WWUTT 2030 Q&A Bible Translations, Cessationism, Responding to Sam Storms and Remnant Radio

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What is the difference between literal and equivalent Bible translations? Are the miraculous gifts still at work in the

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Church today? Did the miraculous gifts come to an end even during the time of the Apostles? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

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You are listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. We apologize for the delay, but hey, at least it's only been a week since we've been on, not like the whole month of July that we missed.

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And in that week that we've been off, we've moved. So we're no longer in the state of Texas, we're now in Arizona.

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I have already assumed preaching at Providence Reform Baptist Church in Casa Grande, and it is a privilege to be here.

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We've moved into the house that we are renting. We're not homeowners anymore. Well, we are in that the house we own in Texas is not yet sold.

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Pray that that will happen soon. But we're now renting, and I haven't been a renter in over 14 years. So this has been fun learning the ins and outs of renting again.

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There's a great room in this house that is perfect for us to record in, so I don't have to build a room like we did with our house in Texas.

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Though this room is carpeted, it's not exactly furnished for being able to do podcast recording.

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If you're listening through headphones, you can tell there's a bit of reverb here, so I still need to hang some things on the walls, fill my shelves up with books, and those steps will help to kind of reduce the excess noise level in here, which

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I hope to be able to get some of that done soon because there's some other recording projects that I want to get in on, including recording more what videos.

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I've only done 20 videos this year. That's like a low for me. I've never been that few on the video, so I want to try to get 10 done at least before the end of the year so I can get over 30 done in one year.

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By the way, about to hit 10 years of what videos? It has been 10 years since I did the very first videos, those ones that were like four and a half minutes long, but this coming

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April will be 10 years since I started doing the 90 -second videos. So yeah, trying to get over that 400 mark by the time we get to the 10 -year mark.

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Ten years of doing what videos? That's amazing. I really did not anticipate that I was ever going to do these that long, but I've still got stuff to say, still got more videos

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I want to make. So we thank you for your support and your encouragement. There have been some people that have contributed monetarily, have given us donations to help us with our move.

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I thank you so much for that. It has helped pay for gas or it helped pay for pizza.

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There have been a lot of people that have helped us get here, have donated money or time or something to that effect.

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And I don't have a list of people in front of me that I could read off and thank. I'd be afraid of doing that anyway, because I'm going to forget somebody and someone will be offended, but we just want to say thank you to everybody who has supported or prayed for us or encouraged or gave money or something like that for us in this move.

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The church has helped us tremendously by covering expenses. The church we left in Lindale, the church that we've come to here in Casa Grande, everybody has been wonderfully supportive.

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So we thank you so much and we're thankful to our God, our Savior Jesus Christ, who by his providence has worked all of this out.

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No pun intended, you know, since I'm now the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church. But yes, the

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Lord has worked in these things greatly for us and we could not be more blessed.

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So we thank you so much to everybody and still want to be able to record these podcasts and give the

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Bible teaching that we've been committed to doing for free through this program when we understand the text.

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This is a Friday edition in which we take questions from the listeners. I'm going to come back to a question I've been answering in the last several parts, and then we're going to get back to our regular programming starting on Monday as I pick up again in Matthew.

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What am I up to now? Matthew 15 is what I'm ready to jump into. And then that next part of Isaiah on Thursday is going to be in Isaiah 40.

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And then God willing, Becky will be back on with me next week. Hey, we're in, we've got a recording studio in our house.

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It should be easy for me to get her in here. I thought it was going to be easy for me to get her in here for this episode and that hasn't worked out.

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We're still tired from moving. So as soon as the opportunity presents itself, we'll get together and we'll record and together be able to thank everybody for their love and support as we've been making this transition.

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So like I said, I want to come back to something that I've been doing for a little while. This is, what is it?

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Part three or part four now? I think part three in responding to the Sam Storms article in which he was responding to the documentary cessationist.

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By the way, you can still find that documentary online. You can find it through Amazon. I think it's available through Vimeo.

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You can also go to cessationistmovie .com and you can either buy a digital copy and watch it on your

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TV or computer or whatever, or you can get a physical copy that'll be sent to you in the mail.

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The cessationist documentary that is available now, it debuted at the last G3 at the end of September.

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Sam Storms wrote a multi -part article. I think it's like nine parts. I'm not going to go through all nine parts, but he wrote a multi -part article responding to cessationist.

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I've been responding to what Sam Storms had written and I'm going to skip to part two.

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I spent two episodes just responding to part one. So we're on to part two now of this

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Sam Storms article. Storms is of course arguing for the continuous perspective, the idea or the understanding that the miraculous gifts of the spirit are still in regular work in the church today.

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Whereas I'm coming at this from the cessationist perspective, the understanding that these miraculous gifts or the regular use of these gifts have ceased.

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We don't see them on the level or with the regularity that we see these gifts at work in the book of Acts.

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Storms, of course, is taking the position that they are still regularly at work today.

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He can't show any of these miraculous signs at work, but that's the position that he takes.

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Before responding to this next part of Sam's article, let me mention a couple of things here.

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First of all, being the Friday edition, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions into whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I've been building a backlog of questions and I hope to be able to get to some more of those questions this next

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Friday. Once again, you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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If you want to contribute to the program, we do this for free. We don't require anybody's donations in order to do what we do.

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It is just our desire to want to teach the word of God. But if you would like to give a gift, you can send it via PayPal to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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That same email address, you can send a donation that way. Some folks have sent me gifts to the church.

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They were already at the church waiting for me, so I appreciate that, your contributions that you've made, just like a little housewarming gift or something like that.

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I don't have the address of the church in front of me and I don't have it memorized yet, but you can always look up Providence Reformed Baptist Church of Casa Grande.

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The website, in fact, is prbcgc .com.

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Look us up online and you can find the church phone number, address, things like that. Once again, thank you for all your support.

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I did a poll online just a few days ago in which I was asking about Bible translations.

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The question was, what's your favorite Bible translation? Where do you fall in? Here were the four categories that I presented.

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Number one, the essentially literal category. Some of the Bible translations that are essentially literal include the

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Legacy Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version, King James and New King James, and the

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Christian Standard Bible. I included the CSB, but I did have a couple of people push back on me and say that the

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CSB actually doesn't fall in essentially literal. It's actually a dynamic equivalence.

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I would say the CSB is right on the line. You could either pull it into the essentially literal category or in the dynamic equivalence category.

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I'm not real familiar with the CSB. If I read it more, then I would probably definitively say, no, it belongs in this category.

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Because I don't know it that well, I've relied on others to help me categorize the

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CSB. For now, I'm leaving it in the essentially literal category. What is essentially literal?

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That means that it is as close to word for word as we can get. We can't have an exact word for word translation because it wouldn't make any sense going straight from Hebrew into English or straight from Greek into English.

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The Old Testament written in Hebrew, the New Testament written in Greek. You can't go exactly word for word.

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That's the case with translating any language into another. But as close as we can get it from the

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Hebrew and the Greek into English, that's your essentially literal translations. The second category

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I presented was the dynamic equivalence category, which would include the NIV, New International Version, the

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New Living Translation, the Good News Translation, and the CEV, or the

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Contemporary English Version. Like I said, some would even put the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible, in that category as well.

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Dynamic equivalence is not trying to go word for word. Rather, the philosophy of translation is more thought for thought.

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A sentence might try to be like another sentence, rather than being as close to word for word, but just trying to convey that thought as accurately as can be.

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You lose a little bit in translation when you try to go thought for thought. Those are your translations that fall in the dynamic equivalence category.

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First of all, we have essentially literal. Secondly, we have dynamic equivalence. Thirdly, we have paraphrase.

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Paraphrase would be almost like the translator is just putting himself into the translation.

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You would include the message in that category, the passion translation, and also the

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Living Bible, the TLB, would fall in that paraphrase category. These are translations that I strongly discourage.

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I don't think anybody should be using paraphrase translations. A lot of times, they aren't even close to what the original text was saying.

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Finally, the fourth category that I included was other or I don't know. Maybe you don't know what you prefer or what translation you're reading and what category that it falls into, but those were the four that I presented.

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The essentially literal category, that's number one. Dynamic equivalence, number two. Paraphrase is number three.

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Then miscellaneous or I don't know as category four. How did this poll come out?

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I had 1 ,784 votes. That's a pretty good turnout. Ninety -four percent came out essentially literal, so I've got a great audience.

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Those are the translations that you want to pick from. Again, the translations that when we understand the text is most regularly recommended.

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We've recommended the English standard, the New American Standard 95, the King James and the

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New King James, and then the one that we've added in the last year or two has been the Legacy Standard Bible.

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All of those falling in that category of essentially literal. Ninety -four percent of my audience on X says that they prefer an essentially literal translation.

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That's great. That's exactly the kind of Bible translation that you should select. At five percent was the dynamic equivalence.

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That includes New International, NLT, Good News Translation, and the

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CEV, as I mentioned. Five percent of my audience likes a dynamic equivalence. Then the other one percent was split between paraphrase or other.

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Incidentally, more of that one percent was on the side of the other than on the paraphrase. Very few in my audience would even select a paraphrase or at least very few of the persons that came across that poll.

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That's great. Those were some good results. I was genuinely surprised by those results. I would not have guessed that essentially literal would have been over 90 percent.

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Well done, folks. Those are the kinds of Bible translations that you want to pick from. Again, I highly recommend the

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LSB, especially if you've not committed yourself to a particular essentially literal translation.

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A lot of people like the ESV. Crossaway has done a tremendous job with marketing the

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ESV. They've also made the ESV cheap. They are not stingy with their copyright, so it's easy to use it in publications and not feel like you have to follow up with a lot of copyright rules and stuff like that in order to use the

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ESV. Whereas the Lockman Foundation, which owns both the LSB and the NASB, they do tend to be pretty stingy with how their translation gets used.

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For that reason, among others I'm sure, but that has a great deal to do with why the

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NASB and the LSB have not been more popular. Now the LSB is really growing in popularity, and I think the

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LSB is beginning to pass the NASB, especially since the Legacy is such a much better translation than the

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NASB 2020 when they came out with their new translation of the NASB just a few years ago.

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So the LSB has surpassed it in that sense. And then of course, nothing is ever going to outsell the

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King James. It is just the best -selling translation in history and probably will continue to be.

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It may never be surpassed, but I would recommend the New King James over the

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King James Bible just because the English in the New King James is much easier to understand.

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But if you would prefer something translated from the Textus Receptus, then the

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New King James would be the way to go. So there's the poll that I did on Bible translations.

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Great to see how that came out. And thank you to those who voted. All right, let's get back to the topic at hand here.

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And to begin, I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians 14, which was a passage that I had read from last time in my review of Sam Storm's article.

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I'll begin in verse 1 and read through verse 5. This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Pursue love, Paul says, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

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For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.

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But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and encouragement.

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One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church.

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But I wish that you all spoke in tongues, even more that you would prophesy. And greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues unless he translates, so that the church may receive edification.

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But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching?

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That was through verse 6 that I read there, but thus says the word of the Lord. In the last episode when

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I did this critique of Sam Storm's article, I qualified some things here and qualified them a little bit better than I believe

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Storm's did or the guys at Remnant Radio. In addition to responding to Sam Storm's, I've also been playing clips from Remnant Radio because they've been doing a multi -part series in which they've been critiquing the cessationist documentary.

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I think they're through seven parts at this point. I quit listening somewhere around part 5.

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I think I got through part 5. I've not listened to part 6 and part 7, but they're continuing on. They are still trekking on and critiquing this particular film.

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I'm not that dedicated to responding to some of the counter -arguments, although I am going to present part of one of their arguments again here in the same argument, or it's at least accompanying the same argument that Sam Storm's presents in part 2 of his response to the cessationist documentary.

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Once again, in defining our term, cessationism is the understanding that the miraculous gifts of the spirit have ceased, or at least the regular usage of those gifts.

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We don't see them with the same kind of regularity that we see them in the book of Acts. A cessationist is not going to say that all miracles have ceased.

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God will still perform miracles. If it is his will, he will do something miraculous, but it's rare.

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I can tell you I've never witnessed a miracle. When we're talking about a miracle, we're talking about something supernatural, something that cannot be explained through any natural explanation.

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We're not talking about, say, a life. I know it's a word that we tend to throw around a lot, like whenever a baby is born, we'll say the odds that this child overcame to come into this world, the uniqueness of this particular child in this life, this is indeed a miracle.

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Yeah, I would say there is something miraculous there, but that's not what we're talking about when we use that word miracle.

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We're talking about something supernatural that has taken place by the power of God, and there is no other way to explain it, no way naturally to explain this thing that has happened.

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These miracles are not in regular practice. There are not modern day prophets that are predicting the future and then those things coming true.

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There are certainly no prophets that have some sort of 100 % accuracy. If a prophet is ever wrong, a person who proclaims to be a prophet says that God has spoken to him, and if what he has said is wrong, he has said, thus sayeth the

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Lord, and then this thing that he says is going to transpire doesn't happen, then he is a false prophet.

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Scripture has given us clear guidelines on how to test prophets in this way, according to Deuteronomy 13 and 18.

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Prophecy that's done like this is something miraculous. If God were truly speaking to a person and they were to articulate what

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God has said to them, then we should expect that whatever they have said that God said should happen, and if it does not,

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God has said in his word, I did not speak to that man, don't listen to him, man or woman,

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I guess would be the case. So there are no prophets, there are no modern day apostles.

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For qualifications for the apostles, as we read about in the scriptures, include seeing the risen

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Christ and having been appointed to the office of apostle by Christ, and nobody is seeing the risen

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Lord. Jesus in fact said in Matthew 24 that many are going to say, here he is, there he is in the wilderness, or here he is in the inner rooms, do not listen to them, for the next appearance of Christ is going to be as visible as lightning.

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It will be seen by the whole world, it's not going to be seen by a select few in secret.

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So there's no modern prophets, no modern day apostles. Now the way that I qualified that word prophet in the previous critique is that if we use the light application of that word, like we're lightly applying prophecy, we're not using prophecy in the sense of predicting the future or revealing things that have yet to pass.

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But we're talking about prophecy as like prophesying or proclaiming. That is one of the ways that I think prophecy is used in 1

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Corinthians, or at least prophesy, and it's one of the ways I think Paul is using it here. Not just talking about foretelling, but also forth telling, because once again what is said in verse 6 is

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Paul saying, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation, or of knowledge, or of prophecy, or of teaching.

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So any one of those four could fit in this category of prophesying. What a pastor does today is prophesying.

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He is proclaiming the word of God. Not as though he received some personal special revelation, but he's prophesying what comes from the scriptures.

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And that word is doing a work in God's people. It is transforming those people.

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It is sanctifying God's people. We are brought to faith by the declaration of the word of God.

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And then of course there are things that we read about in scripture that have not yet come to pass, namely in the book of Revelation.

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So there is still prophesying that is going on, but the right kind of prophesying that should be done today is proclaiming the word of God as we have it in scripture.

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There is not new revelation that God is giving to individual special persons.

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His word has been given. It is complete. It is sufficient for our every need.

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Those who are continuists, who believe that these miraculous gifts are still regularly at work in the church today, on Sunday, the last time you were in church, there were churches out there that were practicing exactly these miraculous signs, whether it was prophesying the future or it was speaking in tongues or it was doing miraculous works of healing or casting out demons, what's called deliverance ministry or something like that.

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All of this was happening in the church this past Sunday. That's what they will claim, but they have to redefine those miraculous signs and what you see them doing or what you see them practicing or what you will hear them calling a miracle is quite different than what we have defined in the book of Acts.

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Speaking in tongues is not speaking gibberish. That's never demonstrated in scripture. The demonstration of tongues, the only demonstration of it that we have in scripture is speaking other languages, other known languages, but we're not known to the speaker.

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What was happening when a person was speaking in tongues was clearly miraculous to those who were observing it and speaking gibberish or having a private prayer language is not miraculous.

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So this is a redefined gift among continuists today and it is not at work in the church.

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Even if it were, Paul articulates it in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as being the least of the miraculous gifts.

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What he would desire that a person should attain to is a desire to prophesy for prophesying is what truly edifies the church.

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The person speaking in tongues is not edifying the church. Now I, again, as I mentioned, take the position of a cessationist and that's just with regards to miraculous gifts.

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I still believe that people receive spiritual gifts. I believe that I have a spiritual gift of teaching.

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I would not be a good pastor if I had not been given that spiritual gift. And there are other people that have gifts of the spirit, things that the spirit is working in a person to be able to use that gift in the church for the edification of others.

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We have been instructed to exercise these gifts to benefit one another and grow one another in the body of Christ in love.

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So we see those things articulated in places like Romans 12 and all of the gifts that are mentioned there in Romans 12 are very practical.

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They're not miraculous. Whereas some of the gifts that we see like in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, there are miraculous gifts that are mentioned there.

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In Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 11, where you have different positions that are mentioned, gifts of the spirit like prophecy and apostleship, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers.

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Those are not miraculous positions with the exception of the prophet and the apostle, which are offices that are closed.

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But you have the evangelist, the shepherd and the teacher. The spirit is still working in those individuals today.

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And we're still in submission to the authority of prophets and apostles every time we open the scripture because it was to them that God gave the scriptures that were written down for our benefit.

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Romans 15, for what was written in former days was written for our instruction that through the scriptures we might have hope.

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So that's just a little bit of rehashing what we've already been through, redefining terms or defining my terms, which again is something that these guys, whether it's on Remnant Radio or Sam Storms, don't do.

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They don't define their terms. They're taking for granted that when they use an expression like speaking in tongues, you're thinking of speaking in gibberish because that's what they're talking about, praying gibberish that is not actually a language at all and doesn't mean anything.

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Pagans can do that. There's nothing miraculous about that. And these guys are not able to produce miracles on the level of what

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Peter and John and the rest of the boys were doing in the book of Acts. So we come to part two of Sam Storms critique here, and he begins part two this way.

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This was written on October 2nd. And so Storms says, this is the second installment in a series of articles in which

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I respond point by point to the arguments made in the recent film, cessationist.

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One of the more bewildering arguments Storm says made in the film is that there is no mention of miraculous sign gifts in the

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New Testament after the latter half of 1st Corinthians. So what we read here in 1st

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Corinthians 12 and in 1st Corinthians 14, where Paul is giving instructions about the usage of spiritual gifts and even some of the miraculous gifts.

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We don't see any instructions about miraculous spiritual gifts come up again anywhere else in the

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New Testament after 1st Corinthians, that's it. And it's astonishing even that when you get to the pastoral epistles, 1st and 2nd

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Timothy and Titus, you would think that would be a great place to talk about the working of the spirit in miraculous ways within the body.

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And Paul says nothing about it. And 1st Timothy in particular, that letter is about how one ought to behave in the household of God, that's right there in 1st

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Timothy chapter three verses 14 to 16 instructions on how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

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But there's no instruction in there about using spiritual gifts in the book of 1st

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Timothy or in the other two pastoral epistles either. That's a point I'm going to come back to here in just a moment, because I'm going to play a clip from the documentary and the response that the

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Remnant Radio guys gave to it. Storms continues, yet again, another contributor to the film asserted that there is no reference to miraculous gifts in the pastoral epistles.

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What should we make of this? Now that contributor in particular was Tom Pennington, and you're going to hear him say that here in a moment.

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So Storm says in the first place, you should recognize this for what it is, an argument from silence.

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Of course it is. Of course it's an argument from silence. But sometimes an argument from silence is a pretty solid argument.

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The fact that miraculous spiritual gifts are not mentioned in the pastoral epistles, especially where Paul is giving instruction about how one ought to behave in the household of God in 1

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Timothy and Titus is especially where you find those instructions, and yet nothing about using miraculous spiritual gifts in the church.

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That's a pretty resounding silence, all things considered. So it is an argument from silence, but a good one.

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If we were to apply this notion, Storm says, to other things in scripture, we would end up with disastrous consequences.

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Take but one example, the Lord's Supper. The only place where it is explicitly mentioned is in 1

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Corinthians 10 through 11. There is no reference to this ordinance subsequent to Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth.

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Should we then conclude that the practice died out or that God has rescinded the command to partake of the elements of bread and wine?

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Of course not. Second, nowhere in the New Testament are we told that the command in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 to earnestly desire spiritual gifts no longer applies to Christians living subsequent to the writing of the letter.

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As I said in the previous part, in responding to this argument, is that no cessationist is saying that we should not desire spiritual gifts.

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No cessationist is saying that. Storms is taking it as if the cessationists are saying that.

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The cessationist is saying that you shouldn't desire spiritual gifts. You absolutely should desire the spiritual gifts.

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Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 .1, yes you should. In fact, you should even desire the gift of teaching.

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But as Paul had articulated back in chapter 12, not everybody is going to receive the gift of teaching.

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That gift is going to be the most edifying to the church, but it may not be for you to be a teacher.

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And I had quoted from James 3 .1, not many of you should aspire to be teachers, my brethren, for you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

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So this is poor reasoning that Storms is using here. He's really a straw man, because he's saying that cessationists are saying that you shouldn't ask for the spiritual gifts, and no cessationist is saying that.

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He's just saying that the miraculous gifts are not at work. And many of those miraculous gifts were only at work through the apostles, and no one else.

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So anyway, Storms goes on to say, Paul was crystal clear in his first epistle to the church in Corinth, and therefore felt no need to repeat himself in subsequent letters about desiring the spiritual gifts.

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And again, no argument has been made that you shouldn't desire spiritual gifts. You absolutely should.

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Third, most believe Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in the spring of either 53, 54, or 55.

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He wrote Romans most likely in late 56 or early 57, and he clearly mentions and encourages the gift of prophecy in Romans 12, 6 through 8.

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Yes, he does. But once again, I would argue that the gift of prophesying can also include, as mentioned in 1

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Corinthians 14, 6, knowledge and teaching. So if Paul was using that term in that way in Romans chapter 12, then he's not encouraging the church in the miraculous.

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He's just simply encouraging the church in the obedient teaching of the scriptures. So then Storms goes on to say, so again, it is simply incorrect to say that such miraculous gifts are not mentioned after the writing of 1

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Corinthians. Fourth, Paul refers to the gifts of apostleship and prophecy in Ephesians 4 .11.

32:24

And yes, like I said, and every cessationist that I know would agree with me on this.

32:31

Apostle and prophet, those two offices that are mentioned there in Ephesians 4 .11, still offices that we're in submission to today.

32:39

Every time we open the scriptures, we're reading what was given to the prophets and the apostles. That does not mean that there are new prophets and new apostles today.

32:48

There are not. Those offices are closed. So we are still in subjection to those prophets and apostles.

32:56

What does that verse say exactly, Ephesians 4 .11? And God gave some to be prophets and apostles, some to be evangelists, some to be shepherds and teachers.

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And indeed he did. He gave some to be prophets and apostles. And they've already been, and there won't be any more.

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And we are still in subjection to what they taught as the foundation of the church, as Paul had previously mentioned them as being back in Ephesians 2 and 3, that they are the foundation of the church with Christ being the cornerstone.

33:27

That was already talked about in Ephesians. And so then you get to Ephesians 4 and you read that about apostles and prophets.

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Those are offices that are closed. God did give them for the pronouncement of the gospel and the foundation of the scriptures that were given to us.

33:42

We're still in submission to those offices today, but no one new is being appointed to those offices today.

33:49

That's a very simple understanding. It's very simple exegesis of Ephesians to understand the passage that way.

33:58

But storm goes on. Most scholars agree that Ephesians was written in 62 AD. So we have yet again another piece of evidence that the cessationist claim that miraculous gifts are not mentioned subsequent to 1

34:09

Corinthians is simply and undeniably false. Well, again, that's a straw man argument because he doesn't even understand the argument as it's being presented by the cessationist.

34:19

Fifth, if certain gifts like prophecy and tongues and healing were not intended to exist in the church beyond the first two or three decades of its existence, why doesn't

34:28

Paul or Peter or John or Luke clearly say so? Now listen there. What is that?

34:34

That's an argument from silence. So here's storms is contending with the cessationist is making an argument from silence, and that's exactly what he does here on this fifth point.

34:46

So when Paul gave his exhortation, this is storms again. When Paul gave his exhortation in first Thessalonians 5, 19 to 21, not to despise prophetic utterances, why didn't he simply tell them not to worry about prophecy since it would soon die out and never to be a problem to anyone again?

35:02

Well, once again, what kind of prophecy is Paul talking about there? Is he talking about new visions and revelations now in the context of first Thessalonians?

35:11

He most likely is because the canon is not complete. And first Thessalonians was one of Paul's earliest letters.

35:17

It was either it either preceded Galatians or was written after Galatians.

35:26

But one way or the other. So anyway, the there's debate as to whether or not first Thessalonians is Paul's first letter or Galatians in the chronology of the order in which these letters were written.

35:37

So it could be that first Thessalonians was first. And if that's the case, makes sense. First Thessalonians would precede even first Corinthians.

35:44

So there is still prophecy going on, prophesying in the church in that there is new revelation that has been given because canon is still being written.

35:54

So indeed, as Paul tells the Thessalonians to not despise the prophecies, but he also tells them to test all things, to hold fast to that which is good and abhor what is evil.

36:05

And once again, testing would go back to the scriptures. It would go back to what's what is said in the law about testing prophets,

36:12

Deuteronomy 13 and 18. If what a man tells you doesn't come to pass, then the word that he spoke to you is not from the

36:19

Lord and he's a false prophet. If he gets it wrong once, he's a false prophet.

36:26

Because you can't trust what it is that he says. You cannot rely on his words being true.

36:31

If he's going to say, thus sayeth the Lord, and then what comes to pass, doesn't come to pass.

36:37

He has spoken presumptuously, God says through Moses in that passage, and you should not listen to him.

36:43

So again, yeah, Paul does say they're not to despise prophetic utterances. And we shouldn't despise prophetic utterances either.

36:51

If the use of that word is the way that we would apply it today with prophesying from the pulpit, the word of God that is given to us in the scriptures.

37:00

So storms goes on at six to say, yet another clear refutation of the cessationist argument is

37:07

Paul's exhortation to Timothy that he drew on the prophecies made about him to fight the good fight and keep a clear conscience before God.

37:14

That's in first Timothy one, 18 to 19 here in one of the pastoral epistles.

37:20

We have an explicit reference to a miraculous gift and the role it plays in the process of sanctification, certainly.

37:26

But those prophecies were made about Timothy years before this letter is written.

37:32

So it's not an argument to say that prophecy was still continuing at the time or new revelation or whatever was still regularly happening in the church at the time that first Timothy was written, because these were prophecies that were made about Timothy a long time ago.

37:47

Paul is telling Timothy to remember the prophecies and to continue in fulfillment of them to fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.

38:04

So again, Paul reminding Timothy of something that was said to him previously, this is not a mention of new revelation.

38:11

Seventh storm says the book of Hebrews was most likely written in the late sixties just before the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

38:17

I'll return to Hebrews two, three through four in a subsequent article. But here I simply note that there is something our author doesn't say that many have simply assumed he did.

38:27

He nowhere says that the miracles which attested to or confirmed validated the message were performed only by those who originally heard the

38:36

Lord. Again, storms is making an argument from silence there. Now many of these same arguments were raised by the, uh, by the remnant radio guys.

38:45

And I'm going to go ahead and play for you here. This is the clip from the cessationist documentary.

38:51

We're going to start with the clip and the remnant radio guys sped it up. So it's, it's going to sound a little bit quick.

38:58

I don't know why they did that, but with every cessation is clip they played, which was never very long. It was only, you know, 20 or 30 seconds or something, but they sped them all up.

39:06

So it sounds a little quick and then you're going to hear the cessation as guys break in here. And I'm going to respond to some of their comments as we go.

39:15

So, uh, how this plays out, first of all, you're going to hear from, I think Steve Lawson is the first voice you're going to hear

39:20

Tom Pennington, Phil Johnson are in here talking about the miraculous gifts coming to an end and even not being mentioned after first Corinthians.

39:30

And then Joshua Lewis breaks in. He's one of the hosts of, uh, of the remnant radio broadcast.

39:38

And Michael round tree is going to be responding along with Joshua Lewis.

39:43

I think Michael Miller breaks in here as well, but those are the three guys on this broadcast of remnant radio that are responding to the cessationist documentary.

39:52

And I'm going to break in here and respond to some of their comments. But first of all, here's the clip from the cessationist documentary.

40:00

There is no mention in the second half of the first century of signs and wonders and miracles. Once you pass the book of first Corinthians, there is no more mention of any miracles being performed by any apostle.

40:10

He writes nine letters to different churches, six different churches. After first Corinthians, you look at the pastoral pistols written for the ongoing life of the church.

40:18

First Timothy, second Timothy Titus instructing pastors how to conduct life in the church. And there's no mention of the miraculous gifts.

40:24

You have this lessening of the miraculous as the canon of scripture moves toward its completion. You have inacts, for example,

40:30

Paul would send pieces of fabric out. People would be healed by that. That's not happening anymore. And it wasn't happening in Paul's time either.

40:36

Because when he learned that Timothy had a stomach ailment, he writes to him and says, take a little wine for your stomach. So he doesn't send him a handkerchief.

40:44

This one's not going to be hard, guys, I'll be honest, that graph is so disingenuous and causes my blood to boil.

40:52

But then also, Josh, just not to be ignorant and just, I know, I know, OK, let me stop there for a moment.

40:58

So he makes a reference to a graph. So you saw a picture come up on the screen and it shows it highlights books of the

41:07

Bible from Matthew through first Corinthians and saying that the the mention of miraculous signs is there or even instructions concerning those miracles.

41:19

But then there's nothing after that from second Corinthians on through Revelation. So that's the thing that Roundtree or it wasn't

41:27

Roundtree. That was Lewis who said there that he saw that graph and it caused his blood to boil.

41:32

Calm down, man. Good grief. But anyway, that's the graph that he was referring to. So continuing on.

41:38

But like I have such a hard time, like I like Steve Lawson. I do. I have a hard time when

41:44

Steve Lawson says things like there's no mention of any supernatural gift after first Corinthians. I'm like, my guy, like just just jump in Blue Letter Bible and type in prophecy and see that that's not true before you say it on a documentary.

41:57

Like I like Steve, Steve, I like you. I think you're a good Bible teacher. I like the things that you have to say.

42:03

But man, it it's frustrating when I hear guys say stuff like that. Now I'll be honest here, that comment from Steve Lawson, that is a hard sell.

42:14

And that's not an argument that I would make in defense of cessationism, because the letters that we have from Paul are not presented to us in the order in which he wrote them.

42:27

First and second Thessalonians do precede first Corinthians. And yet in the writing, they precede first Corinthians.

42:36

But in the order in which their place in canon, they come after first Corinthians. And there is a clear mention of prophecy in first Thessalonians.

42:45

And then Paul talks about even further revelation that had been given to him in second

42:50

Thessalonians. So that's a that's a difficult argument to make. I get what it is that Lawson is is aiming for.

42:57

And notice that what Lawson said there. Let me rewind it. In fact, let me go let me go back, because it doesn't sound like Lawson meant prophecy.

43:06

He was just talking about performing miracles. So let me play that again so that you can hear it.

43:12

There is no mention in the second half of the first century of signs and wonders and miracles. Once you pass the book of first Corinthians, there is no more mention of any miracles being performed by any apostle.

43:22

OK, so see there, he's just talking about miracles. Would he put prophecy in that category? Maybe not. So these guys are going to try to use prophecy to say that Steve Lawson was just wrong.

43:32

And that's the only thing that they use. They don't try to show miracles. They just try to say, see the existence of prophecy that shows up after first Corinthians proves

43:41

Steve Lawson's point wrong. Like I said, it's a hard sell anyway to try to make that particular point.

43:47

And and I think it just maybe it needed a little better definition. Like Lawson needed to say,

43:53

I'm not talking about prophecy, I'm talking about miracles. We don't see miracles come up again after first Corinthians.

43:59

So let's pick up the dialogue in Remnant Radio again. Absolutely. And if we and if we talk this way, like, well, there's this gradual depletion of the gifts as time went on until the completion of scripture.

44:13

And we see less miracles. And you know, by the end of Paul's ministry, he's saying, take a little wine for your stomach sake and your frequent illnesses and so on.

44:21

So there's this sort of dying out. Again, no scripture says this. This is an observation that's actually an untrue observation.

44:30

We've been over this end of I mean, end of the book of Acts, Acts twenty eight. You know,

44:36

Paul's healing people left and right, and he's on his way to be martyred. So a whole island of people.

44:42

And now I responded to that same argument. Roundtree makes that argument several times in the parts of this response that they've given to the cessationist documentary.

44:53

He said that several times, like Paul is still performing miracles at the end of Acts.

44:59

Acts twenty eight. He heals a whole island. The whole island of Malta is healed by the apostle Paul. So therefore, there were still miracles that were being done even at the end of Paul's life.

45:09

Acts twenty eight is not the end of Paul's life. Paul still had many more years.

45:14

He was in prison, of course, under house arrest at the end of the book of Acts. But then our understanding through the other letters, the prison letters that he wrote while he was under house arrest, he says to the

45:27

Philippians that he's going to get out. He says to the Romans when this was before his imprisonment, of course, but he says to the

45:32

Romans that he intends to get to Spain and from church tradition, from church history. The understanding is that he did get to Spain.

45:39

Paul was released from his first imprisonment. He goes to Spain and then it's on his way back to the east that he gets arrested and imprisoned again.

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And it's under that second imprisonment that he ends up being martyred. So it's just not true to say that, see,

45:54

Paul was still performing miracles even at the end of his life. Maybe he was, but at least according to what we have in canon, it does not proceed after first Corinthians.

46:07

There's no regular mentioning of miraculous or the or miracles being performed among the body of Christ within the church after first Corinthians.

46:17

That's still a significant point. So continuing on with his argument here, we could go over multiple instances here.

46:23

We could go, um, first Thessalonians five, 19 to 22, uh, which was written, uh, after first Corinthians, uh, was, so it talks about not despising prophecy.

46:35

Second Thessalonians two 15, uh, it reaffirms all the teaching in the first letter, which included teaching about prophecy

46:42

Romans, which was written in 55 to 57 AD. Paul talks about imparting certain spiritual gifts.

46:48

Uh, most importantly, he mentions prophecy in Romans 12. Uh, so that comes after, uh, first Corinthians.

46:57

And so once again, what they're trying to cite to refute Lawson is just prophecy.

47:04

They're not talking about miraculous healing or casting out demons. They're talking about prophecy. So they think prophecy disproves the point that Lawson was making, but Lawson didn't mention prophecy.

47:14

It sounded like all that Lawson was limiting his argument to was just doing miracles.

47:20

Continuing on. And then second Corinthians, Paul speaks about his, his trip to heaven.

47:27

So he's caught up into the third heaven. That's past tense. So just because Paul mentioned that doesn't mean like this is happening right now while I'm writing this letter.

47:37

It happened years before he even said it happened years before. This is second Corinthians 12 to,

47:43

I know a man in Christ. 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body.

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I do not know. God knows. This is not something that Paul regularly goes through. These out of body experiences of being caught up into the third heaven.

47:58

He's referring to something that happened over a decade before. So this really doesn't help round trees argument here.

48:04

Uh, acts 28, I just mentioned that would have been pegged around AD 59 to 60. We talked a lot about Ephesians four, 11 to 13.

48:12

Uh, we have, that was written from about AD 60 to 62. There's still apostles and prophets around and Colossians also written around to AD 60 to 62.

48:22

Uh, he's warning about angels, visions, and dreams of false teacher, but he never states that these miraculous encounters are illegitimate because the gifts of seized, uh, he just says, don't believe these guys.

48:31

Cause they're no boy. No. Um, and that's just silly. So he's trying to say there that these guys may have really been seeing, uh, um, angels and going on about these visions that they're having.

48:44

They may really be experiencing that. You're just not supposed to listen to them because they're false teachers. No. The way that Paul articulates that in Colossians two is that these guys are clearly full of themselves and you shouldn't listen to what it is that they're saying with regards to these miraculous signs that they're experiencing or, or they claim to have experienced.

49:04

So consider, uh, this is Colossians two beginning in verse 18. Let no one disqualify you insisting on a says on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head.

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The visions these guys are having could be drug induced. They're probably not miraculous in any sense or even caused by demons for their encouraging the worship of angels.

49:36

These guys are, are false teachers. They are leading you astray to idols, to, uh, to damnable heresies.

49:44

Avoid them. This was in no way some sort of argument to say, you know, they probably are experiencing something or, or having some sort of miraculous gift, but they're no bueno guys.

49:55

So just don't listen to them. And that's kind of a silly exposition of that passage, uh, because they're not

50:01

Christ centered. They've lost touch with the head. First Peter four 10, uh, uh, we have another mentioned that's

50:08

AD 62 to 68, somewhere in there. Second, Peter, uh, three, two mentions it again.

50:15

First Timothy one 18 wage war in accordance with the prophecy made about you. So this one is, uh, fascinating and important.

50:23

Sam storms who preached in my church a few weeks ago, uh, right after we did the remnant conference that Sunday morning,

50:29

Sam spoke and he preached on this passage and the passage Paul's exhorting Timothy, like your perseverance in the faith depends on you waging war in accordance with the prophecies made about you.

50:42

And once again, that's past tense. So those prophecies had already been made. They had been made years before Paul is not saying anything to Timothy about prophecy is still ongoing or that even

50:52

Timothy should be seeking prophecy. Again, this is a letter that is about the function of the church, how one ought to conduct themselves in the church, the responsibility that members of the church have to one another.

51:05

And in no way does Paul instruct Timothy toward prophecy or any new revelation.

51:11

In fact, what he tells Timothy is to continue in that word, which had already been declared to you, the stewardship of God, that is by faith, which is the proclamation of the gospel.

51:21

So we need prophecy to persevere in the faith. Now, I'm not suggesting that if somebody didn't have prophecy in their life, that it would be impossible for them.

51:30

It was definitely true for Timothy that he needed to wage war in accordance with these prophecies.

51:36

And by way of application, we can say like, hey, this is true of believers. We need the full expression of the spiritual gifts, including prophecy, in order to, uh, in order to persevere to the greatest degree possible.

51:49

We do not need new revelation in order to do what we've been instructed to do according to the scriptures.

51:55

And that's an absurd notion that Roundtree is presenting, that we need prophecy in order to be able to do that.

52:00

We need the word of God to do that. I am a pastor that is faithful to this calling and to my church body that has been entrusted to me in the responsibilities

52:12

I have as a shepherd and overseer of this church. No one needs to give me prophecy or new revelation to know how to do this job or know what my responsibilities are to this church.

52:24

All of it is written down for me in the scriptures. And anyone giving me any new revelation would not add one iota to the responsibilities that are already laid out for me, according to the

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Bible. It's just an absurd claim that Roundtree is saying here that we need to have prophecy in order to do our jobs.

52:44

Because the kind of prophecy he's talking about is new revelation, not prophesying, as I have described it, according to the declaration of the word of God that we have in scripture.

52:54

First Timothy 414 also also mentions prophecy. All of that is written 64, 65

53:01

AD. Second Timothy, even later, mentions the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

53:08

What was the last book of the Bible, Michael? What was that last one? That's where I'm headed. The last book of the

53:14

Bible, Josh, is revelation. And the whole book is a prophecy. So frustrating.

53:20

It's like there's no mention of prophecy after first Corinthians. The last book of the Bible is a giant prophecy.

53:26

Are you kidding me? Right there. That is a huge straw man. Because that wasn't what

53:33

Lawson said, he did not say that. He did not say there was no prophecy after first Corinthians.

53:41

They're putting that word in Lawson's mouth, and that's the argument that they're responding to. And that was not the argument he made.

53:48

He said there are no miracles that are mentioned after first Corinthians. And again, I agree that there probably should have been more clarification there, but they can say that like like they can ask that question.

53:58

Does Lawson mean prophecy or is he just talking about, you know, miraculous healing or casting out demons, which, of course, is not mentioned after first Corinthians.

54:07

In fact, in the book of Galatians, Paul says it was because of a bodily ailment that he stopped there in the region of Galatia and preached the gospel.

54:15

And the churches were planted there in Galatia. And he said that he said to the

54:20

Galatians, you would have desired to help me. You would you would have given me your own eyes to help me if you could have.

54:26

So we know that it probably had something to do with Paul's eyes. Paul didn't heal himself, but the ailment that Paul suffered from caused him to have to stop there.

54:37

And it was by the providence of God that Paul would preach the gospel and many would come to faith and believe.

54:42

But we don't even see Paul performing some sort of miraculous act on himself. In the book of Philippians, we read about Epaphroditus, who was taking a gift from the

54:52

Philippians to Paul in Rome. And Epaphroditus almost died on that trip from a sickness that he contracted.

55:00

Why wasn't he healed? Why wasn't there some Christian somewhere that could lay hands on him and heal him?

55:06

Because, again, these gifts were not in regular practice after a certain time.

55:12

Once the gospel was proclaimed and established there and it was authenticated as being the word of God, we don't see those miraculous gifts in regular use in the scriptures from that point forward, even during the time of the apostles.

55:25

So continuing on here, like how it's so disingenuous to push that kind of teaching.

55:33

I don't want to say disingenuous. I don't want to say disingenuous. Are you going to say Steve Lawson doesn't know the book of Revelation is a prophecy?

55:41

I'm going to say that to me. So I'm going to say to my face, Michael, again, I say it to my face. Listen, I think that it's culture.

55:49

I think that when when you're surrounded by all people who believe exactly like you on this issue, you're not going to really challenge yourself to think outside of that.

55:59

And you're just going to say some erroneous things. And that same thing that he just said there works back on him.

56:06

And they are saying erroneous things, and we were witnessing it right here, they're putting words in Steve Lawson's mouth that he didn't say, but they're in this echo chamber among themselves.

56:17

This this is the world in which they exist. All of their churches are continuous. They talk about a conference that they just had.

56:25

Roundtree mentioned Sam Storms coming to his church and preaching after they just did this prophecy conference or whatever it was they called it a continuationist conference.

56:35

But they have this conference in which these miraculous gifts, they claim the miraculous gifts are being done. There was another episode.

56:41

I can't remember if this was part three or part four, where they're responding to the cessationist documentary.

56:47

And the other Michael of this group that we haven't heard speak in this particular clip,

56:52

Michael Miller, he talked about doing the whole cold prophecy thing where he's standing on stage and he says something.

56:59

And there's somebody here who needs to hear this word. And some woman came up to him afterward and said, well, that was to me.

57:07

But of course, what she said was not exactly what he said.

57:12

Like he said, somebody is here and I see a vision of this, this and this. And it wasn't it didn't exactly line up with what she said.

57:19

She said, well, you saw a vision of this. Well, that's actually this, you know. So it really was coincidence.

57:25

It was not God revealing something to Miller that is therefore channeling or speaking something to this woman that becomes this encouraging word.

57:35

The encouraging word that we need is in scripture. What we need has been written down for us in the pages of Holy Writ.

57:44

And as J .I. Packer said, this was something that Packer said in response to something that John Owen wrote.

57:50

So he's kind of summarizing something Owen said. But Packer said that if new revelations disagree with the scriptures, then they're false.

58:00

And if they agree with the scriptures, then they're not needed. We don't need these new revelations.

58:07

We have everything that can be given to us for our edification, for our uplifting is given to us in the scriptures.

58:15

And it is only by the word of Christ. It is only by the word in scripture.

58:21

That we can even come to salvation, Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ and that we can even come to sanctification.

58:31

John 17, 17, fathers sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

58:36

We are saved and we're sanctified by this word. And any other word that anybody has does not add anything to this, we are not lacking if we don't have prophecy as much as Roundtree wanted to push that idea, we need to have prophecy.

58:54

And even even in order to do our jobs in the church, I've never received a prophecy. You want to tell me that I have not fulfilled the role that I am supposed to fulfill as a pastor in the church?

59:06

All of the qualifications and responsibilities about that role are given to us in the Bible. As Martin Luther said,

59:13

I have covenanted with my Lord that he should not send visions or dreams or even angels.

59:20

I am content with this gift of the scriptures, which teaches and supplies all that is necessary, both for this life and that which is to come.

59:31

Amen, Luther. I spent over 10 years in charismatic churches, in continuous churches, and I played along with everybody else who were claiming to speak in tongues, who were claiming to be given prophetic visions, who were claiming to do miraculous signs.

59:50

But when I came out of that and I look back on that decade plus that I was caught up in those things,

59:56

I realize now I never witnessed a single genuine article of any of those things that my friends claimed that they were doing.

01:00:04

I never saw a genuine miracle. I never saw a genuine healing or a casting out of a demon.

01:00:11

No one was ever genuinely speaking in tongues. It was just going on with gibberish and no one ever prophesied something that was going to take place that actually came to fulfillment and happened.

01:00:23

As a matter of fact, I can say pretty much 100 percent of everything that I heard in that decade that was that was declared as prophecy was false, like none of that ever came true ever.

01:00:36

Every once in a while you hear of somebody that will articulate something and it's like, you know, just scattershotting a bunch of stuff and they'll get one out of 100 right.

01:00:47

And then they'll proclaim themselves to be a prophet because they got it. Every once in a while you'll you'll see or hear of something like that.

01:00:54

But no, they're a false prophet. I don't understand how anybody can continue in the charismatic movement after covid happened and after the 2020 election, because almost all of these charismatic guys declared that Trump was going to win and he didn't.

01:01:14

And not one of these charismatic guys could foresee the event that was going to happen in the world.

01:01:20

That was one of the most earth shattering things that has happened in my lifetime. And I've been around for more than 40 years.

01:01:28

And there was not one earth upending thing that has happened in the 40 years that I've been on this planet like covid -19, like what covid -19 did not just to the

01:01:41

American economy, but what has happened on a global scale. And none of these prophecy guys, not one of them saw this coming.

01:01:50

That is that is an astonishing miss. And by the way, that point is made in the in the cessation is documentary is

01:01:57

Justin Peters that says it talking about the 2020 election, talking about how none of them saw covid coming.

01:02:04

It exposed the entire movement as a fraud in a lot of different ways, because there was also the the healing rooms that they have at Bethel Church and they shut those healing rooms down.

01:02:16

I posted that article in one of my videos from the Sacramento Bee that talked about how

01:02:21

Bethel Church had shut down their healing rooms during covid to keep everybody safe.

01:02:28

So they're not coming to the healing rooms and getting sick. Why would they need to do that? Because they're not really healing anybody and they know they're not really healing anybody.

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Some of these guys are just outright con artists with Todd White doing that thing where he's claiming to extend a person's leg.

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You know, you're having back problems because one leg is longer than another. So he he has them sit down and really all he's doing is rotating their ankle to make it look like one leg is growing out to even it with the other one.

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And he knows he's doing that. He knows he's conning people. At Bethel Church, with the glitter clouds that they call glory clouds and dropping feathers and claiming that they're actual angel feathers, they know they're conning people.

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They know that these people are con artists have nothing to do with them.

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I'm not saying the entire charismatic movement is that way. There are many who they really do believe that they're giving they're receiving visions or they're speaking in tongues or they're able to do miraculous healings or otherwise.

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But when you compare what they're calling miraculous with what is narrated in the book of Acts, you'll see that the two are not similar at all.

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So anyway, appreciate you listening to the broadcast. Any other questions or comments? I'm probably going to end here with my responses to Sam Storm's article.

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I don't see why I need to continue forward. I think I've, quite frankly, pretty well debunked many of the arguments that they make and how how they have to make the argument into something else in order to make their argument work.

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And you heard that in real time right here with the guys changing what Steve Lawson was even saying so that it was so that their debunking of of Lawson was really kicking over a straw man.

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It wasn't actually revealing Steve Lawson's argument to be false. It was their version of Steve Lawson's argument that they were able to demonstrate as false.

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But anyway, so appreciate you listening. If you have any other questions or comments, send them to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com.

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And I hope you check out that cessationist documentary. It's great. Even buy a copy, show it to your church, hand it to your friends or whatever.

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I have seen Les Lanphere, who is the director of the cessationist documentary, respond to skeptics online and give them a free copy like they're making comments about it and how how false it is and all this stuff.

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Unless we'll ask them, have you watched it? And they'll say no. And he he'll give them a code and say, here, I'm giving this to you so that you can go watch the documentary and you can see it for yourself.

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He believes in what he has made that much, that it could really transform someone's thinking regarding the charismatic movement.

01:05:08

Justin Peters had presented a picture on X the other day of him sitting with another guy at a restaurant.

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And this was a guy that had watched the cessationist documentary and he was being convinced by the arguments in cessationist.

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So Justin was able to sit down with him and have a conversation with some of the things that he witnessed there in the documentary and showing him what it is that scripture says about some of these things.

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And that's great. You know, being able to see how people's thinking have been have been clarified by this documentary and all according to what the scripture says, not according to a particular philosophy or way of man, but the way of Christ, according to his word.

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May his gospel continue to be proclaimed and lives be changed by it.

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The Holy Spirit regenerating the heart that a person can understand what it is that they are hearing come to a recognition of their sin against God, mourn over that sin and desire

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Christ who is savior, who forgives us of those sins. That's the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in every single believer today.

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We all have the Holy Spirit residing within us, all who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and may the spirit continue to do his work in us until Jesus returns.

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Let's finish there with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word, for those things that were written down in former times so that we have this encouragement and instruction of the scriptures.

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And through these things, we may have hope. We cling to Christ, who is our hope. He who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, who is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

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All those who believe in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Thank you for this gospel.

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Thank you for the truth that has been proclaimed to us in the scriptures, a truth that we may understand by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

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And may we have those teachers around us who have been gifted by the spirit to teach us these truths all the more that we may grow in them and helping one another grow in these things according to your spirit.

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It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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.com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our