Not a Cessationist: Why We Believe in the Gifts of the Spirit — Shane Idleman

Recognizing God's Voice Through Scripture and Spiritual Gifts

How do I recognize His voice? God will remember the word He gave to me. How do I get a word? How do I know what God is doing in my life? How do I know it's not me? How does God speak to us? Now that could be a whole nother topic.

And just so you know, I've shared before, I lean towards being conservative. You know, the people that had a dream or God gave me this dream or, okay. Okay, however, God does speak in that way. He can speak in that way.

There's nothing wrong with that. I've noticed, and again, don't get offended. If you want, start a church and then you can tell people what you think. Or a podcast, right? But I've seen over the years, those who are always into the dreams and what are the prophets saying and all this, you know, see, it's legitimate, but you get too carried away with the dreams.

Scripture as the Primary Gauge for Spiritual Guidance

But what is God saying to you every day in His word? What are the prophets saying? What is Jesus saying? And you can become unbalanced if all you're being led by dreams and thoughts and promptings and what other people tell you.

But see, all those are good, but that's not the main source of spiritual life. We know that the word of God is given to direct us for reproof, for correction, for all godliness. That is the main source, that's the gauge.

You better bury your face in it so you know God's will. But He will use other means. Shane, when did God use a dream? Well, I think of a lot of occasions, and so can you Bible students. A guy named Joseph, father of Jesus, was warned in a dream.

He was actually warned again, were to come back. The wise men were warned not to go back to Herod. Paul was warned, I believe, or Peter was shown something in a dream. That was more of a vision. See, that's the difference.

Dream is when you're just out, you're just sleeping, you're done, and this dream you have is so real. And usually if it's from God, you don't forget it. You don't go, what was that again? God gave you this dream, and then a vision is something where, and I can't speak on vision too much because God's never laid out a vision while I'm awake to me.

Now, I can see where this could potentially go. I can see different things, how God can move, but I can't own that and say that was a vision from God. But that's how He'd do it. And I know people have been speaking or they're talking to someone, and God will open up a vision and show them this person's past, and they will speak into their life.

And so, to me, we can't rule out these things, but the bottom line is it doesn't line up with Scripture. The Bible says Noah, being warned by God, moved with fear, moved with reverence for the building of an ark and saving of his family in Hebrews.

So he was warned, divinely warned. It could have been a dream. Also, what about when Peter said, these people aren't drunk. This is what the prophet Joel spoke of, that in the last days, your sons and your daughters will prophesy.

Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. But for you in the conservative camp like me, you wanna stay in this nice, tight little box of God's Word. That's all I got. I don't want dreams and visions.

I don't want this stuff I see on TV where they get weird. And you know that one weird person that we all know that has tons of dreams from God. However, we can't look through our spiritual experience and hand those lenses off to others.

In other words, if God doesn't speak to me much in dreams, it doesn't mean He's not with someone else. God does not care what I think. And so I don't think we can remove that as an option, that how God can speak to us through dreams.

Personal Dreams and God's Confirming Guidance

I remember one vivid dream I've talked about before is, actually, it's embarrassing, but I was living with my mom at 30 years old. And if you don't know my story, you have to listen to it some other time.

So I had this career, I was in business, and then came back to the Lord and then gave up everything. And so I'm living at her house, and I'm digging ditches, and I have this dream, very vivid dream. And I remember I was walking, I was behind something like this, and I walked out on the left, and I walked out and there was just a sea of people.

And I'm speaking to this group of people. So what do I do with that? And I was reading Billy Graham's biography that he would have dreams, and God would show him speaking to people when he was just like 18.

And so God would often, see, I don't allow that to direct me. Now here's what I'm supposed to do. I'm gonna do that. I just say, okay, well, that's interesting. And I've needed that confirmation many times in my life that God will show you certain things and maybe to intercede or to pray for people.

I share with the first service that there was a time, I don't know if I had met Morgan by then, but I just had this vivid dream. I was like in the Grand Canyon, this huge white airplane crashed above me.

And I got up in the next morning and the space shuttle crashed. And I had a dream of the tsunami when it hit, killed 250 ,000 people. The night before, I felt I was in this, whatever. Tsunami, thank you.

It's spelled with a T, so I always get confused. Tsunami, and I was just died, and it's so hard to breathe. I woke up, what is that? And then, so I don't know if it's for interceding or praying, but God will show us glimpses of things sometimes through the dreams for confirmation.

He did it throughout the Bible. Because I don't know about you, but sometimes I need a little confirmation. I trust God, but I don't trust me. God, I think that was you. I hope that was you. I need some confirmation.

Testing Dreams and Prophetic Words Against Scripture

So again, be open, but be cautious. For example, if I have a dream, I'm gonna confirm it with the word of God. Or I'm gonna say, Lord, what does that mean? You show me. Show me what that means. And I even had a man come over.

I remember, Morgan remember this. I was at the city hall, city hall. Pastors were there. We were telling him why it's not a good idea to let marijuana distributors here. And now I think we see why. So anyway, that was about four years ago.

Many of us, Pastor Paul Chappell, Chris Johnson, we were there, and this guy stopped me outside. He goes, I just need to pray for you. It's on my heart for a long time. And he goes, I just see thousands of cars.

And God is just, the reach is gonna be thousands of cars. And I'm like, oh, well, wow. Thank you. Thank you. I forgot about it. And then before we bought the radio station, as we were considering it, they emailed me and said, and they said, hey, the Caltrans estimated that you will reach a couple million cars per year with the message.

And then click, click, that came back a year, a year and a half later. Like, oh, oh. And there's other, see, so it's not, these things don't, that's where people get confused, especially the very conservative, the father, the son, the word.

The word, the word, the word, the word, conservative. That's always the word, just the word, just the word. Nothing else, nothing else, just the word only. Okay, here's what they don't understand. When we talk about these things, we're not saying these things come above the word.

We're saying the word is above them, but I need a little help. I need a little help. I need some, like, that's what a prophetic word is. It's somebody has something that God has put on their heart to share with you to give you a little help.

Prophetic Words and Pastoral Confirmation

And since a lot of you are new, I will tell you about, you know, Leonard Ravenhill? His son is named David Ravenhill, and I've emailed him a few times. We've ordered some of his books. And he talked about a story of a missionary who went to eat dinner at this house.

There was a young adult there, and she was sitting there eating dinner, and he said, oh, God just downloaded into his heart what to tell this girl. And he's like, no way, no way. He fought it for the whole dinner, and he just couldn't shake it.

He goes, listen, I just have to, I just have to, please forgive me. This is just, I have to just tell you this. God said, I hate mommies and daddies too. And she broke down completely. And he's like, oh, what have I done?

Come to find out her uncle would sexually abuse her and say, let's play mommies and daddies. I can give you story after story after story. You better take God's word seriously, but you better be open to him rocking your world just however he wants, as long as it lines up with scripture.

There was another time I had to give a very hard message one Sunday morning, kind of like a rebuke, but not, it was like, oh, and I remember where I was standing, right back there, and it was 6 a .m. worship.

We just had worship on. I'm like, I'm not doing it. I am not doing it, Lord. How do I know that's you and I'm just not mad? How do I know that's you and I just didn't have too much caffeine? I'm like, I just, I can't.

And then Marilyn Enos, she passed away, strong prayer warrior, was right there. She just got up, walked over there, walked right back there and said, pastor, I just gotta tell you, God said, speak whatever he put on your heart.

Do not diminish a word. And then she comes back down and goes to the altar. So either I'm the stupidest guy on the planet or God used a prophetic word to confirm. And that's why you get out in this weird camp, right?

Rejecting Both Sensationalism and Legalistic Cessationism

It's all about prophetic words and God's in the clouds and angel dust and angel feathers, right? Angel feathers, gold and all this, just weird kind of out there like the 60s. Reminds me of the hippies and it's just, if it's odd, it's God.

No, that's not healthy. God doesn't care how high you jump in worship. He wants to know how straight you walk when you come down. But then you have the dead, legalistic, arrogant cemetery church and they don't experience the power of God because they're not open to him possibly moving in ways that they're not used to.

The Continuing Relevance of the Gifts in 1 Corinthians

For the life of me, I cannot see how people think that 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14 is no longer applicable. If you know what that means, read it. It talks about, dare I say it? Oh, here we go, we're gonna lose some members.

Talks about tongues, talks about prophetic words, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, gift of healing. It talks about how to utilize it in the church. And could it be that living children need rules?

Dead children don't. Living children, vibrant, filled with God's spirit. And they said, but Shane, didn't you read? And Paul says, when that which is perfect comes, that's which in part will be done away with.

Interpreting “The Perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13

Well, the perfect is not the word of God. Even John Calvin in his commensary says, the perfect is when Jesus Christ comes again. And you can actually look up the word perfect is used in other, and of course we're not gonna see, so we see better than Paul now?

Because that's what you're saying. When that which is perfect comes, that which was in part will be done away with. Tongues will cease, words will cease because we have that which is perfect, which is God's word.

So that means I see better than Paul. That's not true. Paul says, we see now in a glass dimly or through a mirror dimly, but when that which is perfect comes, we'll be able to see all things. The reason they have to say that the perfect is the word of God is because then they can get rid of all the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And I can't do that. I've tried. I try, I pull out the scissors, I'm like. I can't do it. Because they actually have a harder time convincing me that those are not for today than I have convincing them that they are.

Because I have the word of God. The Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost and they're filled with the Holy Spirit and they're speaking the tongues of the, unknown to them, but known to the people. Prophetic, God was moving in the midst of that.

And it's beautiful when God is moving in a powerful spirit-filled church.