Part 2 - Mike Winger Responds / Cessationism / Speaking in Tongues

Hello and thank you for listening to the

Testing the Spirits podcast. This will be part two, responding to Mike Winger and his comments on cessationism.

You can go back and listen to the first podcast where I played the clips and kind of laid the foundation.

Mike Winger has responded and I want to talk about what he had to say.

Now, first of all, I just want to make the point that cessationism is not an extreme position.

Mike Winger framed it in such a way, he said Paula White with her, you know, speaking in tongues, quote unquote, when it's really just gibberish.

He said, Paula White is a hyper charismatic and he said what she was doing is fake. He said that's one extreme and I agree with him, but he said the opposite extreme is cessationism.

Well, Paula White's a false teacher and what she's doing arguably is, is heresy.

So logically speaking, Mike Winger, if you're going to be consistent, if cessationism is the opposite extreme of Paula White, then you would think cessationism must be heresy then.

He didn't say that. I don't think he believes that. I want to be as charitable as I can, but still there's troubling, troubling implications with the statement that cessationism is an extreme position.

Here's why cessationism is not extreme. And obviously, you know, the definition, if you're watching this video, hopefully, you know, we're talking about miracles, you know, healing the power to lay hands on someone and to heal them instantly, the ability to give sight to the blind, basically work the miracles of Jesus, you know, raise the dead.

The apostles had that miraculous power and they were receiving special revelation from God.

They wrote scripture and they could speak in tongues and some non -apostles probably could speak in tongues as well.

But cessationism says the things you're reading about, the miraculous works that were going on in the

Bible, Acts chapter two, the whole book of Acts really, or at least the beginning, we're saying that stuff has ceased.

There are no modern day prophets and apostles. Tongues could happen. Okay. We believe miracles probably still occur.

It's rare, but God answers prayer. God still may work miracles, but these gifts have not been given to men.

So generally speaking, nobody is speaking in tongues today. So that's the cessationist view.

The stuff that was going on, miracles performed by Jesus and the apostles, no man can do that today.

That's the position. Mike Winger says that's extreme. That's not extreme. You know what the opposite extreme of cessationism, or he says

Paul the White's one extreme, you know what the opposite extreme would be? Saying that all the spiritual gifts have ceased, or to say that God the

Holy Spirit is not active at all. That would be the opposite extreme. So Mike Winger responded and he said a few things.

I don't want to go over the same points that I made in the last video. Again, if you didn't see the last video, go and watch it.

It'll make more sense out of this. I don't want to repeat myself, but Acts chapter two does give the clear definition that tongues is a noble human language.

That's very clear. If you read Acts two, four through eight, here's what Mike Winger had to say, because the main reason

I did the video, I wanted to just not challenge him, but challenge anyone just to get an answer, because no one's ever answered this question.

It should be pretty simple. If tongues is happening today, I told Mike Winger, and this goes for any and all

Charismatics, any and all Pentecostals, if you're telling me that tongues is for today, just post one video, just one.

Link me to one video of somebody speaking in tongues. Think about it for a moment.

Every Pentecostal Charismatic church out there, 90 % of them, they record their services.

They live stream their services. If they're speaking in tongues as part of their faith, if it's continuing, if it's continued throughout the ages, there should be thousands of new examples each and every week.

So I just said, link me to one video where someone is legitimately speaking in tongues.

No one has been able to do that. Here's what Mike Winger said. He said, I do not have a video for you that would prove tongues.

He says, I have never tried to find one. Well, but if tongues are commonplace, if the

Charismatics are correct, if people like Mike Winger, who is a continuationist, saying that gifts have continued, if he's right, it shouldn't be a matter of finding one.

They should just be everywhere. But no one has linked a video.

So no one can actually show me the real gift. I think, and I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I think the reason why no one has posted a video is because it would look something like this.

Okay, so what is that? That is gibberish. But I've looked at probably dozens of videos online of people claiming to speak in tongues.

People all the way from Kenneth Copeland to Benny Hinn to Paula White, all the way down to just some random

Pentecostal guy, you know, locally or whatever. Like all these people across the spectrum, all claiming to speak in tongues, every single video

I watched, it's all the same thing. It's just gibberish. So here's what I don't understand.

Mike Winger can answer this, I hope he does, or you can answer it. If what Paula White was doing was fake, it's gibberish.

Mike Winger says, oh, that's just fake. I agree. But if what she was doing, if that's fake, how is this other stuff real?

Or Mike Winger commented to Ruslan in his interview, Mike Winger admitted that he spoke, he has spoken in tongues and he said he did it without interpretation.

That means no one could understand him. Well, if no one can understand what you're saying, then the term would be gibberish.

It's unintelligible speech. How is one form, Paula White? How is her unintelligible speech fake, but yours is real?

If it's all unintelligible, how is, how is any of it real? This is what I legitimately do not understand.

So I'd be happy if somebody could explain it to me. No one has been able to do that, but if you can link in the comment section or Mike Winger make a video and put the clip in your video, show me what the real gift of tongues looks like.

I mean, that's really all I'm asking. Mike Winger said a few other things.

I called, well, I said the way I characterized it, I said that, you know, he's saying that we're extremists or we hold to an extremist position.

And he's like, well, I didn't say extremist, I said extreme. He said, that's right. You're misquoting me like, okay, well, but, and I knew this ahead of time, but I looked it up just to make sure.

I looked in the dictionary and an extremist is someone who holds to an extreme viewpoint.

And then Mike Winger reiterated that cessationism is an extreme viewpoint. So if I hold to an extreme viewpoint, that would make me, you know, textbook definition, it would make me an extremist.

So I thought he was sort of splitting hairs there, muddying the water, but whatever. Again, the bigger point is cessationism is not the extreme position.

Cessationism, I would argue, is the historic Protestant viewpoint. It's certainly the historic viewpoint among all reformed teachers that I know, and pretty much every

Baptist pastor that I know, they all hold to this position. Now the new wave, the new generation of Baptists, like the

Rick Warren type Baptist, yeah, I mean, that's another story. I mean, Rick Warren claims to hear

God's voice. I mean, anytime a pastor claims to hear the voice of God, I just,

I stop listening. Sorry. You know, if you're going to make a claim like that, you say, well, he doesn't literally mean that.

Well, I don't know. I think they do. But a lot of these TV preachers, a lot of people that Rick Warren and others,

Benny Hinn and these people, the folks they associate with, no, they really do claim to hear the voice of God, to receive visions and revelations.

And here's the thing, if you're actually hearing from God, I mean, that is part of the continuationist viewpoint.

I mean, if God is speaking to you, if you hear God's voice, if that's really God saying whatever it is you think he's saying, you should be able to add that to the

Bible. I mean, if you're going to be logical and consistent about it. Thankfully, no one's trying that at the moment.

But this is where the cessationist view, I think, is necessary, because it's the only viewpoint that if you say you believe in soulless scripture, that the

Bible alone is your authority, the only way you can say that and be logically consistent is if you're a cessationist.

Because if you say that God continues to speak today and God's giving new prophecies, or I don't think

Mike Winger would use the term revelation. Some other people would, but he's a more moderate charismatic,

I'll give him credit. But some of these other people would say that God continues to speak.

Well, you should add that, if it's really God's word, you should add it to the Bible. So the cessationist view, and again, just to give a definition, cessationism is the idea that the miraculous gifts given to the apostles of Christ and some other people, that those gifts have ceased.

So the ability to lay hands on someone and to heal them, or to raise the dead, or give sight to the blind, no man has that power today.

The ability to speak in languages that you don't know, because Acts chapter 2, 4 -8 defines tongues as knowable human languages.

No one can just do that today, it's just not happening. Could it happen, the rare exception on the mission field, maybe, but it's not happening down at your local charismatic church, because that gift has ceased.

If I'm wrong, show me the true gift again. Also cessationists say that God is no longer speaking today, except that he speaks through his word.

God does speak through his word. If you want to hear the voice of God, read the Bible. If you want to hear the voice of God audibly, read the

Bible out loud. But God is not continuing to give new visions and revelations today.

If he did, and it's truly the word of God, again, you should add it to the Bible. So again, if you believe in sola scriptura, which

I would say, to be a sound Bible teacher, you have to hold to that position. That's my view, if you want to disagree, maybe

Mike Winger disagrees, but if you're going to be a sound Bible teacher, you need to hold to sola scriptura. The only way to really do that consistently is to be a cessationist.

The continuationists who say that tongues is happening all over the place, and the other thing

Mike Winger commented, he said that my summary of his position on Bethel Church was a dismal summary.

Well, it wasn't a summary. I said that, hey, Mike Winger said this about Bethel Church. Well, he did say it.

Okay. Now, Mike Winger, in fairness, has been critical of Bethel Church. I never said he was some huge fan, and he's never said a bad word about them.

I never said that, but Mike Winger did say that he thought, according to him, real prophecy and real healing, that is the miraculous sign gifts of the

Spirit, he said, he believes real prophecy and healing is coming out of Bethel Church. Just to prove that, because again, this is one of the things he disputed.

I just want you to hear it from him. So listen. And I actually think

Bill Johnson is saved. I don't know whether he's saved or not, in the sense that I don't know conclusively about a lot of things, but I do think he's saved.

And I think Chris Vallotton, the prophet of Bethel, I think he's also probably saved. I could be wrong here.

And I think even real prophecy and real healing are coming out of this group. Bethel's not a church full of demons.

I think they're a church full of people that are sincere, who have some things off, and we don't want to copy those things, if nothing else.

But we still want to, I would still fellowship with them. I would still call them my brothers and sisters in the Lord. Absolutely.

Okay, so Mike Winger did say that. I admit he has been harder on Bethel lately, okay, since there was a whole thing a year or two ago about his views on Bethel.

Since then, he's been much harder on them. So good on him for that. But again,

Bethel, and it's not just the hyper -charismatics like Paul the White and Bethel, who speak in gibberish and call it tongues.

The moderate charismatic, the non -hyper -charismatic, they're doing the same thing. What literally, what's the difference?

So I'm just going to leave it at that. That was my original challenge to Mike Winger. I appreciate the fact that he responded.

And honestly, part of me, I'm being sincere,

I want him to be right. I really do. I want, in my spirit, in my soul,

I want the charismatic position to be right. The idea that the miraculous gifts of the

Spirit are still operational today, that would be exciting. That would be amazing.

I want that to be true. The idea that God could give a man the ability to heal and to cure blindness,

I want that to be true. I just don't think it is. But I want it to be true.

How amazing would that be? And this will be the last thing I say, I promise. But if the miraculous gifts of the

Spirit are truly for today, then why doesn't someone go to the cancer ward of the children's hospital and just clear it out and heal all of the kids?

Like, if the stuff that was happening in the book of Acts is still happening today, why don't you see it?

And that's all I'm saying. And if I'm wrong, and I really want to be wrong, but just show me.

You say, well, it's not about experience. You need to base your positions on the Bible, not experience.

Right. And based on the Bible, I'm convinced these things have ceased. But again,

I want to be wrong. Please show me if I'm wrong. Just show me the video of the person, you know, raising the dead or giving sight to the blind or speaking in the legit gift of tongues.

To this day, I've been asking for years, and I did the challenge to Mike Winger. I've been asking people this for years.

Not one person has ever been able to do it. I think the reason is because these things have ceased, but prove me wrong.

All right. That's all. Thanks for watching. And until next time, may the Lord be with you. Have a great day.