Cessationism: Should Those Who Claim God Speaks to Them Directly Be Considered False Prophets?

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of salvation.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads. They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age-old question, should those who claim God speaks to them directly be considered false prophets?

Now, receiving special words from God has become a very popular idea in the Christian world, especially, surprisingly so, in traditionally cessationist denominations such as the SBC. I mean, you can just go on Twitter and look up different, very popular SBC figureheads and hear them regularly say things like, I heard from God, or God was telling me these kinds of phrases, and so we felt it was really necessary to start talking about this topic.

But Tim, maybe you could start off by just telling us, why has this become such a big deal? Why has this become so popular, even in groups that traditionally, throughout history, have not recognized this as a theological idea that God is still speaking directly to us today?

Yeah, well, I think you're probably understating the nature of the problem in the way that you've described it, meaning, I think at this point right now, when you're talking about groups like the SBC and everything else, I think we're at a point right now where the SBC is essentially a charismatic denomination, as far as that goes.

Yeah, we're going to have to do an episode on them, huh?

Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, it used to be that SBC churches were very concerned about the charismatic movement, but right now, there's actually no difference between us and the charismatic churches, except that most SBC churches aren't going to speak in tongues or be slaying anyone in the spirit.

But in terms of just the idea of continuing biblical revelation, we're basically charismatics, as far as that goes. And it's a pretty comprehensive error, I think, that seeps into the entire denomination at that point.

And I guess it's difficult to know how this has happened. I know that if I were to try to answer that question, how has this come about, my mind is kind of pushing me in a couple different directions all at once.

And so, because I'm largely coming from a Reformed camp, then I can speak to those closest to me theologically and why that's come about in that way. But then there are other influences that are coming from outside that are doing something similar too, so we can try to speak to that as well.

But one of the things that's happened with the Together for the Gospel, the Gospel Coalition kind of movement is that there was basically, I think in the early 2000s, one of the things that happened is that with the creation of the Gospel Coalition, with Together for the Gospel kind of movement, he had a group of guys like Mark Dever and Al Mohler, C .J. Mahaney.

C .J. Mahaney was functionally a Reformed Charismatic, and one of the things that has happened within the Reformed world is there was basically a ceasefire that was declared on the issue of continuing revelation.

It was just one of those things where you had a group of guys who were wanting to unify around the Gospel. And then part of that unification, because they were friends with C .J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries, one of the things that that unity extended to was it extended to the Charismatic movement itself.

And so within Reformed circles, you largely had a ceasefire that was declared at that very point to where the kind of conversations that have happened over the past decade and a half or so is that this is a secondary issue, and let's not divide over it.

And one of the things that's happened essentially is that not only is it put in the secondary issue kind of thing, it's not going to lead you to hell, they tell us. So therefore, let's leave it off the table.

But functionally, you really weren't even allowed to address the issue. And so when MacArthur came along and caused a big stink with a strange fire conference and everything else, he's identifying it as a problem, like it's a problem that the Reformed world is going Charismatic.

Particularly when the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, has a strong statement on the sufficiency of Scripture in their first article of the Confession. And so in order to be Reformed and Charismatic, that's functionally an oxymoron, and it doesn't really fit any of the Confessions.

And it's not something that really it's like a historical novelty, but it's something that largely these big groups, biggie of evangelicalism, have basically declared we're not allowed to really talk about.

And so for many people, it's just not only is it just, hey, well, it's considered a secondary issue, but then if you try to push against it at all, you're considered divisive and hateful and just cranky and everything else.

And so it's almost considered wrong to step in and say, hey, what are we doing here as far as that goes? So essentially that's what's happened within the Reformed world. But then in the broader Christian world, one of the things that's happened is that the vast majority of people really are influenced primarily not by the Scripture but by music when it comes down to it.

And so what's happened essentially is that Christian radio stations have basically set the theological tone for denominations like the SBC. And so one of the things that's happened is you have groups like Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation Church.

I mean these are all grossly charismatic kind of organizations. I mean they're just they're charismatics, but they're the kind of organizations that are doing things that just if you just look into these kind of organizations, you'll see them doing absurd things like gravesucking and things like that.

They're just grossly charismatic at that point. But then one of the things that's happened essentially is that they've taken over the Christian music scene in a pretty comprehensive way. And so the vast majority of SBC churches are basically playing what's on the radio.

And the radio has been taken over by the charismatics essentially. And so because the radio has been taken over by the charismatics, essentially what happens at the congregational level is that all your radio advertisers on your standard Christian radio stations, they're all charismatics.

And everything that's played now, I mean it's just at first it was subtle. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, it was subtle kind of prosperity, charismatic stuff. But today it's just crass prosperity, charismatic garbage that's being played on the radio at a pretty I mean that's just the standard stuff.

I mean every single song you listen to is going to be about victory and it's going to be about it's going to have a strong prosperity theme and everything else. But functionally, the charismatics took over the music, and we all like the charismatic music.

And so fundamentally, I think that's why the SBC has gone charismatic. But it shows up at basically every single conceivable way imaginable. You have like big-name influencers like Beth Moore who regularly talk about hearing directly from God, Christine Kane.

All these big-name people that are influencers within the broader Christian world, they're all charismatics as far as that goes. And so basically these denominations, these big-name denominations are more influenced by celebrity Christians who are charismatics than they are by the Bible.

And really they don't even understand what the issues really as far as that goes. You basically just have a pop Christianity that's functionally mystical as far as that goes. But I think those are the two kind of major things that are happening that have led to a situation where I would say the vast majority of Christians today are unquestionably charismatic as far as that goes.

Thoughtlessly charismatics, that's the vernacular that we talk about. That's what's happening at a practical level.

Yeah, I definitely understated the issue at the beginning. You brought up Beth Moore. I know you and I are both well aware of the video that came out. It must have been, what, like eight years ago or six years ago now where Beth Moore is talking to a bunch of women and she tells a story about how she was at the airport, I think, and she sees this, I guess, homeless guy at the airport.

Yeah. And she tells all the women there that God specifically told her that she didn't have to share the gospel with him. She just had to go brush his hair. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're not, if warning bells aren't going off in your head when you hear something like that, I'm worried for you.

Well, but the thing is, I think that was 2007 when that came out, but I mean, that's 15 years ago, I think. But the thing is, you know, warning bells are not going off in people's head. They aren't. Right.

I mean, there's very few, like, there is very few people in the Christian world who are having any warning bells go off with Beth Moore and things like that. And she says more certain things than that.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, that's just her thing. You know, her thing is just, you know, hey, girlfriend, you know, this is what I want you to do. God's done. Talking to her like a middle age, you know, middle age, white, upper class woman, you know, middle, middle, upper middle class woman, you know, I mean, that's just her thing, you know, that's.

But I mean, the thing is, it used to be that if you wanted to basically start a church, you say anything negative about Beth Moore and you get all the women at the church mad at you and, you know, you run out of the church.

I mean, I don't know that the vast majority of churches today that won't happen if you criticize Beth Moore. And so no one seems to think it's a problem. That's that's the reason why it's just just, you know, everyone's listening to Christian radio and that's what's on there.

You know, that's all it is. It's sentimental mysticism. That's all on the radio stations today. And it's just in your face, crass, you know, continuationist garbage is what it is.

And you're and you're totally right about what you said earlier in your response to our first question. You brought up, you know, there are a few people who are willing to say something about this. John MacArthur being probably the primary example.

But then the issue is when when these few people say anything at all, the reaction from the rest of the evangelical Christian world is to condemn not the not the people saying the absurd things, but the people calling out the people saying the absurd things.

So when when John MacArthur says, you know, about Beth Moore, go home, everyone says, oh, you know, you can't don't say something like that, you know, when it's like, hang on, she's saying she's saying some wacky stuff.

But this is pastors, too. I mean, you know, if actually most of your standard, you know, pastors at SBC churches, I mean, they're all mystical and charismatic and they don't even know it. I mean, they don't even know how charismatic they are.

I mean, just how many times have you heard a pastor, you know, talk about his vision for the church and, you know, what God's leading us to do and what he's hearing from the Lord. And, you know, every time a pastor leaves a church, what does he say?

Well, I feel called to, you know, go to the bigger church is going to pay money and everything else. I mean, it's just I mean, this is the language you speak. I mean, Harrison, you know, when I've done interviews for churches, you know, they've called me up and asked me questions about about, you know, explain to me your call to the ministry.

I can't tell you how many times I just hate answering that question. I absolutely hate answering that question. Describe your call to the ministry, because what is expected of me in these settings when I'm trying to answer questions along those lines is for me to basically tell some mystical, quasi charismatic story about how God, you know, in some way that wasn't audible, basically told me short of words.

But through my feelings or through circumstances or whatever else that he that not only was I commanded by him to be a pastor, but that, you know, somehow there's some sort of guarantee that, you know, I'm going to get some full time ministry job somewhere.

And, you know, most of the time what they actually want to hear is me to stand before them and say, yes, I believe that you would be in sin if you didn't ask me to be your pastor, because God told me.

I mean, that's what, you know, that's what basically every, you know, almost every, you know, pastor and churches in America, when they go to, you know, interview for a church, they're basically just telling people that, essentially, you know, if you if you read through the subtext, you better hire me or else you're in sin because God told me.

God's given me, you know, this strong confirmation, you know, in so many ways that, you know, he has knit my heart together with this church and given me such confidence that this is exactly where he wants me to be.

But all that's just a direct claim for direct divine revelation. And so, you know, when there's some major decision to be made, you know, the pastor is sensing where the Lord is leading him and everything else.

And and and, you know, it these are functional claims of revelation. And this is what all the pastors are doing, you know, and if you don't do that, they think, oh, man, like this guy is like, oh, you know, like, so let me get this straight.

God isn't telling you that you were commanded to be our pastor. Well, I'm nervous about you, you know, five other pastors have already interviewed for the same job and all said that God wanted them there.

I know. And it's just like, well, which one of you guys is getting stoned and which one? We got a rock collection here. And what's all right. We're going to hire this one. And you guys are all false prophets, apparently, you know.

But I mean, no one thinks in those terms. I mean, no one's thinking along those lines. But I mean, it's like that's I mean, that's just standard. If you don't play that game, then what happens is, you know, if you don't play that game, people think you're not very spiritual for one.

And then they don't trust, like the decisions you're leading them to do, because it doesn't feel like, you know, you're sensing what got like what they want to hear is some sort of claim to direct divine revelation so that everyone can be comfortable.

And just, OK, well, I guess that means if the things from the Lord, you know, who are we to disagree? And everyone can just chalk it up to, you know, God told him, you know, but but I mean, you know, functionally, if you don't do that, everyone's suspicious of you.

But then if you do that, I mean, you're a scoundrel and you're a liar because, you know, that God didn't say that. So that's the problem. But so, I mean, it's not just Beth Moore. It's just I mean, that's just the standard, you know, the situation, you know, across the board with with all pastors when it comes to decision making and things like that.

It's just it's a bunch of mystical garbage.

What exactly what exactly do we mean? What all falls under that umbrella?

And, you know, from a cessationist kind of position, there's no expectation of any additional direct divine revelation from God, meaning his revelation to man is complete. And what we have today is the Bible, you know, with the addition of the New Testament scriptures, God's finished speaking.

Now, the continuationist position is essentially the opposite of that, which is basically just saying that God will continue to speak to people through dreams or through visions or through, you know, direct verbal revelation or, you know, most often it's through their feelings, essentially.

And so one of the things that's happened that really what distinguishes most like formal charismatic denominations and, you know, your functionally charismatic denominations like the SBC now and things like that, what basically distinguishes these two things is that in your, you know, your standard straight up Benny Hinn charismatic movement kind of stuff.

There is some expectation that people are going to say thus says the Lord. And then they're going to tell you, hey, God, I have a word for you very specifically. And they're going to say, God told me to tell you X or Y or Z or something like that.

Right. So that's kind of old school charismatic. That's the old school charismatic kind of way of communicating that. I mean, you'd find that in your, you know, your Hillsong and your Bethel and your, you know, your big, you know, Churchill Highlands megachurch kind of charismatic stuff.

But in your old school charismatic stuff, you're going to have that up until like speaking in tongues. So, you know, babble that is not really language, just babble that is being equated with direct divine revelation where someone may or may not interpret it, that kind of thing.

But what happened, what's happened in more of the mainstream SBC kind of world is essentially there's not as much of an expectation as direct divine revelation like that. But there is going to be essentially equal kind of claims to direct divine revelation in that a person can be like, I feel like God is telling me X.

And that's going to be some sort of, they're going to discern that somehow through, you know, the promptings of the Holy Spirit or the whisperings of the Holy Spirit in their heart or, you know, the chord progression in the song or indigestion or something else.

But it's going to be kind of quasi verbal, like you'll have people basically talk about, you know, I wasn't quite audible, but I know it's what he wants me to, you know, hear from this or that. You know, favorable circumstances or their mood or whatever else it is, if that makes sense.

And so but essentially in your mainstream Christian world, you're going to have some sort of appeal to some sort of extra biblical revelation that is discerned apart from reading the Bible. But then through, you know, promptings or feelings or, you know, subjective circumstances or situations.

But that's more your mainstream kind of SBC charismatic stuff that's happening, if that makes sense. But you have any follow up on that?

Yeah. So do things like dreams fall into this category as well?

Yeah. I mean, I think in your mostly in your mainstream charismatic movement, you're going to still have people talking about dreams and visions and power encounters and, you know, that kind of stuff or the speaking in tongues or just direct verbal.

You know, you're cross prosperity preachers who are talking about God, just, you know, talking to them while they're shaving kind of stuff. So all the dreams and visions, I would say that's largely the, you know, the charismatic territory still.

But then in the SBC world, in your mainstream evangelical Christian world, it's going to be more just through sensing and feeling and, you know, God still small voice kind of stuff like. So it won't be verbal or I don't I don't know that many SBC people are going to be talking about dreams and visions and that kind of stuff.

But they're going to more talk about the quasi almost is, you know, it's almost as if God spoke, but didn't quite. But we should treat it as if he did kind of stuff, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And the other the other term that I wanted to ask you to define for our listeners is if you could just take a minute and maybe fill out people's idea of of what a false prophet is and what exactly, you know, the Bible would consider to be a false prophet.

Yeah, sure. So I think part of what's happened with the charismatic movement and the rise of the charismatic movement and the rise of just like the Gospel Coalition and T4G and all that, you know, the idea of a reformed charismatic has kind of been mainstreamed.

And part of that's been done through a guy named Wayne Grudem. And so he's kind of the theologian for that charismatic movement as far as that goes. But then he came up with this idea of fallible prophecy, essentially, where when you trying to distinguish Old Testament, like what false prophet is in the Old Testament versus what is prophecy in the New Testament.

And so he invented this concept of fallible prophecy, saying this essentially different. But the problem is, I think, as you read through the scriptures, one of the things you're going to find is there's two major tests of of of the false prophet in the Old Testament.

Okay. So the two passages I'm thinking about are Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18, essentially. So Deuteronomy 18, 18 through 22 basically gives you part of this definition of a false prophet. And then Deuteronomy 13 gives you another part of it.

So Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 3. But essentially, I start with Deuteronomy 18. It says, I'll raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I'll put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all I have commanded him.

And whoever will not listen to my words that I shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. Now, I mean, it's this amazing passage, because essentially, God is promising that, you know, he raises up Moses.

And basically, he's not done with revelation with Moses. But Moses is kind of your stereotypical Old Testament prophet as far as that goes. You know, I got Moses is basically, you know, the type of the archetype of a prophet in the Old Testament, essentially, but God's going to have other prophets, he's going to raise up and they all kind of follow a similar formula.

But then, basically, God says, you know, he's going to raise up more prophets like Moses. Okay. And whoever doesn't listen to my words, I speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. Meaning like you better when I raise up a prophet, you better listen to him.

Right. But then verse 20 says, but the prophet who presumes to speak a word, my name, I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. So basically, you have a pretty serious situation here.

Right. So God says, I'm going to send you a prophet like Moses and you better listen to him. And if you don't, I'm going to require it of you. Meaning like if you don't listen to this prophet, you're disobeying me.

Right. But then the prophet, though, that presumes to speak in my name, who I didn't command to be a prophet, that prophet is going to die. So this is like pretty harsh terms either way. Right. So. So.

But then the thing is, God knows that. So think about it this way. A prophet person comes to you and says, hey, this is the Lord. They're making a claim of divine authority. They're basically saying you better do what I'm saying or you're in sin and God's going to judge you.

That's a pretty significant thing. But then in the Old Testament, there's a pretty significant penalty for, you know, messing that up. Right. But then there's a very natural question. This asked in verse 21 of 18.

It says, if you say in your heart, how will we know the word the Lord has not spoken? I mean, that's the kind of question I have. Right. Yeah. I'm just going to run around, say I'm speaking for God. I want to know, well, how do I know if that's from God or, you know, that's just his indigestion.

Right. Is that from God or are they just on drugs? Right. Like, how do we know? How do we know? Right. Because, you know, that's a pretty significant claim that's being made. So it says, how will we know?

Well, verse 22, when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

So, like, here's the thing. God says, if a prophet presumes to speak a word in my name, I have not commanded him to speak or speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet will die. Here's the thing.

So there's a one strike you're out policy in the old covenant. If you presume to speak a word and it does not come to pass, you know, the old covenant command was to kill that prophet and for good reason.

Right. For good reason. Because there's no greater way to cause chaos among God's people than to run around claiming to speak for God. Divine authoritative words that people are commanded to obey or else God will judge them.

Right. There's no other way to cause chaos than to do that. And so there's a one strike you're out policy. So basically, you know, you think about the charismatic movement and all these people were predicting the Lord's return.

They predicted it four times now, five times now. You know, if they were living under the old covenant, they'd be put to death. And for good reason. Now, I mean, so the first test there is, you know, is there a hundred percent accuracy to the prophet's words?

A hundred percent accuracy. There's no toleration or margin for error at all. If they're going to say that Lord spoke something, it better come to pass or else they're to be put to death. Right. But then the problem, though, is that Satan does counterfeit miracles as well.

Right. And so when Moses is sent as the prophet to God's people, a lot of the signs that Moses performs, he sent to perform the Egyptian magicians were able to do because there are other supernatural powers in the world besides God.

Right. So Deuteronomy 13 says, if a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder in that sign or wonder that he tells you comes to past. Right. Comes to pass. So if it comes true and if he says, let's go after other gods which you have not known, let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether or not you love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. So here's the thing.

In the Old Covenant, there's two tests for a false prophet. One, is it 100 percent accuracy? Did it come to pass? And then two, even if it does come to pass, are they leading you to serve other gods? Are they contradicting God's written words in any way?

If so, that prophet, you're being tested by the Lord. And so there's two tests there within the Old Covenant. And I would say that related to the modern charismatic movement, the problem is that we have these two tests in the Old Testament and I don't see any reason why if we were to just follow these tests, then the charismatic movement essentially would be dead.

Yeah, yeah. Kind of a death blow.

No pun intended. But I mean, you wouldn't have this ridiculous situation that we're living under right now where everyone's just claiming all these words from the Lord on a regular basis and trivializing the thing to where it's just absolute chaos.

If we realize how serious this actually is to claim to speak in the name of the Lord. And I'm not talking about some sort of vigilante justice or something like that. We're talking about, though, if you lived in a Christian society where that was actually considered a punishable offense, in that way you would have a lot less false prophets.

But even if the church uses power of excommunication to start excommunicating people who are claiming to speak in the name of the Lord, words that are not true, we could clean up the radio stations, we could clean up our churches if we would just follow what God says there.

I think it's pretty obvious to look around and see that we don't exactly treat prophecy the same way the Israelites in the Old Testament would have. Is that safe to say, Tim? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, no one bats an eye at it, really. I mean, unless you just get really weird. The only time someone really is going to get offended about it is if you're in a scenario where what you're being told is different from what you want to do in some substantial way.

So the guy goes up to the girl or something like that and says, the Lord is just telling me that you're to be my next wife. And she's like, well, unfortunately, the Lord's telling me that I was supposed to, through the Ouija ball, that I was supposed to marry this other dude.

And that's not you. That wasn't the name that came up. So what do we do? At that point, then it's like, oh, hey, we're all cessationists at that point. But if it's something you want to hear, then you're all charismatics all day long.

So like I was saying, obviously, we don't really treat prophecy the same way the Israelites in the Old Testament would have. So kind of turning us back to the title question of the episode, do you think we should be treating prophecy the same way the Old Testament Israelites would have?

Do you think we should treat the people who claim that they're receiving a special private word from God, that we should treat them as false prophets?

Absolutely, I think we should. I understand how when you're in a judge's kind of situation where everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes, and you have such a long history of years and years and years, and all your major evangelical figures who are functionally charismatics in certain ways.

I understand how that sounds kind of shocking to say, but I mean, obviously, if you're just reading the Bible and you're saying, hey, I'm going to think about prophecy the way God talks about it within his word, then if we would just do what the Bible says, we would clean everything up pretty good as far as that goes.

I think part of the problem is that for most people who are doing the Beth Moore kind of thing, or, hey, I think God's telling me this, or I think God's telling me that, often it's like you can't really tell with the person, are they making a claim to direct divine revelation?

Or is this just kind of a horribly uncareful way of communicating sanctified wisdom or something along those lines? So what is actually being communicated here in terms of you just have the person standing there and just saying, yeah, I just feel like God wants me to take the job.

I feel like God is telling me to take the job or whatever. What happened there? And often I'm the kind of person who in that kind of situation, I'm going to look at the person and saying, hey, are you saying that God told you audibly in some way to take the job?

Oh, no, no, no. Are you telling me then that somehow He told you through your feelings that you should take the job? And then once I catch on that I'm pushing back against it, then it gets a lot fuzzier as far as that goes.

But generally, no, I think it would be wonderful if we could regain a cessationist kind of theology and all of us start actively pushing back against this a lot stronger than what we do and actually saying, start using biblical words for the kind of people who are doing this very thing.

And one of those biblical words is to start calling people false prophets. I think that would be entirely helpful if we would be encouraging people to repent of being false prophets at this point. It would certainly draw the lines more clearly as far as that goes.

Now, obviously, this kind of charismatic movement is very popular, right? And it wouldn't be popular if people weren't fixated on it for some reason, if they weren't drawn to it for some reason. So I'm wondering, Tim, what exactly is it about this kind of idea that God still speaks to us today is so enticing for so many people that we would basically be willing to completely overlook how the Bible treats prophecy in general?

The issue is no one's overlooking what the Bible talks about with prophecy. They have no idea what it says.

They're not overlooking. They're just not even looking.

They're not even looking, man. That's the whole thing. The whole problem is the reason why, in order to try to answer your question, the thing is, this has gained such popularity because no one reads the Bible.

Why would you ever read the Bible? Why would you read the Bible if God will just talk to you through your feelings? So that's the whole thing. The whole pull, the whole draw of this thing, the whole thing that encourages people to approach it.

This is a different religion. It's not even the same religion. We're not even approaching life in the same way. I'm the kind of person who thinks to myself, if I want to know what God says about something, I'm the kind of person who will read through the whole Bible to try to ask, what has he said at every passage about this topic?

That's what I do. There's been questions I've asked. What does God say about who to marry, for instance, or something like that, when I was single? I read through the New Testament, and I read through the Old Testament, and I read through the New Testament multiple times, and I made a list of all the things that addressed marriage, just to find out what it said about that topic in the New Testament and the Old Testament.

I've just read through it, and then made a list of things, and then made observations after that. If you're a charismatic, or if you're just a popular Christian person who gets your theology from Beth Moore or something like that, there's no reason to do any of that.

Why in the world would you do any of that? That sounds like a lot of work. The vast majority of Christians today, professing Christians today, they're not reading their Bibles. They're just listening to their feelings or their intuition, or they're following their heart.

They're doing the Disney thing. Essentially, what happens is God seems to always be telling them to do exactly what they want to do anyways. But then if you say, hey, maybe that's not God speaking. Maybe that's just you.

That may just be that it sounds like you just are saying God's saying exactly what you want to say. Then it's just like you've challenged their entire Christianity at that point because their entire Christianity is built on mysticism.

That's the thing. It's a very attractive thing. It's a very attractive view of God in general. If you just talk about, well, what's the draw? Well, the draw is you don't ever have to read the Bible, and you can get direct access from God whenever you want through your feelings.