we come before you

Not just with words but from our hearts Asking for your blessing on us

Asking for the blessed work of the Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ as we look at these words

That we will see which are so full of Christ We know that he loves to do the ministry

Of shining the spotlight on your beloved son And as he does we pray that our hearts will be drawn out

In greater love, greater devotion, greater commitment And a greater appreciation for the majesty of his person

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen Well you know when we talk to charismatic friends

About and try to present our position Which we call cessationism It comes across to them as a very negative message

It sounds like we're saying something very negative We're asking them to give up something

That to them is very positive It is very meaningful to them

It is essential in fact to their Christian walk As they see it We're asking them to trade what they see

As a warm, personal, intimate relationship with God For something that to them

Is distant and formal And cold and lifeless

We're asking them to trade the hope they have Of getting a constant flow of text messages from God And trade that for in essence

Having a form letter With all of the informality to whom it may concern

That's how our position sounds to them That's good to know and it's good to see

That as Paul approaches false teaching He doesn't just have one approach In how he deals with error

I'm going to start by showing you two case studies In two different approaches

They're both necessary, they're both essential They're both good and they dovetail But they have very different tone and emphases

The first case study I'd like to take Is the letter to the Galatians And I see his approach to the

Galatian error As being a confrontive approach Now just think if you've read

Galatians And it's fresh in your mind Think of the tone of the letter So think of two dads getting home

A couple of happy beeps in the driveway And the first thing the kids hear from their rooms

Is his voice saying, kids I'm home, who wants a hug? And in another house there's no honk

First thing the kids hear is a slam on the front door And they hear dad's voice from the front of the house saying

Thomas Elizabeth, Mary Louise, front room, right now Well now

Those are very different experiences Which one of those is like Galatians?

Look with me at the opening words of Paul's letter to the Galatians As kids on their way out would know

That there was something very, very wrong And they're going to be called on the carpet And they're going to hear some hot words

Well, in most letters when Paul writes to the churches he writes to He addresses them, he says grace and peace to you

And then he says, I thank God constantly for you And then he lifts off some of the graces in their congregation

And then he eases into the subject of the letter By contrast, look at Galatians Paul, an apostle, not sent from men

Nor through man, but through Jesus Christ And God the Father who raised him from the dead

And all the brothers who are with me To the churches in Galatia Grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Who gave himself for our sins So that he might rescue us from this present evil age

According to the will of our God and Father To whom be the glory forever and ever I marvel that you are so quickly

Deserting him who called you By the grace of Christ For a different gospel

What a start That is grabbing you by the collar and getting your attention Make sure you are eyeball to eyeball on this issue

And that continues through the letter It's the tone that carries throughout this letter In how he deals with the error, the errorists in Galatia I'm just going to single out five elements in his method

Five elements, just a really quick overview First, you see fiery warnings and annunciations

You see that right away in the very next words of this And you're all very familiar with this, Galatians 1, 8 and 9

Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary To the gospel we have proclaimed to you

Let him be accursed And you know that means let him be damned Let him be eternally under the judgment of God And then, if once wasn't enough, he says it again

If any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you receive

Let him be accursed Fiery warnings and annunciations Secondly, biting reproof

If you look over at Galatians 3, 1, you'd see Paul saying Oh foolish

Galatians Who bewitched you Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified

Are you so foolish Having begun in the spirit Are you now perfected by the flesh

Biting reproof But then at the same time you also see warm personal pleas

Such as in chapter 4, verses 15 and 16 Where he says to them, having hammered on this issue for four chapters

Now he says, where then is that sense of blessing you had For I testify of you that if possible

You would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth

My children, with whom I am again in labor Until Christ is formed in you

And then he just breaks off after that affectionate appeal Warm personal pleas

And fourth, specific denunciation of the error and the errorist Not aorist, if you're a

Greek student But errorist Chapter 5, verses 3 and 4 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision

That he is under obligation to keep the whole law You have been severed from Christ You who are being justified by law

You have fallen from grace And then he says famously in verse 12 I wish that those who are upsetting you would even mutilate themselves

As I recall the old New English Bible said I tell them I wish they'd just let the knife slip

Well now this is very, very fiery And this is very, very confrontive

And also Galatians features just lengthy refutation of the error Just to single out four

The implication that his gospel is just one of many That's where he starts off And that perhaps there are better gospels, better suited to the

Galatians He deals with that in chapter 1, verse 6 Through chapter 2, verse 10 No, there's just the one gospel that I got directly from Jesus Christ And even the apostles in Jerusalem verified that gospel

Secondly, the resurrection of the Jew -Gentile division He gets into that in chapter 2

You know the incident of Peter, Barnabas and the ham sandwiches You know that story

Thirdly, finishing the course by law works He deals with that in chapter 3 and chapter 4

At Great Lake And finally, the issue of circumcision He gets into that in chapter 5

Basically through the whole chapter And returns to it a bit in chapter 6 as well

So, to summarize this His approach to the error in Galatia Is just a sustained confrontation

Very intense from start to finish It's like a running dialogue A running eyeball to eyeball

Shoe to shoe Confrontation over this issue Now his approach to the error in Colossae Is different If his approach to the

Galatian error is confrontive His approach to the Colossian error is what

I call expulsive That is letter B in your outline It is expulsive Now, like Galatians Paul still does identify the error

He still does denounce the error But unlike Galatians The way

Paul does this is basically By preaching such a magnificent Jesus And such a robust gospel

And such a powerful final revelation from God That by the time he's done

There's no room for the error He has filled the room With Christ, his gospel, and God's revelation

So that the error is simply Pulled out, pushed out, pardon me Pushed out, expelled

And all that's left for Paul to do is to say So why would you subject yourself to regulations?

Why would you have anything to do with this? Given all these truths that I've laid out for you So, it's a difference of tone

And even more a difference of emphasis Let's look at it now in greater detail How Paul approaches the error in Colossae By first glimpsing the error

We're going to start with that Because we have to Because Paul doesn't Paul doesn't even really tap on it

Until chapter 2, verse 4 Unlike in Galatians And he doesn't really start dealing with it

Until chapter 2, verse 8 He actually lays the foundation Before he even says anything directly

Although once you understand the error You see that the opening words Are really very polemic all throughout

He is confronting it in his way In his expulsive way throughout But let's glimpse it and try to identify it

I think it was the teaching of an individual Kind of frustrating to read the commentaries Many of them note that all of the verbs

And numbers are singular And then they just go on to talk about The false teachers I don't know why they think there's more than one

I think there was just one very charismatic individual He characteristically speaks in the plural In other letters

For instance, in Galatians he talks about Falsely brought in, false brothers Plural, secretly brought in Those who trouble you

He talks about, it's plural But in Colossians it's always singular He talks in terms of one

Very, I'd say Not capital C charismatic Individual, personable

Powerful individual that evidently Was getting some people's attention And what he was bringing was sort of A mishmash involving

Judaism, involving Christianity, involving Neoplatonism And then his own secret sauce

And you say, well that's kind of Vague, you know, so you can't just say Gnosticism, no, some commentators did

But there was no Gnosticism until The second century It's not just Judaism, it's not just In fact we can't really put a label on what it is

And to some people that's very Frustrating, but what I'd like to point out To you is really that's not a bug, that's a

Feature, it really is a good thing That we don't know exactly what it is because Then we can look at the way that Paul Approaches this and we can make multiple

Applications of it And perhaps some of you are already thinking about Paul's thorn in the flesh Yes, it's like that, if we knew that Paul's thorn in the flesh was,

I don't Know, myopia, diabetes, high blood Pressure, whatever it might have been Then if we don't have that, we'd look and say, well

I can't really identify, but he doesn't Specify it, and so we can identify With the principles he learns

Because of his thorn in the flesh, because we Don't know what it is, so it is here We don't know exactly what the error is

But we do know that the way Paul Approaches it, teaches Us principles that are very, very

Applicable to us, so I'm not suggesting That it's charismaticism at all But boy, oh boy, there are a lot of parallels

Between the two So let's do our best to look at the specifics Of the Colossian error

And I'll just single out four to the best of my Ability, briefly First, it is a wannabe

Philosophy Paul calls it such, it's a wannabe Philosophy, it promises wisdom

It promises knowledge You see that in chapter 2, verse 8 See to it that no one

Now there, literally the Greek text says Watch lest there be someone Watch lest there will be someone

Who takes you plunder An individual, because there is an individual See to it that someone

Doesn't take you captive Through philosophy and Empty deception, or probably a better translation

Would be through empty Deceptive philosophy It's a profession of love for Wisdom, but really there's nothing

Inside of it, and what's on the outside Is deceptive, he says So don't let somebody

Plunder you, carry you off as plunder through that According to the tradition of man According to the elementary principles of the world

In chapter 2, verse 23 Speaking of some of the specifics Of the false teacher, he says

These things are matters having to be sure A word of wisdom They have a reputation

For wisdom, that's what the marketing Says about them, this is wisdom This is the way it's presented

That's what it is, a wannabe Philosophy promising wisdom and knowledge So, people who follow

This false teacher are made to feel Like they're getting something inside They're getting something other people aren't getting

This is something he alone is bringing to them And they're getting something special And of course that, in some people, creates a very

Very special feeling, and is very Appealing, they want to get what Other people aren't getting and have that special Special insight, that special Line It gives them inside wisdom

Nobody else knows, that's what it promises Secondly It ranks and stratifies

Christians In other words Christians are not just one But there are levels of Christian Experience, and you might find

Yourself excluded You might find yourself on the outside Looking in, with your little nose

Pressed against the shop window, looking at all the kids With the candy, wishing you could be one of them And that's intended

That is the intended impression Chapter 2, verse 18 Paul says, let no one

Do not let someone Again, an individual Keep defrauding you of your prize

By delighting in self -abasement And worship of the angels, going into detail About visions he has seen

Being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind So this man Claims to have insights and experiences

That he's happy to relate On the talk shows in Colossae That impart

Special methods and special Approaches and special Knowledge That it's a good thing you're listening to him

Because he's the only one bringing this to you And they're very interested in supernatural Forces and dealing with supernatural

Forces, and wouldn't you know He's all about that So in doing that He excludes simple believers

Who, well, all they've got Is Jesus in the gospel and apostolic Teaching, that's all they've got

They don't have the special thing that he's bringing To them, and so If you don't have these insights

If you don't have these methods And are not following his program Too bad

You're outside You're excluded The verb suggests an umpire ruling you out

Of the game, and he's the umpire It ranks and stratifies Christians, are you seeing any parallels?

Thirdly, it is Obsessed with things Obsessed with things, verse 16 Therefore no one is to Judge you in food and drink or in respect

To a festival or a new moon Or a sabbath day, things which are only A shadow of what is to come, but the substance

Belongs to Christ And then in verses 20 -22 He says, if you have died

With Christ in the If you have died with Christ to More literally from The elementary principles of the world

If Christ's death has delivered you from The elementary principles of the world Why, as if you were living in the world

Do you submit yourself to decrees Do you not Handle, nor even taste

Nor even touch, which deal With everything destined to perish with use Which are in accordance with the commands

And the teachings of men So, it's a funny Kind of materialism that is meant to Create greater spirituality

Spirituality by materialism Could have been his motto And it's all about diet

It's all about calendar and it's all about man -made Rules and man -made doctrines All this for the deeper life

Which only his Auditors, his hearers can have Thanks to him

And also you see a very Great interest in spiritual powers Not Christ, but angels

Supernatural powers Which people in the first century Were very, very concerned about The idea of elemental forces

Of nature. In Colossae Either just before or after this letter There was a tremendous earthquake that ruined everything

And they didn't have The sharp division we have between The natural and the supernatural

And they could see spiritual forces Behind natural events And if this man had something that would deal with that Of course they'd be very interested

Especially if it's after the earthquake Fourth, it's nothing But marketing

That's what goes in that blank It's nothing but marketing All of this is just talk

He doesn't really have it, he doesn't really deliver Chapter 2, verse 4 The first time Paul taps on this

False teaching directly He says, I say this so that no one Will delude you with persuasive

Argument Because that's all he's got Pithonologia, persuasive speech

Talk, words That are very powerful Chapter 2, verse 8 Again, see to it that no one takes you captive Through empty deceptive

Philosophy And then chapter 2, verse 23, they have a reputation

For wisdom A report of wisdom In self -made religion Self -made religion, just made it up You know, constantly watching

Charismatics, the question I ask Usually out loud is What verse are we on?

And the answer is We're not on any verse We're off onto stories and Experiences, Paul calls it

Him going on about his vision Paul calls it self -made Religion, self -made religion

Self -abasement, severe treatment Of the body of no value So, everything is

The front, it's a Glitzy, glossy front meant To impress, meant to entice

And that's all he's got So these are four Specifics about this false teaching

And the larger impact, number three The larger impact of this false Teaching is that it

Divides the body of Christ And it divides the blessings of God, it divides

Christians into the haves and the have -nots The theirs and the not Quite theirs, the arrived

And the not arrived It stratifies and ranks them And one common factor

Is that simple believers Who just simply have believed The gospel and trusted in Christ Are out, they don't have everything

That they need in the gospel, in Christ In the teaching of the apostles They need to buy into this special Doctrine, no simple

Christian Has everything that he needs For that, everybody needs this guy And his special insights

I'm resisting the temptation For a side road here, so let's move on If I have

Left over time, I may return to it So let's grasp Paul's response Letter B is grasping

Paul's response How is it he deals with this? Well, it's not the same way he does With the Galatian error

In a nutshell, we see it in chapter 1 Verses 27 and 28

Chapter 1, Colossians 1 Verses 27 and 28 I love these verses

I could go on and on About these verses, but I will Forbear In verse 27,

Paul says the wonderful Truth of this revelation Of the riches of the glory of this mystery

This new covenant revelation Among the Gentiles Which is Christ in you

The hope of glory Christ in you, just by definition You You as a

Christian, you as a saint Whoever you are, I don't need to know Anything more about you Any special teaching you are, any special Strata you are, any special experience

You are, I just need to know Do you believe in Christ? Well, then Christ is in you And that's the hope of glory

And that's not even the big point The big point is verse 28 Whom we proclaim

We proclaim Christ And then he uses the Greek word pas Which means all

Four times in this one verse And that's actually key You can't translate it all every time in English But every and all, same

Greek word So all is four times I'll turn it off as I read it Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man

And teaching every man In all wisdom So that we may present every man

Complete in Christ And that in a nutshell is what he does in this letter He preaches

Christ to every man Preaching all the wisdom of God Which is in Christ So that every person might

Arrive at completion, at perfection At maturity in Christ The gospel and the truth of the gospel

And God's work of redemption in Christ Is for all of God's people As one people

So let's look Let me talk about that a little bit more I want to talk about that word all

I told you that was key He uses that word a lot And he uses it polemically as a response to the false teaching

He uses the word all, pas The Greek word 27 times in chapters 1 and 2

Now that's really quite a lot How many times does he use that word In the first 3 chapters of Ephesians Which he wrote at about the same time

Well in Ephesians he uses that word Just 21 times In 3 chapters

More writing Fewer uses He wasn't dealing with the same thing in Ephesus How about the book of Romans Let's say how many times has he used the word in the first 8 chapters of Romans He uses it just 31 times

In 8 chapters As opposed to 27 times In 2 chapters

So is this an emphasis Yes it is Because what Paul wants to show

Is that all of Christ And all of Christ's blessings Are for all of God's people

And they have all of it When they have Christ through the gospel Paul does sound that note

In Ephesians 1, 3 doesn't he Blessed be the God and Father Of our Lord Jesus Christ Who blessed us with What?

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places In Christ That is exactly the truth the

Colossians Need brought home And that's what he does in this expulsive manner So The essentials of his approach

I'm just going to single out 2 emphases Which Paul expresses at length In his letter to the

Colossians First is The real gospel for all saints Letter A, the real gospel

For all saints And just remember that in the view of the Apostle And the truth of the matter is

There's just 2 kinds of people There's saints and there's aints And that's just it

To him There aren't further stratifications So the real gospel for all saints

First of all the real gospel For all saints is One everywhere and for everyone

And he sounds that a number of times I'm just really having to go through quickly But chapter 1 verses 5 and 6

He's Noted their faith and their love And he says those are because of the hope

Laid up for you in heaven of which you Previously heard in the word of truth Now The false teacher has a reputation

Word but the gospel is A true word It's not empty deceptive, it's true

And they'd heard that word The gospel but he's got more to say Verse 6 which has come to you

Just as in all the world Also it is constantly bearing fruit And multiplying just as it has been doing

In you also since the day You heard and understood The grace of God in truth

Now that word understood Is the Greek word epigonosko Which is a deeper kind of Knowledge so remember this guy promises

A kind of knowledge Paul tells him you got the deepest kind of knowledge When you got the gospel

The gospel gave you that knowledge But more he's making the point That the gospel you got

It's the same gospel everybody got Everywhere and everywhere it goes It bears its fruit just like it's doing

Among you just like the fruit That I just mentioned faith hope And love because you heard

This one gospel there are not Multiple versions of the gospel And again he sounds that note in verse 23

Where he says don't depart from this faith Of the gospel which you Heard which is proclaimed in all creation

Under heaven there's just one gospel And that's the gospel you heard This is part of the

Cause of the writing of this letter Epaphras who founded the church Went to Paul and told him about the problem

And in part Paul wrote back just to confirm That the gospel They heard is the one gospel

There is and that comes out In the next point number two That this real gospel is exactly

What you were taught That's the word that goes in the blank Exactly what you were taught Says that in chapter one verse

Seven just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow Slave who is a faithful Servant don't don't breeze past That faithful you can trust him

You can rely on him He brought you the real gospel He brought you that one gospel when he

Taught you the gospel he taught You the gospel So the real gospel

For all saints is one It is one and is Exactly what they were already taught

They already have everything they need As we'll see and then his second Emphasis is the real

Christ And my we could spend a wonderful Time on that we'll just have to go through Quickly the real

Christ first Paul wants to say the real Christ is supreme Over all He says that in many places

But chapter one verse fifteen he Speaks of Christ who is the image of the Invisible God the firstborn

Of all creation right translate the Firstborn over all creation He has that position of firstborn

Of the the prominent one And he is that in relation To all creation so somebody

Wants to go on and on about angels Or about even elemental powers Perhaps well you know what

I want to tell you about the one who is Supreme over all Shouldn't we go straight to that one who is

Supreme over all whatever else There might be under him he's Over it firstborn over all

Creation verse sixteen For in him all things were created both In the heavens and on earth visible

And invisible and speaking to their Possible interest in spiritual beings Whether thrones or dominions

Or rulers or authorities All things have been created through Him oh boy oh boy

And for him So whatever they are they're really About him shouldn't

You be wouldn't The sound teaching be About him and then

Verse seventeen he is before all things And in him all things hold Together he is the

Sustainer of the universe he's the glue Of the universe the active living Providential powerful glue

Of the universe personally holding All things together so Spiritual forces elemental

Forces not a concern for the christian Because the christian Worships this one christ who is

Creator supreme sovereign Controller and sustainer Of all matter is not

An obsession to the christian the creator Of matter is christ Is all Secondly the real christ deals with All your real needs

The real christ deals With all your real needs number Two all your real needs

Well what is our real problem is Our real problem that we need to learn to worship like The angels do or more likely that we

Need to worship angels that that we Need to be very aware of all the powers That angelic beings have over our lives

So we need to either appease them Or worship them and there's just a Very brief suggestion that there's some

Obsession with angels in his teaching Is that my real need oh no That's not my real need paul

Gets to my real need in chapter one verse Twenty -one my real need is That i was formerly alienated and Enemies in mind and in evil

Deeds i was god's Enemy my problem wasn't Angels it was their creator it was god

That was my problem and the real christ Deals with that problem that Real need because verse twenty

Two now he reconciled you To whom to god In the body of his flesh

Through death in order to present You before him holy and Blameless and beyond reproach christ

Does this not a special Experience not a special Doctrine christ does

This verse twenty three if Indeed you continue in the faith Firmly grounded and steadfast

So here's the one of those Little subtle polemic notes don't Let anything take you away from christ

Because in christ and in christ Alone all our real needs Have been met and that's that Gospel is proclaimed in all creation

And he returns to that again in chapter Two verses thirteen and fifteen Now that he's broached specifically the

Subject of the false teaching And you being dead in your Transgressions and the uncircumcision

Of your flesh well that's kind Of a problem being dead Wouldn't you say kind of hard to move

On from that so you Got a nice story about a vision you Had that's going to help me with this being dead

Thing you have a diet Or a calendar that's going to help me not be as Dead as i am well actually

Only christ does that you being Dead he made you alive with him And why was i dead

I was dead because of my sin Does he have an answer for that Could a calendar do that could rules

Do that could worshipping angels and hearing Stories no no He graciously forgave you

Caris ominous Graciously forgave us all our Transgressions having wiped

Out the certificate Of death that's considered The certificate of debt

Consisting of decrees against us Which was hostile to us he Nailed it to the cross in So doing verse 15 he disarmed

The rulers and authorities displayed Them as defeated and triumphed Over them in the cross

In the cross the Cross is where god did everything That we needed done

In the work of christ On the cross so my Real problem is not angels it's not

Elemental forces it's not my Need of deeper secret knowledge My real problem is i'm a sinner who's

Dead and i need saving and i need life And jesus does That my real problem

Is god's judgment and Jesus delivers me from that You see so only christ

Deals with that and Then third the real christ is all And all for sorry all

In all for all saints He is all in all for All saints chapter 1

Verse 18 he is the head Of the body of the church and If i'm a saint i'm in that body

He's the head of the body of the church Who is the beginning The firstborn from the dead

So that he himself will come to have First place in everything and then Again paul proclaims him to Every man with all wisdom

No man is the head no man Is the life giver even no matter How many amusing diverting stories

He has christ is head And he's first over all And then the wonderful follow -up

Truth number four he's the Source of all fullness and blessings For all saints

His concern for those in Laodicea who haven't met him in Chapter 2 verse 2 is that their

Hearts may be encouraged having been held Together in love even unto All the wealth of the full assurance

Of understanding under the full Knowledge there's that word epignosis Again the full knowledge of god's

Mystery oh what's that Christ himself All of this

For all of his people Full knowledge in christ And chapter 2 verse 3

Christ in whom are hidden All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Not meaning that once you

Come into christ you guys start lurking Looking and getting secrets as to how to find these hidden Treasures meaning that they're hidden in Christ if you're outside of christ

You'll never find them philosophy Will never lead you to them introspection Will never help you find them the only

Place where they are they're hidden in christ You come to christ and they're all Yours paul is saying all

The treasures of wisdom and Knowledge and then this wonderful Pairing chapter 2

Verse 9 in christ All the fullness of deity Dwells bodily and we

Stop there because that's a good one for the job as Witnesses but we shouldn't stop there because It's a good one for the charismatic

To all the fullness dwells In christ but what is verse 2 say 10 say the next verse

And in him you have Been filled full just The verb of the same word The play roma is in him

I'm play road if i can Say that making greek people Wince but i'm i'm filled

Full in him i'm filled Full from his fullness his Fullness is for me it's for all

Of his people you think of john 1 16 From his fullness have we All received and grace upon Grace this is the fullness

That all christians have In christ and that the false teacher Would at best

Distract and deflect them from He doesn't hold fast to The head verse 19 says

So wisdom Life assurance all of this Is in christ for all his saints

And that man has none of these things To offer so Let her see our real focus

Needs to be in chapter 3 verse 16 having Laid this premise chapter 3 verse 16 paul can say let

The word of christ dwell in you richly now This is not a word just to individuals For our need for daily bible

Study although that's true but this Is a word to churches this is what churches Need at this point i always say

If some churches had the word of christ Dwell in them even a Little bit that'd be a real nice change

But what paul says is let The word of christ dwell in you what Richly All y 'all

Not the special Initiates but all y 'all Let the word of christ dwell

In you richly with all wisdom Teaching and admonishing one another You have this ministry to each other

In this one body you're not Chopped into halves and have nots If you have christ

With all the psalms and hymns And spiritual songs that's the same Thing jesus says in john 8 31 32

If you continue In my word then you are Truly my disciples and you'll

Know the truth and the truth will Set you free and then he Promises in john 14 through 16

That the holy spirit will bring The apostles his word that they will Inherently and infallibly lead

Them to teach the truth And so what is this new church Do when it's

Constituted in pentecost What's the thing that the church does Immediately after act 242

They devote themselves To the apostles Teaching that's the word

Of christ that's the word of christ And the church must let that Indwell them richly

So now if you just come to this Tour de force of him tearing down this Aberration chapter 2 verses 16 through 22

You see he's just he has laid the Premise of the fullness of christ And the fullness in christ for all

Believers and that's why he can just Lie light into this he can just Barrel into this briefly

But from the perspective of having laid down The fullness of god's provision In christ therefore no one said judge

You in food or drink what does that have to do With what christ has done for you he's Fulfilled all shadows and forms

And brought you to the reality And don't let verse 18 don't let Anyone keep defrauding you of your prize

Ruling you out christ has Ruled you in christ has Reconciled you to the father don't let

Some guy come in and Unreconcile you or disqualify You because your lack of this

Experience or that practice or this Badge of achievement Or possession and Verse 20 if you've died with christ to the

Elementary principles of the why As if you were living in the world do you submit Yourself to decrees

He doesn't even have to refute them He's already done that expulsively Why would you do this

Why would you do that given What you have in christ So why would you have any

Interest in this given the fullness Of god's provision in christ Given the fullness

Of christ given the The fullness of the gospel And of god's word what need

Do you have of this Why would you even want it or permit Anyone to impose it on you

Because christ's fullness And his full person And his full provision

Expels it You see it leaves no room For it that's his approach

So how could we adopt this In our approach to the charismatic error Well the galatian approach

Is appropriate and It has its use and it's the one That most people do use to show

How charismatic teaching is wrong that's absolutely Necessary and to speak Bitingly about the false

Teachers is absolutely necessary But then there's paul's approach To the galatians which is expulsive

Letter b god's provisions In christ are lavish and All satisfying and they

Leave no room for the false Teaching of the charismatics Who wherever you are in the scale

Of charismaticism you know And you know that there are many permutations Of it but wherever you are

The essence of charismaticism Necessarily divides Christians they believe that The scripture is not the complete revelation

Of god and so individuals Are getting little mumbles and little text messages From god individually

That well they're kind of garbled and they're not sure Could be last night's pizza or it could be a word from God and so since the bible

Doesn't tell you how to tell one from the other Well that's why they need these teachers and they need These seminars and they need these books

And you need tongues to show that you're Baptized with the holy spirit in some parts Of charismaticism well how do i get it

Nothing in the bible tells me how to do that There's a reason for that by the way But i digress Nothing in the bible tells me how to do that Then i need them to tell me how to do it

I need them to show me how to do it Because it's not in the bible you see And so here's

A christian here Here's a word from god he thinks And here's one who doesn't ever think

He hears a word from god Now they don't talk about this guy But what's he to conclude

He sees dad over there talking With cindy but dad never Comes over and talks to me individually

What does that mean about me I guess i'm not as in Well i heard there was a real

Great revival somewhere last week i better Listen up close so i can find out where the next One is next week and i can be there

And maybe i'll get lucky too Maybe this time the holy The holy outpour of blessing

Will land on me and to that we can Say to them oh no friend look let me tell You about all

That god has done in christ For all of Christ's people let me tell

You about the fullness of Wisdom and revelation that are to be found In christ let me tell you about the

Sufficiency of god's Outpouring of his heart In this perfect sufficient

Word of god and you Can have a hundred percent Of what god has to give

Anybody you can Have a hundred percent of that whoever You are simply by hearing

The gospel simply by Trusting the christ the gospel Presents and simply

By listening to the word of god So you're waiting in your Hopes for a text message the trouble is

You're overlooking the fact god Has already sent a text Message to all of us

And it has every word from God that we need So our response is

Not just that the distinctives of Charismaticism are wrong and harmful Though they are it isn't it

Is instead that their Distinctives their distinctive teaching Is unnecessary

It is in Fact impoverishing It is harmful

And it is Distracting all

Of us have all we need In christ His gospel

And his word Let us close in prayer Father we thank you for this your word

We thank you for this your christ We thank you for this your gospel We confess that christ is

All in all to us that he Is all over all that We want him to have first place

In our hearts we want him to have First place in our lives we Want his word to dwell richly

In our churches we pray That you'll grant that for your glory We also pray that you will break

The chains that Bind so many Well meaning but vulnerable

People who are locked in the dark dungeons Of false teaching That on them will shine the light

Of the glory of the face Of god in jesus christ our lord Revealed to us in the gospel

In your inerrant sufficient Word in jesus name Amen Well I hope your souls are being filled

And thrilled as mine is it was very Excellent we're going to take a 10 minute break And then we will resume again at 11 50 our lunch is going to be

A little bit late which just means that you're Going to be hungry for it when we get there 11 50 next session

All right will you please come in And find your seat As promised it's 11 50

And we're going to start with our last Session before lunch All right when john is done

I'm going to Step up and give some instructions For lunch our last session

Here before lunch has to do with the Personal testimony of one Who came out of the very movement

That we are critiquing so John Sampson will you please come and share with us I invite you to take

God's word and open to the book Of proverbs chapter 23 23rd chapter

Of the book Of proverbs It is a great joy

Great privilege to be Here and address this conference I thank the lord

For the opportunity I want to especially thank the makers Of the cessationist documentary

David Tim and Les as well as pastor Jim Osmond For the very kind Very kind and gracious invitation

To address you all it's a unique Privilege I bring you greetings from My home church in Phoenix Arizona area called

Kings church They're praying for you for me I received a question

From a friend of mine He asked would the Cessationist conference be

Live streamed And I said my guess is That you should catch

On early and get the live stream Early because after the first Couple of sessions and the foundation

Is laid It will cease It's really a privilege to be here

And what I'm about to do Is a departure from The norm which is to open up the text

Of scripture and go there and stay There and make application from it And I think though it will help

The conference To share something of my testimony My journey in And my journey out

Of the charismatic Community So let's go to the lord and pray

Gracious god we come before you We ask that the holy Spirit the spirit of truth would reign

In our midst And that you would lead us to your truth Show us the lord jesus

Show us him In fullness be glorified

In all that is said may You accomplish all your Desires And all your purposes

We pray in christ's name Amen Book of proverbs

Chapter 23 and verse 23 And ladies and gentlemen this is

The word of god By Truth and do

Not sell it By wisdom Instruction and Understanding the right of Proverbs is instructing

Us and he tells us by truth And do not sell It By the truth and sell

It not we're not Told the asking price of Truth we're not told

That it may seem very Affordable it may not It may seem

Out of reach it Might seem too expensive But that should not

Hinder us we are told By the truth Whatever the price

Whatever the price of truth No matter how much It costs whatever

The asking price you Buy it though it costs Relationships though It costs a marriage

Though it costs a Family though it costs A church though it

Costs you your life By the truth Don't sell it

Truth may be very expensive But so is the cost of error So is the cost of Lies so is

The cost of heresy And in fact it is far More costly in the end

Ladies and gentlemen by the truth And sell it not I did have a

Christian Upbringing my father Was a preacher at times He was a pastor he was

A street preacher He pastored a number of Different churches and yet I've begun to speak about it

Just in recent days he was also A wife beater Often I try to go

To sleep at night Hearing the screams of my mother In the next bedroom

I never heard him Apologize or repent And because Of that I think as a young Man a young boy

Didn't really have too much of an Interest in what he had to say I had no heartfelt

Interest in Christ I remember at age 8 Seeing my dad read his bible as he was

Preparing a sermon he left the room But he left his bible open And I just thought I'd read what he was

Studying I looked at the Passage and Couldn't make any sense of it at all and I made

An internal decision then and there That this wasn't for me Even at that age

I wanted to become a professional Soccer player I had no interest in Christ or the church

But at age 14 my dad actually Did ask me to go to a Massage a sermon

A church service where he knew The gospel would be preached It was actually a

Pentecostal church Which kind of surprised me Looking back it surprises

Me And in hearing the gospel It was as if the Lord Jesus stood off Stood out from the pages

Of scripture and he became a living reality To me I went into that meeting Not interested and I came out

Interested now I understand That the Holy Spirit was at work The invisible divine surgeon

Who took out my heart of stone And put in a heart of flesh What a divine miracle

And at that moment I wanted What I didn't want before I wanted Christ I knew that I could not stand before God And make the excuse of my dad as The reason

I could not come to him Or serve him I knew he was real One day I would stand before him

I knew it And I repented And I believed the gospel

I believe I was genuinely converted But I was immediately thrust Into that Pentecostal church

And then Not too long afterwards Into a charismatic church

Further south in England I grew up in Chester, England A Roman city And it was built in the 70s

That's the AD 70s Has a lot of history But I remember

After a few short weeks Being confronted by an older gentleman I still remember his name, John Lloyd And he had a ministry of helping people

Into the baptism of the Holy Spirit And for 20 minutes, maybe 25

It sounded and felt like An eternity to me He was praying over me

And instructing me that if I were to ask For the Holy Spirit I would not get Anything or anyone else

And so in asking for the Holy Spirit He then expected me to speak In a new tongue

And he was Jabbering some words and just telling me Say whatever comes to mind

And I thought to myself nothing is coming To mind except I want out of here And he

Kind of almost danced with a holy Jig when I mumbled A few words and it was just to get him off my back

He said that's it, that's it I said That's it That's it

Just continue in that new language And it will develop And I thought really

I just said that to get you off my back But I didn't say it out loud But I then developed

The language and I Was able then to speak in tongues At will and Understanding that the word tongues

Is kind of misleading It would have been better if The Translators of scripture had

Translated the word into English's languages They spoke in other languages But There we go

I was speaking in tongues and off I went Immediately I then

Within a few short months went To the south of England to Somerset And I attended a church

Where a certain gentleman Became very prominent in my life The name was Harry Greenwood I was so in awe of him

I saw him as my spiritual father In the Lord I got to know him as a friend, he had a home group

And he was regarded by many in England as the Kenneth E. Hagen Of England, he never made that Designation himself but He was revered in that world

In that way And I became his friend And just was in awe of his

Relationship with the Lord And I have nothing But good things to say about him

As a person Though now I reject many of the Doctrines he espoused

I was word of faith I was Charismatic I come in fact from a family

Where even outside of my mum and dad I had an uncle Kenneth Matthew Who was very prominent

As an Elim Pentecostal minister Very prominent I also had another uncle

Called Floyd, I had an uncle Ken And I had an uncle Floyd Floyd Agar And he was

Smith Wigglesworth's driver I don't think I ever told you that Justin So Even from that Quarter, Justin mentioned

Smith Wigglesworth last night and I'm thinking Yeah, he was influential In my extended family

And Floyd had much to say In terms of reverence For Smith Wigglesworth So all this was part of my

Heritage I was word of faith and charismatic I need to say this

All word of faith people Are charismatic Not all charismatics are

Word of faith And so I spoke in tongues And even though this was a very

Lengthy and forced Entrance into it I developed that prayer language

And I thought I had close intimacy with God The Holy Spirit Was helping me understand

The Bible and I was hearing From God Between my ears

I was reading the scripture One of the initial effects

Of being born again Was that before I had no interest In the Bible now I couldn't get enough

I was spending allowance money To get hold of cassette tapes Which ages me

To hear Teachers Teach the word of God I was told

God is speaking to you In your mind It comes across as thoughts in your mind

And it sounds like your own thinking Because it's a walk of faith Now I think

How do you discern the difference Between your own thinking and God speaking and I don't

Know if there's a genuine answer For that out there but it sounds like Your own thinking because the

Christian walk Is a faith walk Within A few months of being down South in Somerset, England I was exposed to the ministry

Of Kenneth E. Hagen and Kenneth Copeland if you're in the Movement those names

Are prominent although Kenneth Copeland is Kind of aging and Kenneth Hagen Has passed off the scene

But in Jargon we would say Copeland and Hagen Copenhagen I immediately

After I was converted fell a call to the Ministry and at age 16 didn't go the

Way that most thought I would which would be to pursue professional Soccer in England, football as it's

Called there just a way Of instruction there's a ball That's round and there's feet

That's used Just a thought Just a thought

But it's called soccer here And I felt called to the ministry And Before I was age 20

After going to the Kenneth Copeland Believers convention In Brighton In England I was heavy into This I then had a desire

To go to Raymer Bible Training Center in Broken Arrow Oklahoma Tulsa and I was all set to Go I was accepted to go

This was thrilling to me and yet My dad at the last Moment well within about three or four weeks

Found out that it wasn't residential That there was no Student housing and so I'd have to Get an apartment outside of the complex

And he in his training Found that the discussions You have outside of the lectures

Are just as informative As the lectures themselves and so He pulled the plug on it and I wasn't able to go to Raymer My heart sank and I had to settle

In my mind to go to a Ealing Pentecostal Bible College in England Seminaries here are called

Bible Colleges and theological Colleges over there And so I enrolled there thinking

I was letting the side down so to speak Except that all Of this was in the hand of God because Eighty percent of the

Lecturers believe it or not in that Environment were reformed At least in their

Soteriology their understanding of salvation They never walked me through why They never unveiled

The beautiful tulip to me They did not speak in those Terms but I understood they were

Reformed they believed in the Sovereignty of God in fact The dean of the college who was

Converted under my uncle Ken's ministry in his very living Room He would speak in tongues in the

Meeting and go to his home And read John Calvin's institutes put That together But that was the case

What it did was it instilled in Me an irreverence Or at least a respect

I'd say For reformed bible Teachers I at least knew they were Saved I at least knew

They were in the kingdom of God they had sound theology In many many ways and yet I was

Embracing what I would now call An over realized Eschatology An understanding that What will await us in The future was

Available to us now And that's why I would believe and Teach the message that God wants you well

I would Hound fellow Christians who would not hold that What is it about by his stripes

You were healed you don't understand That you've been blessed With every spiritual blessing in heavenly

Places have been blessed past tense You see what I'm doing I'm over realizing

What will take Place then and seeing it always as Now healing and abundance is available

Now healing is always God's will Well after Graduating I then became the associate

Minister of Harry Greenwood He referred To me as his young Timothy he was a massive

Influence and I lived In the same house and Traveled the world with him

He would often be speaking at very large Churches as well as small and He would ask me to speak for ten minutes

And then He would either correct the mistakes Or leave it alone

And preach he was the main minister of course But it was tremendous training And I was with him for nine months and He was preaching that healing and Health is available to all

Except that he died after nine months Of a heart attack at the Age of 54 and my

World fell in I had no idea what I would do I was still In my early twenties

I became a co -elder In a church in a place called Fleet in Hampshire not too far from London and my fellow elder

Was a year and a half I think older Than me and I was 22 So worked that one out

Elders 22 and 23 24 But After a few years

I had a desire To come to the states one of the Countries we had visited While I was with Harry was the

United States and I just had this love for the United States We had gone to the United States To India to Australia And New Zealand Me as his associate minister

And I had come back to the United States A number of churches had asked if I would come They were hoping

I'd improved But I came anyway And It was just a wonderful Connection I had with the

United States And Came out here eventually in 1992 With the purpose of starting a word of Faith church which

I did Starting from scratch I couldn't be more Involved in the word of faith

I was a pastor in it Within a few months of starting the church In 1993 in Phoenix I became a

TBN host TBN being the Trinity Broadcasting Network Christian Organization And that occurred

For about five years and so I was doing live television Shows and you would have normally three or Four guests and musical guests

And sometimes because It's a nature where They're not always true to their word

The fourth guest wouldn't show up and I Was told while a song was Going you're on Preach you've got 22 minutes

And you just In a live show just have to Not panic and think

What can I say for 22 Minutes and then you Get your Bible out and you

Go with the flow and you're Looking at the timer counting down 19 minutes 14 minutes

And you realize for the last one and a half Minutes you've got to go through this Ornate thing of saying that prayer partners

Are standing by call the number on The screen and say you've got to leave time for that And you Many people would panic but that Was my training in the charismatic realm

We understood be instant In season and out of Season it really meant

Be ready no matter what the heck is Going on that's Really what The case was then in 1998

Jan Crouch I think she Was having a bad hair day She had many of those

She fired all the hosts I don't think it was personal to me she Just alerted the

Station manager in Phoenix this Was a live broadcast twice a week a Tuesday and a Friday it was a repeated

At about midnight on those Days she just alerted the Station manager that basically

Everybody's fired and There was no thank you it was just You're fired and I think

I'm the only one in this room who was Fired by Jan Crouch I think It's kind of safe to say

That There we go I met some Very unusual people

In that environment as you might imagine Over that period of time there's A gentleman by the name of Andrew Who I invited many many times

To preach at the church I pastored He actually stayed in my home Many many times we had

A good friendship when Benny Hinn came to town I was There at the coliseum

In Phoenix on The platform Welcoming him I shook his

Hand I now wince At that but that was the Case I didn't imbibe

Every error of the word of faith I never imbibed the idea That Jesus died spiritually

That he was born again as a satanic Creation in hell I knew Better than that Thankfully The Holy Spirit protected me from At least that distortion

I didn't believe in the little god's Doctrine however I did Believe that the words we speak are

Like containers that death And life's in the power of the tongue And I was one who

Would expose that understanding Based on a false understanding And a wooden understanding of that text

Mark 11 23 That says you'll have whatever you say And you think

What is the attraction of that well the attraction Was if life wasn't going to Well you can

Co -operate with the laws of nature Out there and these Laws the way it was taught work for Everyone they'll work for the

Buddhist the atheist Anybody who understands Those laws just as gravity works

For everyone it Doesn't take into account well this Person's a Roman Catholic or This person's a

Buddhist Gravity's going to work a different way For them no there's certain laws out There and the Bible tells us those

Laws and certain people in other religions And other environments Have come up with this same understanding

The words we speak are Like creative forces That allow us to have

Seed time and harvest And when something bad Has happened in our lives it's the

Direct result of us speaking Certain things death and Life and not in the power of God So we were taught

But in the power of the tongue I still believe the verse

I don't believe the interpretation Of the verse Yeah so what happened

I ain't that Anymore you noticed And now a reformed Baptist Pastor and a

Committed cessationist What happened was In the year 2000

Now the church had grown to Between two and three hundred people It started from scratch just a fun

Story when we started We were believing God For revival and we

Rented a place called the Arizona Banquet Center it no longer exists It's now a

Gas station But we rented this place and on Thursday which was our midweek meeting

Counting's never been A good thing for me So midweek was Thursday That was our midweek meeting

And We put loads and loads of rows Of chairs out even though we'd only had

Eighteen on the Sunday Think about that Not very

Wise but We said we'd meet on Thursdays and we did and It came time for the meeting and I realized

Only the Samsons were there Samson family church Only Us Samsons the family name

Were there and we thought well do we go ahead The Phoenix Suns were in the playoffs It was 1993 they went all the way to the final

It was a great year I thought they did that every year But no And we said well

We'll go ahead and we're into the Third song and this one Gentleman walks in his name was

Ed Still remember him and he sat on the back row Of course And it came time for the announcements and rather Than announcing them

I walked up To him and said you're the only guy that doesn't know what's going On here you go here's the announcements And he sat on the back row and all

Day long I'd been praying and Pacing and praying in tongues Wanting God to show me what to preach

And what was on my mind was Repent for the kingdom Of heaven is at hand

The poor guy All I could do was look at him And he was there on the back

Row and so I looked at him and said Repentance means a turnaround Have you turned around What evidence is there

That you have turned around Poor guy it's like rent a sermon And so he was blasted for about 40 minutes after 40 minutes

I laid Down my weapons and closed And that's not really The funny part the funny part was afterwards

He came up and he said Pastor John I just have to say I really

Felt that that message Was for me well in the year 2000

I received a flyer In the mail from Ligonier Ministries about Dr.

Sproul who I'd seen His messages his VHS messages

On the holiness of God And was impacted by them I had respect for him but my

Heart sank when I saw what he Would be teaching when he came my Way he was coming to Scottsdale Arizona Which was pretty close and I Wanted to see him

I wanted to hear him Yet not on that subject Chosen by God This was the year 2000

And my thought my thought was this is A new millennium haven't we got over this This is an idea

Way past its sell by date But here he was Flying from Florida to Arizona Which is in European Terms like seven or eight nations

And languages To come to Scottsdale to talk about chosen By God and so I was in two minds whether I'd go

I thought I won't go I Will go I'd like to hear him and I There was this wrestling going on And another guy was saying he was

Going to go and within two hours Of the meeting he called to say he wasn't going And thought oh well

I'm not sure if I really want to go I ended up going But I sat on the back row

Because I thought the moment Dr. Sproul as much as I might Respect him the moment he starts

Talking about theologians and Dead guys I'm out of here If he can't show me what he's saying in the

Scriptures I'm not interested I wanted To hear Scripture say what he's saying or else

I'm out of here I didn't want to disrupt the meeting And so I sat on the The back row for that reason

And he went to the scripture He didn't go to the theologians he didn't Need to he went to Ephesians he went

To John's gospel chapter 6 and I remember it very very well but What brought me back this was a

Friday night And a Saturday morning meeting what brought Me back on the Saturday was he said we're going to Have a question and answer session and I thought

Really Wow that's when your wheels are going To fall off all we need

Is just a couple of good Scriptures that would negate all you're saying I see what you're saying but I've got

My scriptures I got my Scriptures John 3 16 2nd

Peter 3 9 Well I attended the question answer And as the session was about to Start Dr.

Sproul came Out all jovial I thought we're going to wipe The smile off your face And He said what's the first question then he said

No no no wait I think I can Prophesy What the first question will be

It's either going to be John 3 16 or 2nd Peter 3 9 And I'm thinking yeah and The host said how did you know that Because I've taught this

I know what comes up And what he did then was go to those Scriptures and I thought what's the point

Of going to these scriptures we know it Every Christian can quote this in their sleep Punch him at 2 in the morning

They still know what John 3 16 Says what are you going to show us That's all in my head

He went to The text And in 2 minutes He exposed

My traditions He said this is what we read into the text Often but if you notice

It doesn't actually say this it says that It says that all The believing ones will not have

This result but that result They'll have eternal life And not perish it does not say

Who will believe it does not Say who can believe that's something We read into the text

And if you could have had a camera on me You'd have seen me go as white As white can be because all

The blood was draining from my face Because I realized I was In trouble he exposed

My tradition he did that Also with 2nd Peter 3 9 God is not willing that any should perish

But all should come to repentance And I write about this In my first book 12 what about If it divine election is true

What about this what about that what about this Scripture He exposed my tradition

I was not Converted to his way of thinking On the spot in fact What I did because I thought

I owe it to myself To know the truth about this I ordered everything I could on my credit card

Of Dr. Sproul's material on this Subject and for 6 to 9 Months I studied this

And to my Great surprise they came out believing He was absolutely right And I was absolutely wrong

And that I had not only believed but A taught error Proverbs 23 verse 23

Rang in my ears By truth And do not sell it

After 9 months Of study I became reformed in my Soteriology soter is

The Greek word for to save so Everyone has a Doctrine of salvation

Even if you don't believe in Salvation that is your doctrine of salvation I want to be

Informed by the scripture to know is What is the biblical Doctrine of Salvation if I Now look back

Dr. Sproul Flew out from Florida came to Arizona And threw a large rock

Into my theological Pond he went Back to Florida and the ripple effects

Were taking place day after Day after day And I asked myself once I was understanding he was right

What else Could I be wrong about People I've been listening to They'd been reformed at the

Bible college but not Not what I wanted to be

I didn't get into this perhaps you Didn't get into your Christian life to be One thing other than A follower of Jesus But I found that Jesus Had taught these same doctrines

That some of the greats in church History who had overturned nations Under the power of God Had believed

So I was now reformed in my Understanding of salvation yet I Was still not wanting to Drop the charismatic emphasis and So I described myself

As reformed and charismatic I didn't want to grieve the Holy Spirit you see I didn't want to think that I Was grieving what the

Holy Spirit Was wanting to do in my life A phrase

I came up with Which I understand now is not Original to me was Don't throw the baby out with the

Bathwater Not that long ago Phil Johnson came out with a

Message on YouTube you can find it called Is there a baby in the charismatic Bathwater and he said

There's no baby at all I'd encourage you to Watch that Summoning up how did

I come out Two things helped bring me Out Hermeneutics Now he's not a

German soccer player Though he It sounds like he is Hermeneutics didn't he score against Hungary No no that's not him

Hermeneutics refers to of course The science of biblical interpretation One of those is

Context just as in Real estate there are three main Laws location location location

In hermeneutics though there is More to it certainly Three big laws are

Context context Context If I were to give you an analogy

Perhaps I'm writing to my Friend Justin and an email and I'm in New York And it's seven o 'clock at night and it's

Winter time And the electrical grid goes out so That everybody in New York is now

Without electricity and I Write a little line to Justin And I say everyone in New York is cold tonight

I've given you a Context for that sentence But what we tend to Do in the charismatic realm is

Isolate certain words And not see them in the context And so using that as an

Analogy it would be wrong For someone reading my Interchange with Justin to say this

John Sampson Says everybody In New York is cold

They don't like outsiders They hate visitors don't go there They're unfriendly look at The text look at the email exchange

Everyone in New York Is cold Because of context you realize that's

To be rejected as a true interpretation Because I was not speaking about Warmth and empathy but About physical

Temperature and warmth And everyone in New York Is cold because there's no

Heating available So it is in the realm of the charismatic Sector over time

I Realized that seeing verses in Their context meant Many of the doctrines

I Believed and espoused had to Go away they were not supported by the Biblical text when it comes to 1st

Corinthians 13 the tongues Of men and of angels if there's Not Speaking forth of the languages of men

It must be this angelic thing but if you Actually read 1st Corinthians 13 Paul is expressing hyperbole

Thing after thing after thing In that context Points us to That conclusion

So hermeneutics was big For anyone in Deception which we all

Tend to be prone Towards and it's only the Holy Spirit who keeps Us from deception

Or brings us out of it left to Ourselves we are blind to the things Of God or things are

Fuzzy to us but the Holy Spirit The spirit of truth will guide us into The truth of his word and it's the

Holy Spirit who gives us a thirst And a desire to know The truth and I would

Say now to my charismatic friends I've had Many conversations and they quote a Passage to me and they quote a verse to me and I Say could you take two minutes

With me and look at that verse in That in its context and the answer is No I don't need to so now

I look Back and think the desire To study this the desire To study the scripture that's

The Holy Spirit at work I can't even Take credit for that God gave Me a desire for truth that's why

I came out even that desire Was Holy Spirit born Second recognition

Helping me come out Was a doctrine called Sola Scriptura Which states that the

Bible alone is The word of God The Bible is not only necessary But it's sufficient

As the word of God Ladies and gentlemen Scripture is enough

It fully equips the man Of God for every task Of ministry and That's what the

Holy Spirit has Breathed out to let us know In 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17

Paul in Saying goodbye in a letter form To his son in the faith says

I'm going off the scene But scripture is all you need It equips you for the counseling

You do the evangelism You do the equipping Of the saints for the work of the ministry

Whatever the task of ministry is The word of God not only equips you It fully equips you

For everything you're going to face I'm not leaving you With Big Pete's email address

If you have some issues I'm not giving you his Residence address

You don't need Peter You need scripture Scripture alone Is all you need

Timothy And as the herald of the king Preached the word in season

And out of season That's the very next chapter And then he says I'm being poured out like a drink offering

I'm about to depart But I'm leaving you with the most important Message Scripture's enough

The Holy Spirit inspired bible Tells me that scripture is enough That's it

The bible alone has the authority To bind the conscience Luther at the

Diet of warmth in 1521 When he was Going to be sentenced

To death probably and he knew it Came out with that Immortal speech

Unless I am convinced by Sacred scripture or by evident reason I will not

I cannot I cannot and I will not Recant of anything For my conscience is held captive By the word of God and to act against Conscience is neither right

Nor safe here I stand I can do no other God help me Here I stand

I can do nothing God help me In German God help me

And an Understanding that scripture alone Has the authority to bind

The conscience when I realize that I realize this Nothing that had ever

Taken place between my Ears rises to the Level that it can bind the

Human conscience nothing I cannot say I have This word that I believe

Is from God and it is Binding upon you now as you hear it But I can

Say that about scripture When God speaks he speaks With all his authority

It's not like you He turns the volume down And the power down and On a particular

Tuesday he's functioning At 70 % capacity When God speaks

God Speaks I can Look back and think that though I had An unusual experience many

Many times and I thought I was hearing from God I could never say with 100 % Certainty I've just Heard from God but when

I read My Bible I'm Hearing from God and that's Jesus testimony in Matthew 22 in debating

With those religious people That were against him Matthew 22 verse 31 you read it

He said these words quoting the book of Exodus Have you not read what was

Spoken to you by God Have you Not read what was

Spoken to you by God And quoting the book of Exodus They were living centuries after The time of Exodus But in reading

Exodus Jesus view of scripture is this When you read Scripture God is now addressing

You personally Now Every time

You hear every time you Read God is addressing you And I realized

That was not true of what happened between My ears I could never say

What I think My thoughts are binding upon you I had a

View that the word of God was kind of dead Till the Holy Spirit came upon it The letter killeth

And the spirit giveth life Misapplication Of scripture once again

But the Bible itself said the word of God Is living and active and Sharper than any two -edged sword

We have a more Sure word and Peter was talking about The greatest experience anyone Could possibly experience

Hearing the audible voice of God The transfiguration of Christ On the mountain Only three human beings had had that experience

Yet he said the word of God is more Sure more certain Another thing that led me out

Let's go to Matthew chapter 10 Verse 1 Jesus gave authority to The twelve

Matthew 10 1 and he called to him His twelve disciples and gave them Authority over unclean spirits to cast

Them out and look at this Until every disease And every affliction

Say with me The word every Every disease and every

Affliction Christ sets no limitation On his apostles

He didn't say Heal them if the condition Isn't too severe No limits

Every affliction I can say after A couple of decades in the word of faith

In the charismatic scepter I never saw that Mentally disabled

Mentally handicapped People healed Jesus said every No never saw it

Severe physically Disabled And handicapped people

Never saw them healed And ladies and gentlemen I never

Saw it happen And it isn't happening Charismatics you need to be honest

It's not happening If there was even one Case of a severely

Mentally disabled person Healed in a charismatic meaning It would be national news

People around the world No matter where you find them in the poorest Areas still have cell phones show me

Someone coming to a meeting Like that Walking and leaping

And praising God as they did In the book of Acts Ladies and gentlemen it's not happening Apostles are not walking the earth

Doing what Jesus and his twelve did And they came back And were able to report that they were seeing

Incredible miracles Real Genuine miracles

Just concede this That apostles Like the twelve

Are not walking the earth now And you must conclude The sign gifts have ceased

The foundation was laid And the need for the Apostles ceased

Reading through Hebrews chapter 11 The great faith chapter it's ironic As you read through the

Chapter The people of God that believed That were commended for their faith

Endured good things and hard things You read from verse 32 To the end of the chapter

Many things good, many things good Many things good, many things hard Many things hard, many things hard They were sown in two

That's hard One was not told the others had more faith than you

Someone full of the Holy Spirit Will talk about Jesus More than they

Will talk about the Holy Spirit Because The Holy Spirit's ministry Is to glorify

Jesus So if someone is being Filled with the Holy Spirit They're not going to be talking about the

Holy Spirit Because the Holy Spirit Though he's God and is to be worshipped As the Father and the

Son is to be worshipped The Holy Spirit does not Desire to be sent to stage He wants to go and say

Would you just please lift up Jesus Once went to Australia And in the daytime saw

Sydney Opera House And in the daytime it was nice to look at I'm glad I saw it

But I saw other buildings around it And it was a little bit strange to me And didn't kind of understand

What the drawing was to go to See the Sydney Opera House But I came back later that same night

And saw Sydney Opera House At night time This time the flood lights

Had singled out the building of The Opera House showing its splendor And it was stunning

I was in awe What a building Jesus said of the

Holy Spirit He will glorify me That is the work of the Holy Spirit To emphasize

Not the building but the Lord Jesus His person and his work That he's true

God and true man And when the flood lights Do their job No one goes away talking about The flood lights

They talk about the building And someone full of the Holy Spirit Talks about Jesus I challenge you to find on YouTube A sermon from a

Sunday at King's Church In Phoenix where the gospel Is not presented I have heard charismatic leaders

Speak hundreds of times Not once has there been a biblical gospel

Proclaimed Tell me that's the Holy Spirit Sorry I can't go with you The Holy Spirit Will show us

Jesus And will anoint a man of God To proclaim the gospel Of Jesus Christ And even in this environment

I want to tell you The gospel of Jesus Christ That though we had been Treasonous rebels

Committing sin before a holy God God in his love for this world Sent his only son into the world

Who was born of a virgin Lived a sinless life And there on the cross Endured the anger

The wrath of God due to us for our sins He absorbed that wrath

He was punished in our place And he died on the cross for sinners And three days later

He rose again from the dead And is now at the place of all authority in this universe And he says

All authority has been given to me In heaven and on earth And anyone who repents and believes

This good news is set free From the kingdom of darkness And has eternal life forever

And ever and ever By the person and the work Of the Lord Jesus Christ alone

The Holy Spirit's in that That message Someone filled with the

Holy Spirit Will preach that message Often To the delight

Of the Holy Spirit Another reason I came out of The charismatic sector

Is because of Reading Ephesians chapter 2 You remember there that We're told that The big barrier between Jew and Gentile Has been

Torn down Notice it was a barrier that was first of all Erected by God God erected the barrier between Jews and Gentiles Now in Christ He was tearing it down and he has

Torn it down God In Christ has demolished

The wall Ephesians 2 .14 he has broken down In his flesh the dividing wall

Of hostility A reason I reject Charismatic doctrine

Is because charismatics Build the wall back up Between the haves

And the have nots They proclaim a two Tier Christian community

According to Dan Phillips The saints and the aints But that is in fact the exact opposite Of the true work

Of the Holy Spirit Selah Stop Pause Think about that Meditate and ponder

I've lost friends, I've lost a number of things Because I've come out of that But I thank

God For the deliverance I thank God that I'm seeing in Scripture The truth of his word

And that I know When I'm hearing from God When I'm reading my Bible That it equips me for finding the will of God It is sufficient for Guidance, it is sufficient for Counseling, it is sufficient for Every need of life and ministry

And it's the Holy Spirit who has affirmed that to me In his word, set free From trying to find the breadcrumbs

Of what is God leading me to Did I catch everything He's trying to tell me I'm on channel 32 watching

And I'm thinking, I'm seeing something about Seattle coffee, is God calling me to Seattle Oh, and the panic of Am I finding the will of God here

No, I've got Scripture, it tells me What the will of God is, and whether I go to Seattle, or Portland, or Belgium The will of God is my sanctification

Find a local church Read your Bible Love God And love people

And you're in the will of God I reject That which

I was raised in Because the Holy Spirit The Spirit of truth

Though I still have A long way to go, I have not Arrived, but I thank God I've left

May he always lead us Into his truth Let's pray

Father we thank you for the Lord Jesus We thank you for the tender Wonderful Ministry of the

Holy Spirit May he lead and guide us By the truth of his word

Into the truth That we would know it For truth by itself doesn't set us

Set us free, it's knowing The truth Continuing in the word

Then we'll be true disciples And we'll know the truth And the truth will set us free

Set your people Free, we pray In Christ's name

Amen Alright, well we've been fed well

Today on the truth and God's word And I'm very grateful for it It is lunchtime so we are going to I need a couple of instructions

You can make your way down both sides of the table I think Sarah is this correct?

From both ends of the table? Okay So we're going to start just on the wings here

And kind of work in from both ends of the table Down both sides of the table The tomato bisque is

Gluten free, dairy free Hopefully not flavor free Hope they left that in that So if you struggle with either of those

Then that is the soup for you today Let us pray and ask the Lord's blessing

On our time Our father we are so grateful For the good blessing of being able To be here and the fellowship around your word

To enjoy sound teaching To reflect upon these things We thank you for how you have filled our hearts

With love for you and for your word And we pray that you would continue to do so Thank you for the blessing and the abundance

Of the food that is set before us And the hands that have worked so diligently Behind the scenes to make this for us

We pray your blessing upon them Your blessing upon our fellowship around this table Thank you for your abundant provision