Cessationist or Continuationist (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

I think Steve, the day this plays is probably August or something. How's your August treating you?

You know, it's been kind of hot, but thankfully we've had a few thunderstorms to just kind of break things out a little bit.

August, isn't that named after Augustus Caesar?

I thought it was Augustus Gloob, the kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, I didn't know that.

I only know the lady in the purple who ate too much and had no self-control and blew up like a balloon. Veronica. Is that her name? Yeah. How do you know these things?

I've seen it a time or two. Yeah, is that the new one? I haven't seen the new Johnny Depp one. I have never seen it, and I don't think I've, you know, because I really, because I think it was too dark, but you know what I really like about the old one?

The music's really catchy, and what's his name, the wacky guy? What's his name, the big Willy Wonka guy? He was very funny. I just liked that. Gene Wilder? Yeah, Gene Wilder, yeah. Yeah, was he a big guy?

I didn't know he was a big guy. Yeah, he was about six foot 10. Oh, I didn't know that. No, actually, I think he was about five foot eight, but that's neither here nor there.

You rang. All right, today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I want to start off Oh, are we on air? Is this on? Yeah, that's right. Hello. Steve, there was a first that I experienced this last Sunday morning at the Kissing Grandma's bar.

At the Crystal Cathedral. Yeah, I call the line after the service that the, you know, the pastor stands there, and people kind of walk by, you shake their hand. I call it the greeting line. What do you call it?

Greeting, I call it the Kissing Grandma line. Oh, okay. Because sometimes you have to kiss a grandma or something. I don't kiss other ladies who aren't grandmas. I kiss a grandma almost every day. Almost every day?

Well, she's sick sometimes. Steven. She's sick. Steven. Well, I don't want to get sick. Okay, that kind of doesn't sound like what's best for her. Well, um. I kiss a grandma almost every day. How many years have you been married?

20, wait, 20, it'll be 29, yeah. Wow. Yeah. I think that's pretty good. Pretty great.

Yes, she is. All right, so I'm standing in line, greeting people. Of course, I meet and greet people like Steve does after he preaches, and someone met me at the door who didn't like my sermon, and they told me about it.

Now, typically, people probably hear me preach, but they don't say anything on the way out. But I apologize, Mike.

You're not supposed to bring that up after I apologize.

Well, this is when we air Dirty Laundry at No Compromise Radio. It serves a purpose.

Oh, okay. Illustration. Yeah, that's right. And Steve wasn't supposed to do that. Yeah, Steve was not.

And so, long story short, I was teaching about the topic of God's miraculous confirmation of his message and messenger through supernatural sign gifts done by the Spirit of God in the New Testament, actually in the Old Testament as well.

Wild, wonderful, marvelous, spectacular, supernatural things that would irregularly happen in scripture, but when they did happen, they were to punctuate that this guy's telling the truth, and he's a truthful man, too.

Right.

So that's what I was talking about. Only happened, I think you said, and I've touted a time or two in FOF, a very condensed period of time, 100 years total, more or less, within a few years there, comprising three different eras.

And the last one being Christ and the apostles, and you have Moses and Joshua and the prophets. Like Elijah. Yeah, Elijah and the other E guy. Elisha. Yeah, there you go. I was a little tongue-tied. But yeah, those three periods, those are when the bulk of the miracles, now are there other miracles?

Yes, but the bulk of miracles occurred during those three time periods.

Right, and when you read something like Acts 2, I read this this morning, and it wasn't in my notes, but I'm gonna put it in my notes for this Sunday's sermon. "'Men of Israel,' Peter said, "'Hear these words.

"'Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you "'by God with mighty works and wonders and signs "'that God did through him in your midst.'". Yeah. The attestation of Christ Jesus by God because God had him do supernatural miracles.

Over and over again, which just, in my mind, too, what it also does is it heaps up the condemnation on the people who saw those things, who heard those things, and rejected them anyway. The number of believers at the end of Jesus' ministry was relatively a handful.

People today, they have witnessed all kinds of, quote-unquote, healers on TV and down at the convention centers and maybe at their own churches and TBN. And so there are a lot of people who believe in healings for today.

By the way, we believe that God heals today, don't we? Yes, we do. Providentially, medicinally. Promotionally.

Promotionally. In glory, God heals. That's right. We'll all be healed one day. And that's what we mean by promotion. You know, if a believer dies of cancer, they are instantly healed. No more cancer. That's right.

So we believe God heals, but he doesn't grant the gift of healing like he did in the New Testament. To confirm and to authenticate the message and the messenger because we have a confirmed, finished, final, authoritative, and sufficient revelation.

Called Genesis through Revelation. And it's one that we have uniquely now. I mean, it's more readily available than it's ever been. You can go to the internet. We've got the printed Word. You can buy copies of it.

We hand out free copies of it. I mean, you can get a Bible. Anybody can know the truth.

If they want to know the truth. Contrary to the purpose-driven life, books claim Bible's still the number one bestseller. Yes. Allegedly. All right, so at the door, a person greeted me, and he was visibly upset, and he heard me talk about healings and how God doesn't need to confirm the Word anymore via miraculous healings through a gift of healing in a particular person, i .e. healers don't exist today, but God does heal.

And he told me that I was all wrong.

Really? He just came up to you and said, excuse me, with all due respect and love, and I have great respect for all the work you put into that,. I think you're in error on this one, brother.

Do you think we could meet sometime and have a coffee, and I'd like to set you straight for your own good and the good of your church? Is that what he said? No. Oh, okay. He said that you got up to preach, that everybody has a gift, and then for the rest of the time, you systematically try to dismantle the gift of healing and how it wasn't for today, and he started talking about Oral Roberts, Catherine Kuhlman, and

The great, they're the great pastors of the faith. Right, and then he interrupted himself.

And said I was a typical Baptist, and then he interrupted himself and he said, I can tell you were lying about what you were saying about the gift of healing. Was it your lying eyes? No, actually, it was something different.

It was my joker-like paint mouth that I had this high lipstick thing on my mouth there, and that's what it was,.

But it looked like the joker. I think he has the gift of illustration vision or something.

No, he said he could tell I was lying by my sweat, and he said, I can tell you're lying because you're sweating even now. Mm, yeah. Yeah, that's what I think when I look at basketball games. I know those guys are lying, they're sweating.

So Steve, let's try to fill in the blank on what Pastor Mike did in response. You make the call. Should Mike A, say thank you very much, we'll see you next Sunday. B, did Pastor Mike say you're correct and I'll repent right away.

C.

Have the ushers drag him out forcibly. Yes, by gunpoint.

D, heal him of his nonsense.

That would've been good. Slap him on the forehead, you're healed.

R, E, Pastor Mike said, this was actually what happened.

Are you talking about yourself in third person? That would be bad. It's like Shaquille O 'Neal. When Shaquille gets the ball down low.

I was watching a highlight film the other day on YouTube about bloopers and stuff and Shaq was trying to shoot three pointers and dribble between his legs and then he'd launch an air ball. It was so funny.

Okay, so E. So I said to him, that is immature and infantile. With all due respect, if you'd like to disagree with me, that is fine. But there's a time and place for everything and to call me a liar because I'm sweating, I haven't heard anything that immature for quite some time.

And he looked at me and he said, well, I'm a sinner. Yeah, I know that much. I said, but if you'd like to get together, when would you like to get together? I said, well, why don't you just call my secretary and then we'll set up a time.

Steve, I haven't gotten a call yet.

Well, he's still trying to figure out how T .D. Jake sweats so much.

Oh, Steve, that is good, touche. That's not even scripted.

God told you that. Yeah, well, our writers sort of slipped that to me before the show.

What Cessationism Means and Why Miraculous Gifts Confirmed Revelation

So we want to talk a little bit today about cessationism. Steve, what does cessationism even mean? Sensationalism?

Yeah, that's a ticket. Cessationism is the teaching, the belief, the correct system of theological interpretation that says the miraculous gifts have ceased, cessationism. They have cessed, oh, ceased to be active because we no longer need them.

That's exactly right. The extraordinary supernatural gifts that were used by God that were real to confirm the message and the messenger are no longer needed because we have a confirmed message and we know the messenger is confirmed if he preaches that said message.

Preach it. All right, so what I did not know, Steve, is I found the origin of the term cessationism. Oh, really? Yeah, here it goes. The term cessationism comes from the great 17th century confessions of faith, Westminster, London Baptist.

These both use the same words, speaking about how God has revealed his will and committed it to the scriptures. The confessions say, quote, former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased, end quote.

And from that word ceased, we got cessationist. Steve, what is the antonym to cessationism? Do you know the word that's the opposite of that? Continuationalism. Now, do you have to say it that way or do I have to get the demon of stuttering slowly out of you?

Continuationalism. And so what would continuationalism teach? If you're a continuationalist, if cessation means the gifts that were supernatural to confirm ceased, continuationist.

Well, yeah, they would teach that they're normative, that they're to be practiced in all ages, that the church today is the same as Acts and God is the same today, yesterday, and always. And so why would he change anything?

Steve, are the continuationists at the bottom line, end of the day kind of thing, somehow trying to tell us that all the gifts are included today, which wouldn't that mean apostles are for today too? Wouldn't that be consistent?

I think that would be very consistent. Yes, it would. But in fact, most continuationists don't say that. So most continuationists, Steve, act like cessationists to some degree. With regard to that one thing?

Everybody is a cessationist unless you think that apostles are for today. And some do, but... Right, but not really any thinking ones. Okay. All right, so I have some questions to my charismatic friends.

First of all, do we love charismatics? Yes, we do. Are there any charismatics on WVNE?

I don't know, but I like to quote my old pastor, I married one, so... Yeah, you did, actually.

Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did too. I married one flirting with charismatic stuff, and MacArthur, he actually married, I think, a charismatic. Was she flirting with a charismatic or? Ooh. All right, so here's some questions.

We love charismatics. Yes, we do. We love charismatics. How about you? And so we're just trying to think through this. Before you give us a barrage of emails to info at No Compromise Radio, just think through the issues, meet us at the door, confront us in Christian love ad hominemly.

Call us liars because we're sweating.

Why Continuationists Must Admit Some Cessationism

My first question is, that I've already alluded to earlier, won't you please admit to some cessationism? Steve, I think most continuationists should at least say the canon is closed, and we have no apostles for today.

Well, they should say that, yes. I mean, well, but using the same reasoning, couldn't God add to his word if he wanted to? Trying to put God in a box? Yeah, are you putting him in a box? See? No, I'm putting him between the covers of...

Yes, I am trying to preach the Bible and the God represented and revealed in the Bible, and if you call his inscripturated word and will a box, then I'm trying to preach to you the God who's put himself in the box of scripture.

Does that sound right? Well, I mean, whatever I hear somebody say, God told me, then I'm like, well, we need to add Revelation 23 because you've got some, or second Revelation, because you've got some new word that it must be exceeding what's in the Bible.

The thinking charismatic continuationist today does not say that we're trying to look for new inspired information in Revelation to add to scripture. Yeah, they would not say that. So see, they're thinking something has ceased.

They've got to believe in some cessationism. Jack Deere used to be a professor at Dallas Seminary, and he left Dallas Seminary due to his charismatic awakening, and here's what Jack said in his book called "'Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.'".

Mm. If you were to lock a brand new Christian in a room with a Bible and tell him to study what the scriptures have to say about healings and miracles, he would never come out of the room a cessationist.

I think that's exactly opposite.

I think he would. Well, I could see how some people could get confused. I think you would have to look at things like, you know, when Paul leaves, what's his name, sick, Trophimus at Miletus. Left him sick.

Yeah, left him sick instead of healing him. You would look at things like that and go, hmm. Timothy, sick stomach. Yeah, what, Paul didn't like Timothy? Paul didn't, you know, I mean, or, you know, you would have to think through it.

So I agree with you that ultimately you're right, but I think it would take a lot of wrestling and working through some pretty, you know, hints like that, some pretty small hints.

Right, well, and I understand what you're saying, Steve. It wasn't until the last 100 years that this was ever even an issue. So what I would say to Jack Deere is, short of wild, crazy, I'm a wild and crazy guy, short of Steve Martin theology.

Short of wild and crazy Janus and Eskimos and pagans and Mormons, short of these wild folks, the last 1 ,900 years, except for the last 100, before that 1 ,900 years of history, no miraculous verifying signs were reported or they even existed.

And so I say to Jack Deere, well, I guess 1 ,900 years of church history, that's not the only proof, but that seems pretty conclusive that the sovereign spirit didn't need those anymore.

It's a pretty good one. And when you study, you know, the growth of the miraculous signs movement, you know, over the last 100 years, and you look at people like Amy Semple McPherson, when you look at how it came out of Zusa Street and all these kinds of things, you realize that this is not some scholarly movement.

This is an emotional movement that really has no theological moorings, per se.

Whether Modern Miracles Match the Biblical Signs and Wonders

Steve, when someone says to me, show me one verse that says the miraculous gifts have ceased, some cessationists kind of back off a little bit from that because they can't show a verse where they have ceased.

Now, my retort is, in love, of course, in Christian love, my retort is, show me a Bible verse that specifically states that tongues, signs, and wonders continue through the church age. And they say. And they say, but I've experienced it.

No, hey, can we not, Steve, say the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine that we can get from the scriptures, even though it doesn't directly say, God is one, no, I just said manifest. I don't want to say manifest.

You did say manifest. God is one, and he is, God is one in three persons. One God, three persons. Why, I can't believe I just said manifest.

Well, and there are other issues like church membership is not explicitly laid out in one verse, but when you take the totality of the word of God and you analyze what it says, then you would come to the conclusion that, yes, I need to be a member of a church, same kind of thing.

So I think if we systematically looked and we understand that narrative, meaning like acts, is not meant to always be normative. Well, I mean, otherwise you would expect every Sunday to be like the day of Pentecost, right?

You come in and you go out into the streets and you preach, people start talking in tongues, and thousands of people get saved every week. And that's not what's normative.

I think that sounds like a good Christian band. Narrative is not normative. I think that's a great one. It has a certain ring to it. All right, here's a second question we'd like to ask our charismatic continuationist friends.

Are the signed gifts that allegedly happened today, are they of the same kind and caliber of the ones that are done by TV evangelists, the ones done at churches, the ones done at the healing room up there, at the Freedom Fellowship Hall?

Are they the same kind of miracles and signed gifts that are done today?

You mean like when Jesus raised the young girl from the dead and Lazarus from the dead and that kind of thing?

Yeah, when Dorcas was raised from the dead by Peter. Yeah, those kind of things.

Are they raising people from the dead? Are they healing people who had been blind from birth?

Are they doing that kind of thing? Yeah, Eutychus, he falls off the third story, dies and they heal him. That's a little different than John Wimber. When John Wimber, Steve, I was reading, there was a man who fell, hit his head and was apparently unconscious for three minutes and then, quote, came to, end quote, with a bump on his head.

After Wimber and others prayed, the bump eventually went away. This is incredible, not as a miracle, but that anyone would consider this as a possible raising of the dead. Thomas Edgar, satisfied by the Spirit.

How about Jesus when Peter cuts off the centurion's ear and Jesus just puts it back on. How about that one? Try that at the centrum down there in Worcester.

I like to go down to the Worcester, the centrum, and see those people with the dopey spacers in their earlobes and then take them out and they're hanging down drooping like they're some kind of Swahili guy or something and they're gonna have those the rest of their lives unless they've got a good bank account.

How are they gonna get a job trying to heal one of those? Do a miracle healing on that. Yeah, a spacer, a lobe man, heal thyself. Lobes, go together. Lobes, go together. Steve, that was just a nice little impersonation of Robert Tilton.

Bones, go together.

Isn't that funny? Yes, it is funny. It's also kind of, it's sad because there's somebody actually hurting from the result of it, but yeah.

See, I wish the charismatic would say, we agree that the miracles and the signs and wonders done in the time of Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the apostles, and those three eras, we have a different kind of healing today, a different kind of sign gift today.

They're not of that magnitude. They're not of that order. Wayne Grudem says that, for instance, with prophecy. He says it's of a lesser kind. I still disagree with him, but at least he's honest because he realizes there are no Dorcas and Eutychus healings from the dead today in front of unbelievers that were undeniable in the Bible.

Yeah, I mean, anybody who says that there is no difference doesn't understand, well, doesn't really understand the Bible because what we see today, even if you watch TBN or anything else, you're not seeing the same caliber of miracles.

Ask yourself this. Why is it that miracles only appear on TV? Why is it that they only occur in the biggest arena on a Friday night? Controlled environment. Yeah, why is that? Why aren't they holding those things at the, why don't they go down to Nashville and go to one of the children's hospitals there?

Or why don't they, you know, there are all kinds of children's hospitals that they could empty out, go to the City of Hope and just empty the whole place out of all those cancer patients.

And since they don't, how unloving can they be if they could really do that, but they don't? Well, you know, this just came to me.

You know, a lot of times I'll say, well, it's because those people don't have the faith, you know, because Jesus said, it's your faith that healed you. Well, did Lazarus have any faith? Did, you know, these people who were raised from the dead, were they believing?

So it's just a, it's a specious argument.

What about the unbelievers that God healed? What about unbelievers that God used apostles to exorcise demons? Christians don't have demons. So anybody that's got a demon's not a Christian or not redeemed, it's before the cross.

And so, you didn't have enough faith, demon-possessed person, but they were all taken care of like that. Steve, the continuationist is kind of a cessationist. If they say, hey, we have a full Bible, there are no apostles for today.

And I think most of you listening will have to say what was done in Acts chapter two, Acts chapter three, Acts chapter four, Acts chapter five, killing Ananias and Sapphira,.

Blinding Elimus, the No, there's a good one. Why don't they ever try to imitate that? Tonight we're going to have an Ananias and Sapphira revival. Blinding the cessationists.

They would admit that's not the same kind and type and rank of miracle. So you're further proving that you're a cessationist.

You were born a cessationist. You just can't look through the Bible and come to the conclusion that we're supposed to have exactly the same kind of miracles. And then look at what are so-called miracles and signs and wonders today and go, yeah, we have them just like the Bible.

You cannot duplicate the supernatural miracles that God was doing through his son and through the prophets at times of scripture being written in the New Testament.

So you wouldn't count laughing in the spirit as the same as raising somebody from the dead?

No, but maybe a little bit of gold dust might work. What about rolling on the floor?

Isn't that the same as being healed of blindness? I think they have the spirit of a hyena.

Jesus Christ Is the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever

So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking cessationism and charismatic continuationalism. And we'll pick this up next time, Steve,.

On No Compromise Radio. Same bad time, same bad channel.

Jesus is the same today, yesterday, and forever. Doesn't that mean speaking in tongues.

Is for tomorrow? No, he hasn't changed, but no, it doesn't mean that.

And to heal people in heaven there is the same forever. Okay.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE in staff or management.