Do Cessationists Think That the Holy Spirit is Inactive in the World?

The Bible Bashed Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Warning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences. These audiences may include, but are not limited to, professing Christians who never read their

00:05

Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished

00:10

Netflix but don't know how to meal plan, and people who refer to their pets as fur babies. Viewer discretion is advised. People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

00:25

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

00:31

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

00:38

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

00:43

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

00:58

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, sits now to make intercession for us.

01:15

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come, in that final day, their house will stand.

01:27

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:33

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, do cessationists think the

01:40

Holy Spirit is inactive in the world? Now, before we get started on this topic,

01:46

Tim, what Bible verse do you have to kick us off with? Ephesians 1, 13 -14 says,

01:52

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the

01:59

Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

02:06

You know, this is a little bit off topic, right as we're getting started with the episode, barely a minute in, and I'm going rogue already.

02:17

But I just wanted to say, this is probably one of my personal, you know, like top 10 or top 20 verses in the

02:26

Bible, or passages in the Bible, just because it's a pretty encouraging thing to think about the

02:33

Holy Spirit. What's being said here, you know, essentially what's being said is, for those who have put their faith and trust in Christ, who have repented of their sins and called on the name of the

02:45

Lord in faith, they are guaranteed to not be put to shame on the last day.

02:50

They're guaranteed to receive eternal life because of what Christ has done on the cross, and the

02:56

Holy Spirit is an active part of that. You know, the passage that you're referencing is saying the

03:02

Holy Spirit is sealing us and acting as a deposit for the promised inheritance to come, essentially.

03:09

So for me, that's always been such an encouraging thing to think through, especially as I think on my own life and think about all the ways in which, you know, all the ways in which

03:17

I've sinned throughout my life, all the ways in which I've, you know, I've failed to live up to the standard, even as a

03:24

Christian, to the standard that God has set for us. It's such an encouraging thing to think the

03:30

Holy Spirit is acting as a, you know, a promise, essentially, that we will receive the inheritance of eternal life that Christ has won for us.

03:40

So that's a pretty encouraging thing for me to, you know, think through, especially like the

03:47

Holy Spirit is doing that, knowing that in other places in the Bible, you know, Christ has said that He's also holding us in His hands, and the

03:56

Father is also holding us in His hands. So it's like all three parts of the Trinity are working together to maintain our salvation for us, and it's not something that we can lose.

04:06

But the real reason we're talking about this today, the real reason we're talking about the

04:12

Holy Spirit and what does the Holy Spirit do, and reading a passage like that that sort of gives us a bit of insight into what the

04:20

Holy Spirit is doing, is mainly in response to a post that was made on Twitter, you know,

04:27

I guess this last week, from Mark Driscoll also talking about the Holy Spirit.

04:34

And essentially he put, I'm going to read this tweet in a second, but it's essentially a tweet trying to, you know, trying to expose the, you know, the failure on cessationists part.

04:48

He does this, he's done this for years, where he makes these straw man statements about cessationists that,

04:55

I mean, you just wonder if he even understands what cessationism actually is. Right, right. I mean, this tweet is very, very funny, because, you know, he is trying to prove like, hey, you guys got it wrong.

05:07

But then if you just read what he says, it's like, I don't think, we are obviously not having the same conversation right now.

05:15

But I'll read this tweet from Mark Driscoll. He said, Cessationism would have you believe that Satan is still supernaturally active in the world, but the

05:26

Holy Spirit is not. That's hopeless Christianity. Right.

05:31

So, Tim, you know, what's your sort of immediate knee jerk response to someone making a claim like that?

05:40

I mean, yeah, it's just a ludicrous claim to make. I mean, it's absurd. I mean, so this is one of the things that Driscoll does on a regular basis, is that he'll basically caricature the cessationist position.

05:55

And basically what he's doing is he's saying that if the cessationists, if cessationists do not believe in speaking in tongues or personal, private, subjectively interpreted revelation.

06:09

So if cessationists believe the Bible is complete, that God's still not giving words to the

06:16

Holy Spirit. So if they basically disagree with the charismatic on those two points, that there's no spiritual benefit in gibberish, like speaking gibberish and calling that the gift of tongues.

06:28

If you say, hey, the gift of tongues has fulfilled its function and God's no longer giving revelation, then we must be people who think that the

06:36

Holy Spirit is basically doing nothing anymore. So all that exposes is that he has no doctrine of the

06:43

Holy Spirit. So he has no pneumatology beyond just the Holy Spirit doing crazy, remarkable things.

06:48

Right. So giving new revelation or, you know, helping believers speak in gibberish for some unknown reason.

06:54

So that's basically the extent of his pneumatology. Essentially, the Holy Spirit only helps us do sign gifts and nothing else.

07:03

Right, right. And that's what's so absurd about it. So that's where, you know, he's just exposing his lack of biblical pneumatology at that point.

07:11

So, okay. Like, we understand that, you know, that's what he's saying. Now, is that true?

07:20

Is there like a, in order to be a cessationist, you have to believe that the Holy Spirit is inactive.

07:27

And not only is the Holy Spirit inactive, but essentially Satan is more powerful than the

07:34

Holy Spirit currently. Yeah, it's just absurd. It's absurd. I mean, the

07:39

Holy Spirit has so many different roles and, you know, it would do Mark Driscoll well just to put some thought into what some of those roles are beyond, you know, the role of speaking in tongues and giving new revelations.

07:53

So beyond that role, I mean, obviously, the Holy Spirit has a lot of functions in the life of the believer in general.

08:00

So the Holy Spirit is sent into the world, Jesus says, to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment.

08:06

So every time you feel conviction of sin, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. So the

08:14

Holy Spirit gives gifts to men. So the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to men. So, you know, the

08:20

Holy Spirit has uniquely equipped, like spiritual gifts, the purpose of spiritual gifts is that the body may minister to itself and build itself up and edify one another.

08:29

And so what Mark Driscoll is asking you to believe at that point, apparently is the Holy Spirit is doing nothing.

08:35

We don't have any, that the only spiritual gifts that the, like the Spirit will give to believers are the ability to speak in gibberish and give fellow believers like new personal, private, subjective revelation, or something along those lines.

08:48

So basically he just has no concept of what a spiritual gift actually is because spiritual gift is given to edify the body.

08:55

And there's a variety of ways in which we have gifts, you know, that, that, I mean, there's people who like you edify the body by knowing how to uniquely, like there's people who've been given like the ability to help comfort people who are going through certain trials.

09:13

So, you know, second Corinthians one talks about like blessed be the God and father of all comfort who comforts us. And when we are in any affliction in Christ, so that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfortable, which we received, you know?

09:24

So like the Holy Spirit is given to us to, you know, help us to edify one another, to build one another up, to, you know, encourage.

09:31

So we admonish one another, re -exhort one another, re -correct one another, re -rebuke one another. God's given us all unique talents, abilities to minister to, you know, the body in a wide variety of ways.

09:42

So you have spiritual gifts are given to believers. The verse we read at the beginning, the Holy Spirit is the seal.

09:49

He seals us, you know, he's the seal of our salvation, guarantee of our inheritance. I mean, the only way we're able to persevere in the

09:55

Christian life is if we're given the Holy Spirit who has come to indwell us and to, you know, he's, you know, the father, the son, the

10:05

Holy Spirit, they're all working at working together. Like it's a Trinitarian act to secure our salvation, but the spirit plays a role within that.

10:13

So the spirit is convicting us, he's, you know, part of this Trinitarian role of securing our salvation.

10:20

The Holy Spirit regenerates us. So the only reason why we're saved as Christians is because the Holy Spirit has regenerated our hearts.

10:27

He's progressively conforming us to God's will, right?

10:34

So in that way, let's see. Let me see if I can figure out the verse

10:40

I'm thinking about along those lines. So if Christ is in you, even though the body is subject to death because it's then the spirit gives life because of righteousness.

10:51

And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal body who lives within you.

10:58

So he, he gives us life. God's began a good work in us. He's going to be faithful to complete that work.

11:04

He's producing fruit. You know, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, self -control.

11:10

So the Holy Spirit is working within us in a wide variety of ways, fundamentally to conform us into the image of God.

11:17

So to save us, like regenerate us, conform us into God's image. One day, like he's, we're going to be finally sanctified and perfected by the work of Holy Spirit.

11:25

The Holy Spirit has all sorts of works. He helps us to minister to the body. He intercedes for us. Like when we don't know how to pray for ourself as we ought,

11:34

Holy Spirit has a wide variety of roles. And when Mark Driscoll says something like that, he just is reflecting an ignorance of what the

11:40

Holy Spirit's roles actually are. I get all that, but is that as cool as when

11:47

I go, God, God, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, blah, blah, blah. I mean, no, to me,

11:56

I mean, you look like a dork when you're doing that. I felt kind of stupid doing it.

12:02

Yeah. Yeah. Especially cause there wasn't even interpreter. Yep. Yep. So, I mean, if you want to look like an idiot, then just, you know, roll on the ground and, you know, speak gibberish and do all that kind of stuff.

12:14

So, I mean, I mean, you do you, right. But I mean, then that's kind of what's happening is like,

12:20

Jesus says like a foolish and perverse generation seeks after science. And you have people who are basically bored with the ordinary work of the

12:28

Holy Spirit and fixated on just like the supernatural, the remarkable. And so like in the minds of people like that, like all the ordinary means to which

12:37

God uses to conform us to their image. They're not really all that interested. It's like when Mark Driscoll says things like that, you know, that he's like preoccupied with supernatural kind of stuff.

12:47

Like this stuff is supposed to be impressive. This stuff is supposed to be, you know, extraordinary or whatever. And he's like, despise the ordinary, but I mean, like a mature

12:55

Christian, like a mature Christian is going to be an individual who wants to be Holy. Right. Like, and that's what

13:02

God, you know, God says like, you know, he, for those who love him, God works all things according to the good, right?

13:09

God works all things according to good, to those who loved him, to those who were called according to his name. And the next verse says, for those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

13:18

God has an agenda for our lives. And that agenda is to make us more like him. And the way he makes us more like him is by giving us the scripture.

13:28

So we can know what his actual will is. And then giving us the Holy spirit who will convict us when we violate his will and produce in us the fruit of righteousness in that way.

13:38

And so what you have is you have a bunch of people who are just, you know, preoccupied with, you know, teacher, show us a sign or something.

13:45

Right. And, and it feels like, I mean, that sort of mentality is really concerning because it,

13:52

I think ultimately what it's doing is it, you're really exposing yourself more than you probably think you are when you say things like that, because even, even just calling those things, you know, ordinary is like, is like,

14:09

I think pretty ignorant to what's actually going on. Right. So, so like, you know,

14:15

Hey, saying, you know, Hey, like the Holy spirit is sealing us for the promised inheritance to come as, as a guarantee.

14:24

You know, I don't think you understand, but you have no right at all to ever claim something like that.

14:33

And God has done it on your behalf. When we say that the Holy spirit is regenerating us to new life so that we can be safe.

14:41

We hear the gospel and put our faith and trust in Christ and what he's, he's done on the cross.

14:46

Like you're talking about literal dead people, literally coming to life in a spirit, like in the spiritual sense.

14:55

Right. Right. And it's like, those are not ordinary things. Those do not happen. Like those don't happen every day without God's intervention in some way, like apart from God doing something for us, none of that ever happens.

15:10

And so for someone to come along and say, Hey, that's, that's pretty boring. You know, like I would, I would rather see someone,

15:16

I would rather see someone speak in tongues than, you know, and if, and if the

15:22

Holy spirit's not doing that, then they must not be doing anything essentially. Like you're just exposing that, like you really don't have any sort of genuine appreciation for what

15:32

God is doing to save people. Right. Well, that's, so part of this goes hand in hand with his rejection of Calvinism.

15:41

So he's, you know, so on the one hand he's rejecting Cal, like he's rejecting cessationism.

15:47

And then that goes hand in hand with his rejection of Calvinism. And so he, you know, he'll make the same kind of stupid tweets about, you know,

15:54

Calvinism being dumb and all that too, you know, from time to time. And so, but then if you, you imagine what it's like in the

16:01

Arminian world, you know, often Arminian, Arminianism, and, you know, the charismatic stuff kind of goes hand in hand a little bit in different ways.

16:11

But, but like you, you imagine like, so in an Arminian kind of framework where you're rejecting

16:16

Calvinism, you're rejecting the sovereignty of God and salvation, then, you know, basically a lot of the main roles of the

16:22

Holy spirit, you've basically taken away. Like meaning like, so like if I, if I, if I come to, um, salvation by a libertarian act of my own free will.

16:37

Right. So like I can choose to accept God or I can choose to reject him. Like nothing like his happening supernatural behind the scenes to change my heart of stone, like regenerate me, give me a heart of flesh.

16:48

If none of that's happening behind the scenes, then this is just all about a volitional act of my will.

16:53

All right. So you get rid of the Holy spirit's role of regeneration. Then I'm basically just kind of accepting

16:59

Christ on my own. And then after that, if you're getting rid of the role of the Holy spirit in terms of sanctification, meaning

17:04

I can choose every day to obey God or not obey God without the Holy spirit whatsoever. Right. So you're getting rid of his role of, uh, you know, um, regeneration.

17:15

You're getting rid of his role of sanctification. And then if you're getting rid of his role of like, you're like, he's sealing us.

17:22

Right. So he's causing us to persevere. He's, he's actively sanctifying us and conforming.

17:27

It's all just about, I can fall away from the faith. I want, I don't have to fall away from the faith. If I want that,

17:33

I don't know if Mark Driscoll holds that like in terms of, um, you can lose your salvation for him.

17:38

It might just be, God declares you're not guilty and then he'll never take it away. Just no matter what you do, you have no responsibility to persevere at that point, but you get rid of all that.

17:46

Then like what you're doing is you have, like the only thing it seems like it's left to him and his mind is just like cool tricks.

17:55

Yeah. Yeah. Because you've just like removed all of his role in like the entirety of sanctification in that way.

18:03

And then, you know, I mean, obviously the Holy spirit was sent by God to, um, to basically, um, help, you know, the apostles produce the scriptures.

18:16

Uh, so beyond that, you know, I think Mark Driscoll would say, yeah, he did that, but he doesn't have anything to do with, you know, justification, sanctification, regeneration, you know, perseverance, uh, any of that.

18:29

So then you're just wondering, well, what does he do at that point? Then he, like he, the only thing left in his mind is just kind of the tricks, so to speak.

18:37

Yeah. Like what it like, you know, if you were to read that passage from Ephesians, what does that passage even mean anymore?

18:45

these, like, you know, you're not, if, if the Holy spirit is not active in this world, you know, if you claim that he's not helping us to speak in tongues and, and the other sign gifts, what is

18:58

Ephesians? What is, uh, is that Ephesians one? Is that what it was? Yeah. Ephesians one. Yeah. Ephesians.

19:04

What is Ephesians? One. What does Ephesians one even mean? Well, there are many as are not very good at like explaining what any of the

19:12

Calvinist versus quote unquote mean the Calvinist versus the Calvinist TM trademark.

19:18

They're not good at explaining what they mean. Like all they can do is explain what they don't mean, you know?

19:24

So like that, they can't, they, I mean, this is, um, James white had a, you know, debate on Romans nine,

19:32

I think with a latent flowers or whatever. And you're James, where it was constantly commenting on him, expecting latent flowers to actually exegete the passage.

19:41

And then all he did was just disagree with it and talk about other passages, which

19:47

I mean, you know, you, you know, that's what people do. Like commonly that's, you know, that's what they actually do.

19:55

Right. That you would think, okay, we're going to have a debate. Maybe it would go different, but like, that's all I can do really. I disagree.

20:01

No, my, the majority of my experience in life talking about what, I mean, not, not just a wide variety of subjects with people and, and, you know, talking about scripture is most of them just telling me, no, it doesn't mean that, you know, now, now that's not to say every single person there have been people who have tried to, you know, say, well, it doesn't mean that it actually means this instead, you know?

20:28

So it's not like every single person has been that way, but the vast majority of them have just been a, no, it doesn't mean that.

20:38

And now I'm angry at you for even suggesting that it means that, and I'm, you know, I'm not going to give you any alternative to think about, you know?

20:46

And so. We have a troll. Yeah. That comments on our Twitter post with his authoritative.

20:52

I disagree. Kind of statement. Okay. Yeah.

20:59

So, you know, you make a claim and then he'll, he'll show up to comment. Yeah. It doesn't mean that.

21:06

It does it. It doesn't mean that. Good. Yeah. Yeah.

21:12

It's just like, okay. Thanks for that. You know? But yeah, I mean, it is a pro trip pro tip.

21:19

You know, if, if someone is not able to explain the actual meaning of the passage to you, their disagreement with your interpretation, you shouldn't really take that very seriously.

21:29

I mean, they're just playing the role of Satan at that point and saying, did God really say, but so I think, you know, Mark Driscoll, his rejection of Calvinism is going hand in hand with his embrace of continuationism or rejection of cessationism.

21:42

And so basically like, like all the roles of the Holy spirit that are tied to like God's work in salvation, you know, whether you're talking about justification, sanctification, you know, whatever, like all of his roles, glorification, salvation, all that, like the

21:58

Holy spirit is not doing any of that. And so then he's left with just like a very limited understanding of what the

22:05

Holy spirit is actually doing in that way. And then all that. Extremely limited, like totally anemic understanding of the

22:12

Holy spirit. So then you have to like for him, then it's just like, well, you have to, he must do some tricks or something.

22:18

Let's do some magic tricks. Yeah. Some parlor tricks, man. Show that you're meaningful.

22:24

Right? Like what, like Holy spirit, like, what do you do here? What is it exactly that you do here?

22:31

You know? So he's trying to give him a job. He's trying to empower. He feels like the Holy spirit has been disenfranchised and, you know, he's just gotta, you know, find something for him to do now.

22:40

And so the only thing he can do is just help us to speak gibberish and apparently give us a personal private new revelation right now.

22:49

I mean, personally, like that sort of understanding of the Holy spirit, that's the one that sounds hopeless to me.

22:58

Not, not the, you know, like, Hey, the Holy spirit doesn't help us speak in tongues anymore.

23:03

You know, the whole, the Holy spirit's not revealing new revelation to us anymore.

23:09

That's all, that's all done. We don't need that anymore. Yeah. That, that doesn't seem hopeless to me.

23:15

What seems hopeless is the one that says the only thing the Holy spirit does now is, you know, basically like the sign gifts and that's it, you know, and it's probably not good for me to call them cheap parlor tricks.

23:28

it is. It's fine. Well, you know, I just think because like they did have a purpose that was meaningful because God used them for a specific purpose.

23:38

I know, but I don't want it to be, I don't want to belittle the sign gifts just because they're not that gifts.

23:43

But then, but then like today, like there's, there's no, there's no need for any of that.

23:49

We don't need any of that. So like to try and force that on the Holy spirit because you don't understand what the

23:57

Holy spirit actually does. That seems like the, like if that's all he does now, that's all he does. Nothing else.

24:03

That's the one that seems hopeless to me. Yeah. Yeah. I think the difference is urging to me. Yeah. I think the difference though is that like when, you know, the charismatic are speaking in their gibberish basically like that is isn't actually the gift of tongues,

24:21

So it's like a cheap knockoff, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's not so like the gift of tongues was actually the gift of languages to where they were speaking actual human languages that could be heard by people.

24:33

And what you, in like languages have like, like meaning.

24:38

So like if you walk through acts, one of the things you're going to find is like, there's, you know, devout Jews from all over, you know, the world essentially at that time.

24:46

And they're each, each one of them are listening to them. Listen to people speak in their own language.

24:53

And so what's happening is they're actually speaking like human languages at that point. Right. And they're not speaking like gibberish.

25:01

So it's, it wasn't like the miracle was, it's not the Gaga, Google, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to buy a

25:07

Honda. It wasn't, it wasn't like, you know,

25:12

Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, like, so what's happening is when like linguistics, when linguists have come along and analyzed like the charismatic gibberish or whatever, it bears like no features of actual, of how actual human languages actually work.

25:28

Okay. Because, I mean, it's just like the way human languages work. You, you don't have like a repetition of the same syllables over and over and over again.

25:38

Right. So like, if you say like, you know, ah, la la la la la ho, you know, whatever, like that doesn't have any like linguistic significance to it.

25:50

Well, maybe they're speaking in angelic tongues. All right.

25:55

Well, that's the claim that's being made. But then if you think about how that would, what I'm trying to say is like, when in the first century, you know, it would have been as simple as, you know,

26:06

Yokiro Taco Bell, right? They were talking about Taco Bell back then?

26:14

If I say that, you know what I said, because I'm speaking an actual language.

26:23

So if I were to say, yo quiero Taco Bell, you know what

26:28

I said, and a Mexican would know what I say, but it sounds like a language, do you get what I mean?

26:34

Because it actually is a language, like it is a language I'm speaking. It's not going to sound like gibberish.

26:40

And so when you're making fun of, like, the point is when you're making, when you're saying cheap parlor trips, what's happening is like, that's just not what was happening.

26:48

You didn't have a bunch of people like speaking gibberish. You had them speaking actual languages. And you know, so then like what, like, so functionally what, what they're doing is a cheap knockoff.

26:59

It's not even like, it's not even that the Holy Spirit doesn't do that anymore. It's the Holy Spirit never did that, period.

27:06

If that makes sense. Yeah. Talking about like what, what charismatic people do now, it's basically a distortion of what was actually happening, you know, in the

27:17

New Testament, in the New Testament. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, like first Corinthians 10, our first Corinthians 14, 10 says this of tongues.

27:26

It says there's doubtless many different languages in the world and none of them is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of a language,

27:33

I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker is a foreigner to me. So with yourself, since you are eager for manifestations of the

27:42

Spirit, strive to excel when building up in the church. Right. So like the idea there is like tongues was a language.

27:50

It was a human, I guess it, it was the supernatural gift to speak a language, like a human language you don't know that other people can hear.

27:58

That's why you need like an interpreter, right? So that's what the whole thing actually is. And so what's happening is the charismatic movement basically has gotten in their mind that the gift of tongues was one person speaking gibberish and another people hearing it as language when, when it, what, what it actually was, was one person speaking a language they didn't know and another person hearing it as a real language that they didn't know.

28:23

Right. Right. Um, so we spent, we spent a lot of time talking, you know, addressing

28:29

Driscoll's tweet, um, you know, talking about why it's ridiculous, um, and honestly why it's a, why it's a hopeless understanding of the

28:39

Holy Spirit anyway, why it totally minimizes everything that the Holy Spirit actually does.

28:45

Um, so, so then let's, let's take some time to explain why, why are we saying that this stuff is over when it comes to the, the actual assigned gifts, like the things that charismatics would claim that the

29:00

Holy Spirit is actually doing today? Uh, why do we say that those things are finished?

29:05

All right. So when you think about like the sign gifts being finished, um, this is really, it's not really that difficult of a concept to grasp, but then it's like, it's something that the charismatic seemed to have a great, um, difficulty trying, trying to understand how sign gifts actually work.

29:22

Uh, so like, for instance, uh, um, when Moses was going to speak to Pharaoh, he's, he's, he looks to God and he says, well, how, how is

29:30

Pharaoh going to know that you sent me? Right. So God gave him certain signs to perform.

29:36

So God gave him certain signs to perform. One of those signs was like a leprous hand. He, you know, he put his hand under his robe and bring it out and it's leprous, uh, the ability to, um, you know, turn his staff into a serpent, uh, you know, the ability to turn water into blood.

29:52

Those were signs that were given to Moses. Now those are gifts, right? They're signed gifts.

29:57

Right. Yeah. So you think about how that works. No one is arguing for the continual, like the continuation of all the signed gifts in the

30:07

Bible. Right. So meaning like you don't have, um, like the way that the continuationist logic works is if there was a gift given, it must be given throughout all ages or whatever.

30:22

But no one has ever, I don't see any charismatics performing the leprous hand. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be scared to, or the serpent staff.

30:29

Right. Right. Or the, so in that way they can't, they know they can't turn water into blood, leprous hand.

30:36

Right. But those are gifts, like they're signed gifts. So, but then like, that tells you something about like the purpose of those gifts.

30:42

Right. So like that, like those gifts that were given to Moses had a purpose to validate

30:47

Moses as God's authoritative representative to Pharaoh. So they had a particular function that they were given in that moment to validate the messenger of God to say,

31:00

Hey, this man is speaking authoritatively the words of God. You should listen to him. So Paul talks about like, you know, him being established as God's messenger as well.

31:09

So Samuel, like you look through the Old Testament, Samuel was established as a prophet of God that, you know, none of his words fell to, fell to the ground.

31:17

Paul, you know, he, he says, I performed the signs of an apostle among you with great patience. Right. So like, like Paul, God was doing extraordinarily extraordinary miracles through Paul such that, you know, even his handkerchiefs or whatever would heal people during, you know, him being established as God's messenger.

31:36

So like, there's like God's gave, gave signs, right, to, that were intended to establish his messengers as speaking for him.

31:44

So of his, you know, his disciples, basically he gave them power, power over unclean spirits and, you know, authority over unclean spirit and power to heal every manner of disease.

31:57

And in that way that establishes them as like one of his messengers, essentially. So you think about that.

32:03

God gave revel, like God's, God spoke, he gave revelation to certain messengers.

32:09

So we're talking about like the gift of prophecy in general, God had a revelation that he was going to give to man.

32:15

And that revelation was established through signs and wonders and miraculous giftings, but he didn't give everyone those signs.

32:25

Okay. Right. The reason why he didn't give everyone those signs is because everyone wasn't his messenger who was speaking authoritative proclamations in his name.

32:35

So in fact, there were, there were like very strict penalties for someone who pretended to be a messenger, right?

32:43

Right. So in the old Testament, like if you have like a one strike and you're out kind of policy. So if a prophet gives a word.

32:50

Yeah, baseball hadn't been invented yet. So they were just on the one strike policy, not the three strike, right?

32:56

Right, right. If a prophet presumes to speak a name, a word in the name of the Lord that does not come to pass, you're to kill him because God takes his word that seriously.

33:06

Like you get a one strike and you're out kind of policy. And then if a prophet makes a true sign and wonder, because there are false prophets in the world, a true sign and wonder, and there are demons, there are spiritual powers, and he teaches you rebellion against God, you still to put him to death.

33:22

So like the issue is God takes his word very seriously. People, like there's a natural question that people are to have.

33:32

So if God gives, like speaks through human beings, like the question they might ask is, well, how do we know like whether or not this is coming from God or this is just, you're high on drugs and have a, you know.

33:46

Right. An ego. So you have a one strike and you're out policy.

33:51

That's the way it actually works. And so God would give signs to people to perform in order to let people know when they're speaking for him in that way.

34:02

So, I mean, that's how the sign gifts actually work. Again, that's where, you know, when you're thinking about things along these lines, these sign gifts have certain functions in that way.

34:12

And so no one expects the leper's hand, serpent staff, water to blood to be continually binding and all along all ages while taking a step back that, you know, tongues was assigned also.

34:25

And no one, no one should expect that tongues should have continual relevance throughout the church age because it's accomplished its functions.

34:34

I haven't seen many people, you know, trying to call down she bears on people. Well, that's right.

34:41

That would be a new one. All right. So now you think about with something like with tongues, like what, like in what way was it assigned?

34:48

And this is why people don't know really what to do with it because they don't know that it's supposed to be assigned.

34:53

Okay. So, you know, Paul's talking about this gift of tongues in first Corinthians 14, and I'll just read a little bit and try to explain why tongues function as a sign.

35:04

Okay. So Paul says, nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind.

35:10

So five words, that's a sentence, right? Yeah. That conveys certain meaning. I'd rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10 ,000 words, right?

35:21

So that's the Greek word myriad, like the biggest word in the Greek language, the biggest number in the Greek language than myriad words in a foreign language, a tongue, a foreign language, meaning like it's better to speak like it's better to speak five words that people can understand than to speak words in a foreign language.

35:43

I mean, everyone knows this. So I could just make a statement to say, I believe the

35:48

Bible. That's one sentence. Everyone knows what I said, but if I were to speak Hebrew or something,

35:55

I can keep on going, but no one knows what

36:08

I just said. That wasn't helpful for me at all. But the longer I go on, the more annoying it gets, right?

36:15

Right. Yeah. It just gets more annoying and more annoying and more annoying. No one understood anything that just happened, right?

36:23

I mean, it's kind of cool at first, and then it's like, oh, you're still going. Shut up, right?

36:30

All right. So verse 20. Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature.

36:37

And the law is written by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners. I will speak to these people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the

36:44

Lord. So basically, they're preoccupied. They're fascinated with this gift of tongues. They want to keep on, like, you know, they're trying to mimic it, like the way the pagans did at the time by doing the gibberish and all that.

36:56

But Paul's saying, don't be childish, right? So don't be childish. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature.

37:03

So don't be childish. Like meaning, like getting a bunch of you together, speaking a bunch of gibberish that no one can understand.

37:10

That's not doing anything for anyone. Right. Right. So now he says, don't be children in your thinking.

37:17

Now, in the law, it was written by people of strange tongues and the lips of foreigners, right?

37:23

So in the law is written by people of like foreign languages, right? By lips of foreigners,

37:29

I will speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. He says, thus, like, so, you know, the law talks about tongues are going to come, right?

37:37

People are going to speak in foreign languages. That's what happened at Pentecost, where everyone heard them speaking in their own language, the glories of God.

37:44

Why did that happen? Right? It didn't happen to be a parlor trick, right? Why did it happen? It says, he says, thus, tongues are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers.

37:54

Well, prophecy is a sign, not for unbelievers, but for believers. So his point there is just to say, like in the law, it predicted by people of strange tongues,

38:04

I will speak to the Jews and they will not listen to me. So what Pentecost did was

38:09

Pentecost was a sign of judgment against the Jews to say that there's people who are going to speak in foreign languages.

38:18

So now God's moving from the Jews to the Gentiles. Now the Gentiles are going to speak the words of God, and even then the

38:25

Jews will not listen to them. That was a sign of judgment on them. And that was a sign that basically says that God is moving from like predominantly being a

38:34

Jewish filled church to now the church is going to be full of Jews and Gentiles, which is why,

38:40

I mean, you have like Pentecost where, you know, it's mostly Jews speaking in different languages. Then you have the

38:46

Samaritan Pentecost, and then you have like the, you know, the Greek, the Gentiles and all that. It's just a sign of judgment against the

38:53

Jews that God is moving away from the Jews to the Gentiles at this point. And that's, that's what it did.

38:59

Like it was a unique, like they were unique events in salvation history to show that God is judging the

39:05

Jews. He's moving away from the Jews. Now it's done. It's done. So it was predicted. It came. It's done.

39:11

There's no point in it. So like now when people are claiming to speak in tongues today, what further need do we have to tell the

39:21

Jews that God has moved away from them and now his base of operations is within the

39:27

Gentiles? That point has been established. It's done. And that tells you why like tongues wasn't meant to be like a continual thing throughout the history of church.

39:36

It happened very in the very early church and they moved on. And, you know, first Corinthians, one of the first letters happened, the very early church moved on and none of the rest of the

39:45

New Testament letters even remotely talk about it because it stopped happening because it like the sign had fulfilled its function in the same way that, you know, you put your staff down in front of Pharaoh, staff changes.

39:58

You don't need to constantly throw your staff down throughout the history of the church to show

40:04

Pharaoh again, right? That Moses was God's messenger. Hey, we're still telling you, Pharaoh, even though you're dead, that like that's not the way it works.

40:12

That's not how signed gifts work. So, right. Yeah. And then you even have like, you know, Hebrews one, the first few verses of it where it says

40:20

God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets and many portions and in many ways, and these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the world.

40:36

So you have like a pretty clear statement. I mean, Jesus calls himself, you know, the word of God, right?

40:42

John, John calls him the word of God. And so we can understand what's being said here is, you know, for a very long time,

40:50

God used he used prophets. He used apostles. He used some sort of messenger to convey his word to the people.

40:59

And that's how we got the scriptures to begin with. But then now that we have them, we don't have any more need of them because he's given us his word, right?

41:10

He's spoken through his son. And I remember I spoke there's a guy

41:15

I talked to a younger guy who he called me one day because someone had pointed him to me.

41:23

He was wanting to be a worship leader, I think.

41:29

And so he was asking me, hey, what do I do? You know, like what do you recommend

41:34

I do? What do you recommend I work on to try and pursue this goal? And so I was talking to him, just trying to get to know him.

41:42

And somewhere along the line, you know, I was asking him about his testimony. How did he become a

41:48

Christian? And he explained to me, you know, well, here's here's what happened.

41:54

You know, I was a guy who was constantly strung out on drugs, you know, and like I was like going to the hospital.

42:04

I was OD 'ing all the time. I was living a terrible life. And one day, you know,

42:09

I OD 'ed on whatever it was he was taken. I can't remember. And he was in the hospital and he said that, you know, when he was in the hospital, it was at night while he was alone.

42:22

He woke up and he said that Jesus came to visit him and told him that he needed to believe in Jesus.

42:31

Right. And so he said he did that. And then from then on, he started living as a

42:37

Christian. And so so I just kind of, you know, I just read him that verse and I was like, what do you think about that verse?

42:47

And and that's where the conversation really took a turn, you know, where I didn't even say anything about like he wasn't a

42:55

Christian. I didn't say anything about like anything to do with like the spiritual his spiritual condition currently, because I still didn't know.

43:06

He could have had some like he could have had that whatever that experience was. And then later on in life, he you know, as he's putting himself around Christians, you know, the

43:16

Holy Spirit's working in him and his heart. And he realizes that he just does actually believe what the

43:23

Bible says. And he puts his faith in Christ, repents of his sins. That could have happened. I don't I don't you know, like I don't know that that hasn't happened.

43:32

But I read him this verse in response to that specific instance that he claimed happened in the hospital that night.

43:40

And immediately what happens is, is he jumps to, you know, so you're saying I'm not a

43:45

Christian. You know, I didn't say you weren't a Christian. You said that.

43:51

I didn't say that. I'm just reading you a verse and, you know, asking you to tell me what it means in the context of like you're saying

43:59

Jesus came to visit you and gave you a special revelation for you. So so what like what does this verse mean?

44:07

And, you know, and he never gave me what he thought like, well, here here's what

44:12

I think it probably means. And here's what I think it means for, you know, the like the event that I'm telling you happened.

44:20

He didn't give me any of that. He just immediately went to. So you're saying I'm not a Christian. And then after I said, no,

44:28

I didn't say that. I have no idea if you're a Christian or not. You very well could be for all I know. He he immediately went to after that.

44:36

Just well, I don't I don't even know if I believe in Jesus anymore. Well, that's the problem with the charismatic.

44:46

I mean, that's the problem with the charismatic religion, essentially, is that I really do think it is a different religion fundamentally.

44:54

So you have one religion that's based off of like God's revelation. You think about religions, like what are features of religion, religions in general, and God, like the

45:04

Christian religion, like the biblical religion is is based on Jesus's words. Right, right. So it's based on God's words throughout history, which climax like climax in the revelation of Christ, a man.

45:14

And that revelation came in two phases. So, you know, essentially, Jesus, Luke says, and, you know, in Luke, you know, oh,

45:25

Theophilus, I've I've undertaken to write a careful account of Theophilus.

45:31

So you may know with certainty the things with which you've been commanded. So like the first, like, you know, the gospels, their record of all that Jesus did and taught.

45:39

Right. So he wants Theophilus to know with certainty all the things that Jesus didn't taught. Then when you get to Acts, he says in the first book of Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands to the

45:52

Holy Spirit, to the apostles whom he had chosen. So what you have is you have like the revelation of Christ coming in two phases.

45:59

First, it comes in Jesus's earthly ministry while he was alive, like giving commands to his apostles.

46:05

And then afterwards, like he says, I have more to teach you, you know, in the upper room, I send you a helper. He's going to guide you into all truth.

46:12

He's going to take my words and declare them to you. So he gave commands afterwards to his apostles.

46:18

And so you have like the Christian religion, it's a religion based on the revelation of God to man centered in Jesus.

46:27

You know, first component being his teaching during his earthly ministry. His second component being his commands he's given to the apostles whom he has chosen.

46:36

But then the charismatic religion, I mean, it's just a whole nother religion. It's based on just the Holy Spirit, subjective, private, personal revelation directly to people.

46:46

And when you take that away from them, they have nothing left because they don't really care about objectively what

46:51

God said in his word. Like the whole thing is about what is God saying to you personally? Like that's just the source of that, like authority within that religion.

47:00

And, you know, I've been involved in counseling, plenty of charismatics and you can't get them to do anything the

47:08

Bible says. At all. They don't care what the Bible says. It's not about that. It's about like the real stuff, like the real stuff happens with the

47:15

Holy Spirit. The supernatural stuff. That's all it's about. So it's like people who are preoccupied, like with signs and wonders and, you know, fake miracles.

47:25

And then they're running around, like telling, making authoritative proclamations of what

47:30

God is saying to them, like to themselves and to others. And so they're like their whole religion is based on like this personal revelation that God is making directly to them.

47:40

And to the extent to which people are caught up in that, they don't care about the Bible. Right. And the reason that's so like such a hopeless idea is just because it's like all it took talking to this guy,

47:53

I had said nothing about his spiritual condition. I read a Bible verse in the context of like him telling me that Jesus visited him and I read

48:03

I read I read literally two verses. And that was all it took for him to, you know, question everything that he knew.

48:13

Whereas, you know, I guarantee you anyone who anyone who has had someone approach them and share in love, share the gospel with them.

48:22

And then that person hearing the gospel decides they believe they repent of their sins.

48:29

They get baptized. They join a church. They start pursuing, you know, righteousness. Anyone who anyone who comes to faith that way, putting their, you know, hearing the words of God, meaning the scripture proclaimed to them by other people, they're not going to just immediately question their salvation every time someone reads a

48:54

Bible verse. Like for me personally, if someone were to come along and say, hey, you know what? I don't think you're a Christian.

48:59

I'd say, OK, well, I remember we we had that conversation.

49:05

You were you were conflicted about it afterwards, right? Because you realize that you had talked this person off the ledge.

49:12

Yeah, I mean, like in the wrong way. You're like,

49:18

I mean, I remember you asking me, should I have said that, right? Or did I say the right thing? Because like I wasn't trying to, you know, fundamentally, you know, alter this man's entire world.

49:28

Now he doesn't even know if he's a Christian or not. And I remember looking at you and basically making that point that, hey, man, like if someone were to do that to you, would your entire world crumble to the ground?

49:39

And would you be questioning, you know, your salvation, the reality of God? Someone came along and said, hey, yeah, they disagree with you.

49:49

It's like, oh, no, absolutely not. You know, so like all you did was just reveal. Like this religion is based on, you know, bad foundation,

49:58

House of Carbs, you know, right? That's all you've done. Yeah. And so I think I think to me, that's that's really a big part of why this talk about what is the

50:07

Holy Spirit actually what does the Holy Spirit actually do is such an important thing, because, you know, like, let's be honest, for all

50:15

I know, that guy telling me the story about Jesus coming to visit him, for all I know, that was a demon visiting him.

50:22

You know, and because that that is a thing that can happen, you know, and and I know what God's word is said about these things.

50:30

And so I don't want him to be led astray. And so, you know, like, yeah, sure. That sounds harsh to say, like, oh, well, you know, you obviously must have done something wrong because of the outcome, right?

50:43

Right. Like that's sort of the knee jerk response people have. But then the reality is, you know, that person was probably living a lie.

50:50

If that's all it took for them to question everything, they were probably living totally deceived.

50:58

And no one said anything to them until, you know, until I did. Now, that's not like I don't want to, you know, without God's help,

51:07

I never would have done anything like that, you know. So that's like praise to God, not me.

51:15

But like he was living a lie and he was going to continue to live that lie. And like, you know,

51:22

God forbid that one day he be one of those people that he dies and he goes before God on the final day, you know, and he says like, you know, like, hey,

51:32

I'm here. You know, I lived a life. I tried to live my life as best I could for you.

51:38

And then God looks at him and says, depart from me. I never knew you. Like, I mean, that's a terrible fate.

51:45

And people were leaving him to that. And all it took, you know, all it took was reading two verses, two sentences from God's word.

51:53

And that dismantled everything that he believed in. So, you know, that's what I think is hopeless.

51:59

The kind of worldview that looks at the Holy Spirit, for example, and says, you know, the

52:05

Holy Spirit is resigned to helping me, you know, speak gibberish and, you know, proclaim the future.

52:13

And, you know, I get to heal people by lengthening their one leg back to the same length as the other one.

52:20

And that's all I can ever do. I can't ever, like, go, you know, go to the hospitals in 2020 and heal all the people of COVID.

52:28

I can't go do that. But I can lengthen your leg if you want. That's what seems hopeless to me.

52:35

That seems like, I mean, just a total, like, blasphemy, essentially, of the

52:41

Holy Spirit in terms of, like, you're basically just saying the Holy Spirit is weak unless he can do these things that I've decided are, you know, demonstrations of strength, basically.

52:54

And I would hate for anyone to view the Holy Spirit that way, especially knowing that there are so many things that the

53:00

Holy Spirit is doing within the world right now that are legitimate miracles.

53:09

Like, regenerating people to new life is a legitimate miracle. Anytime someone puts their faith and trust in Christ, that is a legitimate miracle that was brought about by the

53:20

Holy Spirit, by Christ, and by the Father. And if you look at that and you say, that's not, that's boring, that's not cool.

53:29

You know, we need people talking in tongues. We need people telling us what's going to happen in the future.

53:34

I mean, that's just, like, that's borderline infuriating.

53:41

I mean, like, I'm getting myself worked up a little bit because, like, God is doing so much for us.

53:47

Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm, you know, like, a paragraph away from that.

53:53

You know, like, God is doing so much for us that none of it we deserve. Well, I think, yeah,

53:58

I think once you reject the sovereignty of God in salvation, then you kind of get to this point where you don't really know what else the

54:07

Holy Spirit is doing today. You know, He did things in the past to produce the revelation that we have, but then you like, you reject

54:16

His sovereignty and salvation, and then you're put in this position where I guess I don't know what He does anymore.

54:21

Right. It's interesting. I mean, but when I say that, I don't mean just, like, justification, but also sanctification, right?

54:28

So justification, sanctification, and the Holy Spirit is doing so much right now in terms of the entire

54:34

Ordo Salutis, like, justification, sanctification, glorification. He's doing so much, and that, you know, to the

54:43

Armenian charismatic, I don't know what He does, right? That's kind of where you get. Right. Okay.

54:49

Well, I think that's a good place for us to end this conversation on. And, you know, just in closing,

54:54

I think the final thing that I would want to say is, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I want to buy a Honda, you know?

55:00

And so hopefully that's encouraging. Hopefully that's encouraging for you. And, you know, that leaves you with...

55:07

That's so stupid, man. No, I mean, obviously that's... I received that, brother.

55:14

Yeah. Thank you. Are you going to be my interpreter here? No, but, you know, obviously there's a lot of problems with this sort of understanding of the

55:28

Holy Spirit. And like we were saying earlier, it's crucial that we understand what the

55:33

Holy Spirit is actually doing. Because if we don't, then it really opens us up to essentially almost looking at what

55:45

God is doing in terms of bringing us to salvation, looking at that with scorn almost, or, you know, no appreciation whatsoever.

55:54

Whereas as you read through the Bible, I mean, read through the Psalms, and you just see so many times how they're praising

55:59

God for salvation and how He has saved them and irredeemable people time and time again.

56:06

And that should be our attitude. And when we look at the Holy Spirit the way that Mark Driscoll is suggesting that we look at the

56:13

Holy Spirit, you're opening yourself up to totally rejecting a biblical view of the

56:20

Holy Spirit and of salvation itself. So this is an important topic that we need to be well -versed on and understanding what the

56:27

Holy Spirit actually does. So hopefully this has been helpful for you guys. We appreciate all of the support that you show us week in and week out financially on social media, interacting with us, telling us the ways in which the episodes have really been a help to you and encouraged you.

56:46

We would encourage you to go out and take the things that you're learning here. Don't just keep them for yourself, but then talk to your brothers and sisters in Christ about these things so that you can encourage them to use these things as you're sharing the gospel.

57:02

Hopefully they're an encouragement for you to be bold and sharing your faith and not worrying about the outcomes, leaving the outcomes up to God and just worrying about, am

57:12

I being faithful and actually telling people the gospel itself? That's our hope anyway.

57:18

So we thank you guys and we'll look forward to having you on the next one. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.