F4F | Proof That Pentecostals are RESTORATIONISTS Not Continuationists

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. Alright, so have you ever heard the major claim that Charismatics and Pentecostals, they are continuationists?

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Well, people who are Reformed or Lutheran or whatever who believe that the apostolic sign gifts have ceased, that they are cessationists.

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And cessationist equals bad and unbiblical while continuous continuationist equals good and biblical.

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If you've ever heard that, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below. Don't forget to like the video. Ring the bell so you can be notified when we update the channel.

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That's all part of a false narrative. False narrative. Now, a little bit of a note here.

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I've said it before, and I will reiterate, I used to be a Charismatic. Yeah, 30 years ago my wife and I were caught up in the

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Latter Rain movement, all kind of the third wave of the Charismatic movement, and in the

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Latter Rain we were told about how God was restoring and had restored prophets to the earth, and that God was going to be restoring, in the near future, apostles to the earth and to the church.

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In fact, when you do your historical work, you're gonna note that Charismatics and Pentecostals historically have been cessationists who believe that God has restored certain things, like the

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Charismata, prophets, and evangelists, and apostles. Yeah, that's what they actually believe.

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So what we're gonna do is we're gonna blow this up. This will be an academic lesson of fighting for the faith.

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There's no videos that we're gonna be looking at. Instead, what I would ask you to do is come along with a little bit of a journey with me, and we're gonna take a look at three, potentially four, kind of depending on how my argument pans out, important works in this regard to demonstrate that Charismatics are not continuationists.

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No, they are not, and any Charismatic who claims to be a continuationist does not know church history and doesn't even know their own history.

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That's an important bit. All Charismatics are restorationists, whether they recognize that fact or not, because they are in the stream of a history of men and women who have been open restorationists.

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Case in point, in fact, let me pull up my desktop, and we're gonna open up my

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Kindle app on my computer. Now, the book we're looking at here, in fact, let me do it this way.

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The book we're looking at is an eyewitness account of the

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Azusa Street Revival, written by a fellow by the name of Frank Bartleman. This is a 20th century document written by a man who was a major part of the leadership of the

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Pentecostal movement at Azusa Street, and in the stream of Pentecostalism that flowed from Azusa Street out into the nations, plural,

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Frank Bartleman. So what we're reading is an eyewitness account, and his beliefs regarding God restoring the gifts to the

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Church of the Charismatic, the Charismatic gifts. And there's an overarching meta -narrative that he buys into, and in the last chapter of this edition of the book, so you know,

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Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street, an eyewitness account to the birth of the

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Pentecostal Revival. So Frank Bartleman is not somebody that you can, you know, you can sit there and say, he's anti -Charismatic, he's anti -Pentecostal.

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Far from it. He's an eyewitness to the Azusa Street Revival, and was vital in its leadership.

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That's the best way I can put it. So all of that being said, when you look at his account, the way it reads, and if you want to get a copy of this and do historical research on your own,

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I'm going to recommend that you read the chapters out of order, because when you read the beginning, you know, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, he is assuming that you know his narrative by which he's interpreting and saying the things that he's saying.

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But in chapter 6 in this edition, the name of the chapter is The Deeper Significance of Pentecost, they go forward in history to 1925,

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I believe. Yep, in 1925. A sermon that Bartleman delivered in 1925, and in this sermon he lays out his narrative, his meta -narrative understanding of church history, which clearly puts him into the cessationist category, who believes that God restored certain things at the

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Azusa Street Revival, and that there would be further restorations. So Bartleman, key figure in the

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Azusa Street Revival, an eyewitness documentarian to all of what went down in Los Angeles at Azusa Street, full -blown cessationist.

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And so I'm gonna be reading out large portions of what he writes here, and in chapter 6, because it's necessary for you to see what he believed.

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And so I understand that this does not make for entertaining YouTubage, I get that, but this is more along the lines of a history lesson.

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A history lesson to correct the record so that Pentecostals and today's modern charismatics have taken away from them their rhetoric that they are continuationists.

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They're not. They are not. So let's go take a look at a part of this sermon from 1925, preached by Frank Bartleman, and this is chapter 6 of this particular edition of his eyewitness account to Azusa Street, and here's what

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Bartleman preached in 1925. He says, the world is the field. The true church is the treasure, like a kernel in a shell, but the great nominal church, the ecclesiastical body in each generation, is also like a field in which the true spiritual church, the living church, like a treasure, is hidden.

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But even this true spiritual church is far from being the treasure of divine life and power originally planned and provided for in the purpose of God.

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Ever since the early church fell from New Testament purity and life, she has been like a backslider, fallen from the summit of apostolic days, though destined to return and yet enter into the full blessing of the

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Father's house. Now I'm going to pause there. Notice what he just said. He says that the early church fell from New Testament purity and life.

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This is the same narrative as the Mormons had. It literally is. That true

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Christianity seems to have disappeared, and so Bartleman will claim that the true church has always existed, but never in the form that God intended because it fell from New Testament purity.

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So let me keep reading this sermon. I refer to the true spiritual body of Christ.

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It is a prodigal son, wandered from the Father's house, but since Reformation, gradually returning.

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So the true church is a prodigal, and since the time of the Reformation, it is gradually returning home.

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Nearly five centuries have now passed since the Reformation. The route back has been devious and long, with many a dark valley, as well as many a glorious summit.

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But steadily, relentlessly, the mighty Spirit of God has been moving on, restoring that which was lost, and heading things up toward the great prophetic revelation of the body of Christ in unity and fullness.

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Even one body, fully matured under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We'll take a look at that text a little bit later.

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So beloved, unless we understand this, we will not be able to move on with God and understand the different stages, experiences, and various standards and operations in the

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Church's history during this dispensation. That is why most Christians have failed to move on with God and to accept

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His cumulative unfoldings in the restoration of revelation, light, and experience, once lost, but now being restored to the true

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Church. You'll note, I mean, you can argue that Frank Bartleman, key figure in the

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Azusa Street revival, not only was he a cessationist, he was a lostationist.

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Yeah, these gifts, the prophetic offices, the apostolic offices, they were lost according to him.

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They didn't cease, they were obliterated. So keep that in mind.

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So he says, if you do not fully see this, or if this seems to differ from your present idea of things, do bear with me before I am finished.

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I believe you will understand, and if so, it may well transform your life, giving new and vital direction to your prayers and ministry.

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The human soul, so this is the section now, the heart of our trouble, the human soul is ever lazy toward God, and no one generation has seemed to be able to travel very far on its way back to God and His standard from which the early church fell.

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Full -on cessationist, lostationist, fellationist, fell.

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Okay, so the early church fell. It is true that human error and understanding continually satisfies itself with a part instead of the whole, but the real fact is that men are not willing to pay the full price to come back fully to God's standard and to be all the

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Lord's. The early church came forth from the upper room, fresh in her first love, baptized with the

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Holy Spirit, filled with God, possessing both the graces and the gifts of the Spirit, and with a hundred percent consecration for God.

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This was the secret of her power. She was all for God, and God was all for her.

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So note his theology is that if you're not 100 % sold out for God, God can't be 100 % sold out for you.

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It all depends on how sold out you are. So you know Frank Bartiman's theology is already false.

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But we continue. This principle will apply in all ages, both individually and collectively.

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No sacrifice on the altar means no fire. The fire of God never falls on an empty altar.

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The greater the sacrifice, the more the fire. When the prodigal gets home and the church becomes 100 % for God again, we will have the same power, the same life, the same persecution from the world.

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The reason we have so little persecution now is that the Spirit cannot press the claims of God home on the world through us.

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When that happens, men must either surrender or fight. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever.

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God never changes. We have changed. We are not waiting for God. God is waiting for us.

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The Holy Spirit is given. We are still in the dispensation opened on the day of Pentecost.

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But God can only work when we are willing, yielded, and obedient.

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We tie God's hands. Let that sink in for a minute. So you'll note, his theology is whack.

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You know, God's hands can be tied by humans. What kind of theology is this?

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What kind of God is this? But I digress. He continues. The history of the church has been the same.

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Each company that has come forth in the line of restoration has run the same course.

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That is, human fallen nature. It is human failure, not God's. When everything dries up and dries out, we call upon God.

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This alone makes it possible for God to come. Yeah, if you don't do that, it's not possible for God to come.

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He must have some place to put his Spirit, and only empty vessels can be filled.

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When we are filled with our own ways, think ourselves rich and increased with goods spiritually.

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God can give us nothing. To the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. The crumbs tasted good to the

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Syrophoenician woman, but well -fed children despise even dainties. They will throw the food across the table at one another like the children of Israel.

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They despise even angels' food. The best preacher in the land cannot preach with liberty when his message is not desired or received.

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The oil ceases to flow as soon as there are no more empty vessels to be filled. Notice how he twists

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God's word here. This will often explain why good preachers sometimes have liberty, and at other times have no anointing.

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Criticism will stop the flow of oil through any preacher. Oil will not flow when frozen.

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How it all began. Now this is the part, so all that was preamble. Listen to this next part.

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The early church ran well for a season. Everything went down before it.

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By the third and fourth century, they had compromised to escape the cross.

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They sold out to the devil, backslid, and went down into the Dark Ages.

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They lost the Holy Spirit, anointing, the gifts, the life, the power, the joy, everything.

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The church became a prodigal, left the Father's house, and went to feeding swine.

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I just want you to think about that for a minute. According to the historic

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Pentecostal narrative, the church lost the

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Holy Spirit, lost the prophets, lost the apostles, lost the gifts, lost the anointing, and went prodigal, and went to feeding swine.

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That's the narrative. Do you think that for a second Frank Bartleman was a continuationist?

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No, not at all. In fact, if Bartleman in his era, back in the early 20th century, had said, you critics of the

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Pentecostal movements, you are nothing but a bunch of cessationists, but we are continuationists, they would have laughed him out of society.

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And the reason being is because nobody, including the historic leaders of the

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Pentecostal movement, nobody was a continuationist. In fact, let me ask you this.

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Can you tell me who has written about the great apostles of the 13th century?

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Where can I read that book? I'd like to hear about the great prophets of the 9th century.

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Where can I find that book? How about the the great apostles and prophets who changed the world in the 11th century?

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No books like that exist. Why? Because the entire church, from the death of the apostles onwards, has recognized there are no apostles.

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And prophets disappeared, not because of any sin that human beings committed.

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And I have to point this out. Let me take you to a biblical text that some of you should be familiar with, and that is in 1st

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Corinthians chapter 12. And I want you to think about this for a second, consider the implications.

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Part of Bartleman's narrative is that humans tied the hands of God.

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Because they were not 100 % sold out, God could not give them the

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Holy Spirit. What then it depends on is how sold out you are, how hungry you are, how thirsty you are.

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But listen to what the Apostle Paul writes. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers,

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I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

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Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say

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Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, watch this next part, but the same

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Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but the same

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God, who empowers them all in everyone. Who is the one who gives gifts?

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God the Holy Spirit. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the purpose of the common good.

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That's the reason why. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom.

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To another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit. To another faith by the same

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Spirit. To another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. To another the working of miracles. To another prophecy.

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To another the ability to distinguish between spirits. And to another various kinds of tongues.

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And to another the interpretation of tongues. All of these are empowered by one in the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

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Now let me ask you this question, and that is this. If there have been profits given by the

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Holy Spirit throughout the entire two millennia of Christian history up to this point, why did they disappear?

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The answer is simple. Because God the Holy Spirit stopped giving us profits. He did.

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The church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and the prophets. And so the idea here is what do we have now to guide us?

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Answer. The written Word of God. Okay, so the reality is this.

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If God the Holy Spirit gave us profits throughout the entire two millennia of Christian history, no one would have been able to stop them.

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Not one person. It is God the Holy Spirit who gives gifts according to His will as He wills.

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And so you'll note then, Paul goes on to say, just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.

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For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, we're all made to drink the one drink.

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For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand,

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I don't belong to the body, that would not make me any less a part of the body. If the ear should say, well because I'm not an eye,

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I don't belong to the body, that would not make me any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?

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So you know that the gifts are given variously, but in the Charismatic movement and in the

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Pentecostal movements, they claim that there is a second baptism of the

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Holy Spirit, yet Scripture says there's only one Lord, one faith, one baptism. They said there's a second baptism of the

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Holy Spirit, and what is the evidence that you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit? What? You speak in tongues.

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But Scripture says this, you are the body of Christ and individually you are members of it, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

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Are all apostles. So here, let me pull this up because I think this is an important bit in the

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Greek. Here Paul asks a series of questions, and the series of questions have an untranslated particle in the

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Greek, and the untranslated particle is right there, it's me. Me, when it shows up in a question in Koine Greek, means that the question has to be answered in the negative, as a no.

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So here's the first question, me pontes apostoloi, are all apostles?

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Answer, no. It's right there in the Greek, no. Okay, and me is untranslated, it just means that the question being asked has to be answered in the affirmative.

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Here's the next part, me pontes prophetai, are all prophets? No. Okay, me pontes didaskoloi, are all teachers?

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No. Me pontes dunamis, do all work in power or do miracles?

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The answer is no. Me pontes charismata exousin iamaton, which basically means, do all possess gifts of healing?

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The answer is no. Next one, me pontes glossaes lalouson, do all speak in tongues?

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No, they do not. So we're gonna note here, we got a really bad theology here coming out of the

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Pentecostal movement from the earliest guys, including Frank Bartleman, a belief that the church flat -out apostatized, and that it lost the gifts of the

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Spirit, and lost the Holy Spirit. That's what they say.

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Now I would note something here in Matthew chapter 28, we have a different view, and this view comes all the way from the top, from Jesus Himself.

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And so in Matthew 28, the Great Commission is there, hang on a second here, in Matthew 28 we have the

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Great Commission, and I want you to consider these words of Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 28, 18, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Mm -hmm.

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And I am with you always to the end of the age. Now another, let me find a quick text here.

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Gates of Hell. Okay, hang on a second here, I need to change my hunt here.

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Matthew 16. Jesus says to Peter in Matthew 16, you are

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Peter, on this rock I will build my church, on the rock of his confession, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

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Bartleman and the early Pentecostals and Charismatics, their narrative was that the church fell, lost the

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Holy Spirit, lost all the gifts, and it was their fault. In other words, when

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Jesus said to Peter that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, Jesus lied.

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The gates of hell prevailed, and the church, the church lost the

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Holy Spirit as a whole. Consider that. That's an important bit in all of this.

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So already we got some big problems. So coming back then to Bartleman, let me reread this paragraph, and we'll keep going because it gets more interesting.

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The early church ran well for a season, Bartleman said. Everything went down before it, but by the third of the fourth century, somewhere in the vagaries of that era, they had compromised to escape the cross, which shows me that Bartleman does not know church history at all.

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They sold out to the devil, backslid, and went down into the Dark Ages. They lost the

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Holy Spirit, anointing, the gifts, the life, the power, the joy, everything.

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Apparently they lost the gospel too. The church became a prodigal, left the father's house, and went to feeding swine.

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The devil found that he could not stamp out the early church by killing them, for everyone he killed too sprang up like the children of Israel.

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The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. The early Christians vied with one another for a martyr's crown.

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They exposed themselves purposely, recklessly for this reward. Some has said the greatest call that ever came to man is the call to suffer in a noble cause.

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Heaven was real to the early church, far more real than earth. In fact, they seem to have lived only for the next age.

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That was their longing, their goal, to be delivered from this present evil world. It was the sole relief they look forward to.

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This present life, after all, is the true saints purgatory. It is the sinner's heaven, his only heaven.

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And that is sad beyond words to express. But glory to God, it is our only hell.

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We are in the enemy's country, running the gauntlet, with foes lined up on all sides.

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But we're just passing through. Without question, it was God's desire to restore the backslidden prodigal church at once when she fell.

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But just as he must have desired at once to restore the human race in the beginning when they fell, but he could not.

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Human fallen nature was too weak. God also wanted to take the children of Israel right into Canaan from Kadesh Barnea when he brought them out of Egypt.

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It was only a short journey, but they frustrated his purpose and desire. They grieved God and limited the

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Holy One of Israel just as it has ever been. In consequence, they stopped going forward, went to milling around, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness.

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Beloved, whenever we stop going forward, we go to milling around. When an individual stops going forward for God, he begins to go in a circle, just as a man when lost in a forest ceases to go straight forward, but wanders in a circle.

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So it was with the early church. When they ceased to go forward, they started wandering in a circle and became lost in the dark ages.

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The devil had found he could not destroy them or stop their march by persecuting and killing them, so he removed the cross, offering them titles, positions, honor, salaries, profits of every kind, and they fell for it.

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They no longer needed to look to God for their protection and support. They were like the nations around them, just as the children of Israel when they rejected

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God as their king. And so it is with our great church bodies of today.

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History repeats itself in every movement through human weakness and failure. The Reformation and subsequent history is the next part.

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Out of the dark ages came the great ecclesiastical Roman hierarchy, which in time dominated the whole world, both political and religious, and the same condition has developed out of every fallen movement.

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An illegitimate hybrid monster has come forth. This was the condition of the formal church in Martin Luther's time.

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However, the living seed of the true church had remained buried in this mass even through those long dark centuries.

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This seed now began to spring up and germinate the church within the church. The prodigal backslider began to come to himself at last and desire to return home.

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The church had fed on swine long enough through the labors of such men as Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Fox, Wesley, Darby, Mueller, Moody, Evan Roberts, Wigglesworth, and a host of others, the prodigal church has been coming home.

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But each company that God has been able to bring forth and give a fresh deposit of the spirit and of the truth once lost has sooner or later stopped short of the full goal.

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Although often gaining much ground and experiencing tremendous blessing, each group has ceased to go forward as a body and completely returned to the

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New Testament standard and realization. Does Bartleman sound like a continuationist to you?

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He wasn't. Again and again the church climbed from the depths of some sectarian stranglehold with its various stages of formalism, spiritual darkness, only to fall again within perhaps only a generation into sometimes an even worse state.

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Fortunately each time some new light and understanding of truth and God's way were given upon which the next revival company could build.

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But in it all it is the failure of man, not God's failure.

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Each company has only gone so far. It was certainly God's desire to fully restore the early church to her first estate and love at once.

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God's desire to fully restore. Let me just, uh -huh, he's a restorationist.

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It was certainly God's desire to fully restore the early church to her first estate and love at once.

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It is true with every backslider to think otherwise is to charge God with sin, but the church would not.

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A backslider does not get back to God in a moment. He generally has more or less of a battle to get back according to the light and experience that he has sinned against.

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The early church had great light and experience. If it were too easy to be fully restored, it would be too easy to backslide.

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There is a natural law that is similar to this. Faith has been broken down. It's like a case of tuberculosis where the tissues of the lungs have been destroyed.

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It's a hard fight back even under favorable circumstances of rest and climate.

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To return to the lowlands generally means a return of the disease.

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So it is with the restored backslider. He must keep away from temptation, ground, and aggressively walk in obedience.

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Today we look back and see the different companies that in the line of restoration

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God has brought out in the church since the Middle Ages. We can see where they cease to go forward with God, where they began to mill around in a circle, and where their carcasses fell in the wilderness as a body.

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The Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, the Salvation Army, and so forth. They cease to be a forward company.

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Whenever we cease to go forward and keep on the offensive for God, we stop and we die as a people.

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In fact, a movement is no longer a movement when it stops moving, be it the Holiness Movement, the

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Pentecostal Movement, or any other movement. It may continue to increase both in numbers and in wealth, but that is not necessarily a sign of life and of power with God.

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All anti -Christian movements can show that kind of growth. No movement has ever recovered itself as a body when it has once gone on the skids.

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Now talking about God's movement. We do not have to leave movements, we simply move on with God.

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As long as a movement moves, we move with it. The different movements in the history of the church, although part of his true restoration, are only incidental with God.

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God has one great movement that we should all belong to, and that has never ceased moving.

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It is God's move through the ages to redeem a fallen, lost world and carry that great blood -washed assembly to his eternal purpose.

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It began when the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, and will end when the last saints get safely home to glory.

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We must work for the Kingdom of God as a whole, not for some petty individual party, organization, or movement that has been the curse and cause of hindrance to our going on with God, to full restoration in all generations.

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What's he calling for? Full restoration of that which we lost, that which we fell from.

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He's not a continuationist. We continue.

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We have worshipped certain doctrines, parties, standards, partial experiences, and blessings, all fine as far as they go, but abnormal in themselves and only a part of the whole.

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Most of these have been unbalanced, exaggerated misstatements of truth at best. In the end, they have generally brought bondage in place of blessing.

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They have broken fellowship, divided the children of God, and put the church in bondage to men and their ideas, standards, and understandings, and opinions.

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We must keep moving. The clearest light on truth and experience has not yet come.

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We still wait for the full restoration of the pattern shown in the mount, that of the early church, of the early

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New Testament apostolic church as a whole. Consider those words. We still wait for the full restoration.

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In Bartleman's Day in 1925, yeah, they claimed that they had, that God had restored the gifts of the

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Spirit at Azusa Street, speaking in tongues and stuff like that, and the baptism of the

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Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues, despite what 1 Corinthians 12 says, and you'll know he's not a continuationist at all, nor could he have been honestly.

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So what has happened in our day, and I mean it, is that the Pentecostals and the

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Charismatics have been around long enough now that people have grown up in it and have no memory of what the world was like before they were here, and as a result of it,

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Charismatics and Pentecostals say, oh you guys are, you are cessationists, we're continuationists, and it's a lie.

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Do you not know your own history? Do you not know church history? Bartleman was not a continuationist.

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He's a full -blown lostationist, fellationist, who believed that these things were being restored.

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Now you can find more of this, by the way, in this book, and in fact, let me read just a little bit more of this section.

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So he says, the great mistake had to stop with sectarian, partial, abnormal revelations. We must keep our eyes on God and not on a party.

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Keep free from a party spirit. This is the indicative of a respective person. Seek only

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God and his plan as a whole, his church as a whole. Every company and time repeats the experience of the early church.

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They compromise to escape the cross and accept positions. They accept salaries and titles and ecclesiastical power, according to Bartleman.

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Yeah, don't need no pastors. Don't need no creeds.

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Yeah, no, don't need any of that stuff, right? An ecclesiastical hierarchy arises, just as it did in the early church during the second and third centuries.

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The backslidden church is still in an abnormal condition. It will continue to be so until it becomes fully restored to the first standard of apostolic

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Christianity from which it fell. No experience or revelation in the line of gradual restoration has been perfect in and of itself.

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He's a gradual restorationist. All is abnormal, both in understanding and experience, until the perfect whole is realized and restored.

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Now I'm gonna note, where Bartleman started, subsequent generations picked up and they bought into this narrative.

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This narrative of a fall and a loss of the spirit, and that God is restoring them.

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And so what would be next to be restored? Answer. Prophets and apostles.

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Those are next to be restored. Now, by the way, if you were to get a Kindle copy of this book, and if, again, this is

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Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street, an eyewitness account to the birth of the Pentecostal Revival. This guy was a leader in the

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Azusa Street Revival and the subsequent Pentecostal movements that flowed out of it globally. Well, so you got to note that.

39:29

But if you were to do a search, and it's like, look for restore, and I won't spell it out because you can get restore or restoration or whatever, and if you were to just kind of start doing a word search through the entire book, wow!

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He talks about restoration a lot. Like at the bottom of this one, it was

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God's will that that which was to restore his glory should have the humblest surroundings.

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Restore, restore, restore. It's all over this book. I mean, he's a full -blown restorationist, and this is the history of the

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Pentecostal and the Charismatic movements, whether they like to admit it or not. Now I know some sit there and go, man,

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Azusa Street was whack! Yeah, but that's still your history.

40:18

It really is. So what I did here, I did do some bookmarking here just to kind of pick up some of the highlights.

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And so this is from earlier chapters of the book here, deeper yet.

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So he says, I wrote for another religious paper the following in 1906, cursed with unbelief, we are struggling upward with the utmost difficulty for the restoration of that glorious light and power once so bountifully bestowed on the church, but long since lost.

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Our eyes have been so long blinded by the darkness of unbelief into which we were plunged by the church's fall that we fight the light, for our eyes are weak.

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So far have we fallen as a church as when Luther sought to restore the truth of justification by faith.

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It was fought and resisted by the church of his day as the utmost heresy, and men paid for it with their lives.

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And it was much the same in Wesley's time. Now here we are with the restoration of the very experience of Pentecost.

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Let that sink in. With the latter reign, a restoration of the power in greater glory to finish up the work begun, we shall yet again be lifted to the church's former level to complete her work, begin where they left off when failure overtook them, and speedily fulfilling the last

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Great Commission open the way for the coming of Christ. We are to drop out the centuries of the church's failure, the long, dismal, dark ages since telescoping time, be now fully restored to pristine power, victory, and glory.

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We seek to pull ourselves by the grace of God out of a corrupt, backslidden, spurious

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Christianity. The synagogues of a proud hypocritical church are arrayed against us to give us the lie, the hirelings thirst for our blood, the scribes and the

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Pharisees, chief priests and rulers in the synagogue are all against us and the

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Christ. Los Angeles seems to be the place and this the time in the mind of God for the restoration of the church to her former place, favor and power.

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The fullness of time seems to have come for the church's complete restoration.

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God has spoken to his servants in all parts of the world and has sent many of them to Los Angeles, represented every nation under heaven once more, as of old they have come up for Pentecost to go out again into all the world with the glad message of salvation.

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The base of operations has been shifted from old Jerusalem to Los Angeles for the latter

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Pentecost and there is a tremendous God -given hunger for this experience everywhere.

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Wales was but intended as the cradle for this worldwide restoration of the power of God.

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Full -blown restorationist, lostationist, fellationist, not a continuation by any stretch of the imagination.

43:44

Now honestly enough, funny enough, Cheyenne, he fully buys into this narrative.

43:51

Cheyenne, and I'm gonna quote from an older book of his, from 2009, and then we'll take a look at a present book of his as well.

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We might even take a look at Patricia King, but I want you to know what it is that I'm going to be quoting from, and the name of the book is

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When Heaven Comes Down. That's the name of the book, When Heaven Comes Down, written in 2009.

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And Cheyenne full -on buys into this narrative that the church lost the

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Holy Spirit, lost the gifts, and he even argues that the church lost the five -fold ministry.

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Not merely apostles and prophets, but lost teachers and evangelists as well.

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And that's all in here. Now what we're gonna do to kind of demonstrate this so that you can see it, this is the book itself.

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We're at Google Books, so this is at Google Books, and this is...so

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When Heaven Comes Down, so you can see what we're looking at here. And what I'm gonna do is go to a particular chapter, and the chapter is chapter 9,

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From Glory to Glory. Alright, so From Glory to Glory, and we're gonna read out just a little bit of this so you can kind of get the idea.

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Throughout the history, throughout history, the church has experienced waves of God's glory. We know that God's omnipresent and that His presence is always with us, but the glory

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I'm referring to is His manifest presence, through which He reveals His goodness or displays His power through signs and wonders.

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And so he'll go on to explain what he thinks about here, and it's in this latter part, the restorative power of each wave.

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Note what it says, restorative power of each wave. And listen to what he says.

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As I look back through the history of revival, I see that every wave of God's outpouring is important, because in each revival,

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He restores something. Hmm.

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Cheyenne is a restorationist. Mm -hmm. In fact, over the past half century, we see that in each movement,

46:00

God restored an office within the five -fold ministry, including apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

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So in Cheyenne's metanarrative, the church lost apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

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Mm -hmm. For example, he says, in 1948, God brought forth evangelism in a new notable way through Billy Graham, but also through healing evangelists, such as A .A.

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Allen. Hang on a second here. A .A. Allen, Jack Coe, Oral Roberts, William Branham, T .L.

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Osborne, and others. In 1958, the church saw the rise of pastors who boldly proclaimed and operated in a charismatic gospel, such as Dennis Bennett, Larry Christensen, Geraldine Derstein, and to mention a few.

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In 1967, in response to another move of God, the ministry of anointed teachers became predominant.

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This included teachers such as Chuck Smith, Kenneth Copeland, Jack Hayford, Derrick Prince, and many others.

47:10

Derrick Prince was part of the group of leaders that became known as the Teachers, based in Fort Lauderdale. In the third wave of the 1980s,

47:18

God brought forth prophets such as Wimber, introduced the Kansas City Prophets, Paul Kane, Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, James Gall, and Jill Austin.

47:27

Other prophets also emerged during that period, including my friend and covenant brother, Lou Engle, my sister in the

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Lord, Cindy Jacobs, Jane Hammond, Chuck Pierce. Yeah, I had to mention him.

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In 1984, in the 1984 revival in Toronto, it restored the office of the

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Apostle. So we're gonna note something here.

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You know, the people who sit there go, we just believe in the five -fold ministry. You're just denying the five -fold ministry.

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No, I'm not. I'm denying that God restored the office of Apostle presently.

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You see, again, they are not continuationists. They are restorationists.

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Restore. Big difference. Big difference. The whole Pentecostal narrative has always been, until very recently, that they are restorationists.

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Cheyenne in 2009 paints himself as a what? Well, a full -on restorationist.

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Weird that, don't you think? That's kind of strange, yeah. Talking about how at Toronto, God restored

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Apostles with the birth of many apostolic networks, including John and Carol Arnott's partners in Harvest, Rick Joyner's Morningstar, Bill Johnson's Global Legacy.

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Yeah, notice he says Bill Johnson is an Apostle. Heidi and Roland Baker's Iris ministry, and our church's own

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Harvest International ministry. Now in 2009, we see the convergence of all five of these restored offices coming together and being expressed through the body of Christ in his followers, the saints.

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Ordinary laypeople are being equipped to move in signs and wonders, to evangelize, to teach, and to plant churches, to prophesy, and to evangelize.

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Yeah, you get the idea, and to preach. So Cheyenne, is he a continuationist?

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Nope. He full -on thinks that the church lost, lost Apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors.

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Lost them, and that they were restored in the last 50 years. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

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According to the Pentecostals, the gates of hell completely just flattened the church, and they lost everything.

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They lost the Holy Spirit, they lost Apostles, they lost prophets, they lost teachers, they lost pastors, they lost everything.

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Hmm, I'm gonna go with Jesus on this one and say no, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So Cheyenne, not a continuationist.

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He's a restorationist. A little bit more to this. Let's go back to my Kindle app real quick, and let's take a look at the recent book that Cheyenne published, and the name of it is

50:25

Modern Day Apostles. And we're going to... let me hide my notebook here, and we're gonna just go back a little bit here in his book to his...

50:36

to his forewords, okay? This foreword was written by, and let me go to the end here,

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Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, Reading, California.

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And so you're gonna note, in the book Modern Day Apostles, foreword by Bill Johnson, who

50:58

Cheyenne says is an apostle. He said that in 2009.

51:04

Isn't that weird? Yeah. So he says Cheyenne has been a dear friend of mine for about 20 years.

51:10

One of the great privileges of being in covenantal relationship with people is that you get to know them both in and out of their ministry and setting.

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In our case, we have ministered at each other's churches and vacation together. In that time,

51:23

I have watched him fall in love with the city, and through that love, initiate ongoing transformation.

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Southern California will never be the same because of the apostolic calling on his life.

51:34

God has caused Chey to infuse many with hope, advancing the kingdom into every sphere.

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Modern Day Apostles. Chey has written a book that will help clarify and equip a new generation of apostles.

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With the years of experience behind him, Chey calls on those anointed as apostles to rise to the biblical standard of character, of leadership, and of union with the

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Holy Spirit. This book does an excellent job of demystifying a leadership role in the body of Christ that has been misunderstood and therefore underutilized for too long.

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The apostolic is not spooky, nor is it a corporate ladder to climb. It is a vital issue for us to attend to for where the church is headed.

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We are in an hour where God is restoring the Apostle in a way that reflects his beauty.

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Bill Johnson, is he a continuationist or restorationist?

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Yeah, he's a restorationist. Restoring the Apostle in a way that reflects his beauty while avoiding the pitfalls of prior generations.

52:46

One of the evidences of this is the rising water level for the miraculous in the church. Yeah, I would say the lowering water level.

52:54

I mean, the coronavirus has made that clear, right? This is just a byproduct of the restoration of that gift.

53:00

Years ago, Bob Jones said, I am waiting for the full release of the apostolic gift.

53:06

Why would Bob Jones talk that way, by the way? The answer is actually quite simple, because Bob Jones bought into the the meta -narrative that informs the historic

53:14

Pentecostal movement. That all the gifts were lost, and that at Azusa, God was restoring them.

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I won't be able to work in the fullness of the miracle realm that God has called me to until the Apostle is in his place.

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This was a man who experienced the supernatural in an astounding way, and yet he said that there was an element missing.

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He felt that until the apostolic was restored, there was a level of the miraculous that was not going to be released into the world.

53:43

New wine cannot be poured into an old wineskin. The infrastructure of heaven needs to be in place to sustain a full outpouring of God's presence.

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The Apostle is a gift to the body, used to set the standard and release the anointing.

53:58

Done right, this gift is a benefit to everyone, and it is the opposite of self -serving.

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Like Nehemiah returning to build the walls of Jerusalem, we have been called to heed the invitation of God on our lives so that we can change the trajectory of the world.

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I encourage you to read this book as it outlines something that I believe to be paramount in God's heart.

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The call of the Apostle is to release the blueprint of heaven into the earth, equipping the saints to join the vision.

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In order to do this, the Apostle's first awareness must be heaven's reality.

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There must be a transformation of the mind. Jesus didn't look at a hungry crowd with fear, wondering how he was going to feed them.

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He knew that he lived from a realm that was superior to what he saw before him.

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He was able to pull from the unseen and watch the food multiply. Once you have kingdom truths in place, it attracts heaven's building materials.

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But we need to be transformed people in order to transform our cities. When God calls someone to step into an apostolic anointing, he's inviting that person to release his will on earth.

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I encourage you to let his word and his promises possess you so that you can fulfill the commission to bring heaven to earth.

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Apparently you can't bring heaven to earth unless you, you know, restore these things.

55:26

Mm -hmm. So Cheyenne, by the way, in his book, talks openly about the

55:33

Apostles being restored. And I don't need to belabor the point, but I think you get the idea here.

55:40

And the idea here is this quite simple. Charismatics who claim they are continuationists are lying.

55:48

The historic Pentecostal movement has never been continuationist. They claim their whole meta -narrative is that the church lost the

55:56

Holy Spirit, lost the gift, lost the five -fold ministry, and that since Azusa Street, God has been restoring those things.

56:04

They are not continuationists. They are instead restorationists.

56:10

Cheyenne, from his book, says we can now say that we are living in the New Apostolic Age because God is restoring the truth that the gift and that the office of Apostle is for today.

56:25

Who are the great Apostles of the 10th century? Could you name them for me, please? Name them, please.

56:32

You can't, can you? Nope, you can't. The Pentecostal movement has a false narrative that informs its theology, and they are not continuationists, they are restorationists.

56:42

And I would point this out, that even Patricia King herself back in the day admitted this.

56:49

Let me show you this. This is from the Elijah List. This is from the Elijah List back from February 10th of 2008.

56:56

See, Patricia King's part of the NAR as well. And listen to what Patricia King wrote back in February 2008.

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We have arrived in a new day in God's eternal purposes. We are in the time of the restoration of all things spoken by the prophets of old.

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God said He would again restore the house of David that had fallen as prophesied. On that day

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I will raise up a tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages. I will raise its ruins, rebuild, and rebuild it as in the days of old.

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The quote of that prophecy, Acts 15 17, says the remnant of the men may seek the Lord. The restoration is clearly connected to a time of end -time harvest.

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That is this day, that this is that day. He has prepared vessels that are arising to the task, and we see the plan of God through the perfecting of a glorious church, a bride without spot or wrinkle in preparation for His return.

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This is one of the major themes of the Latter Rain Movement, and I would say historically of the Pentecostals as well, going back to Bartleman.

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These are people of faith who have confidence in the Spirit's ability to do what He intends to do, prepare the bride for the bridegroom.

58:06

You get the idea. But let me let me find the word restore here, and you'll kind of get the idea. Restore. And let me fast -forward, you know, to the other part of this, and what she says.

58:20

In every movement music was of great importance. In David's day we see the initial pattern of the last days.

58:27

Restoration of apostolic authority. Tabernacle of David. David made a radical departure from Moses' form of worship, and established 24 -hour worship around the presence of God.

58:40

And from that time on, whenever there was reformation, it always included restoration. Restoration.

58:47

I think you get the point, and I don't need to belabor it, but you need to consider this then.

58:54

And that is that all of the Charismatics who claim that they are continuationists, they're not telling the truth. Historically all of their leaders, their entire movement, have been restorationists.

59:03

And so this dichotomy between cessationists and continuationists is a false dichotomy.

59:09

Historically they cannot stand up under historical scrutiny at all. And so all of the leaders of the

59:16

Pentecostal movement were full -on cessationists. So don't fault people who are questioning today's so - the

59:25

Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal movement and saying, that's not the Holy Spirit, and say, oh you're just a bunch of cessationists.

59:31

Frank Bartleman was an avowed, unapologetic cessationist.

59:38

Straight up. Mm -hmm. Consider that. Cheyenne, full -on cessationist, restorationist as well.

59:46

Consider that. All of those Pentecostals who know their own history have to come to grips with this fact.

59:53

All of their leaders early on were cessationists, and their claim is that God restored these gifts,

59:59

God is restoring these offices. But the reality is this, there's no reason to believe that God's restoring any of these things, because these people are marked by false teachings, false prophecies, false apostolic authority, false declarations, and all kinds of nonsense.

01:00:14

The whole tree is just diseased. You know, all the way back to Frank Bartleman in the

01:00:19

Azusa Street revival. That's the reality of the situation. So hopefully you found this particular installment of Fighting for the

01:00:27

Faith a little bit long and tedious, but also helpful historically as lectures go, and if you ever are in a debate with somebody and they say, oh you're just a cessationist, point them to this video and remind them that Frank Bartleman was as well.

01:00:44

But for much different reasons than people who are historically cessationists are. And by the way, before I wrap up, let me do this.

01:00:54

Let me pull my desktop up, and let me show you one more thing. And that is that in the

01:00:59

Scriptures themselves, okay, when we talk about the church being built, okay,

01:01:06

Scripture is very clear on this. And listen to what Scripture says in Ephesians 2, for through him we have access in one

01:01:13

Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

01:01:21

The household of God is built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

01:01:29

He is. And so the foundation is built already. The Apostles and the

01:01:34

Prophets, the Prophets were the ones who wrote the Old Testament, the Apostles are the ones who wrote the New. The church, the household of God is built on this foundation.

01:01:43

You don't lay the foundation again. And I would note that the Apostles are still teaching us to this day.

01:01:49

Peter's still teaching us, Paul's still teaching us, Matthew is still teaching us,

01:01:54

John is still teaching us. How so? In the written Word of God.

01:02:00

And so you'll note then that if God wanted to give us Apostles and Prophets, he would definitely have done so, and none of us would ever question or challenge, is that guy really an

01:02:11

Apostle or not? Is that guy really a prophet? You can't seem to predict anything accurately, even if you give him a scattershot 12 -gauge shotgun, you know, saw it off and tell him to hit the side of a barn, he still can't even do it.

01:02:25

Yeah, you get the point. So we still have Apostles and Prophets teaching us today.

01:02:31

Their voices are in the written Word of God. And so, you know, Ephesians 4 then says that God gave

01:02:36

Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

01:02:42

And you'll note the Apostle Paul is still equipping us today. The Prophet Jeremiah is still equipping us today.

01:02:50

You know, you get the idea. They still continue to do so from the written Word of God. And so for the person to sit there, well, we've got to have

01:02:58

Apostles and Prophets today. Note that none of the Pentecostals ever believed that we had

01:03:04

Apostles and Prophets until really recently. Cheyenne claims that the

01:03:10

Apostles were restored at Toronto and that the

01:03:16

Prophets were restored with the Kansas City Prophets. That's his claim. So all you five -folders out there saying, well, we believe in the five -fold ministry.

01:03:24

No, you don't, because the church somehow didn't have any of those, including evangelists and pastors, for almost two centuries.

01:03:34

How's that possible? That's what the Charismatics and the Pentecostals teach. To deny this is just to deny fact.

01:03:42

That's the truth. So you get the idea. Hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description.

01:03:51

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01:03:59

I still have to choose one of my photographs, which one we're going to be releasing in the month of April.

01:04:05

We'll get you details on that in the week ahead as we move forward with our pandemic.

01:04:11

You can't get out too much, so I'm being careful and strategic about how often I visit the post office.

01:04:17

But anyway, so if you don't already support us, please do, and let me thank you for your support. We truly cannot do what we are doing here without it.

01:04:24

Until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.