Cultish: Practicing Discernment as a Charismatic w/Josh Lewis

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Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the Colts. My name is Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here.

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I'm here as always But in a different way today with Andrew the super sleuth of the show you this is our first official podcast of us being virtual co -hosts you are sleuthing over in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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So Andrew the super sleuth of the show. How are you doing, man? I'm doing well I'm just praising the Lord for technology right now and it's quite amazing that we can actually have this type of conversation being

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So far away and I'm excited for the conversation today. I'm excited where it's gonna go It's gonna be kind of controversial

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I bet but it's gonna be good. It's gonna be edifying and God glorifying. Yes Yes, so while far away it's so close.

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So, you know how it is So yeah, so we are here also joined by Josh Hayden. You've been a you attend apology at church

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You've been on our previous episode with Mike winger when you're talking about the World Mission Society Church of God Good to have you back man.

01:02

Good to be back. Awesome, and we are here with the king of controversy Is that the name?

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I'm just I'm just playing Josh Lewis from remnant radio. I feel like I'm a pretty mild -mannered guy What makes me controversial is that like I talk to other

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Christians who disagree with me and I don't roast them alive Heretic, I know and here we are talking to each other.

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We'll see where we agree We'll see where you disagree, but it should be a fun and spark -filled fun conversation But um, so just tell them just a little bit about yourself

01:30

You might some people might be not familiar with your audience and what you do You have a pretty large

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YouTube channel and you're really platform remnant radio Yeah, and just tell them just a little about yourself

01:42

What just tell them about the YouTube channel and and that platform what you're all about. Cool. Yeah remnant radio is a theology broadcast

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We cover theology history and the gifts of the Spirit every single week We've got a show on Tuesday where we cover early church fathers 300 years early patristic period then we have

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Conversations where we do theology we interview pastors and teachers from different churches and denominations the presidents of the

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Evangelical Theological Society like Keener storms Wayne Grudem have all been on the show and then really famous pastors as well

02:13

We'll interview and again many of these guys we agree with many of these guys who disagree with we'll interview guys like Matt Chandler I will interview like Max Lakato Francis Chan even

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Todd White has been on the show So we literally will interview theological guys that are cessationists like Tom Schreiner Doug Wilson.

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That's James White Jeff Durbin all these guys will interview but we also interview the hyper charismatic side and say hey guys

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What do you think about this? There's some confusion on these things. Can you help us answer some of these questions? We want to know where you stand. So that's been helpful

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And then we do a weekly show on the gifts of the Spirit that that episode we cover Charismatic abuses we want to call balls and strikes and say hey, this is too far.

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We tackle cessationist arguments and then we also Explain how the gifts of the Spirit are supposed to operate.

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So, okay. Yeah, pretty thorough. Awesome. Awesome and so the one of the reasons we've been kind of chatting back and forth and I was thinking to that when we deal with Cultists we our primary focus is on really definitive non -christian cults and kind of dill we kind of delve more into the realm of also the supernatural regards to the fringe the occult

03:17

Conspiracy theories anything of the UFOs Psychic phenomena. Yeah, all that all that thing that you know,

03:24

Walter Martin talked in many different aspects He talked about some things we're going to talk about today But he also dealt with a broad variety of topics that tends to be our primary area of focus but when it comes to the discernment realm we've tapped into that a little bit before we've talked about things like the word of faith movement when we had our

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Initial series on Bethel when that came about and that obviously really gave us a lot of exposure

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You know whenever we want to delve now into the discernment realm we only want to do it in the context of how can we put together a conversation that's edifying and constructive in a way that actually aims towards Solution and so just real quickly

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I think one of the things I've noticed is that just a couple things is that when we initially did our

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Series on Bethel I was just watching, you know a couple months later and kind of just looking at that the aftermath of the

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YouTube comments I kind of you kind of mining for gold in there I'm hunched this is sludge this you do comments as a whole is typically just a sludge pond

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I just find the most in the area once at the time. Oh, yeah my favorite one actually just really funny is a

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In the defecting from Bethel one because it's Jeff and I were hosting and Andrew was still the seabird slip in the background

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Someone had commented. I said like defecting from your weird and nasty beards I Screenshotted and I posted

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I posted it on our social media I thought it was funny and it was entertaining so actually Elijah Stevens who's been on our podcast before and I posted that on Mike Winger's comment section.

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He said he had a good laugh because of that But one of the things I did notice though is that in the

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YouTube comment section a lot of people not even related to what? Discussed with Bethel, but a lot of them really felt that that conversation almost like that gave them a voice going to just a similar sort of church that would qualify under the realms that we'll be talking about hyper charismania that just experienced a lot of the abuses but didn't really have an

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Outlet or a voice to actually help them make sense of what they went through. So what I think is that And when it comes to this area is that a lot of times people when they experience something like this

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They tend to swing towards the exact opposite end and this can be with anything you experience something traumatic

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You swing towards the opposite end of the spectrum. So a lot of times what people will do is they'll swing towards very strict

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Cessation ism when it comes to dealing with areas of hyper charismania, but I think if you deal with that What ends up happening?

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Is that you almost? Cut out an entire section of the Christian Church the body of Christ that believes in spiritual in the gifts of the

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Spiritual gifts the continuation and aspects of prophecy as far as being that actually state

06:06

Just just for clarity Could you just kind of state your position of where you stand because sure you're someone who is charismatic

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But you would differentiate yourself from what would be called hyper charismania Like where do you stand in this space because I'm in a space that people would probably identify more in the cessation of space the specific term

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I would try to use is Careful continuationist. Okay, so I'm gonna say and I'm gonna say that because I believe the gifts of the spirit of continued, right?

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and I'm not putting any qualifiers on if I say Charismatic people think Benny Hinn slapping with coats if I say

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Pentecostal they think tongues is the initial physical evidence So I'm not gonna say either of those things. I'm just gonna say I believe the gifts of the spirit have continued

06:43

Okay, well gotcha real quick. What was the name of you call it the coat that's slapping with a coat.

06:48

Oh the mantle No, you're talking earlier that this Oh this blanket Yeah, that's that's okay, so we're not gonna take credit for that Well, yeah, so so as a whole what we want to do is we want to really kind of Open up the conversation talk about for people who still would it would hold your position

07:13

I would still hold on to you believe in like tongues prophecy things like that How do we deal with The issues of hyper charismania, which we've seen in a lot of different ways

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There's just because we want to look at it holistically and I think whether or not you agree if you disagree with our position us being basically

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Kara, they're basically a loosed Sensationist I guess I'd call I would label myself as and you like what would you position yourself as?

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It's it's kind of difficult Yeah, exactly how ghosty am I Mario no,

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I'm just kidding, um the the How I describe myself is probably somewhere between open and cautious and where Josh is talking about like continuationist.

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I'm working on him He's almost careful. Yeah yeah, that that's part because part of it is

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I grew up on a Pentecostal background and Leave ended up leaving

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Pentecostal ism and seeing that okay I don't think that's what the scriptures teach, but I don't think it teaches strict cessationism either and that's kind of where I Look at it and I say, okay,

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I think stuff does continue less frequently than the the hyper charismatics would say but More frequently than the cessationist would say so that's kind of how

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I sure And the other thing I would say to some people is like I'm a continuationist, but I operate like a cessationist

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I have a Because in many ways because I'm I'm I'm studying to be a pastor so at one point to do some teaching on gifts of the

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Holy Spirit and and effectively I Said hey, you know, sometimes we chase gifts that aren't ours and mine happens to be teaching.

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So I look like a cessationist Yeah, and how would you where would you categorize yourself?

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I could say goodness It's one thing is one of those things when we describe this we're defining terms many of times. We We want to do our best to define terms because sometimes with this whole discussion sometimes we can speak past each other

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But Andrew like position wise like where would you see your yourself have yourself in this conversation?

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So I've heard it said this way on sheologians, which I love they say cessationist with fire

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I believe God can do what he wants how he wants, but I do believe that the gifts that were shown in the early church or the

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Apostolic period were specific for the building of the church at that time, right? And I don't believe that they function in the same way today as they did then

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But God can do what he wants how he wants. I don't think there's offices specifically held by specific people with specific gifts if that makes

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Specific sense. So if you listen to it on sheologians, would they be a she stationist? You know, that was the pun that they do so I had to throw that in there

09:55

So some enjoy if you listen to this had to throw them in there. But no, that's that's no That's definitely a good point. I believe in the same way that I don't believe in the need for the apostolic

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Positions of Apostle or things like that. I think those are good for laying the foundation I would also say that at the same time while the primary authority would be scripture that Just say that you know

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These particular things can't operate anymore is that you have to be careful that because you you you basically the only person that can live

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Himself as God and Walter Martin actually talked extensively about that in In his lecture eras of positive confession

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So I think what we might was one do just for some fun because people right now the current political climate is obviously very very intense

10:35

We'll be covering a couple of things that's related to things going on in the world when it comes to the world of politics

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Even the world foreign policy with everything going on in Afghanistan right now as we speak It's just interesting because right now like all the conversations around like Islam and what do we do with that?

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I think that's gonna be coming a lot more to the forefront similar back around 9 -11 and the war on terror and that was all going on.

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But um, one of the things that you talked about and this is just a realm in Hypercares mean it's something you've really called balls and strikes on you've been very direct with was the

11:08

Trump prophecies. Oh, yeah Yeah, I was like, where are we going with this question? Like I I know I've got nothing

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Yeah, so we got so this is why I just I just know there are a bunch of people prior to November 2020

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That were you know, just basically declaring naming and claiming it that Trump was going to be

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President. I don't know the ins and outs of who said it and then what happened afterwards So, but I know that's something people have actually asked us to give our thoughts on I know that people were doing it and then obviously they obviously just point them to my channel

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So just tell me real quickly like what were some people prior to 2020 that were making these claims and like what was the nature

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Yeah, okay. So tons of people were making claims on prophecy We did an eight -hour marathon on the subject the beginning of the year

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I got hit with kovat pretty hard So I literally got to watch like over 60 hours of Trump prophecies just combing through trying to get the most popular names down We covered obviously

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Kenneth Copeland. We covered a pink hair What's her name? Kat Kerr Hank Kuhneman Gaul James Gaul used to go by something else.

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We covered tons of these guys who gave prophetic words guys and girls We're equal opportunity here at remnant radio.

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If you had a prophecy wrong, we're gonna judge both of them Equal opportunity both boys and girls. Well, we'll go ahead and judge those but we just felt like hey if we're gonna be charismatics

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We're gonna hold to all the charismatic scriptures, right? and in a lot of the charismatic scriptures speak of in first Corinthians 14 tells us to judge prophecy when one gives a prophetic word others are to weigh what is being said and We noticed that a lot of these prophetic words were given on YouTube Or in places where there's no one that could judge what was being said.

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They were an authority unto themselves, right? So we did was we invited pastors and teachers and theologians that were charismatic many of them were former

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Evangelical theological presidents of ETS and we invited them on to help us. Hey, what would you say about this prophetic word?

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So it wasn't just me and one of my buddies just giving our thoughts on things We we set it up in such a way that was interesting and we had a lot of people

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Commenting and giving thoughts on these things. So yeah, we we We reviewed those many of them varied from hey, this can be a year of health wealth and prosperity

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Which is all -time wrong there were words very specific I remember one from James Gaul that in 2020 and in beyond from 2020 that Stadiums are gonna be filled with people giving their life to Jesus.

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Well, we obviously know there wasn't a single stadium that was filled During 2020 for any kind of Christian crusade whatsoever

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At least in the States which he was prophesying over Yeah, things like that. So salvations prophecies prophetic accuracy comedy enough 2021 is gonna be a year of prophetic accuracy eight -hour marathon of people just Absolutely writing it, right?

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No, I think they're actually there was a prof prophecy conference that took place in February I think and it was actually a guy here at ASU Stadium I forget what it was, but it was

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Brian head Welsh was actually in it. Okay, so I know Yeah, so he was he was involved in it I think

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Kanye West back when he was doing the Sunday services part of it And then also it was some guy but it was all this sort of like very

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NAR is very like God's gonna bring these like realms of glory and I think that was That was that that was at took place at ASU But prior prior to prior to kovat happening in March, which obviously we all know took it was like around seven to ten years

14:23

It was basically a seven -year tribulation all in like four weeks. But um Yeah, but that was interesting.

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So a lot of people were making these prophecies now Did they see Donald Trump though even prior to making the message like he somehow was like someone

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Special I mean God obviously a point I think you can say biblically that God is the one who appoints and sets up Kings Well wick good and an evil, but did they see

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Trump as someone who was? More than that almost like he was God's special messenger

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Like he was someone who was more like almost like an anointed prophet in a sense Good it seems like in some people the way they've identified

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I've just watched some of the people who've looked at Donald Trump in regards to sort of being it's like prophetic person

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I mean we even asked to do a The whole QAnon movement and there's a lot of and we've we're gonna address that episode at some point

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But there's a lot of people who almost see have seen Donald Trump as a messianic figure I mean people did that on the opposite side to sure with Barack Obama but just from a charismatic perspective with the with the fat with the form those the foundation of those prophecy is seeing him as Being some sort of like anointed one rather than just this real estate mogul who yeah

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So as a continuation as myself, I would just say no, but if you're talking about the hyper charismatic community

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Yeah, they viewed how do we how do we look at that? I think it would be fair to say that there was probably a lot of political motivation in looking at Trump in and Christening Trump as some kind of like modern

15:48

Messiah because of the access they were given to the White House I mean if you think in times past The evangelicals that were brought before the president's many of them were conservative mainline denominations for the first time in history that I'm aware of Pentecostals had access directly to the man himself.

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I mean Paula White was the gatekeeper, right? So you had everybody and I had access to Donald Trump I mean,

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I know guys have been on my show who've given him specific prophetic words So so yeah

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I absolutely think that there was this this reality that the hyper charismatics were honored and Giving it in a place of honor

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And it did seem as if it went to their head in such a way that like we've we've got to get this guy back In he gives us a voice.

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He gives us a space So I do think that there was some underlining motivation there that was unhealthy But there were certainly was tons of you know ideas that he was as some kind of Cyrus But I was hearing this from you know,

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Baptist evangelical cessationist and I was hearing this from charismatic So there's no there's no theological reasons that the charismatics were any

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I mean other than the prophecies wackier than other Evangelicals that were Nationalistically confused

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I suppose. Yeah, and so Absolute these people they made a lot of these people made these specific prophecies

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I know like for example, like Chris Vallotton made one a lot of other in there just categorically We named some other people as well, too

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So November came and went and obviously it wasn't without its fair share of controversy in some sense

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It still is but what what initially took place after? When all the dust settled and we saw that, you know,

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Joe Biden was gonna be the next president Yeah, and and so forth and so on did because usually what will happen is that people will either

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They'll admit their wrongdoing. Yeah, well, they'll explain it away or they'll double down They'll double down on it and they'll try and re -explain it away

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Well, I didn't really actually mean that what I really meant was this So like as a whole when you look at these people under the eight hours and obviously we're not gonna go eight hours on this

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Podcast, but what was some of the examples of how do they explain? What it was obviously an error.

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I would say the Christians repented And then there's an entirely different group of people who said they were right and everyone else didn't have enough faith

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I placed those people in cult -like non -christian willing to live in willful ignorance self -deceived empty just Difficult.

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I mean, I mean, I'm trying to be honest here If you're gonna speak of the Word of the Lord and you get it wrong, you don't repent

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I mean it would be the equivalent of someone getting up on the Lord's Day and preaching in your church and saying hey This is what the

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Bible says and then you rebuke that person and then they don't repent publicly of it like if someone got up in the pulpit of Apologia and Like you for all intents purposes thought this person was

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Orthodox and somehow they got into the pulpit and they just snapped and they were Like Jesus is the brother of Satan, right? Well, first of all, there'd be 16 people at Apologia that pull pull firearms

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Three guys would cuff him up and get him pulled off stage But then after that after all that dust settles you're gonna have a conversation with this guy for asking him to repent if he doesn't

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Repent you're like dude. This guy's this guy's out. Let's say he does repent You're gonna welcome him back in as long as it's an honest legit repentance, right?

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So this is what I do with the Christian brothers that I have. I say hey, this was an honest repentance I'm gonna say

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I'm gonna I'm gonna take this word and I'm gonna receive it and I'm gonna say hey You got to be more careful. And then there's another group of people who again double down I'm very very concerned for these individuals and their eternal salvation because they are claiming to speak in the

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Word of the Lord and Denying the fact that they're fallible that they're walking around with a popish level of authority and it's and it's scary

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So then there's like this middle ground of people who I think are in danger I'm not as willing to say that they're non -christians

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But there there's this third group of people who are kind of hanging out and pretending like it didn't happen They're in like the

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PR spin mode Which is very unfortunate it does not display good character I wouldn't encourage people to follow those people, but I'm not willing to say that they're not

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Christians. They're just egotistical fleshy Christians, yeah, yeah, but I think one of these things too when you talk about the

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Importance of like why why does this matter when it talks to like bad theology hurts people we're talking with someone

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You know given your point of view sure in regards to you know, being a careful Cessationist is that you talk about bad theology hurts people

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I think specifically and and you can give me your thoughts as well, too So you I'm still getting used to you being virtual over and over in Utah But I think of the scripture to and it's like hope deferred makes a heart sick

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But a desire fulfilled is a tree of life And I think this is something that you have to regardless of where you stand when it comes to you know

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Whether you're using scripture or in this case, you know So many times people will use God told me this as a club or as a way sometimes even unintentionally as a way

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That gives people very Fault gives people false. Hope and When all of a sudden when things don't come to pass the way they expected they don't have any point of reference

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And this is relates to you know The Word of Faith movement and people are expecting to be healed And they aren't or they're they're expecting to I get a certain thing in return which they're told and they don't get it

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In this specific case People are this multiple of these different leaders and people are putting their faith in them people who are giving these organizations large amounts of money and Here they are where they're making this huge statement that a lot of people are taking up every single word that they're saying

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It doesn't come to pass and there's a lot of people. I remember just seeing throughout when the election happened

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There are a lot of people that were really Devastated because of it and really it just wrecked a lot of people and it's just something that you have

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You have to take this seriously and you have to take account. Yeah accountability for that Andrew did you

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I'll let you jump in Andrew. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, just to piggyback off it for for Josh to answer.

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This is um, so how do you they how do you guys in the charismatic? Circle take it seriously, right? Because I know you were talking earlier about judging the the prophecies or the utterances that these people have how exactly do you judge it and Also, if the spiritual gifts are something that is that you want to obtain

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How do you how do you judge it in a way where if someone's wrong that? Kind of sound like you're saying earlier that there's repentance

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But then do you encourage them like did they step out in faith and make? You know in utterance from the

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Lord, even though it was incorrect But since they want to earnestly seek for the gifts, it's okay that that happened. Like how does how does that work?

22:05

I'm just asking for for clarification. Sure. Yeah, great questions Um, so in the first question that I hear from from Jeremiah is like hey

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Bad theology hurts people. I hear that there are people going around saying God told me this you can't argue with them

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Because that's like this infallible authority. Well, you can say that but God told me this right? Well, I would just respond to that person with actually the the question that danger had is like actually we judge everything

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You're not allowed to walk around saying I have a word from the Lord You're actually encouraged and commanded in Scripture actually to when when you receive something from the

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Lord you submit it and the others way What is being said so we see this in first Corinthians chapter 14?

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But we also see this in first Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 19 through 22 where he says don't despise prophecy

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Don't quench the spirit clean to what is good reject. What is evil? I'm paraphrasing guys, but that's that's the gist of that passage there

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I'm so so in both of those texts We have an account where someone believes that they have received some kind of prophetic utterance some kind of prophetic

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Understanding and I'm using prophecy big P prophecy in a broad scope sense in the way.

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I believe Joel Used it in Joel chapter 2 and in Acts 2 sons and daughters will prophesy equates it to dreams and visions

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It could be direct utterance as well But all of that would encompass in that so someone could say and I've heard stories that apologia or something to that effect of Someone had a dream and they go man.

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I think that might be God right with with the story of August right with Jeff And those guys so they come and they go.

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Hey, you know Jeff. This is a dream I had I think it might be God and see what they're doing is they're submitting this They're not saying you better adopt this kid or you're gonna be a sinner or whatever

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They come and they're like, you know, hey, what do you think about this? And then Jeff goes hmm Let me think about that and he weighs what's being said and there's more than one that comes with that same word

23:44

And he's like this seems to bear witness and that that I think answers both of your questions one I would say you submit that word and then secondly, you'll see just an example

23:52

I just used other people would affirm that word the Church of God would say Yeah that bears witness with us because he's been speaking the same thing to us as well.

24:00

Okay, does that work? Yeah Yeah, that definitely helps explain that and also what do you do because I know in regards to I mean we would look at For example, and we do this too when we are out at the

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LDS temple and we talk about Joseph Smith, for example, you look at the test of a prophet, you know The one

24:15

I typically go to is Deuteronomy 13 where it says there's a prophet who prophesies but he actually prophesies and get stuff

24:23

Right, and he does signs wonders of miracles, but then he says let us go after other gods Don't follow him but then specifically

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Deuteronomy 18 Which says that if a prop is if a prophet or dreamer dreams he prophesies

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But even if he gets stuff, right and I think this is this is good to kind of pass through and think and just kind of bet back and forth is

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Because we would see that, you know, you know God's law There's there's an assumed continuity of the law of God even through into the

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New Testament You'll see for example in the same passage in Deuteronomy 18 when it talks about the abominable practices not to do them and you know especially given all the work that we do, you know talking about the practices of the of the

25:00

New Age and That you'll see that carried out you know in the book of Acts and they take all the different books and Works of dark arts and they don't try and reform them.

25:10

They don't try and You work them into the kingdom of God, but they try they burn they burn them and they see them as these abominable practices so in the same way, you know, we would say that you know when

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Jesus when he made prophecies to like about for example in Matthew 24 in the all the discourse and the claims that he made

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Jesus is the one is he's a fulfillment of the law So he's hold to that that exact same standard

25:33

So when it comes to it when it comes to prophecy We would look at people like that who are making these claims saying thus saith the

25:39

Lord I would see like they're falling into the category of Deuteronomy 18. That's for me as a loose

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I guess a station is I'm sure I'm very hesitant to really say thus saith the Lord about anything like if the law

25:51

I'm very much of the perspective of if the Lord wills So, how do we just defining terms?

25:58

It's a good so people don't speak past each other because this is something that people get caught up with a lot How would you differentiate between what is said in Deuteronomy 18, but also and Josh you can also give me your thoughts

26:09

I see I see you taking notes there. Mr. Seminary student you well If I've got questions,

26:14

I know what it relates to. I don't forget. Okay, that's good. That's good. That's good So, how would you differentiate between Like New Testament prophecy like what's going on the church versus what's being talked about in Deuteronomy 18?

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It's like I said, I look at people that are making those claims. I'm like, ah, you're that puts you in Deuteronomy 18 category

26:33

So tread lightly, that's my perspective. Do you have friends? Do you have Mormon friends who used to? teach

26:39

Mormonism Like former Mormon friends. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So the former Mormons and yeah, and you would say they were false teachers once Oh when they were when they're

26:49

Mormons, yes. Yeah, and now they've repented and now they're Christian brothers, right? They've come to Christ. Yeah, right. So I would

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I would just I would similarly place a category on prophecy There are certainly false prophets, right? But there's prophecy that's wrong as well, right?

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So you would say hey if you taught something that was wrong Apollos taught something incorrectly nowhere in the

27:07

New Testament scriptures is Apollos called a false teacher He taught something wrong and was taught more accurately the scriptures and he repented he changed the way he was he was he didn't

27:15

Say he repented and it's not what the word says right scriptures But it's clear that he changed his position and was faithful to The teaching of the

27:23

Apostles right as it was instructed to him by Priscilla and Aquila So I would say there are some people who have prophesied

27:28

Wrongly and that they repented for that and said no I didn't hear the Lord And they we as a

27:34

Christian body say you've repented we're gonna pull you back into the fold and to those who steep claiming No, no, I'm not gonna repent.

27:39

This is the Word of the Lord We're gonna move them outside of the camp on that one the Deuteronomy 18 passage that you're quoting from Deuteronomy 18 15 through I guess 22 speaks of a specific prophet.

27:50

It's not talking about all prophets everywhere. It's talking about a specific prophet He says then the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you and then in 18 as well

27:59

I will raise up for from them a prophet like you from among their brothers We know that later on in the

28:04

New Testament the Pharisees are looking for the prophet They're actually asking John the

28:10

Baptist. Are you the prophet that is to come? There's a prophet that's prophesied Okay, the Old Testament that is to come that's gonna instill a new covenant

28:17

Deuteronomy 18 is speaking of Jesus the new prophet and there are people who are gonna come in Deuteronomy 18

28:23

Who are gonna be false prophets who can arise saying that they are the prophet that's going to come who's gonna be like Moses So that's what that that text is about and you're not to fear the one who comes and says

28:33

I am Moses I'm the new Moses. I'm the new one who's gonna instill a new and better covenant so both

28:39

Wayne Grudem and Craig Keener Former presidents of the Evangelical Theological Society would come to Deuteronomy 18 and come to the exact same conclusion

28:46

But this is not about prophets everywhere But this is about a specific group of people who are claiming to be the prophet not a prophet

28:52

But the prophet that is to come that's going to be like Moses. Okay? You guys have any thoughts on that?

28:59

I Just think that's yeah. I mean, I think that's interesting To to explain it that way because I was listening your content to kind of get familiar with your your

29:08

Position and I think that makes sense, especially when taking in light of Jesus talking about Giving warnings to his disciples and to the

29:17

Christians saying beware There will there will be people who say there he is in the desert or there he is and I am

29:22

I am Jesus Effectively and so that that kind of makes sense from from that perspective and Jesus these be people leading up to Christ and you see

29:33

In the temple and acts when is it Gamaliel Gamaliel is like hey There are these guys who've been rising up throughout both pre

29:40

Jesus right that would have fulfilled this description post Jesus It wouldn't have been as fulfilled I suppose right, but that's where I'm kind of the way

29:47

I'm looking at is that sounds semi familiar to what Jesus is saying. Yes, and I understand that there are other people who were before Jesus Claiming to be a messianic figure and that's part of where some of the

29:58

Uprisings against Rome came from and some of the political context of Jesus time and his the expediency of him dying politically

30:06

Instead of the nation coming under the Roman boot Yeah, so so you're saying then based based off of the way that you're seeing

30:13

Deuteronomy 18 and just categorically We're talking about dealing with hyper charismania And I know there's that like this is this is the way you see it is that so would you differentiate them between?

30:24

people who are prophesying, but they're an error they make a mistake and they repent and Okay, you're good

30:31

And there's times you'll you'll see in the New Testament where you know it talks about you know certain apostles get confronted to their face

30:37

Because not necessarily because of prophecy because of favoritism you see that you see that happen

30:42

And so you would see that with teachers today, right? Like if someone came to you and Josh came to you, and he's got like this you guys are like post your post mill, right?

30:50

Yeah, yeah, I'm optimistic in spite of the news He comes to you, and he's like hey, you know here look at this look at this verse here

30:56

You know and he's just like this is I believe in the pre -trib rapture And you're gonna be like you're a false teacher because he's wrong about something you'd go actually

31:03

This is what I think the scriptures say you try to correct him more accurately Yeah, and you come into alignment and go okay So there's difference between a wrong teacher and a false teacher

31:11

And I'm just saying is that that same category applicable for prophecy are there people who get it wrong? And then are there people who are false?

31:17

Because the Bible specifically speaks of false teachers and false prophets as people who lead us away from God Okay, you know if someone is repenting and saying guys

31:24

I'm wrong and I think frankly we shouldn't trust that person as a person of faithful prophecy if they're up there

31:30

You know dropping strikes every single second after they're probably so how do you know so how? So the question is the question is so Deuteronomy 13 in your position then is relevant

31:41

But Deuteronomy 18 is not relevant Deuteronomy 13 is relevant in the Old Testament for Stoning people who lead people after other gods in the

31:51

Old Testament I mean we don't in the New Testament stone people so if you're asking me How is it relevant in that it defines false prophets?

31:57

Yes people who lead us after other gods are false. Yes God's what you have not known I just find it really hard to take

32:03

Deuteronomy 18 and say that it's not abiding to people today I understand that it is talking about our

32:09

Lord and Savior Jesus, right? Like there's a that that prophet is coming But it very specifically it says it just says but a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything

32:16

I have not commanded or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods is to be put to death and it says you may

32:22

Say to yourselves, how can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord? 22 if a prophet proclaims in the name of the

32:28

Lord does not take place or come true That is a message the Lord has not spoken that prophet has spoken presumptuously.

32:34

That's right. It's not be alarmed It's not saying that specifically the person saying that they're the Messiah. It's just saying that yeah

32:40

In contact happening yeah so again and this is what the The guys who have PhDs that I don't are gonna come in here and say that because of the way that this passage is addressing

32:49

You should look forward to this prophet. That's to come you're to look forward to a prophet who is to arise He's gonna be like Moses.

32:54

We all both agree that this there is messianic prophecies in here I'm speaking of Jesus. So yeah, we'll agree that So Jeremy 18 does have some messianic hints to it

33:03

And it's saying they're gonna be guys who are contrasting through that the guys who are coming alongside trying to be that prophet

33:09

As far as I can I can read so we will agree that Deuteronomy 18 is speaking of Jesus But then right when it when the but then other prophets that's that's the phrase that you guys go now

33:19

Those could be any group of prophets whatsoever. And I would just say Like if there was a person that came to you in your church and said hey, you know pastor

33:27

You know, I think I hear the Lord say has said this last night in my dream It was really weird. But this is what

33:33

I think the Lord said in my dream last night Yeah, and it was something like I think you should adopt X Y &

33:38

Z, baby now That again, would anyone be willing to stand up and call that person a false prophet and someone who's outside of the

33:45

Christian faith? If it there if they're wrong, well, no I think it's specifically saying that if something is going to happen and it does not come to pass then they're a false prophet not

33:54

Saying oh, I think maybe you know some type of interpretation of a dream. This is this is something totally different This is saying this is gonna happen in the future.

34:02

It doesn't happen in the future. Okay, I don't think that's the same What if I what if I if I said so Saturday Sunday night.

34:09

I'm at church or we I preach Sunday morning and I'm worshiping at this church in Is it

34:15

Tucson? So I'm worshiping there. Yeah, and I got this kind of image in this kind of this this thought that comes in my head

34:20

It was super weird. I had this image of this like gruesome looking face and and this thought that's suicide So, you know we do our little panel we talk and we're like, hey

34:28

We're gonna pray for people after the service and I said, hey if you would let me, you know I kind of interrupt the guy speaking. I was like if anyone here is wrestling with suicide

34:35

I really want to pray for you. Now, if nobody came up would I be a false prophet? I wouldn't think that that's actually a prophecy of the future because it's not specific enough

34:44

That's just kind of like when Samuel like a new specific data about Saul as he was going around, you know

34:50

He's like, oh you lost your donkey and I know where he's at Like you would say that's not prophecy because you know a specific data point about someone that you shouldn't have known.

34:57

Naturally I think I've been I'm talking specifically in terms of Deuteronomy 18 when this thing does not come to pass

35:03

Right because God declares the end from the beginning if it does not come to pass It wasn't from God because God doesn't get things wrong

35:11

Like so you would say any prophecy that's specifically about a future event that doesn't come to pass So if I got up and said, you know tomorrow

35:18

I feel like Josh is gonna show up in a blue shirt and he shows up in a purple shirt shirt And I won't say feel like thus saith the

35:24

Lord that way we have clear distinctions Tomorrow Josh shows up to church in a purple shirt and you know, and then

35:30

Josh shows up in a blue shirt You would say that person's a false prophet under those grounds, but the real quick Yeah, I'd say like it's similarly like when

35:38

I'll use this for example, Joseph Smith says that within 56 years Christ will return on the scene.

35:44

Sure According to Deuteronomy 18, of course, we can use Deuteronomy 13 as well But according to army 18 that didn't happen

35:50

I have the biblical grounds to say that's a false prophet because he gave a specific year. You see what I'm saying?

35:56

Yeah, so I think I think that's very relevant to Deuteronomy 18 And I mean we can talk about PhDs like Wayne Grudemann those but there's other giants of the faith

36:05

Interpretation that if they have a false prophecy in the future It doesn't it doesn't happen when they say something's gonna happen and they're false prophets and it's relevant today

36:12

Yeah, and I would say we don't want to get a cop and on either side doing like an appeal to authority fallacy We went over the scripture, but just for the sake of the conversation

36:19

This is one thing. I want to just get maybe understand your point of view better I just feel that from your point of view and I Appreciate the fact that You are calling balls and strikes and you want to you want to call for accountability in your community?

36:30

but I see I see an assumed continuity and a consistency of The view of the law of God in regards to the practicing in the

36:39

New Testament and in regards to the old I'll get just give you another example just a chapter later from Deuteronomy 18 is

36:44

Deuteronomy 19 When it talks about the how do you formulate an accusation, you know?

36:49

One witness is not enough to form an accusation matter of a testimony unless you raise on the account of two or three witnesses You see that carried over completely into the into the

36:58

New Testament This wasn't something that was cultural or anything or anything of that nature and you could even say that in a sense what excuse me what like was prophetic in the sense that you know

37:09

God is Trinitarian and that the even the God the fact that there's four gospels is the account is sort of in a

37:15

Assume continuity the law of God telling the story of Jesus from three distinct actually four distinct vantage points even though the matter must be established by two or three witnesses, but you'll see that really specifically carried out in Timothy when it talks

37:27

About don't entertain an accusation against an elder except on the account of two or three witnesses. Sure. You see that consistently

37:34

Consistency throughout that what I would just see is that you know Given your view when you're trying to kind of differentiate as some people would say not being a false prophet

37:42

You're just a bad prophet some of the time. It just seems that prophesying at all. Yeah. Yeah, it seems that you're right

37:48

It's kind of this Mean regardless of like the intention in the heart that you have It does seem like there's this gray fog and kind of this nuance between trying to really take prophecy

37:58

Seriously that God does and bad theology hurts people. But how do you?

38:04

Like how do you categorize that in a way that's that's consistent that that's the struggle that I'm having with your point of view

38:10

Do you want to clarifying that or sure? So, you know when I look at prophecy in the New Testament It's it's really interesting because I'm again

38:16

I like to use the categories of teaching and privacy because I think they're helpful, you know I think it's believe it's James Africa.

38:22

I know it's not a Pauline epistle He says that hey, I wish that few of you would be teachers, right? Like it would be good that not all of you be teachers

38:28

There's a real strict judgment with teachers and then later we see that Paul says we want you all to earnestly desire prophecy

38:34

Right pursue love earnestly desire to prophesy now also women aren't allowed to teach in the

38:39

New Testament, right? We're complementarians here I think we're all on the same page there and yet women and children were allowed to prophesy in the

38:45

New Testament He pours out a spirit on his sons and daughters your old men your young men, right? So women and children are prophesying and yet they're not allowed to teach

38:54

God's Word. That's that's reserved for qualified elders so it seems as if in the New Testament that teaching

38:59

God's infallible Word for all people everywhere and Prophesying which is going to be judged amongst the brethren has a different weight of authority in the

39:09

New Testament now there are different kinds of arguments for why that is and some people are gonna have more of a

39:16

What do you I would say a Similarity continuity. That's the word I was looking for continuity between the Old and New Testament and other people gonna find

39:23

Discontinuity between Old and New Testament, I would say personally that there are certain ramifications.

39:29

There are certain kind of Qualifiers in the New Testament that help weigh and judge and discern prophecy

39:35

And it doesn't ever instruct us in the New Testament when we're weighing prophecy Okay What is good and reject what is evil to then reject the person in which the word was given or to?

39:44

Excommunicate them from the church. In fact, it just seems to to weigh those things and judge them. Okay So, let me just throw out something to and you guys can give me your thoughts in here

39:52

There's a couple of the categories you want to cover too. And again, we're just trying to you know Kind of bat back and forth and hopefully they'll be

39:59

I'm sure there's gonna be some great conversation See the YouTube comment section, but let me give you an example.

40:05

So let's run me 18. Yeah, great way to start it off. Yeah Let's just go right

40:11

I love Josh by the way, I want to I want to tell you that other so Yes So as far as like let's give an example right now what's on the news and it's obviously it's it's sometimes

40:22

It's a bit overwhelming right now everything going on in Afghanistan And it's difficult and it's very it's heartbreaking and there's a lot of confusion a lot of hurt a lot of anger

40:31

Let's just say for the sake of category. There's someone that's well -known and I'll just whoever it is fill in the blank

40:37

Okay says that I'm gonna prophesy that there's going to be revival and just amongst

40:45

In Afghanistan or there's going to there's this and this and this is going to happen. Let's just say on the political front

40:52

Because obviously you can't really see what's going on in the unseen realm and God might be working He is working right now amongst the our brothers and sisters who are in Afghanistan in the underground church, especially but um

41:02

They say these specific things are going to happen, right? and it's almost in the sense when

41:08

God talks about the prophets who come about saying peace peace when there is no peace and That doesn't come to pass.

41:15

So in that particular case Let's just say Are they so they are they a false prophet?

41:22

Are they a bad prophet? Like how do you differ? How do you? Categorize that yeah again for me. I'm looking for a category of are they trying to lead people after other gods, right?

41:32

Are they practicing some kind of false worship? There are guys out there who are just trying to get you to look at them

41:37

You know again, I think of guys like Kenneth Copeland who you know, I've cursed kovat kovats dead.

41:43

It's no more I've declared it's over. Yes still here These guys who are getting up that is trying to pull attention to themselves and I would say very much

41:51

So lead people after other gods Kenneth Copeland said things like Adam was as much God as Jesus was God easy to say False prophet now when you're saying, you know, is this specific event is going to happen and it doesn't happen

42:01

What's what is that person doing? Is that person going? Oh, no, I have grieved a holy

42:06

God like man I I thought that's what I heard the Lord say and I'm wrong and like man

42:12

God Forgive me and you're repenting before God's people like you tell me that person's not a Christian It was like no like that person's not a that person's not a

42:19

Christian that that person's a Christian because they have contrition That they have grieved the heart of God and spoken presumptuously and absolutely.

42:26

That's what they've done I'm not categorizing that as a false prophet because again I'm I'm I think there's a clear distinction of people who get it wrong that repent that we would receive back into our communities and false prophets is people who we're going to Excommunicate from amongst our myths

42:40

So if you had someone attending apology at church and you're like that person's a false prophet you would excommunicate them

42:45

You wouldn't let them take the table, right? I would assume I would hope you know, if you were a false teacher I wouldn't give you access to the table.

42:51

I wouldn't I wouldn't yeah, I wouldn't give you opportunity to vote in church polity or however your local government, you know operates

42:58

But if a person you know is is in willful rebellion Claiming that they're right and everyone else is wrong

43:04

Right claiming that they're speaking on behalf of God and they're clearly not That's a false prophet and I would absolutely excommunicate them from the table.

43:12

I would excommunicate them from the congregation. That's easy for me So it isn't necessarily that they got the prophecy wrong.

43:17

It's it's whether or not they're a Christian They're truly believing in the in the true and living God They're just that would distinct them that would distinct whether or not they're a good prophet or a bad prophet, right?

43:27

so, I mean, would you would you say a person who Gets a prophecy I was gonna put it in your court like they get it wrong and they repent

43:35

Are you gonna call him a false prophet forever? I mean do they have a false prophet title for six weeks six months six years

43:41

How long how long you gonna label someone a false prophet before you? Yeah, well, I guess I guess I guess the question the question for me would like what's what's their foundation from which they're formulating that?

43:50

Prophecy to begin with like what's their foundation? Are they are they actually bringing it before other people? Are they actually looking at what they're saying?

43:57

Like but is there a scriptural basis for that? Like what's my point of reference for even giving this prophecy to begin with?

44:03

That that's what I that's what I base it base it off of but still And that's just something that maybe

44:10

I think We might think differently in regards to what prophecy was in the in the New Testament It's just one of those things to like how do we as someone who's charismatic?

44:19

How do they how do they have a consistency for dealing with if you know, whatever whatever is next?

44:24

The Trump prophecies were a big big thing, but I think it's consistent Yeah, I mean, I mean don't you like if someone repented would you let them have access to the table?

44:32

Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's times I mean there's restoration There's times where you've had to do church discipline and it's been difficult and in grievous

44:38

But there's people who laugh and there's people who repented and like restoration is a great thing That's the purpose of church discipline to begin with amen

44:44

So so but but if so if they repented you give them access to the table But if they didn't repent you wouldn't give them access to the table

44:50

So it seems like you're in the same category if they're a false prophet, right? They're not repenting for for claiming these words, right?

44:58

They're there. I'm placing them in a false prophet category because they're not repenting if they do right I'm not placing them in a false Prophet category.

45:04

Do you guys see what I'm saying? Yeah, I think it's that complicated because this is where kind of a similar thing because because you're you were asking along the lines of So when do you when you know, when would you consider somebody a false prophet?

45:16

When would you you know, would you do that if they repent and just kind of give a different spin on that question?

45:23

When do you take the mic from somebody? I don't because because because because that's that's kind of my concern is like for us for those people who would hold a more strict view if you will a covenantal view where we would kind of pull as Much of the

45:41

Old Testament forward as we possibly can which would include if somebody is is speaking a false prophecy that doesn't come to pass

45:50

Or leads you after other gods and I know that that I have a textual note in here that says that the or in verse 20 can be or or and but You know, we have kind of a definite standard.

46:05

Yeah, it might seem kind of like harsh or quick to say false prophet right but in a bit perhaps that would be

46:12

You've lost that right that you can't do that anymore Whereas it seems like to me to kind of capitalize what

46:20

Jerry's saying there's kind of this gray area for your position that says It's it's not shut up sit down and don't don't do that anymore

46:30

There's a much longer leash. It seems like no. I mean, I don't know. I think I think that's that's fair I mean for me again, if someone gets up on the

46:38

Lord's Day and preaches and teaches God's Word in a way That is unfaithful. I pull their mic that's a fair thing to do and I would say the same thing with prophecy if someone gets up there and exhibits that they

46:48

Are not handling That that gift I would absolutely do that That's an easy thing to do.

46:54

Yeah, I'm not gonna just say oh you got it wrong Just this one time keep on prophesying. Hopefully you'll get the next one. No. No, I'm right there with you

47:01

I if someone gets up there and they swing and they miss it's like okay Like sit down and listen more carefully and and we're not practicing this on the

47:08

Lord's Day Like again, we're submitting these kinds of things to one another So so again, like if there's a guy out there named

47:13

Jeremiah Johnson who biffed it pretty hard He missed it with the Trump prophecies, right? And then he said hey guys

47:18

I'm repenting and I'm gonna sit down and shut up and submit to my elders for a season of restoration That's what

47:24

I expect. That's what I would expect from guys. So what does restoration look like in that sense? Well again, I'm not his church elders

47:30

But I would expect that to take place with your church elders just like again like teaching would Again, if we keep using the same categories and saying how would it function in a local church?

47:39

If someone got up on the Lord's Day and taught a Christological heresy, well, we'd pull that guy We wouldn't let him speak anymore.

47:45

And and hopefully if he is repentant, we would teach him more accurately the scriptures, right? I'm near the same thing with prophecy

47:51

Teaching is a gift that can be abused prophecy is a gift that can be abused and church discipline would be administered

47:56

I would assume nearly the same way And in fact in the same way except that teaching seems to be more authoritative in the

48:04

New Testament than prophecy Gotcha gotcha So in order to to continue the conversation to because I think it's a great explanation from your position is them

48:11

How do you how do you guys walk that line right in terms of encouraging somebody to want to have the gift of prophecy?

48:17

But then they prophesy and they use the Lord's name in vain Essentially because it doesn't come to pass and urging them to repentance and then encouraging them again to prophesy when they can actually just be

48:28

In sin again, how do you how do you walk that line? How do you have a healthy charismatic balance? That's what I want to know

48:33

Yeah, I mean I would say that all that test stuff takes place in the New Testament, right? So in in first Corinthians chapter 12 13 and 14 and 14 in particular, he says hey

48:43

Pursue love earnestly desire spiritual gifts. And this is a conversation I was having earlier I think with one of the guys is in here

48:48

I'll name it drop his name But you know he was in here with us earlier talking as like is there another Bible is there another command in Scripture that you?

48:55

Can think of that God commands us to do in the New Testament that we're allowed to not do like go into all the world and preach the gospel or You know

49:04

You know This is the way that you're supposed to enact churches when the sexual morals among you, right? Like you defend them to the axe at the table or you're taking communion in an unworthy manner

49:13

Take it in a worthy manner Is there a single biblical command in all of the New Testament that we are allowed to say? Nope, that's not for us today

49:19

That was for them then because that that kind of exegesis I seems to be spinning most of the church out into liberalism and for me

49:27

The passage says earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you would prophesy So again when

49:32

I have a student, you know of the word come to me and they say hey Josh You know, I'm reading this passage here.

49:38

And as I'm reading it, this is what I understand it to mean, you know I don't go BAM, you know, don't ever read the

49:43

Bible again without my interpretation like it's only You got that wrong son. No, okay. What we do is we open up the word and we go, okay

49:49

Well, this is what it says historically grammatically theologically. We're gonna pull from other sources I'm gonna give you the right resources on how to study

49:55

God's Word and I go Okay, so this is what it means is what it says. Does that make sense to you? He goes? Yeah, that makes sense to me It's like okay great keep going studying

50:01

So in the same way that you would tell someone to study God's Word and submit what they're learning to their teachers Which is what scripture says for us to do

50:09

We would then do that same thing if someone feels like they're hearing something from the Lord They would go and submit that to their pastors again

50:15

We're not practicing a stand up on the Lord's Day and thus saith the Lord But they coming down and submitting and we're going ah, like for example someone wants, you know

50:22

Sam Storms gives this illustration of someone in his church that gave a prophetic word that I think was in a home group You know,

50:27

I just I feel like the Lord's saying he's lonely and Sam was like, that's not a thing Like God doesn't get lonely like that's that's not a thing

50:33

All right God doesn't get left and he had to pull her aside and correct her and teach her more accurately the scriptures and she never did That again, right and again, that was a public thing as well because the the people needed to know that God's not lonely

50:44

He didn't just let the prophecy go and teach people something that was false He actually spoke into that community and and pulled her aside and encouraged her and directed her.

50:53

So yeah Well, that's just a situation to which you've seen, you know people a lot of times will you know people and other people that I?

51:00

respect and You know have a lot of love for in the in the discernment realm and they'll play and you've seen it the infamous

51:05

Video of the one guy from Bethel who Jesus comes up to him He says he has a vision of Jesus saying that Jesus asked him to forgive him, right?

51:12

So it's just one of those things to where obviously is blasphemous But I was wondering within that culture if I came up and said anything remotely like that, believe me

51:23

I would have not just my elders, but probably a couple of my good friends being like Jerry Jerry It'd be straight.

51:29

It would probably a straight -up intervention, right? What was blasphemous? Oh the situation where the guy was having the private revelation where G has come up, you know

51:37

I'm talking about that one guy. Okay, so there I thought you knew it okay, so there's a video and it was of someone who was like I think it was a youth pastor and she said that Jesus came to him privately in a vision and Jesus was asking

51:49

Him for forgiveness. Oh, Jesus was asking for forgiveness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's not great, right?

51:55

The audience knows it so if you guys are watching this

52:00

It was it was someone on one of the Bethel campuses but my question was and this is back when I was just kind of looking at trying to make sense of like how can this is even before I we ever did the podcast on like If anyone that church like was there anyone who pulled him aside or was there any

52:16

Accountability in that sense and and that's just a situation while we don't see eye -to -eye in prophecy and I appreciate the conversations

52:22

It's just one of those things to where if someone comes up there and gives some sort of word like that In the same way if I'm if I'm teaching at a reach group on Sunday night, like I've got it.

52:32

I'm doing a series I'm helping teach on the DD I'm doing a series on the DD of Jesus for my small group

52:37

If I just say something that's way out whack and and I start doing some modalism. I start sort of redefining the

52:43

Trinity I'm really hoping that there's gonna be some people that are gonna see me and they're gonna come from Your way off there bro, like what's going on and that and that's the that's the concern

52:55

I have within that that So when let me ask you this though, cuz you guys keep asking me about like the abuses, right?

53:02

I get ranted there's abuses right and we would say that also there's abuses with teaching What we do is we say cars aren't dangerous

53:08

Stupid people behind the wheel are dangerous. Okay, right and you say that with guns and everything else Okay, I'm sitting here saying do you know that the benefits outweigh the cost like last night, you know again the demon situation

53:19

Where I'm like, hey, is anyone here, you know Wrestling with a suicide and a lady comes up.

53:25

She's trembling when I she she's totally fine the entire night And I said, you know if you're wrestling with suicide

53:30

She said she began to tremble once I said that because she knew it was her and she came up because her dad and a

53:35

Couple other family members had committed suicide and she was wrestling with these thoughts every single night that once she gets off her medications

53:41

She's gonna bite the bullet and she is she is gets delivered. She gets free. So it's like, okay.

53:46

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I get it Prophecy can be scary. It could be dangerous. And yeah, absolutely But we have this command in the scriptures to seek it and when it's done with the right biblical parameters the benefits outweigh the cost

53:59

And again, I don't think that there is a cost in good teaching I don't but the reality is that the gift of teaching exists and people can get up there and teach falsely

54:08

That's absolutely a thing. But but again, we're commanded to seek these things. I want to be obedient to seek those things

54:14

I want to be obedient not to despise prophecy. I want it in that obviously There was a reason why

54:19

I said don't despise prophecy He could have said don't despise teaching despite its leadership don't despise

54:25

But he said prophecy because the conversation we're having right now. Okay, they were very aware of okay So just real quick in summary before you jump in the next category just just just in summary

54:34

What would you say would be the top the top three that would just that in regards to the the reckless

54:40

Prophecy that you see within a lot of the leadership that you you've kind of called balls and strikes on and whatnot on your on Redmond radio

54:47

What would be that what would be the top three things you think you would say that they need to deal with that needs to?

54:52

Happen what needs to happen? Yeah, like because people have prophesied falsely. Yeah, just in regards to this whole issue

54:58

We started with the Trump prophecies and we're looking at just the recklessness of it. You talked about one Accountability that people need to take ownership.

55:05

Yeah They absolutely need to have a deep biblical theological grounding

55:11

They don't get to just get up and pop off and say whatever they feel There's a lady out there named Kat Kerr who says that there are mountains made out of jello in places in heaven that we get to go and swim in the pools of whipped cream and there are

55:23

Cows that drive people kids around it prophetic art classes. I mean, there's just I mean you think I'm making this up It's absolutely a thing there's recordings of it.

55:31

I've played it It's absolute absurdity. So so there needs to be some kind of theological understanding for people who are giving some kind of prophetic word and then the charismatic community

55:40

Has to be intellectually honest enough to stand up and say we don't want any more of this. You've got to stop it This is out of bounds.

55:47

This is ridiculous. You're just going for clicks like this. This is incendiary. It's wrong It's not biblical. There needs to be another

55:53

Reformation in the charismatic movement. Okay. All right good male. I appreciate that I'm definitely looking forward to the the post the post

56:01

Conversation that's gonna come about about this. So a next category. This is something that we discussed as well And this is just something that's really big and it's kind of been on my heart especially even back when we did the whole issue with Bethel and defecting from Bethel and some of the other series we did up with Bethel in the

56:15

New Age is really the level of Lack of discernment in the sense and also anti intellectualism where they're so experience focused.

56:22

They're not really looking at well I want to experience God. I want to experience revival, but I'm not making any

56:30

Discernment about what that what is that catalyst that I'm using to try and use as a trajectory into Experiencing God or experiencing revival and you saw that for example in the book the physics of heaven

56:41

Sure, which you know, Chris Valeton wrote the Ford to and and he is someone who's supposed to be Categorically someone who's a shepherd of the flock and he's feeling astronomically when you look at what it's basically saying and it's just it's so bad

56:54

Talking about how God we can actually redeem the New Age and it's just talking about that for example But also

56:59

I think I always thought initially that when you look at someone like a BSSM student there and they have this

57:05

You know, they have a sincere heart that want to seek after God, but it would seem to me that there's so much

57:11

There's so much emphasis on I just want to experience the supernatural. I want to experience healing I want to experience miracles that if a

57:18

Jim Jones like character infiltrated their church, which we just by his time We're done On William Branham and his relationship with Jim Jones and Jones was known for doing these huge healing services you can look these videos up on YouTube and And yeah, so he would do

57:35

Really stuff that's very similar to what you would see in Bethel like and hyper charismatic churches

57:41

But it's like how would they not be susceptible to that? They are they're not doing that So that would be let's talk about that for a little bit.

57:49

Yeah, so when it comes to healing and the supernatural Like what do we what do you do? Like as a charismatic and there's areas in which you believe in we would agree to like how do we deal with that?

58:00

The anti intellectualism or the lack of discernment in that and as far as that's concerned I mean you said a

58:05

Jim Jones if someone like that had gotten their community Well, there was there's his name was Bob Jones and he got into their community

58:11

He taught them how it all traveled to heaven by emptying their mind and deep breathing And and this is how we're all gonna go. I'll just go guys

58:18

You know, let's go, you know and then and then there's a video of him talking to Todd Bentley and and he was

58:24

Prevented from entering the third heaven because the Dalai Lama spirit was in the second heaven and you know You have to speak in tongues a bunch and empty your mind.

58:31

And yeah, absolutely. They're susceptible to that kind of thing So the answer is yes And then your your your response was or your follow -up question was how do we prevent that or or what people who are going?

58:41

After healing how they make themselves susceptible to that because I'd be first like the gift of healing as far as I'm concerned in Scripture We we don't create any kind of environment.

58:50

I think it just comes down to right teaching We believe that most scholars I suppose believe that in the book of Galatians is the first epistle that is written

58:59

Historically and Paul says in that epistle that he came with them in some kind of infirmity When he preached the gospel and yet they still received him

59:05

No most people would say that at the beginning of Paul's ministry that he had the gift of healing that he could use on command and Yet when he goes to Galatia, he has some kind of infirmity

59:14

Epaphroditus was was left at Miletus sick and right and there's a night a guy named Was his name trophimus?

59:22

Yeah trophimus was left at Miletus sick. Epaphroditus was on his deathbed before God finally raised him up So it Paul he could have used his his healing gift on command if he wanted to but he'd waited until the last possible moment

59:32

And then God raised him up No It just seemed like there was moments and times when Paul couldn't heal or didn't heal and Timothy He didn't send him a handkerchief, you know

59:38

He told him to drink some wine for his stomach and then later at the isle this island they get shipwrecked on he heals the entire Island, so it's not like the gift tapered away

59:46

There was moments throughout his life where it worked and it didn't work and what we find in first Corinthians chapter 12 is it's sovereign

59:53

God is sovereign. We don't get to demand that the gifts of the Spirit work as we want them to work

59:58

We're actually submitted to God's mission and God heals the sick God is moved to compassion to heal and he uses the body of Christ to accomplish that work.

01:00:07

So Would it comes down to healing now? if we're if we're gonna create these little environments where we're going to like We're gonna get set the stage and get the mood right do some kind of right weird

01:00:17

Gnostic practice to get healing to show up Yeah, that would be dangerous But as far as a careful continuationist is concerned the gift of healing is not a residential gift, but an occasional gift

01:00:27

That's given by God Sovereignly and there may be some people who seem to have a greater grace that God frequents them in that grace in that gift of healing

01:00:35

Right, but no one possesses the gift of healing There's no healers as far as I'm concerned in the

01:00:41

New Testament. Yeah, okay, dude. I love that that was explained So well, dude, that was great. That's really good

01:00:47

And so just one of the things I also want to do too and let and also I'll let you guys jump in this too I'm actually this is a clip

01:00:53

I think is a really good conversation to have I'm doing I wanted especially do this with any of you in mind especially just thinking about our

01:01:01

Anyone who's charismatic who's our Christian charismatic brothers and sisters, but really the heart

01:01:06

I have a twin behind You know, we talked about the you know, the the important the secondary issues the Adolph reissues that are just secondary

01:01:13

But what what ultimately are the essentials of the faith and really a cult is we're looking at okay It's the cult is really centered around any any person's a particular any sort of charismatic person's

01:01:23

Misinterpreted organizations misinterpretation of the Bible where they the primary distortion is that they'll use

01:01:28

Christian terminology But they fundamentally deny who Jesus Christ is namely God in human flesh

01:01:34

So if anything that all Christians need to be unified around is understanding the apologetic surrounding

01:01:40

That Jesus is God fully God fully a man. He's the Son of God God in human flesh It's something people should all be

01:01:47

Centered around so I want to play this clip and again you can view this clip in entirety.

01:01:52

Um, so Obviously, this is a person that you've talked to personally and you had you had on remnant radio

01:02:01

Apparently I'm his greatest defender. I mean, yeah, that's that's apparently my mission in life is to defend this guy

01:02:07

Yeah, so real quickly. Do you want do you want to talk about that? I mean some people wanted to kind of ask you about the interview I have only watched bits and pieces of it when you had him on I think that's how

01:02:15

I first found out about you I'll play it first and then yeah Yeah, well, let's let's do this just because I want to stay focused on here because we're talking about the

01:02:24

Anti -intellectualism and this is just this is just the critique of this conversation. So this is actually audio

01:02:30

I'm gonna play two clips and you know, we can fill in and give any context to it but this is a

01:02:35

Todd White when he is on the street and he actually encounters someone who is who is

01:02:42

Muslim and He starts off the conversation and again, I want to be as fair as possible I know there's a lot of critics of Todd White.

01:02:49

I definitely have my own You know critiques I would definitely give on him for sure but I want to play the first part of this clip and then

01:02:57

Follow up with a second clip and then we can actually just have a conversation about it. So, uh, here we go Can you give me a one first in the

01:03:03

Bible? Yeah, that mentions literally. Yeah, the Jesus himself says he's a son of God One verse we know.

01:03:11

Yes, he mentioned in himself. He literally Self -sufficient says that he's the son of God in John chapter 4.

01:03:20

No, you know, you're not going to find it He was talking to the woman in Samaritan The woman at the

01:03:26

Samaritan He said I am the Messiah The hour is coming neither in this mountain or in Jerusalem you worship the father you worship what you don't know

01:03:39

We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews for the hours coming now Is the true worshippers will worship the father in this in spirit and truth for such people the father seeks to be his worshippers

01:03:50

God is spirit and those who worship must worship in the spirit and the woman said I know that the

01:03:55

Messiah is coming He who is called the Christ this which means the Son of God He's the

01:04:02

Messiah He says I who speak to you am he or Jesus says

01:04:10

I am that I am He said I am he I am talking to you.

01:04:16

Am he? No, no. No, he did not say that And I I don't know

01:04:22

I was just asked to find the one place and I found it showed him Okay. So as you can see the first part of this conversation that I was it got me excited like okay

01:04:32

This is actually good. He's this is someone who's asking legitimate questions I think especially now with what's going on in in Afghanistan the issue of like what is the role of Islam and those were situations

01:04:42

Are going to be arising I think especially you know, we need to have an apologetic We need to be able to ask, you know

01:04:49

It talks about it, you know be able to give an answer for anyone who asked for the hope that is within you So someone is asking about Show me where Jesus is the

01:04:57

Son of Christ is God or he is the Son of God We we have a responsibility as Christians to give an answer of him who asked so the conversation in the fairness is start off well, um it immediately in my opinion and when it started to go south because What ended up happening in many cases is that it went strictly experiential.

01:05:14

This was my experience So what I'll do is I'll play the second clip and I'll give my thoughts and then we can just have a conversation about it

01:05:22

So here we go. So here's a right around minute 350 where Todd kind of switches. He's getting

01:05:29

It seemed like he was just getting a little frustrated. I don't know I mean, this could have been his first encounter talking with someone who is

01:05:35

Muslim It could have been our show waters like I don't know but so Todd white kind of switches and goes a little bit into His testimony, so here we go

01:05:46

But But I know but but you you want to debate me and you want to argue with me and prove your point

01:05:53

I don't I love you, man I just had the encounter with him face to face and it changed everything in my life 12 years ago.

01:06:00

So if you Encountered something 12 years ago in your life and your whole life changed from that second of that day

01:06:05

There'd be nobody no way anybody could talk About anything else to convince you.

01:06:12

Otherwise, he made me a man. He made me a husband made me a father He made me love people man. Okay, so just for the sake he goes if you listen if you follow

01:06:20

Todd white You kind of know what his story is about how how he encountering God and so the reason why I Bring that up and I want to bring that into this conversation.

01:06:28

It's just because In fairness it started off. Well, he's reasoning from the scriptures as a

01:06:33

Christian should do but then eventually it seems that he got frustrated Because of the questions he was answering

01:06:40

I don't think the the man who is Muslim was it was being kind and gracious That's just part of their culture I've been I've been on mission trips in Islamic countries where that is going on where where the one person he's a

01:06:51

Christian and he's Arabic Yeah, and like the way that the way they talk in Arabic. It's intense I'm sitting back like just soaking this in like wow

01:06:57

This is this is something else and so that's just part of who they are just part of their culture and so, you know all of a sudden, you know

01:07:05

Todd switches and goes from scripture to Personal private experience.

01:07:10

This is what I experienced with God and this is one of those moments, too When for example when we deal with Mormons and they talk about their testimony

01:07:18

They're gonna witness they prayed about the Book of Mormon, right? so and like how is how is

01:07:24

Todd's appeal to authority any different than the Mormon who has a Private revelation of private experience that they prayed about the

01:07:31

Book of Mormon. That is true How is his experience any more authoritative than Muhammad who had a private experience where he encountered

01:07:38

Allah and And and that took place there. So this is an example to where experience becomes the authority and I've seen this a lot especially with the previous conversations that we've had where there's experience

01:07:53

Versus over versus the overall the over versus the emphasis on the Word of God is our authority

01:07:59

So when you look at that, like how let's dissect this What do what do you tell me we think about this conversation and what do we do?

01:08:06

Which I think this is indicative of a problem as a whole within the charismatic movement like let's just start

01:08:12

What do we do with this? Okay with this clip in particular for critiquing it watching it Yeah, we're gonna like you said there's part we did good, right?

01:08:20

Like yeah the part that he did good was he was on the street and He found a Muslim guy and wanted to tell him about Jesus and we all go good job

01:08:27

And there's 90 % of the people who are watching in YouTube right now who want to snipe at Todd white Haven't done evangelism in eight months.

01:08:33

So this okay. Let's just get that out of the way Okay and the next Again, cuz that's gonna sound like I'm defending

01:08:38

Todd But we have a lot of armchair theologians who want to talk about all the right ways to do things that aren't actually doing anything

01:08:45

But then second to that there is a clip that we didn't pull out of this just for that that discussion that we also want

01:08:50

To commend him on he sure he's talking about this guy He goes this guy's gonna go to hell like he realized this guy will go to hell if he doesn't get

01:08:56

Jesus And again for that I say Todd white you got it, right again Okay, now now after that I agree with you that the epistemological argument of experience

01:09:06

Where does our ultimate authority come from and our knowledge it comes from Scripture God's Word.

01:09:12

It's God's Word. That's getting convict It's God's Word. That's going to that's gonna pierce the human heart God the

01:09:18

Holy Spirit works accompanying with God's Word. We see that it's the Gospel of God that's a power into salvation for everyone who believes right?

01:09:24

so so absolutely God's Word way to go when he did that and he moved off of to that into kind of an epistemology of Experience and started building it on that foundation now.

01:09:33

You wouldn't say that we should never use experience in our Evangelistic outreach, but what

01:09:39

I hear you saying is that it's not that our it's not our authority So in follow -up to all of that There is a specific line that he said that I think that you want to talk about the most and in that line

01:09:50

He said this guy wanted to argue this guy wanted to debate right and he made it seem as if like I'm done arguing

01:09:56

I'm done debating. I'm gonna tell you my story and I'm gonna get out of there, right and hopefully my story There's an overall negative connotation with that's right arguing in debate, right?

01:10:05

And and in that comes from an anti -intellectualism that roots back in the Pentecostal movement all the way back to Azusa Street In the earliest times of Azusa, there's a man by the name of William Seymour.

01:10:15

There's a one -eyed black man who? ultimately Sat outside of a seminary classroom to get his education because of Jim Crow laws

01:10:23

He wasn't allowed to sit in went off and started a church movement called the Azusa Street Revival And again both because of his race

01:10:31

And because of the kinds of experiences that were coming out of this movement the educated community started bashing the tongue -talkers

01:10:38

You've got a mental illness. You've got a demon. You've got a whatever right and because of that The Pentecostals are go you got all you're done.

01:10:45

You're good book learning. We we can heal the sick We don't need you fellows right and we're just gonna we're gonna go to our own book learning

01:10:53

Lighten the mood a little bit. I know and anyway, so so that kind of mentality is what we call would call

01:10:58

Anti -intellectual right and it has been a pervasive movement or a pervasive undertone in the charismatic movement for a very long time it's what allows those kinds of abuses and those kinds of Excesses to take place in the body of Christ one of the the biggest ones that I always hear people

01:11:16

You know like tongue -talk, you know They come in there and they're speaking in tongues and unbelievers are coming in their midst like what's up with that and I just go

01:11:22

Well anti -intellectualism will allow them to kind of distort the scriptures to however they want But if you teach people how to read the

01:11:27

Bible for themselves, it's clear in the scriptures that tongues doesn't take place without interpretation, right?

01:11:32

So anti -intellectualism is a pervasive thing in the charismatic movement, and I think we see it right here So again, we want to praise

01:11:38

Todd for where he gets it, right? For him to say, you know I'm not gonna debate this guy.

01:11:43

I'm not gonna argue this guy I mean, I think in some sense we can we can hold him accountable I say in some sense in every sense we can hold him accountable first Peter 3 15 right talks about giving an account of your faith making it a fence for your faith and as Christians We should know what

01:11:55

I would say is that I would say the bare minimum of Jesus being the Son of God and in this Passage or in this passage in this clip.

01:12:00

He does say something to the effect of You know that Christ means the Son of God. It doesn't it means anointed one like Christ is the

01:12:08

Messiah And you might be able to stretch the his meaning of what he's communicating from Isaiah chapter 9 where it's a messianic prophecy

01:12:15

It says is everlasting God Prince of Peace. Yeah, he's this prophecy of Jesus So so he might be packaging in the idea that of the

01:12:22

Messiah that Jesus is God But I would have wanted him to go to a clearer text of you know Jesus saying I am before Abraham and Isaac was

01:12:30

I am I go I me right or or Thomas laying down my Lord my God and he receives worship and those kinds of things like there's tons of texts in the

01:12:37

New Testament That speak to Jesus being the invisible image of the God of God in heaven Hebrews chapter 1 exact image of his nature upholds all things by the word of his power if you see me you've seen the father

01:12:47

I mean we could we go on and on and on for Bible verses. Yeah, the lamb receiving worship. Yeah relation. Yeah Yeah, it's just it doesn't stop

01:12:53

I mean, is there a way that for those who are kind of in appealing to the experiences the authority and like dealing with the

01:13:00

Intellectualism kind of preferring the gifts of the supernatural over over scripture. I mean, is there a way to communicate?

01:13:08

Like the really the supernatural miracle that is scripture. Yeah, I don't mean Was it did you see something because I mean that's just something you think about that's and that's a mean reading a scripture really for Us, you know should be a supernatural trip because this is this is the inspired word of God speaking through multiple people over thousands of years

01:13:27

Through different cultures through different areas and it all coming together with one through the centrality of one entire message

01:13:34

I mean that is yeah, that is something that is an incredible, you know Supernatural experience and is there a way that we can get people who are so caught up and wanting to experience, you know these

01:13:45

You know going into there's there's so much of the like the book like moving in glory realms or people that always want to get

01:13:51

This higher glory or higher this, you know, sure How do we get them to kind of get grounded before you know, it's very much like a cart before the horse

01:14:01

So like what what's what do you think are some ways that you could help people with that? Well, I mean,

01:14:06

I first of all, I wouldn't even say that desiring spiritual gifts would be a bad thing Oh, no, the word in first Corinthians 14 earnestly desire spiritual gifts is the same word we use for lust

01:14:14

It's the word is a loo. Oh, and I'm not a Greek scholar. So probably butchers a loo. Oh, I'm from Texas y 'all Yeah, so, you know probably butchering that text, but it's it's literally used in the

01:14:24

Bible to describe lust So the idea of desiring a spiritual gift isn't wrong But it's the desiring a spiritual gift for the wrong motivations, which is again

01:14:32

Which is first Corinthians is written for we're not doing or practicing spiritual gifts timing manifestations of the spirit for unpersonal benefit and good

01:14:39

It's actually for the benefit of the body and for God's glory It's when we start being selfish when we want to experience it for us and for me and so that I can show how spiritual

01:14:46

I am that's exactly what first Corinthians is written for is to say Hey you guys are making distinctions amongst each other trying to have the haves and have -nots and Spiritual experiences where you're really supposed to be practicing the gifts of the spirit for the body first Corinthians 13

01:14:58

It's about loving one another and secondly I would just say that there's tons of charismatics who love God's Word and and hold it in a faithful balance to Scripture all the

01:15:07

Apostles Jesus all these guys were able to earnestly desire spiritual gifts faithfully practice the spiritual gifts and never discredit or Never believe

01:15:17

Scripture was you know Insufficient or look down and have a low view of Scripture all those guys have maintained a high view of Scripture and the gifts of the

01:15:24

Spirit so it's absolutely possible in first Corinthians 13 tells us the answer is love Loving people practicing the gifts on their benefit for their benefit and for God's glory is ultimately how we maintain

01:15:36

Order and balance and health in the body of Christ Mm -hmm so so kind of like what you're saying which which

01:15:42

I love so much is like one way to avoid this anti -intellectualism or These things happening is number one if you watch something like this and if you're a charismatic and you're like, oh my goodness

01:15:52

Why didn't he have an apologetic right? Why didn't he have a an answer to this man from the scriptures?

01:15:58

Well number one you're thinking correctly and Josh is showing us that there are many Charismatics that are intellectual that understand in the realm of apologetics.

01:16:06

It's not about your subjective experience It's about what the Word of God says because it has supreme objective authority over the deity of Christ, right?

01:16:14

So that's what I'm hearing you say Josh and I'm in 110 percent agreement. I mean, there's intellectual giants like you can think of like Dr Michael Brown when he goes and argues against a

01:16:24

Jewish person or Jewish rabbi about the deity of Christ from the Old Testament Or who the Messiah is he doesn't go through Subjective experience.

01:16:32

No, he goes to the scriptures He divides the Word of God and what he does is he shows them through intellectualism through God's Word that Jesus is the

01:16:41

Messiah And we have so many of them, you know, we've got we've got Gordon Fee and we've got in stone brewer

01:16:46

Keener Scott McKnight Sam Storms in T Wright Ben Witherington Amos Young DA Carson Wayne Grudem Jack Deere JP Moreland RT Kendall Martin Lloyd -Jones

01:16:55

John Mark John Mark Ruth Ruthen I mean all these guys are guys who have made

01:17:00

Appeals to the gifts of the Spirit as things that need to operate in the body of Christ Most of those guys are modern if you one or two of them has has since to gone on to the

01:17:09

Lord Recently, but these are guys who their charismatics are deep thinkers and I have a list of hundreds of these guys

01:17:15

PhDs on their names Theologians love God's Word who can hold these things in balance in tandem.

01:17:21

But again, there is a culture that underlines The Pentecostal movement that roots itself in its history that affects and in and let's just pretend for 10 seconds

01:17:31

This is exclusively Pentecostal. We'd be doing the body of Christ a huge disservice Evangelical churches all across the world

01:17:37

America as a whole it is is going anti intellectual We can rise up for ourselves our own teachers on CNN Fox News who tickle our ears and pretend to ignore facts

01:17:46

So true, so it's not just like it's all those dumb charismatics. They like talking tongues and not read books

01:17:51

This is actually an American problem across the board. We just see it manifesting in a different way. Yeah in the charismatic circles

01:17:57

Yeah, and I think this just culturally I think here's an example to of something that happened last year

01:18:03

That was just representative of just as a whole of just the intellect intellectualism within the evangelical church was when the

01:18:11

George Floyd then the George Floyd riots happened with BLM last year and the reason was is that a

01:18:17

Lot of people were arguing like what is what is exactly right? And I feel like everyone was rushing to kind of go to the stand.

01:18:24

They had their answer before they had the data Yeah, they had their answer before the data But I think it was really indicative that there was really a vacuum in the church like how do we how do we categorically deal with these areas of Justice it felt like almost every single person that was very well known a lot of you and like rock star pastors were going out

01:18:42

There chanting it, but I feel like it was very much out of their element. Like this is brand new this is the first time I've really heard you talking about this just like where have you been previously and I just think that's an example too of the vacuum that that was indicative of a hole when everyone sort of jumped out there that really

01:18:58

Wasn't weren't speaking out that much previously Durbin did a phenomenal job. Yeah, the

01:19:04

George Fuller. I mean that was that was awesome Yeah, watch that video hashtag plug for you guys.

01:19:09

Yeah Yeah, I mean if I can jump in here. Yeah, one of the interesting things is growing up Pentecostal there's there's someone who

01:19:17

I know who would say something along the lines of a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument and I think that that kind of encapsulates a couple things one the anti -intellectualism that takes place within That can take place within charismatic circles and in America in general, but I think it also can

01:19:43

Reflect philosophy to to a degree because there are certain schools and I can't remember who it was But it's it's all about experience.

01:19:51

Can I? Can I feel this this this kind of is the barometer for what is truth and to some degree you see that coming through And you know, you're talking about George Floyd And and all this stuff

01:20:03

In in critical theory and intersectionality. It's all about lived experience. And so the reality is is when when we make story the

01:20:13

Barometer for truth Right and therefore emotions attached with it You lose any objective standard right and so so what's happened is to some degree

01:20:25

I See when it comes to the the historic anti -intellectualism. It's like, okay.

01:20:30

Well We got our healings. You can't tell us that that didn't happen and in fact your books tell us that they don't happen so we don't need them and and so it's kind of this like trickle -down effect along with the the if you will the the

01:20:47

Demonization of those of those folks and and the problem is is that like we discussed when it comes to Mormons is that people do have experiences and I think what we need to do is affirm that people have experiences and then we need to say now

01:21:02

Let's sit down and talk about what it is Right, and I think that that's that's part of the problem Because I know in our prep for this episode.

01:21:10

We've talked about the fact that in a lot of situations Um Charismatics or continuations get together and they talk and The cessation is get together over here and they talk and nobody talks to each other

01:21:22

So you've got these folks over here cessation is saying that's demonic Right, but then you've got the folks over here on the continuations charismatic side saying

01:21:32

That guy experienced something I don't know what that is But I don't want to call what could be the work of the

01:21:38

Holy Spirit the work of the devil And so they try to be more cautious, but then at the same time they miss they allow for a lot exactly

01:21:45

And so so there's there's something that each side kind of gets right to a degree But but a lot of that has to do with particularly on the continuations

01:21:54

Karen charismatics I I think the the experience issue and that your your argument can't trump my experience

01:22:01

Mm -hmm, and and that's where I think it's really important to point to passages like Deuteronomy 18 Like we have where if somebody does miracles

01:22:10

That Doesn't necessarily mean they're from God. Oh, yeah Right and that's the thing is

01:22:16

I think that's part of where we actually need to get together and have those kinds of conversations and Realize that Kind of separating these camps

01:22:29

Book only no experience Experience with books secondary to it

01:22:36

Neither of those can really happen because this this book this book is full of experiences. Yeah Supernatural experiences and I'll give you an example too because we're talking about hyper charismania, but I also there is

01:22:48

You know some concerns I have personally too with even like hyper cessation ism where people almost completely become reverse

01:22:55

Gnostics And they have a bad experience with people using the supernatural and they throw out the baby with a bath water

01:23:00

I've become deist don't believe that God intervenes at all Well, I would let me just give you a sense because I want

01:23:05

I don't I don't want to be fair I mean, I just I just remember an example where there was a Couple that had left a well -known charismatic church that had some bad experiences

01:23:16

And I was and they were fans of the show and I was telling them You know just the importance of that.

01:23:21

We need to be able to have an apologetic towards people who've experienced things in the New Age And I was describing

01:23:26

You know what is real that they experienced and there's a biblical basis for it for example when they're doing things like astral projection or lucid dreamings or They're having these real out -of -body experiences and we're encountering, you know when they try and Maintain that they getting obsessed with UFOs, which always leads to alien contact and as I'm trying to explain this to her

01:23:46

I mean, she's kind of just almost like sort of like laughing and rolling her eyes and now I didn't take it personally but it was just kind of made me a little bit sad because I understood that She had had this really bad experience so she just is scripture only scripture only what's in here

01:24:02

But anything that's outside of that realm I won't completely throw that out which is that if that's the attitude that you have at your church, you know

01:24:10

God praise God he's Saving people out of the New Age in droves and we've had people like Teresa Gentry who's been in our podcast who's got an amazing testimony and tons of others and you

01:24:19

Stephen Bancroft has been on here before and You know, if you don't have a formulated answer for what they're going through a scriptural basis to make sense of their experience

01:24:28

We can't see the unseen realm with our naked eyes But this is the lens and through which we can view it and make sense of it like we have to be able to give a definitive apologetic and also to one of the things why this conversation matters to when it relates to Colton to cultish is that there are concerns to where This can go into a lack of discernment that can allow people within the hyper charismatic

01:24:51

Movement to go into cult -like territory because a private revelation becomes the experience But then at the opposite end of people who are coming out of the

01:24:59

New Age For example, they tend to be attracted as a whole to charismatically and Pentecostally inclined churches

01:25:05

Just because they put an emphasis on the supernatural versus there's other places that don't always aren't always as consistent

01:25:12

So my point being is that there there has to be consist Consistency, you can't swing totally towards one way and you can't swing towards the other way you have to be able to look at it down the middle and that's why

01:25:21

I think in a weird way us is a Content cessation isn't continuations. We're sort of joining forces to kind of look at like what's the bigger picture?

01:25:28

What's the bigger picture at the road right now? Because a lot of these conversations, you know, even though we're having you know at the very beginning

01:25:34

We I we threw to you're on the 18 and that just that's a cursor and we could literally do a whole another whole podcast If you wanted to but my point in being is when we talk about what's the real what are the real emphasis?

01:25:46

Because there's things that are in -house conversations, but then Categorically, there's that anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have

01:25:55

God And I think when you look at the anti intellectual intellectualism when you look at sometimes the emphasis on private experience

01:26:02

It starts to go into cult -like category because the one thing that every single cult leader and cult movement have always had

01:26:08

It's always my unique private revelation my unique private experience or my exclusive unique Interpretation of the

01:26:17

Bible so you kind of sometimes see that within hyper charismania Now you're starting to see that with the passion translation where now you're having started, bro

01:26:24

Yeah, like we're gonna believe me an episode on the passion translation is coming But honestly when

01:26:30

I look at the story behind how that was Formulated and you see the similarities how they're starting to toy around with John 1 1 and what has happened

01:26:37

In the new world translation. It's like you are you're starting to kind of play with some You are you take off your sandals.

01:26:44

You're walking a holy ground. Yeah, it's like you are entering a no -fly zone It's like I want to fire some some warning shots.

01:26:50

You know I think my winger has yeah, he has yeah Some of those shots were fatal gotta get you on back

01:26:57

Mike so Can we let's do some of that bridge building then yeah, I just gave an example of healing

01:27:03

I explained that it is not something that people get to exercise on their own will something that God sovereignly gives

01:27:09

But he uses mediators such as us to accomplish it such as evangelism right God saves the soul

01:27:14

We all agree God's the one who saves the soul, but he uses Intermediators such as us to participate in evangelism right so would you guys all agree with that kind of definition of healing that God?

01:27:24

heals the sick sovereignly and Sometimes yeah, yeah, I don't have any issue with that definition my cool

01:27:30

So so we're I think I think we're moving I think 90 % of my 1689 buddies listen to that version of healing and they go mm -hmm.

01:27:38

Yep. We're down Okay with prophecy and though I wouldn't call it y 'all wouldn't call this prophecy

01:27:43

I wouldn't imagine but but again this story is striking to me with Jeff and his kid And and he is like you know what we probably name him

01:27:50

Augustine And then his wife says we'd probably call him August and people in the church would go okay well

01:27:55

You know let's pray about this and then people in the church are having dreams like oh I think his name is and having knowledge about a conversation that they shouldn't have you know those kinds of things we live in This kind of mystical world where God can accomplish those things sovereignly he can do that.

01:28:08

We're not we're not We're not like humming ourselves into a meditation to receive prophetic words

01:28:13

We're not we're not like you know constructing of the spirit to do things now Y 'all probably wouldn't be comfortable calling that prophecy

01:28:19

But y 'all would say that there is some kind of knowledge that was given to the body of Christ that they didn't have prior to that experience

01:28:26

R .C. Sproul has a similar experience where he's praying and fasting about whether he's gonna go to this college Yeah And then and then someone calls him out of the blue from his childhood

01:28:33

Who had to like call his mom just to get his number because he didn't even know his number anymore It was like hey man none of this is crazy, but like I think you're supposed to take a job here

01:28:41

I don't even give a job offer there He's like in R .C. Sproul the the token cessationist you know

01:28:46

Doug Wilson has a similar story all these guys that are good Godly rooted in the scriptures love the word.

01:28:54

I love them great men of God and we can go That sounded a lot like prophecy

01:28:59

I get it that you don't want to call it that but we could actually agree that that was the Spirit of God working speaking leading somehow

01:29:07

Even though we don't want to call it prophecy But that we weighed it and we judged it and we thought about it And then we said hey you know this doesn't put us in danger because we believe that God is somehow

01:29:16

Speaking to us in the midst of this Yeah, well, I think it is a categorically where I would see it not in the sense of prophecy

01:29:23

I would see it in the sense of You know it says like a man devises his own way But the Lord directs his steps And I think that is the case and some so many times we think about God being

01:29:32

God being sovereign and directing your steps We think it's strictly like physical right so you think Andrew like with a church plant, right?

01:29:38

There's been a lot going on with the you know like raising funds for Salt Lake City, Utah and you know organizing

01:29:45

You know just getting the word out of like doing the open house Which I'm going to be flying out shortly to be a part of will be we're gonna be doing some stuff in Utah and all

01:29:53

That goes into play with that now We talk about what's being directed as far as you know in the in the physical realm, but also you know there

01:30:00

We're bringing it up in prayer. We're praying about like how the church plants is going to go about we are

01:30:06

You know dealing with that so there's two different things that are going on There's the physical aspects of what's going on But there's also the spiritual aspects to where the

01:30:14

Lord is directing someone's step So I would see you know there's times for example when I would see

01:30:19

I remember Specifically there is a lady who was having trouble She's older had to be in her mid -50s, and she was having trouble changing her tire

01:30:28

So I just went and I just have this sense like go help like go help her Mm -hmm, and it's gonna be a captive audience to go share the gospel with her

01:30:36

And you didn't know she had a tire problem. No she had a tire problem. She didn't know no she had a tire problem

01:30:41

And it was just kind of like I was oh man I hope I hope she gets the tire fixed, but it was like I need to go help her got it

01:30:46

But it was this it was a sensing like you better you better go over there like or that's what you have to do

01:30:51

No, if -ands -or -butts, and I was like okay. It was just this it wasn't audibly It was just I just went over there, and I fixed a tire and as I'm there

01:30:58

And I'm talking to her and she's upset. I can tell she's Not a believer because I know she's saying a bunch of things including that weren't pleasing

01:31:06

Thank you, and and saying the Lord's name in vain a bunch of other stuff, so I just assumed the best and say okay She doesn't know

01:31:11

Jesus so I'm gonna tell her about Jesus And so I did I had a chance to graciously share the gospel with her and and talk to her talk to her about that She looked over and she said there's a body of water right there.

01:31:22

Why not be baptized now, right? Alongside the car yeah, so I wouldn't

01:31:28

I wouldn't say like that's that's prop that would be Prophetic or prophecy me it would be the way it would be the Lord directing my steps and me just being faithful to the

01:31:35

Great Commission And and God is the one who ordains the means of who hears the gospel he gathers his sheep and whatnot so That's where I would see that out so again when you talk about what happened with it with Augustine I would see you know

01:31:48

God working sovereignly both in the scene and the unseen realm But we're we know that there's this baby That's about to be born and and all this all this is happening

01:31:56

And then obviously this amazing miracle that happens and just every single time I see August with a giant beady eyes

01:32:02

He's just so into the world. It's so awesome I mean, that's the coolest thing right as we both look at the situation is like that was a sick kid

01:32:08

He got healed and he is in a family who loves Jesus Yeah, and there's some kind of some kind of sovereign work of God however.

01:32:16

We want to categorize it we go man There were people who wanted direction. There's a group of people who are like I Lord I want to know what your will is on this and and somehow the

01:32:25

Lord spoke Maybe led is a better word that you guys would be like and it encouraged and strengthened and edified in a way that wasn't dangerous

01:32:33

Mm -hmm, and I think that their prophecy can operate in that space where we're an honest body of believers

01:32:39

And we're like where do we plant the church? And where do we where do we put the funds you know for the mission board this month? and what do we do

01:32:44

X Y & Z and we can pray and we can actually expect that God is actually gonna lead us and Guide us and again

01:32:49

Maybe maybe speak is not the exact word that we want to use But if it edifies and incur it does the things that prophecy is supposed to do

01:32:57

Okay, you know it's for me. It's like it looks like a duck it quacks like it Let's call it a duck, but I get it you know we call it dreams and visions

01:33:02

But you know we want to call it prophecy. That's fine Yeah, I just yeah, I think there's so much more commonality than there is discontinuity, which we

01:33:09

I love that I love that you're building those bridges, and I would say maybe I mean I'm a bonehead so maybe this is just my boneheadedness

01:33:17

And you're well way more well -versed in this than I am Josh But I'd say I'd call it prophecy if the person went up to Jeff and said

01:33:23

Thus saith the Lord you have to adopt you're going to adopt this baby And it will be healed

01:33:31

Right I'd call that profit. Oh, no. No. Yeah, I don't think anywhere in the story anyone said that the baby got here But but the baby got healed that was just the cool part.

01:33:37

I don't like it was yeah Yeah, no, but I'm just saying delineating between what I would what I would determine to be prophecy versus you know

01:33:45

Like I think so like my categories It may be just a little bit different a little bit wider than that that in Joel chapter 2 he seems to categorize

01:33:51

Dreams and visions as prophecy right pour out your spirit on all flesh your sons and daughters will prophesy your old men will have visions

01:33:58

You young men will dream dreams and even in the Bible there are accounts of and obviously dreams aren't here listed in 1st

01:34:04

Corinthians chapter 14 It's just prophecy right so it just has a bigger category and the scriptures actually interpret for us

01:34:10

What prophecy is and it's a wider context and there there are times where dreams need interpretation?

01:34:15

So there are times where like I just don't know and maybe and I think Anyway, I just it makes sense to me, but I get it yeah

01:34:22

Well, but I mean even in terms of Daniel like he specifically knew what the dreams meant because he was a prophet

01:34:28

You mean Daniel the prophet? Yeah, Daniel the prophet right except for like in Daniel chapter 9 when he said hey, what does this mean?

01:34:35

I don't understand and God said I'm not telling you and we'll seal it up Well right because God didn't want to tell him but I mean in terms of the prophecy of what

01:34:43

God wanted to reveal to him He knew it Right profit right that's what I'm saying is sometimes

01:34:48

God speaks to us, and we don't understand it. It's like Daniel See that that was yeah, but he understands it when

01:34:54

God reveals it so absolutely no absolutely it goes both ways yeah Yeah, I mean and just give a little little background on that That's where like the question is is is he supposed to like because because my thought was

01:35:15

Is that the the person who gives the prophecy understands? What is being what is being communicated so that in in that situation how

01:35:25

I might look at that is that God or an angel? Was the one who was giving the prophecy and Daniels of the receiving one and that they're receiving one and so that's why he didn't understand

01:35:35

Yeah, you know and and and that's where I'd have to do a little bit more study on that because that's a different Yeah, I would just you know when you're studying numbers 12

01:35:42

You know when he talks about speaking to Moses face -to -face and to other prophets in contrast because Miriam gets leprosy, right?

01:35:48

I speaks to them in riddles and dark sayings so the idea that prophecy is always like this bold loud thus saith the

01:35:53

Lord like Samuel's thinking Eli's calling him, and he doesn't know that it's the Lord. That's calling him. It's like when

01:35:59

God speaks It's not like not every time the mountains tremble. You know and like everyone's like falling over and yeah

01:36:04

There are it does seem at times that God speak prophesy through a mirror darkly It does seem as if the scriptures include the idea that prophecy we prophesy in part and that sometimes things aren't

01:36:16

You know as confident as it may there there there have been times to your point where I felt very confident

01:36:22

I need to do this or else almost like this this like conviction to do something But but most of the time it's like I don't know you know and we're gonna see and is there someone here who wrestles with Suicide and turns out there is and they get delivered, and it's a win, and if not then

01:36:39

I repent and go guys I'm sorry. I thought that was the Lord, and it wasn't just wanted to keep myself accountable Yeah, so yeah, okay.

01:36:46

Yeah, see again I would see you just acting out in faith that the Lord's directing your steps And if the no one answers that then it's okay

01:36:53

I wouldn't see I would cuz just my position I wouldn't see if anything it wouldn't be anything I would have to repent of it was just I'm acting out in faith and At least

01:37:01

I'm least I put it that out there and no one came up to me So at least I'm I'm being I'm going with what

01:37:06

I believe is conviction. There's nothing There's nothing in and of that that's sin No, you you desiring for someone if they're struggling with suicide to be able to help talk to you

01:37:14

That's it. That's there's nothing that's inherently wrong with that so I at least I wouldn't see it having to repent but So we've been going here for about two hours

01:37:23

Yeah, we've been going for a while. Then we start around four so obviously this is we've only Scratched we've only scratched the surface and there's a lot more that we could unravel it here

01:37:33

And hopefully we could figure out some time to do a follow -up and and definitely Andrew it seems like you're up brains always like going off and you know

01:37:40

I'm sure your mind's being blown a couple of different times and all that sort of fun stuff, but I was great Yeah, this has been great. So I'm gonna start you talking about riddles and stuff

01:37:47

So I'm gonna throw in riddle me this a little bit real a little riddle here that has to do with cultish It's like so I'm gonna talk about UFOs So how does

01:37:55

UFOs and aliens and how and and just sum up? I'm gonna give an example of UFOs and aliens, which is something that we actually talk about a lot here on cultish

01:38:02

This is more of our fringe category So when it comes to the UFO discussion people tend to swing one way or the other when it comes to the entire the conversation from everyone

01:38:13

Christian or non -christian people either deal that strictly spiritual sometimes where they say it's only demonic

01:38:19

It's only you know spiritual entities and forces at work anything to show it being physical is just a conspiracy to hold that up and there's others who try and it like Luis Elizondo who try and deal with UFO phenomena from a strictly

01:38:34

Physical category trying to only use naturalistic materialisms to explain this phenomena in the sky

01:38:40

That's defined the laws of physics and all that entails of that but really when you kind of look at it through a

01:38:45

Christian worldview is that we have the ability to Look at that holistically and our lens to view that is the lens of the

01:38:53

Incarnation That Jesus Christ is fully God and also is fully man He is the one who is able to fully cross over into The heavenly places in the most perfect way

01:39:07

Through the cross and dying and dying for our sins And so in that sense you can look at it holistically

01:39:12

The same thing goes when it comes to this conversation the spiritual gifts is that so many times People tend to either swing one way or the other people tend to swing one way where it's just complete distinct

01:39:24

Cessation ism where there's not there's not really an overemphasis on the supernatural and it's all about just you know

01:39:31

Faith comes by hearing that we're hearing by the Word of God. That's it That's that's all that this all that there is and we're just gonna strictly stick within that There's nothing that operates outside of that But then there's the opposite end that says oh

01:39:42

It's all about just supernatural experience and just trying to get you know try and experience the next thing and going and reaching out beyond and Experiencing the sort of supernatural revival when really

01:39:52

I think that ultimately the category is You can also use the lens of the

01:39:57

Incarnation To say that you can use the physical and the spiritual and you can perfectly marry the two

01:40:04

Without having to swing one way or the other to look at this holistically and that's the lens We should look at we should really look at this not swinging totally one way or the other

01:40:13

That those are just kind of my thoughts as we do this because obviously there's a lot to unpack But I think one is we have to look at holistically through the lens of the

01:40:20

Incarnation I'm not swinging one way or the other but also Understand that for the most part, you know, this is a really an in -house conversation and I think many times in the discernment world, there's a lot of people who kind of I Called the play play pause discernment from afar, which

01:40:37

I think honestly There should be a lot more of these sorts of conversations taking place to place

01:40:42

And like I said, we're just barely in hashing. We covered a broad variety of topics So one we want to kind of enhance these issues that are concerns about what we see

01:40:51

Encultures the discernment realm within the height of the charismatic women. So one. Thank you for coming on, dude. Sure, man Yeah, I loved it. I do it again.

01:40:57

Yeah last. Yeah, so, um, so yeah So that's obviously, you know one of the things we want to show here is that we should be able to have these sorts of conversations in -house and Talk over these things in a gracious and loving way.

01:41:09

I have you guys on for part two over on ours. Yeah Awesome. Well, if you guys enjoyed this episode, obviously we kind of covered some

01:41:17

Different ground than we typically do but this has been a lot of fun So if you like this episode if you have questions about you know follow up I'm sure we'll get a lot of thoughts in this

01:41:26

I'll go ahead and leave a comment on our social media And also let us know what you thought and as always if you want to allow to continue conversations like this to happen

01:41:37

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01:41:43

So all that being said, thank you all for hanging out with us and we'll talk to you all next time on cultist We're entering to the kingdom of the cults.