Charismatic Gifts Discussion with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport CARM SFE

All right. With that, we'll invite Matt to come on up. As I was going to bed last night,

I began to worry. Maybe not everybody knows that Matt and Andrew are great friends, because it looked like they're mortal enemies.

Did it look like that last night with all the jabs? Matt wouldn't say great. Well, they do a podcast together called

Slick Answers on the Bible thumping wingnut. You could listen to that, but they're obviously friends because they put up with each other.

But now, if you'll notice, they disagree on a number of different things, but it's really their unity in the gospel that establishes that friendship.

On all the essentials of the faith like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, the resurrection of Christ, all of these things, there's perfect unity and agreement on gospel issues, primary things.

But there's room for disagreement, and that's what we hope to demonstrate in what's about to unfold here. We have two guys that disagree about the charismatic gifts.

So we're going to give each of them a platform. We're going to call it a discussion. It is also a debate, but it's more of an informal debate.

We don't want to make it too formal, but we also want to give some structure to it, or else it could just run wild and they'll talk over each other, and they might actually fight, and that would be bad.

So what we're going to do is we are going to give an introductory statement to each of them, and I think 15 minutes, is that enough time?

He says he needs two minutes. He can prove his case in two minutes. Yeah, that's fitting with his personality.

I believe he believes that. All right. So we're going to give each of them 15 minutes to give an opening statement, and then we'll have some time to ask questions of one another.

We'll have one question one and flip it, and then we'll have closing statements as well. All right.

So let me just turn it over to you guys and take it away. I'll go first.

So I'll start with the, you know, I understand, it's an old man, I got to be careful with him.

It's early in the morning for him, so I have to go easy. So I actually, in the way of going easy,

I actually have all these notes and I left them at home. So I have to go from memory. It won't help you.

So let me start by saying this, you know, what you're going to end up seeing is that Matt and I have a differing view on some things.

We're both consider each other a brother in Christ. OK, it's not that even one of us is going to think that the other somehow is a heretic over this issue.

He's a heretic over other issues. But and so the thing that, you know,

Matt and I have done these kind of discussions on what we were just talking about, covenant, theology, dispensationalism.

We've done this on baptism. We've this will be the first time doing this topic. And I think the reason that a lot of times people ask us to do this is because of the fact that we disagree.

Clearly, you're going to see that. But we do it in love for one another. OK, obviously, we both think we're right, because if we didn't, we would change our view.

OK, and so some of it's going to be the way that we both approach scripture.

We have a little bit of different ways that we do our interpretation when it comes to some of the rules we follow.

And that sometimes has, you know, plays into things. So my position is that certain gifts, according to I'm going to say

God's word, ceased. All right. Now, we're speaking specifically of gifts that were used in the first century before the scriptures were completed.

They were there to authenticate the messenger of scripture. So let me first give some definitions, some background.

There's a difference between a talent and a gift. OK, you could be born with a talent.

You might have a talent to be a teacher. And yet that's a gifting that you can get at salvation.

I believe gifts are at salvation. OK, so there's going to be a difference there. Gifts are given by the

Holy Spirit. OK, according to 1 Corinthians 12, gifts are given by the

Holy Spirit. Now, the thing here is that when

I'm going to look at this, there are certain gifts that God is going to give. And if he chooses not to give gifts, he chooses it.

Every one of us has a different gifting. You know, Matt's gifted with the gift of ugliness. I'm not.

He's gifted with a radio voice. I'm not. But no, and we do the jabs because we want it to be lighthearted, by the way.

It's not that, you know, but here's the thing. You know, how are we going to interpret differently? Here would be a way,

OK? I'm going to look at a word, and I'm going to look at it in its immediate context first and then see how it's used elsewhere.

One of the things that you see Matt does is Matt loves to dig into the original language of words and how they're used.

He'll look at a word and see how it's used everywhere else and then apply that. That makes a difference in the way we're going to take a passage like 1

Corinthians 13. OK, 1 Corinthians 13, let's see.

Verse 8. Yeah, I know. I'm just bringing it, you know. And we both love our

Logos. It's just that I use it on this beautiful Mac, and he has this Windows.

One of the other things we disagree on. Oh great, it's trying to connect here, so I'm going to have to do it this way.

Need some help? I got some. Do you have internet? I have Logos right here.

Yeah, I have it there too. Want me to argue your position for you? You have to know it first.

Oh, I know it. OK, so here's the thing. 1 Corinthians 13, 8, the following says, love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part that when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child,

I spoke as a child. When I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man,

I gave up childless ways. For now I see in a mirrored dimly, but then face to face.

For now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So when we look at that, a couple things now. I'm saying there's only three gifts that are stated clearly have ceased.

OK, so has healing ceased? Well, if you're going to ask about that,

I'm going to have to deduce that from scripture. I'm going to make an argument to say, well, earlier in the scriptures, we see guys that had a gift of healing.

They could heal everybody immediately. OK, it wasn't one of these things that you get healed of something over time.

And when Christ would heal or the apostles healed, it was immediate, and they could heal anybody. OK, it's different than the faith healers that Matt and I both agree are frauds.

OK, so the thing is that when I cannot say that that gift ceased, the scripture doesn't say it.

If I come to that conclusion, I'm deducing it from scripture. OK, so understand that difference.

The only three that scripture says ceased are going to be those three. The interesting thing with this is it says that the other two, wisdom and prophecies, cease because something causes it to cease.

Well, the tongues cease on their own. That's one of the things in the Greek. It actually causes itself. So I think that when it comes to tongues, this was a known human language that someone that didn't have the ability to speak.

The example I always give, my wife is from Hong Kong. She speaks Cantonese. If I suddenly can speak Cantonese, that would be a gift of tongues, a gift of languages.

OK, the word tongues is language, all right? It's just because of this whole thing when they do translations, they translated tongues because,

I think, because of issues with charismatic movement. It's actually one of the reasons Holman, who used to translate language, switched back in their

Christian Standard Bible because of pressure over this issue. So this is a thing of languages.

OK, I think they're human languages. Now, some are going to say, well, wait a minute. 1 Corinthians 13, 1 speaks of angelic languages.

Are there angelic languages? I don't know. Could there be? Sure. But was that what

Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 13? I don't think so. I'll tell you why. Because when we look at 1

Corinthians 13, 1, he says, if, that doesn't mean he does, if I spoke of the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,

I'm a noisy, clanging cymbal. So he's making a hypothetical. If I had this, if I could speak all the languages of all men and even of angels, but don't have love, the emphasis is on the love, how do

I know that that's sarcasm? The very next verse in context says, and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so to remove mountains, but have not love,

I'm nothing. If he had all knowledge, we would call him God. I think he's using hyperbole in those.

So I don't think that's a proof that he could speak or did speak an angelic language. Could there be an angelic language?

Sure. Is there an angelic language that people speak? One of the things I find that most of the people that claim they speak in tongues are saying they almost always say they speak an angelic language.

I haven't met anybody in the thousands of charismatic that I've met that tell me they speak a known human language.

I've heard stories overseas, but that would be a thing. Now, Matt is going to bring up 1

Corinthians 1 .7. Well, it's his favorite verse for this.

So that says, so that you are not lacking any gift as you wait for the revealing of the

Lord. And he's going to say the church shouldn't be lacking any gift. Now, so I start bringing some of this together.

I think that the Holy Spirit gives gifts the church is not lacking. He gives the gifts that are needed.

It doesn't mean that the church needs all the gifts. We no longer have any apostles.

Is the church lacking that? No, because God doesn't see a need to give us apostles today.

So I would say they're not lacking. So here's going to be the thing that we end up seeing. Matt's going to take that passage in 1

Corinthians 13, and he's going to look at face to face. And he's going to say that's always a personal encounter.

And because one of the ways you do studies, you look at how words are used. In many places, face to face is referring to a personal encounter, not everywhere.

In Colossians 2, verse 1, it says Paul is saying that he had people he's never seen before face to face.

Now, you say that's a personal encounter. Referring back to a personal encounter, yeah, you can make that case. But Matt would agree that no one's seen

God face to face. And yet, three references to a face to face encounter with God is in Deuteronomy 5 .1,

Deuteronomy 34 .10, and Ezekiel 20 .35. I can't just write them off without looking like Matt can.

But here's an important one for Matt. Would be

Proverbs 27 .19. It says, as in water, face to face, so the heart of man in man.

Well, there's a way that face to face is used referring to water. Now, we don't have a personal encounter with water.

It's referring to it as a mirror. So when I look at the passage in 1 Corinthians 13, I see that as three illustrations.

Teleos, the word teleos is the word that is translated complete, mature, or perfect.

It's the idea of something that's coming to maturity. And so what you end up seeing there is you end up seeing it as something that comes to completion, all right?

I think that what you see is three illustrations. Child to manhood, looking in polished metal that they would call a mirror, compared to looking at someone face to face.

The polished metal's not gonna be clear. They didn't have mirrors like we have, like we have, okay? We look in a mirror and it's like looking face to face.

That's the thing. Knowing in part versus then knowing something fully. I think that's the idea of those passages.

I think that the only thing that, in its context, makes sense for what this teleos is in that passage is the

Bible. When the Bible was complete, these three gifts, what we see with all those three gifts is they had to do with revelation of God's word.

Prophecy, wisdom, and speaking a new language to people that didn't know the

Bible or were being given the Bible, okay? So here you have three things that are prophetic.

They're revealing God's word. Once God's word was complete, I would say the church isn't lacking those gifts because it doesn't need them anymore.

It has God's word. I'm trying to remember some of the words. So the other thing is, you know,

Matt will bring up, because again, how he's gonna interpret, he's gonna look at the word charismas, which is where we have this word charismatic gift, okay?

And he's going to look at that and say, well, everywhere where that's used, the gift continues.

He may reference that, and he's right that salvation is referred as a charismas. But here's the thing to also note, and unfortunately

I don't have the verse here because it's in my notes at home, but Paul, I think it's in Romans, refers to that same word as a gift that he could bestow.

It becomes a problem now because in 1 Corinthians 12, only God gives these gifts, but Paul says he can give this gift.

I will say that there could be two different ways of using the same word, okay?

So I'm gonna see that difference because Paul uses this as a gift he could bestow that's different than the spiritual gifts that we would talk about the

Holy Spirit bestow. So I'll just end it with that. I get nervous as I hear him typing away.

You should be nervous. He's probably typing, he is uglier than me.

So I'm a covenantalist, and I believe God works based on his word, and God said, let there be light.

The word became flesh, dwelt among us. God makes covenants. A covenant is a binding of God by his word.

He cannot lie, Titus 1 -2. He commits himself to fulfill the prophecies in the word that he has given.

The word in Latin for covenant is testamentum, old covenant, new covenant.

In Romans 11 -29, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. The word gifts there is charisma.

From the Greek charisma, we get charismatic gifts. They cannot be revoked. That's what he says.

You go to 1 Corinthians 1 -7, and it's talking to the church at large, everybody.

You can go to 1 Corinthians 1, verse one and two, and it says there, to the church and everyone, everywhere who calls upon the name of the

Lord Jesus. Here, let me get this closer so you can hear me better. And I know

I got a hearing problem, too. And so in 1 Corinthians 1 -7, it says that the church not lack any charismata while it's waiting for the return of Christ.

Any charismata, not lack any. So if the spiritual gifts, if the charismatic gifts have ceased, then the church is lacking the charismatic gifts.

But the Bible says the church will not lack any while they're waiting for the return of Christ. So I've debated this with people before.

They can't get around this verse. Any charismatic gift. Does any charismatic gift mean tongues?

Yeah. Otherwise, it's not any. It's just simple. And if you guys want,

I can even tell you of instances where I've exercised a gift, not on demand, but prophecy, word of knowledge, things like this.

Not that those make doctrine right. But we experience these things as well.

And I always check everything against scripture. My conversion experience was incredibly dramatic with the very presence of Jesus.

I understand his presence and believe in the continuation of the gifts because of covenantal and biblical reasons.

And it cost me a great deal. I lost my pastorate over this issue. And so I've had to study it quite a bit.

So Romans 6 .23, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift, charismata, of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

The charismatic gift of eternal life is there. If the charismatic gifts have ceased, eternal life has ceased.

Of course, that's not a profound statement. But if the charismatic gifts have ceased, we got a problem.

Now, when people say apostles are a gift, yeah, they're a gift, doron, not charisma.

They're different words. And in my debate in Houston with Sam Waldron over this, he brought this up.

And the issue is that, yeah, there's gifts generically, but charismatic gifts are operated by the

Holy Spirit. And the apostolate is never considered a charismatic gift.

It's a gift of the church. The charismatic gift is operated by the Holy Spirit. I would suggest you look in your own lives.

You'll find the Holy Spirit's working through you charismatically. You'll find things. We can talk about that if you want. Let's go to 1

Corinthians 13 .8. Love never fails, but there's gifts of prophecy. They shall be done away with.

There'll be tongues they'll cease if there's knowledge they'll be done away with. He's not listing every gift. There's just a representative gift issue here.

We know in part, we shall prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, what is the perfect? There's only two positions that are really promoted here.

One is the return of Christ, and the other is the completion of the canon when the perfect comes.

So let's just work with the completion of the canon. When the Bible's completed, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak with a child like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man,

I did away with childish things, verse 12. So we can skip 11 when we do the exegesis here because there's nothing in here that refers to what's called the antecedent.

I'll explain. For now, we see in the mirror dimly, but then, face -to -face.

So then, what's the antecedent of then? What is the word then referring to? It's referring to verse 10, when the perfect comes.

So if the perfect is the completion of the canon, then we'll see God face -to -face. Now, he's right.

Not every instance of the word face -to -face means a personal encounter, except basically it does. And Proverbs 27, 19, you just go through the

Bible and you look, NASB says, the water face reflects the face.

ESV, as in water, the face reflects the face. King James, in the water face antherus to faith.

What we see in the Greek New Testament and we see in the Old Testament encounters,

God spoke face -to -face to Moses as a man speaks with his friend, Isaiah, excuse me, Exodus 33, 11.

He says that. It's a personal encounter. When I speak face -to -face with you, it's a personal encounter. When the

Bible is completed, is that when we're gonna speak or see Jesus face -to -face? When we see the

Bible, and I'm not knocking the Bible, I defend it, of course. When the Bible's completed, are we having a personal face -to -face encounter with Jesus?

No, we're not. When he returns, are we gonna have a personal encounter with him?

Yes. Well, I don't know if I'll see him face -to -face. My face is gonna be on the ground. You guys ever seen that video where they're gonna have the news guy interviewing

God? You ever seen that? Raise your hand. I'm just curious. They're gonna interview God. And so, oh, that's great.

And so he said, we've got God here on schedule here in the next few minutes. He should show up any minute now. He's gonna suit and tie in a whole bit.

And we're gonna be interviewing God. It took a while to get him in here. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden, okay,

I think he's approaching now. Just light and wind. He's going, ah, his face, I'm sorry.

It's really good because that's what's gonna happen. Yeah, God, I got a question for you. No, you're on your face begging, all right?

And so that was a really good thing. So I don't know if I'll see him face -to -face because my face will be on the ground.

But nevertheless, so now I see in verse 12, I see in a mirror dimly, but then face -to -face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall be fully known. So let me ask you a question.

If God's on the day of judgment, God says to you, I don't know you. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for you? That's a bad thing.

Matthew 7, 22, 23, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name?

Do we not cast out demons in your name, perform many miracles in your name? And I will say to them, I never knew you.

Get away from me, you who practice lawlessness. In Galatians 4, 8, 9, when you did not know

God, you served by nature those which are not God's. But now that you've come to know God, or rather are known by him, now you've come to serve the true and living

God. So Paul makes a statement, now that you've come to know God, but then he says, but rather that you are known by him to be known by God.

Jesus just says in John 10, 27, 28, my sheep hear my voice and I know them.

All right, so the pattern of scripture, when God says, I know you, good. If he says, I don't know you, you're in trouble.

Now check this out. Verse 12, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now

I know in part, but then I shall be fully known as I have been,

I shall know as I'm fully known. This is a salvation statement. Do we, are we fully known by God when the

Bible's completed? The fully known issue here has to do with an intense personal encounter, relationship with the

Lord. I'm known by the Lord, he's indwelling in my heart. John 17, 23,

God says that he will make his abode in us. This is how I interpret, this is how

I see it to mean as I went through and did this, I studied face to face. What does it mean to be known by God?

These things aren't made true by the completion of the canon. It just doesn't work, all right?

But if Jesus is returning, face to face makes sense. To be known as I'm fully known makes sense.

I'm not loyal to any denomination and this did cost me a very great deal. I have stories about it.

I'm not angry about it. The men who examined me were godly men, but I was forced to really dig into this to keep my pastorate after nine years of work, four years college, three years seminary, two years internship.

And it cost me a great deal. Now God in his great sovereignty has put me into apologetics instead of pastoring.

I know this topic well. I know that God says that the church will not lack any charismatic gift while it's waiting for the return of Christ.

I'm gonna say something that I hope doesn't offend anybody, but we have a tendency sometimes to sit in our armchairs and make theological pronouncements upon others about what is and is not biblical.

I do that. Hopefully I'm not doing it incorrectly. And Andrew does that. And hopefully he's not doing it incorrectly.

So we're both gonna be corrected when we get to heaven. We have to be careful, though, that we are not, those of us who, or those who are not out on the streets doing and moving, out there in the jungles, out there whatever, and then the gifts don't work or don't occur, and we say, see, they don't work.

And they use the scriptures, in my opinion, to justify a preconception. I think that's a problem. Scripturally speaking, the church is not to lack any charismata while it's waiting for the apocalypsis of Christ.

If anybody's gonna say that the gifts are gone, then they're saying that the gifts have ceased, that the gifts are revocable, which

Romans 11 .29 says is not the case. They're saying then that the church does lack gifts. Now, some people will say what they mean by, well, the church doesn't lack any gifts, is they used to have it, so the church as a whole didn't lack it.

That's nice, but it says that you not lack, present tense, continuation in the present, not lack any gifts, the church.

When Jesus comes back, things are gonna happen. Things are gonna change. First Corinthians 13, eight through 12, that's called a pericope.

A pericope is a section of scripture, long or short. That pericope of scripture, from what

I see, does not necessitate in any way the cessation of the gifts. That's the only place the cessationist can go to.

It's the only place. But when you look at the antecedent of then, face to face, it seems to imply a personal encounter.

Then it shall be fully known, personal encounter. The completion of the canon doesn't lend itself to those options.

You only have two options, and one's negated. The other one, by default, is basically verified, called a disjunctive syllogism.

Doesn't exactly apply here with perfect logic, but the basic principle is you only have two options. One of them's negated, the other one has to be true.

Not necessarily, because both could be false, unless you have a proper disjunctive syllogism.

I won't get into that now. So the issue here is we only have two options, the completion of the canon or the return of Christ.

The completion of the canon does not make this make sense, particularly when Paul, earlier in the same book, says that the church is not to lack any charismata.

Any charismata. Does that include speaking in tongues? Yes. Word of knowledge? Yes. Word of wisdom? Yes. Prophecy?

Yes. All right. So I'll give you an example of something. I'll give you two, and then we'll be done with this.

We can debate. Not that charismatic gifts, or that experience makes something true.

I used to have a swap meet ministry where in 1980, 81, 82,

I went out to a swap meet with my friend and I, Dave Kimball, great guy, retired border patrol agent.

We were roommates. We'd go out up in O Dark 30, go out there on Saturday, spend all day out there. One day,

I'm talking to a guy, and Dave is sitting six, eight feet behind me, and you were there when he was recounting the story.

Folks, look, my experience doesn't make it true. I'm just giving you something, two things

I'm gonna tell you about. So this man is talking to me, and I still remember it very clearly, and all of a sudden,

I don't know how I knew, but I knew. I knew what his problem was, and I told him what his problem was.

I had an assurance and a knowledge about his own thoughts with God, and I told him for 30 seconds, 45 seconds his rebellion against God in that specific area.

His jaw dropped. He stumbled backwards, and this presence stopped.

I had this presence over me. This presence stopped, and he stared at me, and he stumbled away.

He was stunned. It was obvious. Dave said that later, when he was watching, he said he could see waves that looked like heat around me when this was happening.

Does that make it true? Does not. Is it against scripture? I don't see how it's against scripture any more than when a girl named

Tony, I was at a Bible study, and I was taking her home, and she said, oh, I have this one book

I wanna get, and we stopped at my apartment, and I had this book for her, and we're talking, and she said, in two weeks,

I'm gonna go to Australia for a mission. Presence, you're not gonna go.

What's gonna happen is you're gonna stay. In five months, you're gonna meet a guy.

He's gonna become your spiritual mentor. In 18 months, you and he are gonna have a special bond, and then you're gonna go do mission work together.

This president left. I don't know why I said it, but I did. Two weeks later, she went to Australia.

Okay, I'm a false prophet. Must have been the pizza. Next day, I get a phone call.

Hey, did you hear? Tony's back. What do you mean, Tony's back? Oh, she got off the plane in Australia and knew she wasn't supposed to be there.

Five months later, she met a guy. He became her spiritual mentor. 18 months later, they were married.

They went to England together on a mission. Prophecy came to pass.

I've got other stories like this. Now, does it mean that I put my faith and hope in those things?

No, I do not. If they contradict Scripture, they're wrong. But what do we do with someone who is not hearsay?

I heard, I heard. What do you do? He'll say, you can't exegete someone's experience, and you can't.

But the thing is, when you are out there moving and grooving in the world, and you're doing, and you're trusting in the

Lord, the Spirit of God can move through you. The Spirit of God can use you.

The Spirit of God can get you to say something that you don't even know you've gotta say. You guys have done this.

You've been out witnessing. You've been talking to people, and all of a sudden, your mind is filled with stuff. And then when someone says, what'd you say?

I don't remember. Well, that's the Spirit working on you and through you. Now, this has been taken to a ridiculous, stupid end by the charismatic wackos, and it has.

Exegetically speaking, I put all my faith and my hope in the words of Christ. Covenantally, God's covenanted with his church to give them gifts.

He has not retracted on that promise, because the gifts are irrevocable. Romans 11 .29,

the church is not to lack any charismatic gift while waiting for the return of Christ, the return of Christ.

1 Corinthians 1 .7, when the perfect comes, the completion of all things, when Christ returns, that's when we'll know fully, as we are fully known, and that's when we'll see him face -to -face.

That's why I believe in the continuation of the gifts. Right on time. All right, at this point, we are going to give

Andrew a chance to question Matt about 15, 20 minutes. It's just, we can be more informal than that.

We can dialogue, yeah. We'll do it informally, but understand what he's saying. So first of all, let me say something

I meant to say earlier, and I really want to make sure anyone that agrees with my position hears this clearly, okay,

Matt does not believe in the charismatic gifts continuing today because of his experiences.

You guys hear that, right? I don't, because this is the thing that people will say. Well, you just had some experience, and therefore you believe that's not what he's saying.

He believes in these gifts because of his interpretation of scripture. Now, if he was to give a prophecy that was false,

I just want to know if he's stoned. I'm joking. Um, so, but here's the thing.

Okay, so, this is, and you're seeing how we come to different views based on how we interpret, okay?

He's gonna say that there's no lack, in other words, that all the gifts must continue, otherwise there's this assumed lack.

I'm gonna say that's an assumption, that there's a need somehow that requires these gifts to continue.

I don't think there's a lack. If the Holy Spirit felt there was a lack, he'd continue to give the gifts. That would be the view.

If he doesn't think there's a lack, there's no need for it, and I'm saying that I think that the, that he's saying these gifts cease when the

Bible's complete, then there's no more lack, because we have a Bible, okay? Now, if he's gonna say with the, and I agree with the gifts are irrevocable, that's gonna be

Romans. 1129. But Romans 11 .1, Paul says, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some charismas.

This, if you're going to see this as this word being the same everywhere.

Well, that's because he's an apostle. He has that special privilege to be able to do things like that. To give salvation, then? No, to impart charismatic gifts.

But in Romans 11 .12, that's speaking of salvation, right? To impart a gift,

Romans 11 .12? Yeah. 11 .12. 1129, sorry. Okay. I don't have that, you know.

Romans 11, I know, because it has to do with intelligence. Then how do you have that ability? Obviously.

If the attributes of X equal the attributes of Y, then X equals Y. We can get into that. So, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

So are the gifts irrevocable? Yeah, salvation's irrevocable. But see,

I'm saying that there's gonna be different. The gifts and the calling of God are revocable. No. You just said they were.

The Holy Spirit can give gifts to whoever he chooses at salvation. So, Romans 11 .29, which

I repeat, but I do this when I say I want people to learn verses. I'll repeat it over and over. So, it's called inculcation, to teach by repetition.

So, in Romans 11 .29, the gifts and the calling of God are not revocable. You say they are? So, you're saying that every gift, it has to be given there.

I'm just saying the Bible says the gifts and the calling of God are not revocable. The gift of salvation is you can't lose it.

Once you're given that gift, you cannot lose it. That doesn't mean, just because he gives that doesn't mean he has to give every other gift.

That's an assumption. So, which of the gifts are revocable? Well, that gift, he's speaking of the gift of salvation.

The gift of salvation? It's plural. So, it's not just one gift of salvation. Which gifts?

The charismata, it's plural. The gifts. So, to stay consistent with your argument, whatever gifts the

Holy Spirit gives, he will not revoke. Now, based on that, does the

Spirit say he will give every gift? Well, I'm just asking what the text says.

The text says if the Holy Spirit gives a gift, he won't revoke it. So, it's an assumption that he has to give all of them.

Okay, the gifts and the calling of God. It doesn't say which gifts. It just says the gifts, the charismata.

Correct. The same ones that Paul can give. So, are the charismatic gifts included in here?

Thanks, Matt. Are the charismatic gifts included? Because it says charismata in the

Greek. It could be. And the charismatic gifts include many things.

So, it can mean. So, it can mean the charismatic gifts, but they've ceased?

He ceased giving it, and therefore, they're not revoked. You have to give something to revoke it.

He ceased giving it? If I give you this bottle of water, revoking it is to take it back from you.

But if I never gave it to you, there's no revoking. You have to first have the giving. So, the assumption that you have is that the gift of tongues is first given for it to be revoked.

And I'm saying the Holy Spirit stopped giving that gift by what he says in his word.

Let me see if I can understand this. So, you're saying that, I can't understand what you're saying.

I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me, sorry. By the way, some of you guys may not know,

I have autism. And so, there are certain sentence structures I can't follow. It's what it is.

Jokingly, there's where Matt will agree with this. I can win any debate with Matt on any topic, even if I know nothing about the topic.

Because I know certain things I can say or do that would drive him absolutely nuts and lose his concentration. There's where I go do those things.

And then you'll see a martial arts fight up here, because... We'll see which one's better, Krav Maga or Jiu -Jitsu.

Doesn't work when you're on the right, I'm just saying. No, Krav, they teach you everything, ground fighting. So, the thing

I would say is that in order to revoke something, it has to be given. I'm saying, and let me also say this,

I don't think there's only two options in 1 Corinthians 13. I think actually, one that I'm considering that seems plausible that some people make with this is that these gifts cease when people, when you take the same argument that you've seen

Christ face -to -face, they say when they die. The moment they die, those gifts would cease.

That actually is plausible, if you interpret it that way, because of the fact that there's no more need for those gifts in heaven,

I mean, you have Christ. So, it doesn't have to be... Yeah, well, the context is obviously talking about the church here, not talking about the church in the afterlife, right?

It wouldn't be a true dichotomy. Right, that's what I said, it's not a true disjunctive syllogism, right?

But I think that here he's saying when the scriptures are complete, there's no more need for these gifts.

Therefore, the church isn't lacking them, they're not being revoked, because the spirit is not giving them to pull back, to revoke.

So, you're just playing with the word lack, so is doesn't mean is. Did he just compare me to Bill Clinton?

Wow! Some of you guys think the things I said about him were bad. So, wait a second, so when it says that the church is not to lack, is not to lack any gift, so wait, wait, wait, hold on a sec.

Let me ask the question. What is the church lacking? Nothing, unless you're a dispensationalist.

No. That's called poisoning the well. That's what you did earlier, big boy.

I almost pointed it out. But I was being nice to you. If the

Holy Spirit gives a gift. To the church? To the church. Yeah. You know, to, well, he gives the gift to...

Is the church continual, is it existing from, we'll just start at, there's debates when the church started, but we'll just say

Acts. Acts two, whatever. So, does the church now have the same gifts as it did then?

Well, I'm gonna say no, based on this passage. So, in 1 Corinthians 1, 7, we will, well, hold on, in 1

Corinthians 1, 7, we are lacking the gifts now. So, does anybody in here, can anybody in here speak in tongues or have word of knowledge about God?

Would I have them do it? Okay, can anybody? We're gonna get, we will get to it in a few minutes.

Okay, so. So, you're saying that nobody in here has a gifting from God.

I mean, let's say there's an average cross -section of the entire church of the body of Christ, all right. So, you're saying that nobody in here could possibly manifest speaking in tongues, having a word of knowledge, prophesy, or interpret tongues, or anything, because we're not lacking those gifts.

Okay. That's what you're saying? A lack assumes that there's a need. No, no, no. No, no, no, not necessarily.

Now, look, the issue is a lack. You're saying there's a lack, and we do have the stinking need, folks.

We gotta get off our lazy rears and get out there and start witnessing, and you'll see what God'll do to you. He'll use you.

But the thing is, are you saying then that nobody in here, it's not possible for anybody to have a gift of tongues, or prophecy, or knowledge, or anything.

I'm saying that God says that those ceased. Okay, but the Bible doesn't say that, because the

Bible says in Romans 11, 29, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, and 1 Corinthians 1, 7 says that the church will not lack any charismatic gift.

We're in the church. We can't lack any of those gifts. What do we end up saying? We end up saying that Paul has an ability to impart the spiritual gift.

Paul's an apostle, and apostles are different than you and I. It's not the Holy Spirit that 1 Corinthians 12.

And it doesn't mean also that he can heal anybody at will, either. That's not the case also.

Okay. That was a mistake. 1 Corinthians 12 says that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts, yet Romans 1 says

Paul can impart these gifts. Imparting is not the same thing as giving. Well, it's not, because they're disagreeing.

To impart is that which God has already given to the church, but the apostles were in a place of authority.

They were giving apostolic right to write scripture and perform miracles in a way that we were not. They did this.

They could lay hands on people, and they could do certain things. We can't do that, because we're not in the apostolic office. When the apostolic office ceased, that's fine, but the gifts -

We're lacking the apostolic office. Yeah, but we're not lacking the charismata, because the apostolic office is never considered, and never in the

Greek is said to be charismatic gift. It's a doron. There's different words for the word gift. And so that's why you gotta learn a little bit of Greek if you're gonna do something like this.

So the apostolic office is never considered a charismatic gift. And I got Waldron on this.

He hadn't done his homework. Well, yeah, so the thing - Not a good argument. You had a debate with Waldron, which was unfair to Waldron, because he actually prepared for the wrong topic.

Yeah, that was his mistake, though. It was his mistake. Some of you may have seen where Jordan Hall and Matt had a quote -unquote debate.

Discussion. Because that was set up, and Matt was, if you watched that, all right, let me do,

I'll take some of my time to defend Matt, and it's better, all right? If you saw that, and you felt like, you know, Matt didn't do a good job of it.

Yeah, I did. Matt did not know that there was going to be a debate that night. He found that out just before they went live.

So he wasn't prepared. So if you saw that, understand some background to it.

Matt didn't know what was going on. Jordan still admitted, at a first, in his 1 -7, when he said any gift can include the charismatic gifts, he said that, and therefore, therefore, he lost.

Because when you admit that, yes, it can mean any charismatic gift, we're not lacking it, then his arguments fall. The assumption is that there's a lack.

Let me ask you this. We're not to lack. It means we're not to have, not to be without it. It doesn't mean that we have to have it.

Do we have tongues in the church now today? There's a need, so the question is, is there a need? Let me ask you a question. Yes, there's a need.

For tongues? Yes. We have Google Translate. All right. As you can see, that helps support my position.

Because tongues is there, because we don't have Google Translate, we're not in a jungle. So God will use the charismatic gifts to bring people to the faith.

Because I don't know your position on this. Do you believe that the Holy Spirit gives gifts at salvation, or can he give them after salvation?

When we're regenerate, do we get all the gifts that the Spirit's gonna give us at that time? I believe that we're gifted before we're regenerate, and that the

Holy Spirit activates that gifting that God has ordained for us. Everybody, even unbelievers have certain gifts, and certain things.

Even as an unbeliever, I knew certain things about God. That's odd.

And I was always able to teach. Those gifts are now completed in Christ, and used.

I believe he gives everybody gifts. And part of the judgment upon the unbelievers will be that in their rejection of Christ, the gifting they've given for the ultimate glory of God will be something that will be used against them, and that they have not submitted all of that to him.

But then at conversion, and the Holy Spirit indwells, additionally certain things can certainly come upon you.

Okay, and that's my differentiation between a talent and a gift. Is a talent something you're born with? Yeah, we can talk about that, because there are certain kinds of gifts that are not

Holy Spirit -operated. Administration, service. But you'll find that there's a certain number of charismatic gifts, which is a pattern of Scripture.

A certain number that are gifted. We can go to, I can talk about stuff. It gets really involved and interesting, actually.

Let's put it this way. Let me ask it this way. So when we look at this, what we're gonna see.

So I wanna know about this lack of thing. When the Bible says we don't lack, you say it does. I'm curious about that. We don't lack it, because we don't have a need for it.

Because the Holy Spirit is the Lord God. Oh, I get it. We have to need it in order to lack it.

Isn't that the definition of lack? No, no. Lack does not mean a necessity upon it.

It just means it's there or it's not there. So it's there or not there. So every believer has all the gifts.

What would be, no, I didn't say that. Does every church have all the gifts? No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, I'm trying to figure out if there's a lack or not.

Well, if you wanna know my position. I know your position. Then why would you ask those questions? Because it shows the problem with your position.

There is no problem with the position. The church as a whole has all the gifts. The body of Christ as a whole has all the gifts, because the

Holy Spirit indwells all of us. I have a gift of teaching. I'm a teacher. I have a gift of discernment.

I'm able to discern truth from error. Even before I was a believer, I was able to see things and know things.

Doesn't mean I'm putting all of my trust in all of that. But I don't have the gift of tongues, unless I hit myself with a hammer and then something comes up.

And I don't have the gift of other things. My wife has certain gifts that I don't have. So as a whole, the church is not to lack any, because the church is to serve one another.

One person's an eye, another person's a foot, one other person's a leg. Not all have this. You go to 1

Corinthians 12, and here's an experiment you can do on your own. I'd suggest you try this. Assume for the moment that the charismatic gifts are gone.

Just assume that. Go to 1 Corinthians 12 and read 1

Corinthians 12 and cross out in your mind the verses that are no longer applicable if the charismatic gifts have ceased.

Give it a try and you'll be surprised. So here's a question. What's the only church, excuse me, what's the only modern teaching in the church today that invalidates large portions of scripture?

It's cessationism. I'm not kidding, go, I'm not kidding. Go through, oh no, seriously, go through as it does.

You go through, and I'll show you. You can go, I have a lot of websites, and one of the websites you can go to is called calvinistcorner .com.

And you can look up experiential Calvinism and the charismatic gifts. I have quotes from John Knox, Robert Fleming, George Wishart, Moving in the

Charismatic Gifts. And I have here, for example, you can go in and you can see.

Maybe it's scripture, maybe it's people's experiences. Or it should be if it's a prophecy. And you can go in and you can take a look and you can see, like for example, 1

Corinthians 12. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, and to another, the word of knowledge according to the same spirit.

That's 1 Corinthians 12. That's not applicable today then, is it? To another, faith by the same spirit.

To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit. That's not for today then either. Cross it out, because it doesn't apply to us today.

It has to do with hermeneutical principles of covenantal completion out of Hebrews 8 .13 and Hebrews 9 .15

-16 and the covenantal aspect. But do this experiment on your own and go through and see what scriptures are no longer valid if cessationism is true.

Don't be afraid of the charismatic gifts. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to go out there and say,

Lord, speak to me and speak through me. You'd be surprised what'll happen to you.

Scripture says that God will do that. That's not charismatic. It's not charismatic when it's implemented by the

Holy Spirit working through you? Let's see if Matt's definition holds up. The definition of lack, we'll look at that.

Deficiency or absence of something needed. Number two, something missing or needed.

Let's go with that. For her to be without or deficient to lack, to fall short in respect.

Let's go with that, let's do it. Absent or missing as something needed or desirable.

Now, notice what the argument's gonna be. We don't need them in the church. The whole argument rests on that, right?

We don't need them in the church. How do you know you don't need them in the church? Because God says so in 1 Corinthians 13.

You see, that's why that's called begging the question. How do we know if we need the gifts or not?

Because if the Spirit doesn't give it, then we don't need it. Well, then I must have needed it that day out in the swap meet.

I must have needed it that day when I was talking to people about being healed. I must have needed it then. You didn't have a consent then?

No, but I must have needed it when I was giving words of knowledge to people. I must need it when I'm doing marriage counseling to people and I have insights into people's issues.

But I wouldn't call that prophecy. Well, the prophecy I gave, which was specific, and when she left for her mission with her new husband, she came to me and said,

Matt, everything you prophesied came to pass. Can't exegete your experience.

And that's an issue. You see, it's unfair in one sense to be able to say, now, what do you do with that?

But it's only unfair if he's a cessationist because then the fact of the occurrence doesn't fit the paradigm, so it has to be ignored.

What do you do with that? What would you do with that? The reason I don't do that is because then what it puts you in a position, if you say, well, it can't be ignored, then you have to also exegete every

Mormon that has the same experience every time. I can do that, no problem. Let's do it. And they have similar things that they say.

Yeah, they teach that God came from another planet, has sex with his goddess wife, so we know that they're false.

You see, that's the thing. The thing is, and this is, let me take it in a different context to explain.

Let's work with lack. I'm not, well, it's a need. Let's work with need. The definition was there.

You said it wasn't part of the definition. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's do it with need. Didn't they just say that need is part of it?

Okay, so does the... Why would we need those things? These gifts, that's the question. Now, if the

Holy Spirit felt there was a need, he would give it. Actually, I'd like to talk about a lunchtime conversation you and I had.

There's areas where Matt and I are gonna redisagree on this, right? So Matt and I are sitting there with lunch with a guy that works for Matt.

And Matt and I are having, well, somewhat heated debate over lunch on this issue.

And here's this guy, he wants to interject. He figures he's got a way to bring unity between Matt and I in this discussion.

And he's dying to say something. But Matt, as he sometimes does, cuts this poor guy off.

No. So Matt says, look, look, look, look. He turns to me and says,

I'm not saying that the gift of tongues should be normative and we should see it everywhere.

And I turned to Matt and I said, I agree, they should have been. And I'm not saying that if God somewhere, somewhere in the world saw that there was a need that he couldn't continue it if he felt like it.

And we saw this guy just go, ah, that's what I was gonna say to you guys. We took the win, totally had the sense of self.

The thing is that if God saw that there was a need somewhere for the gift of tongues today,

I think he could do that. There's nothing that stops him other than the fact that he says he doesn't see there's a need.

So I'm taking God at his word saying that he says these things have stopped.

Why do I say that they stopped on their own? This is an interesting thing of the Greek. The prophecies and wisdom stop because something brings them to a stop.

Where in the Greek, the tongues, they cease on their own. I believe that when you had a gift of tongues, a gift of languages, you suddenly, like for me to basically know anything other than English because I'm American and we don't know any other languages.

So for me to suddenly be speaking another language, I can continue that until the day I die.

So if God stops giving that gift, the other two gifts stop when God stops giving them. The languages stop when people who have that gift die out.

So it dies on its own. And so that's where I would see in there now.

I think that when we look at the first Corinthians 13, I think that that is,

I'm looking at verse 11 too where each one of these are three illustrations of something that's incomplete to completion or not clear coming to clarity.

And I think that's illustrating what they would have had with the canon, something that is coming to completion.

We end up seeing that teleos, that word, when we look at it, and this is gonna be a difference in how we interpret things between Matt and I.

Matt's gonna look at teleos, how it's used there. I'm gonna be specific. How does Paul, outside of this specific passage, use the word teleos?

Well, every time that Paul uses this word, it's a media of maturity.

First Corinthians two, six, First Corinthians 14, 20, Ephesians 4, 13, and I'm not rattling them off just to,

Matt's gonna, may try to lift them up. I'm just, so you have them. Philippians 3, 15, Colossians 1, 28, and Colossians 4, 12.

Those are all the other uses that Paul uses, okay? So Paul's use of this word is always the idea of maturity, not perfection.

I'm making that point not so much for Matt's argument, because Matt doesn't make the argument. Some people will make the argument, well, the only thing that's perfect is

Christ. Therefore, this must be when we see Christ face -to -face. I've never heard

Matt make that argument, probably because he understands something of Greek. But that is an argument that is made with it, and when we look at how

Paul uses this word, he uses it for maturity. I think that it's consistent with the text to say that he sees something coming to maturity, something to completion, and.

Be careful of illegitimate totality transfer. Well, we can talk about some of the fallacies, like when you say that the word means something in one spot, therefore, it must mean it everywhere, because.

That's called illegitimate totality transfer, right? Paul has the ability to give a charisma, to impart charisma, gift, that only the

Spirit can give, so, you know. Yeah, they would also impart the Holy Spirit, wouldn't they, by laying on of hands, so yeah.

Here, look, if we're gonna lack the gift, then the reason he's gonna say we don't lack is because we don't need it.

Do we need the gifts today? Do we need all the gifts? Yeah, do we need the charismatic gifts today? Yeah.

Well, let's be specific on the three. Okay, do we need the charismatic gifts, because we're not lacking any charismatic gift, 1

Corinthians 1, 7, that's the issue. Do we need them? Yeah, we do. Is the

Bible sufficient? Absolutely. Does the Bible tell us what the gifts are for? You go to 1 Corinthians 14, go read it on your own, go check it out.

When he prophesies, prophesies, excuse me, speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.

Do we need to edify people and exhort and console them today? Yeah. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church.

Do we need to edify the church? Yeah, we do. Now, I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy, and greater is one who prophesies one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying.

Does the church need to be edified? Yeah, it does. Now, I could go on like this, and you would see that the same issues in 1

Corinthians 14 with the church are prevalent and necessary today. I'm gonna ask a question.

I don't have any way of proving this as a yes or no, but think about this. I mean this, but I mean it carefully.

I mean it pastorally, but also carefully. Are we as Christians so comfortable in America with our multi -bibled versions, and our phones that have all the everything, and our electric blankets, and our

GPS -driven cars, and our nice retirement funds? Are we so comfortable?

I don't have one. And so, because I'm in ministry. So, the thing is, do, oh,

Councilman Petrino thought. What was I saying? You were talking about this.

We're so comfortable, thank you. We're so comfortable in all of this that we're not relying on the spirit of God in the areas that we need to when we take risks for Jesus.

Let me tell you. I'll give you just a couple of experiences I've had. Please understand,

I don't make doctrine out of experience. But I can tell you, having been out there in the world and doing things over and over,

I can tell you, things happen. My brother has a Master's of, I have a Master's of Divinity.

He has a Master's of Theology. He was telling me about when he was doing mission work in the Philippines, and how a friend of his told him the story.

Now, this is secondhand, that he was having this impression to go out on the freeway in blue,

I forgot the exact colors, blue shorts, yellow shirt with a big Bible, and start preaching to the cars as they go by.

That's obviously not of God. He's crazy. And this impression lasted for two months.

So he finally said, I can't deal with this anymore. I'm gonna go get the yellow shorts, blue shirt, big

Bible, go out on the freeway on the side of the road and preach. At least I'll have done it. I can go to sleep, okay?

It's not of God, because it's stupid. So he's out there preaching, vroom! And this is why

I need Jesus, vroom, vroom! And this one car locks up the brakes, screeches to a halt, the man gets out, and he runs back to him, full force.

And this guy was a martial artist, he was ready. And the man stopped right before him and said, what do

I do to get saved? He got saved. And what he was doing was, he was on his way to commit suicide.

And he was talking to God, saying, if you're real, when I turn the corner on the freeway,

I wanna see a man out there preaching. In blue shorts, yellow shirt.

Does this happen? Yeah, it does. I've got stories like this from people all over, where God has worked.

What do you call that? Oh, it doesn't happen anymore? What are we expecting in the church?

What are you expecting to happen? Do you wanna be used of God? Take risks. Now, Andrew takes risks.

And he doesn't believe as I do. I'm not knocking Andrew. He takes risks. We've got to preach together. It's a dangerous thing sometimes.

But I'm not knocking for that at all. But I'm just saying, because my pastoral side and my plea for the body of Christ is, in a sense, get off your lazy rear and get out there and do something.

And I'm not saying you guys aren't doing things, you're here. But we really need to be able to rely on the word of God.

We need to rely on that spirit to provide what we need when we don't have what we need. Because we still need to exhort.

We still need to teach and to preach. We need that unction of the Holy Spirit to move in us.

Can he cause us to speak in a tongue? He just admitted God can do that. He's not a cessationist. And he does do it.

You can go to, get a book called Bruchco, where a guy documents exactly what happens when he went to the

Modoloni tribe in Colombia 40 or so years ago. And he knew their languages because he was a language specialist.

And one tribe didn't speak another tribe's language, went and did it, and they communicated. It's documented.

Things like this happen. But when we're comfortable in our churches and our GPS -driven cars, it's easier to exegete these things away because then it means we're not as responsible.

Okay, so in that case, did they have the word of God in that language? Actually, they had a prophecy that, in their culture, was that a man with blond hair, with white hair, would come with the word of God written on banana leaves, the

Bible. This, even in the example he gives, it still sticks with the context of what we have in Scripture.

They didn't have a complete account. They didn't have it. It's in their language. Did God then give that?

Okay. So you're not a cessationist. Welcome to my side. I'm saying that the argument,

I'm not accepting your, I don't wanna say story because that comes off as if it's not true, the account.

Bruchko, it's a good book, Bruchko. So what I'm saying is, could that still be consistent if God chose to do that?

And this is the thing. I can only go where Scripture goes, and what I'm seeing in the passage, when

I look at this context in 1 Corinthians, and this is why, you know, we can get into healings and things like that. That's gonna be, and I'm saying this is where people have to deduce, just like we deduce the trinity, okay?

We look at Scriptures. You know, why would Paul say to Timothy, drink a little wine for your stomach's sake?

Because he was getting dysentery from drinking water. They didn't have water like we have water. You know, they get sick from drinking water.

That's why they would drink wine, okay? It wasn't for the purpose of getting drunk.

It was to get rid of dysentery, okay? So he says, drink a little wine for your stomach's sake, because he was getting sick.

You could say, well, later in the New Testament time, he's not saying be healed. He's saying, do things to take care of yourself.

That would be a deduction, okay? Am I gonna look at that and say that it seems like that gift, that gifting, does

God still heal today? Yes, but does God seem to give the gift of healing?

I'm gonna say no. When I look at these passages, I'm gonna say, do people prophesy for that? Well, it's gonna depend what you mean.

Every Sunday, when a man stands up at a pulpit, like all of your pastors do, or if you're an underpastor, like you do, when you stand at a pulpit, you are prophesying, but you're not foretelling the future, you're foretelling the past.

Both are part of what's considered prophecy. So words matter, right?

It depends on your terminology. I'm saying that the gift, the charismatos, okay, doesn't mean that all the gifts must continue or else you lack.

I'm saying that if God sees a need for gifting in areas, he gives those gifts, and now there's no more lack.

What you're hearing Matt say is all. That doesn't say that. It doesn't say that you won't lack all of the gifts.

It doesn't say you won't lack any. That doesn't mean all. It means that if there's a need

God has provided, there's not a need because God said they stopped. Any means all, any of them, of all of them.

Let's do this. How about a five minute summary of your position in closing, and then we'll open up for questions after a short break.

So five minutes, Matt, this time. All right. So obviously, I have the superior position, and.

You just need to read the scripture. Again, I want to reiterate, I don't put my faith in my experiences, even though my conversion was incredibly experiential, the very presence of the

Holy Spirit, the very presence of Jesus himself, and I could talk about that some time, but even that I subject to the word of God.

Now, when the Bible says that we not lack any charisma while we're waiting for the return of Christ, it's because the church is supposed to be knocking down the gates of hell,

Romans, excuse me, Matthew 16, 18. As you go out into the world, as you go out and do things, and as you read basically any missionaries who've been out there, none of them are cessationists.

Those who are out there, they know. They experience these things. They know, not that experience makes doctrine, but it doesn't contradict scripture.

We're not to lack any charismatic gift, any. That's what it says. It doesn't mean every individual has every gift, because the body of Christ as a whole will manifest these things, and that's what's going on.

We don't have to worry about them having stopped, and I'm not knocking the sufficiency of scripture, and if any of you follow me and what

I do on the web, you know I have a very high view of scripture, but it's the scripture that says that we not lack any charismatic gift.

The scripture says that when the perfect is completed, which I believe is the return of Christ, because that's how he ties it in 1

Corinthians 1, 70, not lack any gift while you're waiting for the return of Christ. When the perfect comes, you'll be known as you're fully known.

It doesn't make sense in my exegetical understanding to say that's just simply the completion of the canon.

It doesn't make sense, and there's other reasons we haven't even gotten into. There's other logistical problems. When the church is out there doing, when the church is out there taking risks, things happen.

This is historically documented. I've got quotes from George Wishart, John Fleming, and John Knox as an example of the

Presbyterian divines prophesying, having audible voices of God speaking to them.

I've got it right here, and I can read them to you. And when I gave this evidence to the people that were examining me for the pastorate, they didn't know what to do with it.

They could only ignore it. It's all they could do and say, we'll look at it later, because it didn't fit their paradigm.

My paradigm is simply we're not gonna lack any gift. It doesn't mean we don't have the right to go out speaking in tongues.

Oh, look, I can speak in tongues. You want to interpret? These are jokes in tongues, which I've seen people do on TV, assininity.

The context is here for the glorification, the edification, the exhortation of the body of Christ, and the completion of the evangelical commission that we have to go out and preach the gospel to every nation.

And sometimes God's gonna have to use us in ways that, not mere,

I don't mean in a derogatory sense, the mere holding of the word and the preaching of the word isn't gonna work, because we can't speak the other language.

Or we need to be able to say to somebody something that God has a specific reason for that person to hear, and their jaw drops, and they stumble backwards, and they walk off because they've been devastated.

These things happen because they are needed in the church. But those, in my opinion, who say they're not needed, and I don't mean any disrespect whatsoever, because I have to be careful how

I say this, but I suspect that when they say it's not needed, I don't think that they have as complete an expectation of the power of the word of God and the

Holy Spirit's work in the body out in the world as well. Does it mean that you have to believe that in order to be a good witness?

Not at all, because he's a good evangelist and a good witness, and he doesn't believe what I do. And we work side by side, and we tag team, and we do a great job together.

God's not limited by my error in this. He's not limited by his error in this, because I'm wrong, and he's wrong,

I'm right, he's right. Where's the exact definition gonna fall? I don't know exactly. But the

Holy Spirit works through us, and I would bet that we'd be out there one day, and he's gonna come back and say,

I didn't know I could say that. I'd go, yeah, uh -huh.

Not one of these three days, though. Yeah. Mr. Exhortation that you just got with the power of the spirit, uh -huh.

But you see, I love Andrew mostly, and he's a good guy, we disagree.

And one of the reasons we do this is to show that we can do this, disagree, and we can do it agreeably, and we can go out side by side and evangelize, because that's the important issue, the proclamation of the gospel.

Now, how God will implement that in each individual lives is according to the gifting he's given us, and the calling he's given us.

We gotta be careful not to judge each other. Now, we have fun, but don't judge anybody on these things.

Read Romans 14, one through 12, particularly verse five. Each man must be fully convinced in his own mind, and that's important, amen?

All right. Yeah, I'll start where you finished. I mean, the thing is, maybe you've seen, especially if you're on social media, you see people that hold a little bit too tightly to their theological systems.

You know, Matt was talking about denominations last night. This is a real issue, okay? It really is.

There's people who, as we mentioned last night, there's two ways to interpret it. It's either by rules or by what

I'll say, experience. The experience could refer to your theological system.

There are people who will look at a text, and they'll go, that looks like what that text is saying, but my theological system says that can't be what it means.

So I'm gonna reinterpret this to fit the system. And there's people that will hold too tightly to their system, okay?

We have Presbyterians here. We have Baptists here. I know at least those two, Presbyterian, Baptist, okay?

And we probably have more. We have some easy free church member, right? So we have all the different people from different backgrounds.

Guess what? We disagree. You're gonna be spending eternity together with Matt.

Okay, but he'll be glorified then. He'll be glorified then. It's not a good thing. So they're thinking, let's get along now?

I mean, you know, we hold these things. Every one of us is wrong theologically.

Matt can warn you, but we're gonna, you know what? When we get before Christ, he is gonna correct all of us, all of us.

If we knew those areas, now guess what we would do? Well, we'd either change or be intellectually dishonest, okay?

I think I know Matt well enough that if he's shown wrong, he would change his view on things.

I know that I've changed my views on things. That means you've been wrong a lot. I didn't say a lot.

I just said a lot of things. I once thought Matt was a nice guy. That was before he compared me to Clinton, right?

I mean, that was a lot of blood. I was surprised you got that. He starts comparing me to Obama, I'm really insulted.

I wouldn't go that low. So here's the thing. You know, when you look at these things, what are you seeing?

You know, Matt and I are going to an approach our interpretation a little differently, okay?

We're gonna approach the way we interpret the scriptures using slightly different rules, not radically different rules.

But there are differences. Some of those differences are gonna come in because of his covenantal background versus my dispensational background.

That does affect certain things, okay? How well, whether you're gonna see things literal and say, well, this is what scripture says and I stopped there or not.

The passage that we're looking at, it really hinders on that, right? So I'm gonna look at this and say, well, if God says that we don't need these gifts, then we're not lacking them.

Now, I'm also gonna limit it to these gifts because I can't speak beyond, I can deduce it and say

I don't believe that the gifts of healing is something the spirit continues to give, but that's deduced.

That's gonna be different. I'm gonna approach that different than I would say the gift of languages or the gift of prophecy or the gift of wisdom.

I'll say openly that the gift of wisdom is one that we don't see a lot of description on, so I'm not quite sure what that was, okay?

There's a lot of debate on that. The gift of prophecy, I'm gonna say that the prophecies continue.

Well, again, it's gonna be how you determine this, okay? How you define this. So I think that both

Matt and I, if you've heard, are saying that these are not, we do not expect this to be military, okay?

I have a paper on my website, First Corinthians, it deals with First Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.

If you go to shrivenforgreen .org, you're gonna see two papers on this issue. One's gonna focus specifically on the word talios and why

I think that refers back to the canon of scripture. The other's gonna deal with First Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 in context.

Now, let me give you, you haven't heard me talk about my experiences, so I'll give you my experience. You're not allowed to have any.

You're a dispensationalist. Yeah. I came out of the charismatic movement. Now, my belief is not because I was once in it and I was jarred or anything, okay?

For folks who were here last night, I mentioned a little bit, I'm from a Jewish background. I was two years without ever being involved in a church or anyone even knowing that I was a

Christian. I was that afraid of my parents finding out. Sorry. Okay, now

I have to explain why I'm getting emotional. For folks who don't know, I think Matt is a little less. When my parents found out that I became a

Christian, they were in very heavy casket. I knew they would. Something happened in my family's life that prevented it.

But I did not share my Christian convictions because I knew the cost that being a

Christian meant to my family, okay? So, sorry, I get emotional sometimes. Is that an experience?

No, it's not an experience. I'm just saying. See, experiences are good. So, when

I got to college, I got involved in the Word of Faith movement. That's an extreme view of where charismaticism has gone.

I had always accepted, because I didn't know any better, that gifts were for today and that people should do this because that's what

I was told. I was encouraged strongly. It was actually a thing where if I wasn't speaking, some said

I wasn't saved. In one way,

I'll say it is somewhat consistent with the position, though, because if you think that the proof of the baptism of the

Spirit is gift -speaking in tongues, that's where I disagree, and Matt would disagree. But if you believe that, then you have to say anyone who is saved speaks in tongues because everyone has the same spirit.

That's 1 Corinthians 12, 13. Everyone's baptized with one spirit. Well, if the evidence of the baptism of the

Spirit is tongues, then that's how they come to that conclusion. I don't, yeah, this is where you see with me, I can try to understand someone else's interpretation of how they interpret it and try to understand their position, how they come to that conclusion.

I don't have to agree with it, but I do try to understand their position. I remember sitting at a

Bible study with one gentleman that didn't, that believed that tongues had ceased and one that believed they continued, and someone said, well, he believes that they stopped.

And I went, what? I never heard that before. I went home and read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14 in one sitting in context and came to the conclusion that much of what

I was taught about the gifts was actually being chastised by Paul in their use of it, in trying to prove they're more spiritual than one another, in their abuses of it, and I saw people that were taking that and saying, well, this is something we should do.

Did I supposedly speak in tongues? What I was encouraged to do was just continue to say some word over and over until I got the gift.

What I did was exactly what I did when I was about eight years old with my sister, and we used to hear people speak

Spanish in the stores, and we just decided we would have our own language, and we would speak in gibberish back and forth, okay?

I started doing that, and everyone was super excited that I could speak in tongues. My tongues was basically a version of that gibberish in Hebrew, like I knew

Hebrew, and Hebrew sounds would come out, all right? I wasn't speaking actual

Hebrew, but I knew enough Hebrew to know that. The point being is I understand the emotional pressure that could be within the movement that something had, but what brought me out of that was really just looking at those passages in context and realizing that when

I read through them in context, I felt that the scriptures were actually saying the opposite of what

I was being shown or being told. Now, does my experience make it true?

No, no more than Matt's experience makes this true, okay? Understand that both of us are men who are going to look at scripture as our ultimate authority.

We both have a very high view of scripture. We both take risks, as some of the guys here know.

I'm an open -air preacher in New York City. I stand up in New York City and proclaim God's word to a bunch of real demons, guys who literally put themselves on a cross in Union Square, okay?

And let me tell you something. Guys who have been abusing

Christian preachers in Union Square for the 12 years that I've been there, a guy named Solomon, you can pray for him, one of the most vile guys

I know, but I've been out there for 12 years, and the two guys up here know it and attest to the fact that they could go out there and tell

Solomon that they're with me and he will change his behavior. Why? Because I took a risk one day doing something.

A guy who hates Christians, and I mean hates them, was sucker punched one day.

Now, I have a background in martial arts. I've never used it to defend myself, but you know,

I defended Solomon. I jumped off the box without even a second thought, jumped in front of his attacker and defended a guy who hates us.

Why? Because the gospel's more important. I wasn't like, oh, great, yeah, he's getting what he deserves.

No, what he deserves is hell. What I want him to have is

Christ. Notice I didn't say heaven, by the way. He needs Christ, okay?

This is the thing, you know, one of the things you're seeing, Matt and I can go out on the street, and you're not gonna hear us babing over charismatic gifts, covenant theology versus dispensationalism, infant baptism, or any of the other areas we're gonna disagree.

We're gonna go out there because there's, we do, as was mentioned, we do, every Sunday night, you can go and watch, you can go to Carmen, find the links, or you can go to Bob Flimping Wingnut YouTube page, and every

Sunday night, eight o 'clock, we get on with a bunch of atheists or homosexuals or Mormons or whoever.

It's usually an open Q &A. You can ask anything, and you know what? We have disagreements, but most often those don't come up.

Why? Because we're talking to people that need Christ most often. This is the thing, guys.

We can have differences. We can discuss our differences. Don't hold our differences so tightly that we separate from people we're gonna spend eternity with.

Because, quite frankly, the world is watching. They're even watching when you're on Facebook, and you're having fights with other

Christians. So I'm gonna close with this. Matt said he was doing a debate.

He's not the smartest guy in the world, don't tell him. He decides, you know what would be a really great idea?

Let me debate two different atheists on two different nights on two different topics.

They only have to prepare one debate, but I'll prepare two different ones. Not the smartest thing in the world.

But what he didn't do is, because we were two different nights, Matt and I went out there and got to talk with a bunch of atheists, professing atheists.

I did fine in both debates. He did, he did. It's the advantage of having the truth on your side.

Both guys were like totally, okay. But here's the thing. Talking to atheists, here's one of the things that ended up happening.

I was talking, I forget the incident now, but there was something that happened with an atheist online. I was asking this very atheist, would you think what he did was wrong?

And all these guys, yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you say it publicly? Oh, no, no, no. Why not? And they give me the, well,

I just don't know. I don't know my place, I don't do. One atheist was honest with me the second night. He said,

Andrew, I'll tell you. He says, I like you, but I gotta explain something to you. Whether I agree with him or not, you are my enemy, and he's doing a great job at destroying your worldview.

I will never speak out against him because he's on my side. And I walked away and left that weekend and said, you know what, this is pathetic that the atheists understand what

Christians should understand. We are being, or go to the world.

We should be presenting that, you know what, we disagree, we're fine with that. We love one another.

We can get along with one another because there's a darkness out there that's trying to take the world back into darkness.

We need to present a light. We have the truth of God's word. Can we unite?

We're going to spend eternity together. Even with Matt. We can get along now.

It's all dependent on whether we want to. Okay, so like Matt said, we do these things on different topics.

One, does it help you guys understand? I mean, I hope you see the different views we have, and maybe, even if you don't hold to my view, or you don't hold to Matthew, you're saying, you know what, at least

I understand how they come to those conclusions. I may not agree with it, but I understand it more. Then good, we've helped teach you something.

But I think more the reason that Matt and I do these things on different topics is not just as an education so you understand doctrine, but also so that you understand some of our

Christian character that we should be doing. Okay? And that's why we ended up, we didn't plan to do these sort of things.

It just seems, this is what we get asked to do. Kind of all of this. We didn't,

I didn't mind so much when he invited me to be on an apologetics cruise that he was teasing on so that I could do one of these.

That was good, you know. It just, it wasn't as enjoyable when Matt and I were, Matt spoke, what, you spoke like nine times,

I spoke like eight times. Nine times in eight days on a cruise so you could rest. Yeah. Like the other guys were like wrestling.

I said, you spoke once. Matt and I were sweating like every night. So with that,

I guess that would be, I think both of us went a little bit over five minutes. Perfect. It was powerful.

Hey, hand clap, guys. Thank you so much. Take a chance to regroup, catch their breath, and we'll set up a microphone for questions from the audience after.

Thank you guys, thank you Andrew. I'm a little short, yeah. Sorry, I'm a little short.

See, Matt, yeah. That made me a jerk, because Matt calls me a jerk a lot.

I'm a jerk. You pay for meals. I'm sparse, you pay for my meals.

You hear that, I'm what? I'm done. That's not, that's not. I have to sleep.

I have to sleep. You know why Jewish people have big noses?

Air is free. Andrew, Matt, thank you so much.

It's a pleasure having you guys here. So make this quick. Andrew, your position was that the charismatic gifts have ceased.

When I look at scripture, one of the things I look at, I try to have it, make it flow.

So the first thing that I think of is in the Gospels, we see in John 10, 38, he says, he's talking to the

Pharisees, that if you don't believe in me, believe in the works that I do, so that you may know and understand that the

Father is in me and I am in the Father. And then in John 14, 12, he says that whoever believes in me shall do the works that I do and even greater.

We see in the book of Acts that the disciples and the people of the church, that Peter's raising the dead, that these are miracles that are happening, and that the church that they're praying, they're prophesying, and this is what's going on in the book of Acts.

And then going back to going reading 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, I see that.

I see 1 Corinthians 12, where he talks about how we all have one spirit, one prophesying, one miracles.

And then we see 1 Corinthians 13, where he says the whole idea with the completion.

And then in 1 Corinthians 14, he says, I desire for you to speak in tongues.

And then he actually explains the church of, if someone is to speak in tongue, this is what you should be doing.

So it's like seeing the flow from the Gospels to the New Testament, the flow of the

New Testament, it doesn't, to say 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talking about we all having one spirit, and then 1

Corinthians 13 saying he ceased, and then 1 Corinthians 14, he continues to speak on the spiritual gifts and how if the church, how if the church is speaking in tongues, how they should deal with that.

It just doesn't add up. So when did the spiritual gifts end, particularly?

So the, one issue here now is 1 Corinthians 12. 1

Corinthians 12, in context, what it's saying is that we all have different gifts and love something that's primary, okay?

1 Corinthians 13, he doesn't say they did cease, he's saying they will cease. And that's,

I'm saying, in the conclusion of canon, those three would have come to the conclusion. Okay, so you wouldn't see, you could see chapter 14 in the illustrations explaining the use of them because they're still, they were still active at that time and would have continued at that time.

Okay, so there was a need for destruction because there was abuse going on. The John 14 passage,

I'm gonna say it quickly, and I don't know what the, no, the

John 14 quote, when he says that you're gonna do great works, obviously,

Christ did works that people never do, like create a universe at a time. So the question becomes, what works was he referring to when he says that his followers would do great works?

I would say that those greater works are that Christ could validate exactly what you're saying.

He's making claims and validating it by killing people, miraculously. Is that what ends up happening when they drop the guy through the roof?

And he says, what's easier to say? Your sins are forgiven, which they're saying, only God can forgive sins.

How can this man say your sins are forgiven? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or rise up from the wall?

Why, actually, both are just as easy to say, right? But one could be validating, that's the point there.

And so he's saying, here, I can validate this one. So I'll prove to you that I can say, your sins are forgiven, because I can validate it, rise up from the wall.

So he says, the guy rises up from the wall. You know what's harder to do, a greater work, is to proclaim the gospel without that indication of looking back to what's already been done.

And so I would say that we are saying the flow, I would say that the flow is more consistent with my position, because my position is that we do a greater thing if we don't say, look, you need to repent and believe in Christ, heal this person, for they need to be able to repent.

Do you have a different view of the general quote? Yeah, thanks guys for coming out here and doing what you do.

It's very important, especially for work for the kingdom. Okay, so this is kind of on gifts, it's not necessarily whether or not cessation is a fact.

So, in Matthew 7, Matthew 7, verse 22, it says, on that day, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name? And do many mighty works in your name.

And then will I declare to them, I never knew you'd depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. My question is, is that, can people who are not born of God display gifts of the spirit?

Is it possible? Because, I would imagine, are these people like Robert Tilton, who pretend that they have the gifts of the spirit?

Or like a Benny Hinn, or, I mean. They are a manifestation of your evil. They cast out demons in the name of Jesus, but they weren't saved.

Okay. So, there's authority that's in the word of Christ. So, in that,

Matthew 7, verse 22, verse 23, it should be with salvation, because they're appealing to their works.

That's correct. But they are unbelievers, in that sense. But yet, they are prophesying and performing miracles and casting out demons.

The only way that we can figure that they can do that and not be true believers is by summoning, so to speak, the name of Christ.

I mean, this is a mystical way, as it was done by the son of Sheba. And so, that's how

I interpret that and understand that. We can even have, in Mormonism, for example, which

I don't know if you guys know about Mormonism, it teaches God came to our planet. Jesus has a body of flesh and bones, six feet tall, he has sex with his goddess wife, and he has to excerpt babies, secret bandages to help you become

God. So, this is Mormonism. And it's obviously falsehood, yet miraculous things have happened in Mormonism.

So, obviously, it's his demonic influence that's occurring in it. So, that's how we would look at that.

So, would these people truly believe that they were followers of Christ? Well, if God was in your name, and so that's what's up in your name, by the authority of their believing in the name, they believe in Jesus, and they're not the

Roman Catholics. Oh, okay. They believe in Christ, take it that way. They believe in Christ, even the true Christ, and yet they have to work for salvation, and what

David does with it, is they do not take the sacraments, they do not do this in your name, they do not do that in your name. I see,

I see. They do it in your name. So, that's a good example. I think that verse, I've often thought that verse, for that periphery, those two verses, are actually a denunciation of Roman Catholicism.

Okay, well, thank you very much. Oh. I just had that over here last night, but when we're gonna do how to interpret the

Bible, go back a couple verses, and first of all, this is very clear to people. But, verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Okay. So, that tells you, it's speaking to people who are false teachers, pretending to be

Christian or Jewish, but inside, they're ravenous wolves. That's where you specifically speak to them.

But to the outside observer, I mean. They wouldn't be able to. It's still the same. Yeah, okay. All right, thank you very much. Hey, I just wanna first off say thank you to Matt and Andrew for a stunning example for us that it's possible to differ on secondary doctrines and still show so much love and unity for one another.

My question is just a clarification question for Matt. So, your position is that the

Doran gifts have ceased, the office of apostle and prophet, but the charismatic gifts have not ceased.

Can you elaborate? Yeah, slight correction. Can it be apostles today?

Well, it depends on how we define it. Jesus is called the apostle of our faith, and I think it's in Hebrews, and there are 700 primal apostles, false prophets, apostles.

When I was in Israel during the trip, I don't believe the apostles in the New Testament sense are coming back, period.

We gotta be careful because their visions and dreams of Jesus have all,

I met a guy in Jerusalem who said that Jesus, and he was

Jewish. So, apostles as the title

Paul and Peter, no more. Can it be that they see the

Lord Jesus? That's one of the requirements of the apostle. In 1 Corinthians 9 .1, have I not seen the risen

Lord? So, it gets a little bit gray in the New Epistolic Reformation movement. They're using these little arguments to have the

New Epistolic Reformation movement with them being around for the day. I'm doing research on that, trying to show why no one's making mistakes with that.

So, it's a little gray there. I just wanna be clear that people will use this against me later on when I do that work there.

But no, no more New Testament apostles like that, period. Gone, done, okay?

That's just clarification. Also, the office of prophet. The what, of prophet?

Yeah. The Old Testament prophets, the Luke 16, 16, the law of the prophets would tell John there's no more prophets in the

Old Testament sense. The New Testament sense, yes, honestly. Thank you.

Do you guys, it has something. He actually said somewhere in Hebrews. In all the years

I've known Matt, it was the first time he's ever not given the exact verse. He's getting old.

He's got that mind that just remembers that like this. How many of you wish you could do that?

Just rattle on verses. Teach me how I wanna know, please. Thank you guys for coming out.

My question is directed more towards you, but I'd like to hear both of your thoughts on the parable of rich man and Lazarus.

It seems to me that it's pretty applicable to this topic. I don't know if you had any thoughts about that. I'd like a question on something that I've spent years studying.

Thank you. I know that parable, and I'm glad you said parable.

I do think it's a parable. That's one thing I spent a lot of time studying. Is that an actual account, or is it a parable where the rich man is in hell,

Lazarus in heaven? I take that to be a parable based on the language.

Abraham used it as Abraham's proposal, things like that. The issue, the real issue, though, is what's he trying to address?

He's trying to address that even if someone has, someone raised from the dead, they won't believe.

They don't know the word. They don't need the evidence, okay? So, where do we see that from?

Let's look at a different Lazarus. Jesus Christ takes Lazarus, a real person, raises him from the dead after being in jail four days.

What was the Jewish reaction? Were they like, oh, we saw that miracle, let's go, no. They said, we need to kill him.

People don't have evidence, especially if they were dispensationalists. So, the point being is, people who can work, we go out on the street, but people don't have an evidence issue.

I'm assuming that the connection, and this is something that's very important. I'm assuming the question that comes in is that there are people that say we need to do these miracles, miraculous works for people to believe.

I would say even if you go and you argue for evidence for God's existence, they don't have an evidence issue.

They have a spiritual issue. The reason people don't believe is because they hate God, and they don't want him, the creator of the universe, to tell them what to do.

So, it's not an evidence issue. You can give evidence all day long. It's the perfect idea, and that's what Jesus was getting to.

Even if someone comes back from the dead, they have the Bible. By the way, that's a phrase when it says they have the one prophets, that refers to the

Bible, that's what it is. You have the Bible. You have God's word. You don't, they don't need someone to come back from the dead.

So, I would say that if somebody is going to say, well, we need to show these miraculous gifts for people to believe, and that's not,

I don't think, I've never heard Matt make an argument even close to that. So, I don't think that's a position, but there are people who do have evidence.

I don't think you need to do miraculous gifts for people to believe the gospel. They can read the scriptures.

That's a special thing. I agree with everything he said, except I don't believe it's a parable, a loser, and it's a devil.

Apostle, high priest, he who's three in one. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Hi, guys. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for talking to us. I've actually never heard anybody talk about this issue in particular, so it's really interesting to me that I got the chance to kind of see two things juxtaposed, and what

I was getting was I was trying to do the whole time, was I was like, what is the argument here? Because I study logic. I study philosophy.

I'm a Talbot grad student, so I'm currently grappling with, I'm going to have to grapple with a lot of these issues, so I wanted to ask,

I kind of got the position from you that the Holy Spirit provides gifts at his discretion, and that your position is the

Holy Spirit could provide gifts at his discretion and doesn't. That's kind of what I got.

I'm not sure if that's true. If I'm getting that wrong. Okay, so it. Most would say the

Holy Spirit gives gifts at his discretion. Okay, all right. So then. He just doesn't. Yeah, yeah, but he doesn't now.

Yeah, it's at his discretion, but he won't. Okay, so the interesting thing about that is if we were to find even one example of a gift being exercised after the canon is closed, which is the cutoff is your position, if we were to even find one of those, then your claim becomes modal.

It becomes possible that the Holy Spirit doesn't do that, but is it really a good position?

I wanted to ask you. Do you think it's a good position to say that there is no way that the Holy Spirit would ever exercise prophecy, wisdom, or tongues now?

I would say he says he's not talking to him. Okay. The problem is that if someone gives me an example, you know, the mass experience.

Yes. Can I say that it's of God? No, no. Can I say it's of the devil?

No, I can't. I can't answer that because I don't know. Where Scripture speaks, I know what

God says. Sure. Where Scripture doesn't speak, I'm guessing or using my

God -given ability to reason to draw conclusions, but just know with me the difference

I'm gonna make is where Scripture speaks, I say, thus sayeth the Lord, and where he doesn't speak,

I say, I don't know. Did you wanna add anything to that?

Because I'm more interested in the idea that it's like, the claim becomes very weak as soon as you have one example of a prophecy happening after the, or could, yeah, if it's meant to be an absolute claim, now it becomes some, not all.

Now that changes the quantifier. Did you have any ideas also with that? I can reach out and not just prophecy people.

I mean, there's lots of stuff. I mean, my own account, I mean,

I'm not using this proof, but I'm someone who believes the word of God. I don't see any problem with, you know,

Jesus did say in Matthew 9, be it done to you according to your faith. I wonder if God can do these things.

This doesn't mean that my experience is right, but I prophesy that the kingdom passed. I've had other things happen that I'm not talking about, and things come to pass.

I've got John Knox, a Presbyterian divine. He prophesied how two people would die, and it's stated, and it's recorded.

Things like this have happened in history, and not that doctrine is made by experience, but these things are there, and do something with them.

The dispensationalist would have to say, I can't execute the experience, though therefore they don't address them, because that's what you have to do.

I mean, I would say it's perfectly into the continuationist view that God can certainly do things under extraordinary circumstances here and elsewhere, and do things, and this is a continuationist.

It's a quantifier. Go with it. Thank you.

Let me add to that one thing though, also, is, you know, we hear the, we hear accounts of when the people have these prophecies,

John Knox and others, that come true, but if we're going to be accurate to Scripture as well, then we need to look back at everything they've said in their life.

If they ever said something that didn't come true, then you reject everything they've ever said. Amen. Because they just showed that they're a false prophet, and it wasn't a prophecy.

So that's the thing. No one ever ends up looking at cases where they say something, and it doesn't happen.

And it's hard to know, because we only report the times that they do. I mean, Matt once prophesied that I would be a millionaire.

I would. But an argument like that should go to some guy who said, well, the prophecy I gave over that girl came to pass.

It doesn't mean that everything the Savior has to be correct. OK. What is the issue? Took one of my questions.

Prophecy. Two for us. And you have a question. OK. First off,

I appreciate you both. My kids are dying to ask questions, and I'm sure they'll be able to do it later in person.

But I appreciate the time. My family has been drastically affected by ADHD, autism, and Alzheimer's, both near and far family.

And so I say this with the greatest of respect. I do have a very high level of respect for you,

Matt, as well. I wanted to know your opinion. Do you? Autism. No. Well, just in general, for what you do and what you stand for.

But I want to know, do you believe that your autism is a spiritual gift? I believe that God uses defective people who beg to be used.

And that the hand is greater than the instrument. That's what

I believe. My favorite coffee cup has a crack in it. My favorite, I hope, a goblet from 330

BC is cracked. And it reminds me of me. And in the hand,

I love that goblet the way it was. And so the value is in my appreciation of it.

My value is in God's. We all have problems.

I'm just more public about my autism. And it's really helped a lot of people over the years. Praise God.

Praise God. I appreciate that. But secondly, If you can expand on that.

Do you think that God can use broken vessels more than people?

Not more than. Can he use broken vessels more than people that look like them and like to get them?

Yeah, he can. It just depends. You know, because of my autism, I remember patterns, numbers.

I've been able to do things. Generally, autistic people have a higher IQ. And so God can use that.

But it doesn't mean that you have to have my deficiency in order to use it. The issue is, are you willing to use it?

Here, let me give you a little experience. Sorry. Here we go. Give me one minute. I'm going to be fast.

But when I was on fire for the Lord, which is his gift, for months. Well, maybe not months, but weeks.

But probably a few months. I was begging God constantly, almost every waking moment, to use me, use me, use me, use me.

I mean, incessantly, every waking moment, driving my car at work, between thoughts,

God, I want to be used by you. I don't care where it is. I don't care how it is. I don't care what it is. I don't care. I don't care. I can't convey to you how strong this was for week after week after week after week.

It was just, it was the movement of the spirit upon my heart. And it was an insatiable desire to use it in him.

And I can take you to the place, and I'm in California, not the apartment building, in the room. And the wall that I was standing in front of, when

I heard the voice of God in my heart, I knew it was him. And he said, what do you want?

And I knew it was him. And I said, I want to be used by you to bring as many people into the kingdom as possible.

And then the second question was when, early in life or late in life? And I said, late in life. And I've got other stuff

I can talk to you guys about, things like that. So, I believe a broken vessel whose heart is for God, not that I take credit for that, even my own heart full of wicked, vile crap, is only blessed by God's grace.

If any of you want that from God, get on your knees and start begging. But get ready for the riot.

Now, it is a spectrum disorder. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so, my nephew is a nonverbal self -harmer.

Would that be considered a spiritual gift or a curse? Okay. Thank you.

And lastly, I promise, so if you, God forbid, because I think your memory is amazing, and you did, thankfully, attribute some of the memorization skills potentially to Asperger's, which

I appreciate. If you ever, God forbid, as both of my grandparents and, unfortunately,

I believe my father is an early onset Alzheimer's, if you forgot all of the Bible verses, would that be considered revoked to you?

And if all spiritual gifts are given and never taken away, would that be considered revoked? A lot of things go away when you do that.

I've been researching. My wife has some serious health issues. I will add to that as well, as I know some of the cholesterol medications are also linked to it as well.

I appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen. Oh, my son wants to ask a question. He has the authority here,

I will say, in this topic. He has the authority here. He can wait.

It's okay. He can wait until the end of the line. Thank you, guys. Hey, Matt and Andrew, I want to thank you guys for coming out.

And, Matt, I want to thank you. Actually, both of you, man. You guys take a hard line for the Scriptures and for what you do.

Your website's awesome. I haven't checked yours out yet, Andrew. I'm sorry. So I really can't say.

I really haven't. I don't know. I don't know. You have to be saved.

Yeah, see, I was waiting. I've heard this line.

All right, so my question is I was taught dispensationalism, and then

I came across CARM. And so I was challenged, which is a good thing.

Matt challenged me. So now, I mean, the way you explained dispensationalism and kind of tying in covenant theology with that a little bit,

I mean, I like the way you did that. I just wanted to see if you could elaborate a little bit more on that because I've been grappling with this.

I actually called Matt on his radio show to talk about it, and he gave me a good answer.

He told me, you know, there's a secondary issue, you know, which is in regards to salvation.

But is there any way you could elaborate a little bit more? Yeah, I mean, one of the things most people don't understand actually is they think it's an entire system of what is going to happen in the future.

And really what it is, it's a hermeneutical system, how you interpret it with some distinction.

So the distinction that dispensationalism would have is that dispensationalism would see the church as distinct from Israel.

Now, how distinct? There's where you get into differences within that canon. I see that there's a distinction between Israel and the church, but that's not a complete distinction.

It's not like they're two totally separate entities because there is, even within national Israel, there was a spiritual

Israel. Okay, so God being a difference that Paul says is not everyone that was

Israel was Israel. No, it's just because you're born of a people doesn't make you a child of God going to heaven.

No, there was a spiritual Israel, and those were God's people. That's the, you know,

John 1 to 12, you know, those who believe on him have the right to be called the child of God. Jacob had the right to say they're

Israel. Spiritual, okay? So now I'm going to see that, and I'm going to carry that over and say, well, the church has similarities there.

So there is a similarity in God's spiritual people. But there's a distinction in God's overall plan.

So I will say the laws that God has for the nation of Israel, I don't think they're going to apply to the church.

Okay. Okay. Now, there's going to be some things that do because they're universal. We shouldn't lie.

That's universal. Okay? Do you need to keep the Sabbath by not, you know, by not starting a fire?

Okay? That's, I would say, that's unheard of for the nation of Israel. So when you get into things that I'm going to see as natural, do you need to keep kosher?

And again, this is something most people don't understand. They'll say, well, kosher is a ceremonial law. And that was done away with.

You know, when it was coming up in religion, they pulled it down. Well, actually, kosher was to keep the nation separate from their neighbors, to keep them separate from God.

We still need to be holy and separate from God. So the question now is, okay, so do we need to keep kosher?

By the way, God had it for Israel. Well, no, because that was for that nation. See, so that's where you're going to see how

I'm going to maybe interpret. Now, Matt's going to be different. I'm going to say he's a covenantalist, but he's kind of in between what's called new covenant theology and covenant theology because he does see some distinctions between Israel and the

Church. And it comes down to really how much continuity and discontinuity do you see between Israel and the

Church? Okay. The other thing you're going to see is how you approach the Scriptures when it comes to how liberal you're going to be.

And I'm saying figurative, and I just want to be really clear. I do not say that all covenant theologians take every passage figuratively or spiritually.

Okay? Okay. Matt will come to passages, and he's going to read it literally. This is what it says.

But there are times that covenant theologians will lean more toward a spiritual or figurative explanation of things fitting into covenant service.

An example where we end up disagreeing with the view that he brought up last night of circumcision being replaced by baptism,

I would say that it's a spiritual circumcision and not a physical circumcision. So I'm going to look at that and say, well, then it would be spiritual to spiritual.

So I would see that baptism is baptism to spiritual baptism to spiritual. Okay? That's going to be a difference that I'm going to say, well,

I'm going to look at that and keep it consistent with the way I'm going to approach it. Matt, because of his argument, is going to see that different.

And that's why he's going to come to conclusions like Anthony Baptist. Now, what

I'm going to say is, if you're dealing with someone that has that view, because you are going to follow different rules, that doesn't mean you're going to say that the other person was wrong.

Okay? I understand Matt's view on Anthony Baptist. Do I agree with it? I don't.

Because I'm going to interpret the Bible differently. Do I understand why Matt interprets the way he does?

Yes. Do I think he's consistent with the way he interprets? Yes. But I'm going to approach it differently.

And so, because we're kind of following two different sets of rules almost, they're not completely going to—I don't want to give you the idea that they're completely off.

There's much similarity in the way he and I are going to interpret Scripture. But there's subtleties that we're going to be different.

And sometimes these things come off as subtleties. Do you want to add to that? Yeah. All right.

Thank you. I want to let you get a quick question in because you're one of our youngest participants.

My cousin Jonathan is unable to speak. The Bible says we are only cursed by what comes out of our mouths.

Could his inability to speak be a blessing? A blessing to who?

My cousin. My cousin.

My cousin.

But is it a blessing? It depends on how it's looked at. Some could say yes.

Some could say no. We don't know why God allowed us. Even though I don't know why

God allowed us, we see blessings.

But when we're on ourselves, we see curses. So I would say yes, it can be a blessing. And it's just the way the synod is in the world.

You can see here that your cousin hasn't had a blessing because your uncle has reached out to more people with autism and helped them through difficult situations.

That he would not have done that if it wasn't for the fact that your cousin has autism. So there are thousands upon thousands of families who have been blessed because of your uncle.

And what he's done is he's given me funding and awareness, so he has done a huge amount in that.

And so it's been a blessing to thousands of families. Now, does that help with your cousin? Not as much.

But you know what? Your cousin has been used to have an impact, literally, around the world.

It wouldn't have been otherwise. Thank you. We are going to break for lunch, and we have

David Wood at 1 o 'clock. So if you're not familiar with this area, if you take a left out of the church, and then an immediate left onto Hainesport Mount Laurel, there is some fast food down there.

There's an Arby's, a Wawa, and a Subway. So there's some lunch that way. The church is not providing lunch.

We didn't have funds for that. But you guys are welcome to go. And also, thank you guys for being so available.

We wanted this conference to really give people a chance to interact with you because people have specific questions, and you guys have made yourselves so available.

If you can catch them for lunch, that might work out as well. But just spend time, and we'll be back here at 1 o 'clock sharp.