A Defense of Cessationism part 10

Scripture Availability and God’s Use of Gifts in Unreached Places

So his last question is, was Scripture less available in some countries as it is in ours? Can we make the statement that the Holy Spirit need not provide these gifts in areas where no Scripture is widely available?

So they don't have Scripture in where Christianity is outlawed, or they just don't have resources to have the Bible in those countries? Does God need the Holy Spirit to be active with signs and dreams and wonders and miracles because the Scripture is not present and available?

Need to?

No. Does He? I mean, God can do what He wants. And this is one of those things where we say it's not normative, but that's not a normative situation in the world we live in today. I mean, there are lots of people, groups who don't have the Word of God, a lot of people who the language is unknown, they can't get the gospel even in their tongue, but that's still not a large percentage of the world.

It's a relatively small percentage. It's not normative. So could God work in those situations to bring the gospel to a people who don't have the Scripture in their language? Absolutely. Would He use the gift of tongues to do it?

Perhaps. I really don't know. That would be up to God to do that. But I do know that God is good and He will make sure that the Word of God goes to the ears it's supposed to go to, and He will make sure that His Word doesn't return void.

So I don't know if He needs to use the gifts, but I'm sure He could.

When you think about the timeline of history, I mean, we're in a unique time where Scripture is, like you were saying, Scripture is more prevalent today than it has ever been. And so you think about our history, the medieval period, the dark ages, and even beyond post and pre those time periods, there was a time when we didn't have the printing press.

And so Scripture was not readily available to the majority of people that lived on this planet. And it was confined to a certain church that held on to it and held on to it in such a fashion that they would only speak it in a certain language, a language that the common person didn't even understand.

And so with no interpreter, with no interpreter, talking about the Latin mass for those who haven't caught on yet.

Yeah. So it's God's prerogative. It's God's prerogative. It's His sovereignty, how He decides to operate in this world where there will be a, and it may be a time of judgment where the Scripture was not as prevalent.

But then He worked in men who desired for other people to know the Word of God to create the printing press, to translate into English, and we could go through all that history, but He's worked through men so that the Word of God could be more prevalent where it is today.

Dreams, Jesus, and the Need for Scriptural Truth

I was thinking about this question and answer this, Dan. So if you believe that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer, do you have the biblical Jesus? If you have a Jesus who was not crucified, did not rise from the dead, do you have the biblical Jesus?

No. If you have a Jesus who is one of many gods, He's a God, but He's one of many gods, do you have the biblical Jesus? No. So the continuationists want to use Jesus appearing in dreams on the mission field as an argumentation for the Spirit working through miraculous signs and wonders and gifts because people are having dreams about Jesus.

But if you don't have the Scripture to teach you who that Jesus is, then what good is the dream if you don't have the Scriptures to objectively teach you who Jesus is? You're going to fall into a trap where you have a Jesus of your own making.

Yeah, well, I mean, you definitely need the teaching of the apostles, but the early church didn't have all of that either. They were still being saved. Now, they did have the apostles, but they had people to tell them about it.

But say the gospel goes to a people group who don't know the language. Say God does reach someone through a dream, I believe that He will provide a means of discipling those people. Why? Because Jesus prayed in the high priestly prayer that we would be sanctified and sanctified by the Word.

That's right. The Word doesn't necessarily have to be a written Word. It could be spoken. It could be spoken for a time until another language is figured out or whatever. So I don't know.

It's got to trace back to the Scripture. It may be verbal, but it's got to trace back to the Scripture. Well, sure.

In the time where the Scriptures were being written, it was, I guess, future Scripture, but the Word of God there was the truth of God being spoken by God to man through the apostles and then later written down.

So it could be that they are taught these things and they never have written Scriptures, at least not in their lifetime. But they're still able to learn because the Word of God has been brought to them by the power of the Holy Spirit through a person or through...

You hear about it in a Muslim context of people coming to Christ through dreams. They'll say, Oh, Christ was revealed to me in a dream. And I mean, glory to God, if that's the way that he wants to bring people to himself, that's fantastic.

It's still the Spirit testifying to the truth of Christ, and I don't see where it's necessary, but if that's the way that God wants to do things, then that's the way that God wants to do things. And I really think that's the whole debate between continuations and cessationists, is not, can God do these things or is God doing these things?

But what is the normative practice of these gifts? And we believe that the normative practice of these gifts was for the time of transition between the Old and New Covenant, and that now God can still use these things for his own glory, but that he generally doesn't because he's a God who delights in the ordinary means of grace, of the basic preaching of the word, of baptism, the Lord's Supper, where we get to see the cleansing of sins and the feeding upon Christ's body and blood as a means of him drawing a people to himself and sanctifying us by his word.

That's really where God delights in, because that's where we've seen him delight in those things throughout history.

Well, that's where scripture leads us. It leads us to his word being the sanctifier through the Holy Spirit. It's all scripture being inspired by the Holy Spirit, profitable for every good work, for proof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

So that's where scripture leads us. That's where the Holy Spirit leads us, points us to Christ, points us to scripture, and points us to God using his word. I don't see in scripture the opposite where God is going to use, as a normative practice, dreams to sanctify, signs and wonders to proclaim truth.

It's just the opposite.

It's his word. Right. Well, the time where there was tongues and prophecy and those things, it was to show a Jewish people that their Messiah had come and they crucified him. Yeah. Peter.

That's right. That's right. And we'll hit on that in just a second.

Gifts, Scripture, and the Normative Work of the Holy Spirit

So I know that we're not in together, it looks like.

Yeah, this is going to be a longer one. I just wanted to get to these last questions. I know that wasn't satisfactory, but we gave it our best shot. So here's some, and these are based on my observation.

And like I said, I don't want to paint with a brush because it's not everybody. It's just observation. But here's the first observation concerning the gifts being normative. Um, there seems to be a difference between the preaching of the gifts in scripture and the preacher preaching on the gifts today.

So in first Corinthians, 12, 13, 14, that's where you have, uh, mainly the gifts being discussed concerning the average Christian apart from Jesus, apart from the apostles. Here, here's your average Christian church goer church member and their relationship with the gifts.

It seems like, um, in a broad sense, um, not making everyone guilty of this, um, from my observation, Paul here is teaching how to use the gifts. Their, their usage, their, their proper, um, part of the church order.

But then the preaching on the gifts today is not how, how they should be used and using the properly in the church, but teaching, teaching people, um, that they're, that they're not present, that they should be present and then how, how to almost conjure them up.

Like you don't speak in tongues. Well, here's a class on how to speak in tongues, or here's a class on how to prophesy, um, not how they're used in the church order, but Paul was preaching their, their proper usage because they were normative, they exist.

Um, it seems like the preaching today is we need them. Um, and so here's how to, here's how to do it. Um, and, and I didn't explain that as well as I did before we started the show. Um, maybe you can tighten up those bolts that I left loose.

Hey, what you're saying is it seems like, um, the emphasis on the gifts in scripture is on the proper use of them. It seems like so, and you're not saying everybody, but it seems like a, uh, a large number of, of, of folks are preaching on the, the necessity and the manifestation of the gifts more than a proper use, whereas it seemed like nobody had to teach the Corinthians how to speak in tongues or how to prophesy.

They had to be taught how to do those things well, decently, and in order because they were happening because the spirit was giving them, um, the ability to, to do it. Um, whereas it seems like today there's a, there's an emphasis on, oh, you'd like to speak in tongues or you'd like to prophesy.

So here's how you go about doing it. Right. Um, no, to actually make it, make it, uh, appear, uh, no, I've seen video. I'm sure people have seen videos and, and I'm sure people are gonna be like, Hey, yo, that's not me, but it's still out there.

Um, who would say, uh, you know, no, uh, they'll lay their hands on somebody to say, put your tongue loose and just let it flow. And then you hear somebody do what, whatever it is that they do. I'm trying to teach them how to speak in tongues.

When, I mean, if the spirit gives you utterance, you're going to, you're going to do it, it seems like, it seems like there, there would be no, if, if the spirit was actually giving these gifts, there'd be no need for some man to teach you, you know, to do those things, maybe to teach you the proper use of those gifts, which is what we've seen in scripture, but not, not that here's how you make it happen.

Right. And this kind of leads back and bleeds over from John's question, because you're, you were raised or brought up in a cessationist environment and it wasn't normative, does it make it not normative?

Does your experience determine truth? And the answer to that question, of course, we already talked about that is no, but it seems that if, if the gifts were normative, because we, we've both got to agree based on first Corinthians and Hebrews, that Corinthians says that they are, they're given by the, the will of the spirit.

Hebrews says it's given by the will of the father. So the gifts and how they're given and whom they're given to are determined by the will of God, we both agree on that. And if they are normative, it doesn't matter what denominational background you come from, whether it's normative or it's not normative.

If, if the Holy spirit and his gift giving were as normative and prevalent as they were in the first century church, it doesn't matter what denominational background you come from. It would seem like they would be more prevalent.

They would be, you would see them more often. Right.

Drum them up. Right. Right. It seems like that. I mean, there must be a reason why, um, you don't see, you don't see that. You don't see the manifestation of those manifestation of those gifts in certain denominations.

Right. I mean, you know, w why is that? You know, are we in such error that we're no longer, no real parts of Christ's church that we wouldn't be given the same gifts or, uh, that kind of feels like the accusation.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, the, the spirit will give out the gifts as he wills may be the thing, but then why are we being pushed to see those manifestations among us?

That's right. You, one side, you have a argument that, well, you, you guys in your denomination, you suppress the gifts. You ignore them, suppress them, reject them or whatever. That's why they're not normative.

But then on the other side, um, you try to drum them up because they're not normative is the observation is the experience. Um, yeah. So you, you've got the, you've got the harsh, um, claims on, on both sides toward, toward one another.

Um, and, and we're, we're trying to avoid both, you know, we reject the harsh claim against us, um, because we, we won't think we, we, we want to believe that we are biblical and following biblical truth and the other side wants to believe the same thing.

And so we don't want to be harsh towards them. And when we say it seems it's just, we're saying that based on just observation, not trying to, um, be mean about it, um, it's, it's really.

Important that for anybody who's going to engage on, on this topic to do so from a place of balance. Yeah. Uh, because if, if you come out, no guns a blazing, you're going to be imbalancing your approach and you're going to be like a lunatic with a sword.

You're going to just lop off stuff that you shouldn't be lopping off. Right. So it's, it's important for, for all of us in any theological disagreement or any disagreement of the sort, um, that we, we come at these things with a, with a bit of humility, um, examine ourselves that we are, are balanced in our approach that we don't start kicking people out of the kingdom because they, they do things a different way or, or look in different way or, or understand things a different way.

And as long as they're not primary issues of the gospel and know the doctrine of God, um, but if, if we, if we have some disagreements, we, we shouldn't be quick to, to kick others out or to say, well, you must just be a horrible rotten center.

That's why God's not using you this way. Or I can't believe that you would just make up stuff about the Holy spirit. You know, that's, that's not what these people believe that they're doing. That's not what they're trying to do when they speak in tongues, um, or, or prophesy the way they do.

Um, they, they really believe that because of scripture, um, these are practices, they're, they're gifts from the Holy spirit and we, we should, we should come at it with a sense of balance and humility if God wants to do things and he wants to do things in other people that he's not doing in us, you know, maybe we're just wrong.

Yeah. I don't think so because of scripture, but we should be humble enough to take a step back, take some deep breaths, not kick people out of the kingdom that God has called to himself and just breathe a little bit.

We could all be a little bit more charitable so that way, you know, we're not, we're not being harsh to someone when we shouldn't be, and they're not being harsh to us when they shouldn't be.

That's right. And, and we do have to admit that we do observe things, um, that as part of our experience, um, is, is exert observing things and observing how the Holy spirit is working. Um, and of course we, we measure it by the objective standard of God's word.

But you think about the fruits of the Holy spirit, love, joy, peace. How do we know that somebody is, is of Christ because they, we observe them being of us or with us or, or that they left us or that they're exhibiting the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We observe that. So therefore we can see that the Holy spirit is, is working. And the same thing I think is true in this circumstance, I'm, I'm observing. The Holy spirit's not working as a normative practice where he's giving these gifts across the board.

Does that make sense? You had me until that last sentence. So, so my observation is that if I'm what I'm observing in the Holy spirit and his work in us is that it's, it's not normative because if it were normative, then he would, he would be giving these gifts.

It doesn't matter what denomination that you're in. He would be given these gifts. Um, even those denominations that we would say, quote, suppress the gifts or reject the gifts that are cessationist. You would still be seeing them in those denominations.

You couldn't help, but exercise what the Holy spirit is doing within you, he'll be given those gifts. And they will be more prevalent in all denominations across the board.

Right. It would be a little bit more widespread, even if, even if it was lesser, you know, lesser in one than, than in another, um, you, you would at least see it.

That's right. So, and that bleeds over to my second observation is, is those who claim a high view of scripture, even though they may believe in the gifts of the Holy spirit, they seem to have a practice of, um, what we saw as an example, or, or what we observed in scripture as the purpose and role of the Holy spirit, which was to point to scripture for, or Christ first and point to his word.

Um, that's the role and duty of the Holy spirit that we learned from scripture. He points to Christ, he points to his word. He sanctifies us through the truth and the truth is God's word. And so that's the main role duty objective of the Holy spirit.

And so those whom we see with a high view of scripture that is evident in their, their style and their content and their preaching, they will have a sermon or give a sermon, um, that is rich in, in truth and rich in the word.

Um, and even though they believe in the gifts and working of the Holy spirit through the signed gifts or the, the spiritual gifts, they may believe in that they have, uh, they emphasize less those gifts in, in their ministry.

And it emphasized more the, the work of the Holy spirit through the, through his word and their sermons come across as more rich and more right.

That's that balance that I'm talking about, because instead of, instead of, uh, emphasizing a, a manifestation of the spirit in yourself, you're glorifying God, you're magnifying the gospel. You're, you're recognizing Christ and his supremacy and all things.

Right. And really, I mean, that's, that's what it's all about is recognizing Christ and all that he is and all that he does and making that your focus instead of. No, anything else or any pet doctrine, right?

Making much like the old, uh, saying you're going to make much of Jesus.

That's right. And I don't want to be unnecessarily offensive when I say this, um, because it's not true of everybody. Um, but just the opposite of that is true from observation. Those who emphasize the gifts more, it seems like their, their sermons are more shallow and have are more filled with application.

They're, they're not deep. Um, it's more experimental, experiential type services, uh, and messages.

Um, it's easier for, for heresy to creep into those situations too. Right.

Right. And so we see, it just seems like from observation, observing the work of the Holy spirit, that those who have a high view of scripture, give us more deep, rich content, just like we would expect as we learn about the Holy spirit and scripture, who points to Jesus and points to his word, sanctifies through his word.

You're going to have preachers who are filled with the Holy spirit, who emphasize have a high view of scripture. Give us the rich content and have a less and less emphasize. I'm not even saying that correctly.

Um, they emphasize less though the gifts of the Holy spirit, even though they might believe in them, they emphasize them less.

Staying on the Road: Avoiding Cessationist and Continuationist Ditches

So what you're saying is that we've kind of got a two lane road here where cessationists and continuationists who have a high view of scripture, who keep crisis or central focus are running side by side on, on the pathway, uh, towards, towards Christ, towards godliness, but you've got ditches on either side of the road, so you can fall off on this, on the cessationist side where you, you start believing that the Holy spirit is not working at all.

You don't live in the power of the Holy spirit. You don't trust in him to do the things that he is said to do. And you end up being a dull, dead, lifeless church because you don't have the life of the spirit in you because you don't believe in the spirit and you don't trust the gospel.

Go on the other side of the road into the continuation is ditch. And you're emphasizing a manifestation of a gift so highly that you're ignoring Christ and you're running after experience instead of Christ himself.

So what both sides need to do is to remember to stay on the road, recognizing Christ as being supreme and looking to him in all things. And we can, we can link arm and arm with somebody who keeps crisis the central focus of their ministry.

Um, even if we have some disagreements on, on, uh, no of this nature of, of, you know, which spiritual gifts or whatnot, it may be that we need to, uh, you know, at least we'll call each other brothers first before we decide how, you know, how, how that relationship looks, but that's right.

Yeah. We need to, uh, need to make sure that we avoid ditches on either side of either side of the road. That's right.

I'm glad you said that. Um, what we observe in scripture is Holy spirit points to Christ points to his word. And so we, we all agree on that. Now, if, if you want to believe that if you want to be a continuationist and believe that the gifts continue and, and we are cessationist and we don't, you know, we can lock arms because we believe the main role of the Holy spirit is pointed Jesus and his word that that is secondary to us.

We, we, we find our unity in that other. And I'm glad you talked about the, the ditches on the cessationist side, because I was thinking about that as well. I mean, and that's one of my biggest critiques.

Um, and, and I would say that, uh, a cessationist more traditional cessationist denomination as has pastors in it, that, that are not expository that may verbally with their mouth also say that they have a high view of scripture, but they.

They'll read a text and then just tell stories or sometimes they didn't want to even read a text. And, um, it's, it's just stories there. There's no depth. There's no richness to their sermons. There are no, no power to their sermons.

Um, and so in my opinion like that, but they, they, they, they won't pray. They won't go out and evangelize. They won't expect God to actually do anything. And they're just there to keep the building open and, and make sure that their church looks like a church instead of their church actually being a place where people can encounter the true God of scripture, that's right.

So a spirit filled, um, where the, using their terminology, where the spirit is flowing in that pastor, in that cessationist denominational church, where the spirit is flowing and where they're relying on the Holy spirit is a church where they are relying on God's word.

And they were, they are giving us rich content and they are leading us. Like you said, to, to evangelize, to share the gospel, to point to Jesus and, and to serve others. Um, and so we need to avoid falling in that, that ditch and, and be critical on both sides where, where it's due.

So I appreciate that. And here's the last one we'll, we'll finish with this one. Um, sorry for the longer episode, but this kind of points back to where Dan took us and I think it was the last episode.

Acts 2, Joel 2, and the Judgment on Jerusalem

Um, and it does play a little bit into eschatology. Um, being a partial preterist, but it, it is undeniable that Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. It's undeniable that in Matthew chapter 24, that Jesus was speaking to that generation.

No matter how you cut it. If you say otherwise, you are, you are twisting, finagling the words. Like it doesn't say in this race or this culture, it says this generation. And it says it in such a way in so many times that you, you have to admit that he's speaking to that audience.

That generation was his audience. It's just undeniable. You can't get away from it. And that's why it was so convincing to me. Um, so with that being said, you have passage like, um, Dan had, has already brought up for us acts chapter two.

Um, where acts is Luke and acts is quoting the prophet Joel starting in verse, verse 17, and it shall be in the last days, God says that I will pour out my fourth, fourth, my spirit on all mankind and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and your men shall see visions and your old men shall dream even on my bond slave, both men and women.

I will in those days for forth my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will grant wonders in the sky above and the signs on the earth below blood and fire and vapor of smoke, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

So as Dan was telling us before these signs, the speaking in tongues and prophesying are, are part of a judgment, um, on the nation and a sign that judgment is coming and it says here in acts, quoting Joel, that these things are going to happen in this certain time period, the last days leading up to the, um, awesome day of the Lord.

Or, uh, as acts translated, um, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. So yes, these things are peaked here on, on that scale that we keep talking about. There's a peak here of the sign gifts, of course, because these, that this is that time period of the last days up until the glorious coming of the Lord in judgment on Jerusalem and the temple.

Yep. Yeah, I was, I was, I was looking through the rest of the passage cause it, it, it's, he, they, they witnessed the people speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost, and then he says that this is what was spoken of by Joel.

So when Joel said that your old men are going to, you know, see visions and dreams and prophecy and all that, when this happens and this is what's happening, it's like this event that you just witnessed is this thing from Joel.

It also says that he's going to show wonders in the heavens, signs of blood, fire, vapor, smoke, sun turned to darkness. So when he goes on, uh, for, for the rest of acts chapter two, he says, now this wasn't talking about David.

He was like, we know where David was buried. I can say with confidence, cause it's over there. See it. David is not the one he's talking about. He's talking about Jesus and Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the father.

He's pouring out the Holy spirit to you. It says, let all the verse 36, let all the house of Israel. Therefore know for certain that God has made them both Lord and Christ is Jesus whom you crucify. So, Oh snap.

We have just witnessed the prophecy of Joel in front of us. And that part of that prophecy includes a very near coming of the day of judgment of the Lord, where it's going to look like the whole of the heavens is falling down on us and we're not going to have anywhere to escape now when they heard this verse 37 and then when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

Well, what are we going to do? Well, God's about to lay the smack down on us. Like we're about to get, uh, the wrath of God poured on us. What do we do? And he said to them, repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, which he had just pinpointed the sins that they need to be forgiven for is a crucifix crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The one who had come to set them free from their sins is that you crucified him, but repent of your sins, be baptized, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy spirit. The, the, the tongues was, uh, now I know this isn't everyone.

So tongues here was a sign of judgment on a people who had crucified their Lord. And not a sign of the giving of the Holy spirit to them because the giving of the Holy spirit to them came with repentance, baptism, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom they had just crucified.

Right. And the promise was for them and for their children, all who are far off, as.

Many as the Lord God will call them. So, so what, what do you think about this logic when you, when you're trying to put these concepts together? Um, you know, we had a discussion somewhat of a different perspective on when the, when the perfect comes, that's when these things will cease.

That's when these things went in, when the, when the perfect comes, when we see face to face, and we're talking here about these were, these were a sign of fulfilling prophecy of Joel, that these things would happen, be present, take place in these last days and, um, a judgment on those who crucified Christ.

And it would come and be completed in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. So how do we put those two together? Um, we, we know that that's when they end, because that's when that's the end of the last days.

Um, it's leading up to the destruction, the end of the, the end of the old covenant, end of the old Testament, that test intertestamental period. Um, that's when these things will be present. So we may not know what the, what it exactly means when it says when the.

Perfect comes, but Jesus said a few things, he said, um, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Um, oh, there's another one in my head that just left. Um, oh, he, he was walking on the road to Emmaus.

He started with the, uh, with Moses and the prophets and told him how all those things were about himself. Um, in book of Deuteronomy, it says that there's a prophet like Moses coming. And when he comes, listen to him because he's going to tell you how to have eternal life.

So while, while I don't know if you can pinpoint what it, when the perfect or the complete actually means there is a strong reason to believe that Christ being the fulfillment of the law and the completion of revelation to mankind, um, him being the point of the story that when, when, even if we don't have the full consummation of all of history's events, we do have the main point, the crescendo, which is Christ seated upon the throne of heaven, um, coming to the world where the law has been fulfilled.

Uh, the, the whole of the scriptures, the point of the scriptures, the, the main character, the main point has come to its, its head. And, uh, that is the point with the, that is the point at which, um, you would expect to see, you know, just after those things, the, uh, the, the, all the, the signs that were pointing to, Hey, this is the event that you've been waiting for, for all of history, this is the event that's going to change, you know, BC and AD for this is the event that's going to be looked back on from this time forward, that's the time when you're going to see the manifestations of the spirit, the highest.

And after this, you're not going to see it as much because everything was attesting to the, uh, everything was attesting to the glory of Christ and his dominion over sin, death, and the devil over, over everything as he came into the world and, uh, took his rightful place on the throne.

The Purpose of the Gifts and the Coming Day

All right. Well, these are, these are going to be my last thoughts and then you can, I'll give you the last thoughts and then if you want to share the gospel too, that'd be great. Um, but one opposition is people may be listening to this one opposition that they may have is all right.

So if the Corinthians, if why is Paul so concerned and emphasizing so much their proper use of the gifts of the spirit in the church at Corinth, if he knew the day was approaching? Well, I think he speaks to that.

It, you know, if it's all going to end, if it's going to cease Jerusalem and Tim was going to be destroyed, the gifts are going to cease. Why is he so concerned about their proper usage in the, in the church?

Um, and it made me think about, uh, Hebrew chapter 10 and the author of Hebrews there says this kind of, kind of combining, um, those thoughts together, starting in verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as that at is, is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more and do all that even more as you see the day drawing near.

So he, he had this concept, the author of the authors of the new Testament had this concept and understanding that the day was drawing near, but yet get together. All the more stimulate each other. All the more encourage one another all the more, even though the day is drawn near, even as the day is drawing near.

So that's how I would answer that objection. Any last thoughts? Not many.

Maybe a lot. I don't know. Um, but the whole point of the gifts of the spirit was to edify and to encourage one another. Um, and it's not like it was just like a, a Holy spirit high five pat on the back.

Um, even when the, the gift of tongues was, was exercised, it was glorifying Christ, it was glorifying God. And, and the reason why that is, is because the spirit was testifying to the fact that Jesus Christ has come and done exactly what he said he was going to do.

He came into the world. Um, he, he lived a perfect life. He died in the place of sinners like you and me. And then he laid in the grave for three days, rose up and seated at the right hand of the father in heaven.

That did a lot of different stuff. And that's why the Holy spirit is working the way that he was and is to bring that message to, to a loss and dying world. Because I mean, we think about, about justification a lot.

Um, when we think of the gospel, we think of how I was, I was guilty. Uh, the sins that I have were listed against me and crisis has taken those sins and paid for them so that I'm declared not guilty, I'm declared justified before God, and now I don't have to worry about the penalty of my sin, but it's so much more than that because you think of creation and creation, we were, uh, made in perfect relationship with God, you know, Adam and Eve, and we lost that when we sinned and we were not, we were, we were estranged from God, but God in his, in his wisdom and in his, his kindness and care and love for the world, um, sent his son to die, to remove that barrier that separated us and to adopt us as sons and daughters of God with Christ as our brother.