WWUTT 2025 Q&A Open but Cautious, Prophecy vs Prophesy, Private Prayer Language

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What is the purpose of the spiritual gifts? What does it mean to prophesy?

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And is speaking in tongues speaking a foreign language? Or can it be a private prayer language?

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The answers to these questions and others when we Understand the Text. This is

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When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. Becky is not with me this week.

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I know I said I was going to try to get her in. I was going to try, but that just didn't work out.

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Still going to give it an attempt, though. I said I wanted to try to get her to record one last episode while we're still here in the state of Texas.

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That may still happen, but it will air next week, and when it does,

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God willing, we'll already be in Arizona. So we'll record it in Texas, but it will air while we are in Arizona.

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In case you haven't heard, we're leaving our church family at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. We've had a wonderful three years here.

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The church has been absolutely wonderful, but knowing that I needed to get back into the pulpit and begin preaching again,

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I have been called by Providence Reform Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona, to pastor there, and it is my delight to accept.

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And so we are moving out there next week, God willing, that everything else is working out the way that it should this weekend.

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So we got everything in the moving van, and we're ready to head out that way. Pray for us as we are getting those last things done.

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The house is not up for sale. That won't happen until after we're out. We've got a rental place that we thankfully have already secured, so we've got somewhere we're going to move into.

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It's just the moving process. Moving. When was the last time you moved?

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I hate moving. I hated it when we did it three years ago. We've actually moved twice since we've been here in Texas, and here we are moving again.

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God help me that this is our last move. Please Lord, that I don't have to do this again.

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The worst part is packing everything and getting it in the truck. Fortunately, I have not had the experience of selling a house or finding a house be that bad.

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It's still a chore, it's difficult, but it hasn't been like an excruciating experience.

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The moving part, packing, cleaning, getting things from one location to the next location, that's the part

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I hate the most. This is what's driving me nuts. Even my girls, when we did this three years ago, they are eight and six now.

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When we first got here, they were six and four. The eight -year -old is about to turn nine.

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She turns nine tomorrow. In fact, tomorrow's her birthday. Even they hated the whole thing of putting stuff in boxes, moving the boxes there, unloading the boxes again.

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I remember when we were doing that here in this house in Texas, in Lindale, the girls just started crying.

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They're like, I just hate this. I hate unpacking boxes. We said, we know, we don't want to have to do this again, but here we are.

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We're doing this again. But very excited on our destination, being able to get out to Casa Grande, resume pastoral preaching ministry again.

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I'm very much looking forward to this and thankful to the Lord that he would call me to this. I'm complaining about the moving process, but really it's sanctifying me.

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And we are rejoicing in Christ for the opportunity to continue ministry, doing it somewhere else.

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But with this church, we are very delighted to become part of Providence Reformed Baptist Church.

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By the way, if you want to look up the church online, watch sermons, read the

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Statement of Faith. The Statement of Faith is the London Baptist Confession 1689. But if you want to know more about the church, it is prbccg .com.

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I know back when we lived in Kansas and we were at First Southern Baptist Church, it was fsbcjc .org.

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That's not even the website address anymore. That won't get you to the church, because the church name has changed to Providence Baptist Church under the pastoral teaching of Ryan Sickinger, who's doing a wonderful job out there.

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So it was always a mouthful to spout off all of those letters in a website, but here we're doing it again.

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So we're at Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. The website address is prbccg .com.

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All right. Well, being the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I'm going to resume answering the question that I had started last week.

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I was asked about the cessationist documentary and some of the objections to this particular documentary that were raised by Sam Storms on his blog.

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I think it was just simply samstorms .org. He wrote like a nine -part series. I don't know if I'm going to get through all of that, but I am going to go through the blog and respond to the points that he made.

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I'm still in part one. I began part one last week. We're going to pick up part one today.

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But before doing that, let's get to the scriptures here. Let me open up with scripture, and the portion that I'm going to read is going to be a section that I'm going to exegete here in just a moment in response to Sam Storms.

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But this is 1 Corinthians 14, beginning in verse one. Reading from the

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Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. Paul writing to the church in Corinth, Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

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

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

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

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

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

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Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?

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For if the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle?

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So also you, unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

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For you will be speaking into the air. All right, let's stop there for just a moment.

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Let me come back to the articles that Sam Storms was writing. And by the way, this is in response to a question that was sent in.

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Friday we typically respond to questions from listeners, and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Outside of this question that I'm responding to, I've been collecting other questions that have been coming in, and I'm saving those for when

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Becky can get on here with me. But in the meantime, we're going to continue to respond to Sam Storms' article.

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Now, let me define some terms here before jumping into that. We are debating the difference between cessationism and continuism.

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Cessationism is the idea that the miraculous sign gifts in particular have ceased.

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They're not in regular use in the church today, whereas the continuous would believe that the miraculous sign gifts are at work regularly in the church today, like most charismatic churches that you could walk into, or assemblies of God, or a vineyard church, or something like that.

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You will probably see an attempt to manifest these miraculous spiritual gifts, whether they be miraculous healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy, or casting out demons.

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Those are the ones that we tend to think of as being on the side of miraculous. Now, as I had pointed out last week, these are systematic theologies.

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There is no particular verse that you point to that shows that the miraculous sign gifts have ceased.

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There is no particular verse that you point to to say that the miraculous sign gifts are still continuing.

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We make our arguments from Scripture, but it's using the whole of Scripture in order to make those arguments. And like I said last week, the very fact that we're even having this discussion, this debate,

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I believe is a point in the direction of cessationism. Because if continuism were really happening with regular occurrence in the church today, it would be really, really easy to point to an

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Acts -level miracle. And by Acts -level miracle, I'm talking about the miracles that we see the apostles and prophets even doing in the book of Acts, like healing or restoring shriveled limbs, or raising the dead, or casting out violent demons the way that Jesus did.

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These kinds of miraculous signs, and with 100 % accuracy, being able to predict future events and not being wrong, because we don't have any examples of a prophet being given a word from the

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Lord, and then that prophet being wrong. There's none of them in Scripture, Old Testament or New. With regards to speaking in tongues, we know that that particular gift, according to the book of Acts, it was always spoken in groups.

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There's only three occasions, by the way, where the gift of speaking in tongues is even demonstrated in the narrative.

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And every time it's used, it's in a group of people. We come to understand by the demonstration of tongues that's done at Pentecost in Acts 2, that the apostles are actually speaking known human languages.

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By known human languages, I mean, there are languages that you could find somewhere on the planet, though they were not known by the apostles when they spoke them.

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So this was clearly a miraculous happening. And the people knew that it was miraculous because they were astonished that these

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Galilean men have these abilities to speak all these different foreign languages. They shouldn't know these languages.

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They're not educated men. And so there was clearly something miraculous going on.

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When we're talking about those kinds of sign gifts, we're talking about something miraculous.

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Whereas the charismatics are really doing like a very dumbed down version of that.

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There isn't any clear miracle that is happening because you can always explain whatever it is that they're doing.

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As I pointed out last week, even the Pharisees could not deny that what Jesus was doing was miraculous.

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They would try to attribute it to Satan or to demons, but they couldn't say that Jesus wasn't performing miracles.

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It was very clearly miraculous. Now, when it comes to making the argument for cessationism or even for the whole concept of miraculous sign gifts, because that category is not stated in that way in Scripture, we definitely see like a grouping of gifts that are on the side of miraculous, but it's not like there's a category for miraculous sign gifts.

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We call it that because they're clearly miraculous. First of all. Secondly, we call them signs because they were given to testify to the message that was being spoken as having come from God.

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And again, when it comes to making that argument from Scripture, typically where I go is Hebrews 1 and Hebrews 2.

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So Hebrews 1, 1, like the very start of the book of Hebrews starts like this. God having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days, he spoke to us in his son.

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Now that's verse 1 through the first half of verse 2. And there's kind of a parenthetical that then happens at that point at the middle part of verse 2 that goes through the rest of chapter 1, because what the author of Hebrews does there is that he then goes on to explain and expound upon and teach about who the son is.

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In these last days, he spoke to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds, who is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.

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And on and on the author goes there talking about and preaching about how awesome

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Christ is, because the whole point of the book of Hebrews is going to be that Christ is greater.

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Christ is the greater than. So we have sort of this parenthetical of the author going on about Christ and even showing from the

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Old Testament, how the Old Testament scriptures and the Psalms were all pointing to Christ.

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And then after he gets through that parenthetical of pointing to Christ, then he comes back to the point that he was making at the very beginning of the letter, that long ago at various times and in various ways,

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God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. His son has revealed to us those things that the prophets were talking about.

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All of that was pointing to Christ. And then Christ appointed apostles that would go out and spread his message and authenticated that message through the giving of miraculous signs and wonders by the will of the

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Holy Spirit. So let me continue on into Hebrews 2. Okay, so you have that opening of Hebrews 1, 1 through 2a.

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We'll call it 2a. And then if we skip the rest of that, which is preaching about Christ and we jump to Hebrews 2, we read this.

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For this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away.

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For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every trespass and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

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That's salvation. First spoken by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard.

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God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the

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Holy Spirit, according to his own will. So again, when we talk about miraculous sign gifts, that's where we get the categories from right there.

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There are some continuous out there that will say, well, they aren't really in categories. They're just gifts of the

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Spirit. No, not true. They're very clearly divided up into categories. There are those spiritual gifts that are evidently miraculous.

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And there are other spiritual gifts that though they are certainly supernatural in the sense that the

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Holy Spirit is working through a person to grant them that gift and use and utilize that gift for the edification of the church.

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Nonetheless, it's not miraculous. No one is going to look at that gift and say something supernatural or something miraculous has taken place.

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So it's clear that there are categories in which these different gifts fall into.

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Now, in the documentary, Cessationist, Sam Storms is accused of being open but cautious.

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I believe it's Sam Waldron that makes that accusation, if you'll pardon the word, but he makes that accusation of Sam Storms and John Piper and D .A.

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Carson and others that are kind of of that group, of the reformed continuous. He'll say they're open but cautious.

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In the portion of Sam Storms' response that I read last week, Storms directly responds to that and says,

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I'm not open but cautious. As a matter of fact, I think that that is an unbiblical position. Now, it just so happens that a couple of days ago,

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Sam Storms was on the podcast Remnant Radio, and Remnant Radio has been responding to the

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Cessationist documentary. They had Sam Storms on and Sam directly responded to that clip in the video about being open but cautious.

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So listen to this. This is the guys with Remnant Radio, along with special guest Sam Storms responding to the documentary

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Cessationist. You guys want to jump to the next clip? Yeah. We did tongues on 16, 17.

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We did immoral, the immorality of the Christians. Sam, this one's going to be a good one. This is this one's talking about talking about you guys.

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Just so happened you were available in this episode. Piper, Storms and Grudem and Carson describe themselves as open but cautious.

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Do they though? So you have guys with at least some reformed inclination. They have been working really hard to say they believe in a closed canon and even though they also want to say that in some sense, they believe in the continuation of prophecy and tongues.

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Once you open the door to the modern charismatic teachings, how is your urge and your prompting of the

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Spirit of God different than Benny Hinn? And who's to say who's right in the issue? You may not understand this. I don't either.

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But when the Lord talks to me, I obey him. It's just that simple. I'm not suggesting that anyone who claims to be a reformed charismatic should be classified in the same category as a

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Benny Hinn. But Benny Hinn's positions are very much connected to the idea that God is still speaking today.

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So if someone says, God spoke to me, it becomes the ace of spades and it trumps everything.

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Really, that's the historic trap. If you go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, you see that the serpent that he tempts

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Eve in such a way as to suggest that God's word wasn't enough. I love that. He's like, hey,

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I don't want to compare everyone to the gifts of the Spirit to Benny Hinn. But I will compare them all to Satan that says the

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Bible's not enough. That's so messed up, bro. Like, why would you do that?

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Okay, sorry. Again, diving in. Sam, let me just start with the first statement. Are you, do you classify yourself as open but cautious?

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Absolutely not. I don't think that's even a legitimate category. I don't think the Bible gives any justification for merely being open.

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We are to zealously desire and pursue spiritual gifts. So people who call themselves that,

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I say, no, you're closed and cynical. You're not open but cautious. My good friend Hayden Heffner here at Bridgeway likes to talk about we should be earnest and wise, which

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I can embrace that. But Wayne Grudem is not open but cautious. I don't think

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John is either. Don Carson hasn't written much on the subject since his book, Showing the Spirit.

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I don't know that he would warrant that label.

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I can't speak for him, but I can speak for myself. Sam Waldron, you're wrong. I am far worse than what you envision.

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I am zealously earnest, prayerful, pursuing, and practicing all the gifts of the

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Spirit. There's nothing cautious about my approach to obeying the commands of Scripture, to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially if they may prophesy.

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Caution implies danger ahead, watch out, this could get you in trouble.

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Problem is, the Bible never says that. There's not a negative word about the pursuit of spiritual gifts.

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So, yeah, I'd have to take issue with Sam Waldron on that point. I'm pretty sure

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I've heard John Piper say that he is open but cautious. It was in a segment of Ask Pastor John.

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I went back and listened to several—you know, those Ask Pastor John segments are only like five to seven minutes long or something like that.

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So I went back and listened to several of them where he's responding to questions about spiritual gifts, but I never found a clip of him saying that.

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However, there are a couple of articles at Desiring God that use that expression, open but cautious.

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There are others that attribute that label to Piper. However, I have to admit that I could not find a place where Piper is saying that exactly.

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If somebody is able to find it, if you've heard him say that before, then let me know. Send it via email.

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You can send the link to me when we understand the text at gmail .com. But I take Sam Storms at his word that he has never been in that open but cautious category.

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In fact, what he says on his blog is that to be open to miraculous gifts of the

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Spirit is far short of what the Bible commands. And this is where I left off last week. Paul clearly and repeatedly says something altogether different.

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1 Corinthians 12 .31, but earnestly desire the higher gifts. And that was the only reference I was able to get to last week.

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We looked at that in context and exegeted the Scripture. The next one is the one that I started with today.

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1 Corinthians 14 .1, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

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Now, we're going to go through that and look at that line by line here so that we understand the context of what's being said.

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Again, Sam Storms is using this reference, 1 Corinthians 14 .1, to say that the

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Bible directly and repeatedly tells us to pursue spiritual gifts. Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

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The next scripture he goes on to, the next two come out of chapter 14. So verse 12, so with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the

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Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. And then verse 39, so my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

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So no, Sam Storms says, I'm decidedly not open but cautious.

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I'm eager and hungry and desperate for all that the Spirit makes available to the people of God.

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Openness counts for very little, if anything at all. Earnest desire is God's will for us all.

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And to suggest that I'm cautious about spiritual gifts is massively misguided. Cautious implies danger ahead.

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Cautious suggests that spiritual gifts are a threat and we need to be careful. But where do we find any such statement in scripture?

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Nowhere. Spiritual gifts are a blessing from God and we are to earnestly and passionately and prayerfully seek for them.

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Now, let me jump back a moment to that sentence where he says, cautious implies danger ahead.

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Well, yeah, it does. Paul told us in 1 Thessalonians 5, he says to the

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Thessalonians and the Spirit says to us, this is in verse 19, do not quench the

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Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but examine all things, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil.

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So there is a word of caution there. That we need to be careful and we need to examine everything.

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Don't despise the prophecies, but we are to test them. And in fact,

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Paul lays out guidelines for the proper use and expression of prophecy, even in 1

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Corinthians 14. So yes, there is a word of caution there. I think Sam goes a little too far when he says that we shouldn't be cautious at all.

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There are clearly words of caution that are given. For example, James 3 .1, which

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I had quoted last week. Not many of you should aspire to be teachers, my brethren. For you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

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One of the gifts of the Spirit is teaching. And you must be very, very cautious with that gift, with desiring that gift, with exercising that gift.

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There should always be caution in exercising that gift. John Knox said that I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time

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I enter the pulpit. And that should be our attitude. Even though I'm eager to preach,

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I desire to preach. It's one of the reasons why we're moving out to Arizona, so that I have that opportunity to resume a pulpit ministry again and continue preaching.

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Nonetheless, I have to be very careful about that. I have to check my own motives, that it's not going to be out of some desire to want to stand up in front of people and get attention for myself and spout my own knowledge out there so that everybody will think that I'm great.

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I have to be careful with the intention of my heart, that my desire to preach is simply to proclaim

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God's Word, that he may be glorified. I am blessed that he would want to use me in this work, but it's not about me.

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It is about edifying his church, which is exactly why Paul lays down these guidelines the way that he does here in 1

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Corinthians 14 about the exercise of prophecy and about speaking in tongues. There is caution that we are to exercise when it comes to these spiritual gifts.

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And I don't get the impression that Storms is actually all that cautious. I mean, he says so right here.

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Cautious suggests that spiritual gifts are a threat and we need to be careful. Well, no, that's not it. We're cautious because the

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Bible tells us to be cautious. But notice that he said there in that answer to the

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Remnant Radio guys, he said that he practices all the gifts.

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Remember what we read last week in chapter 12. Paul said, are all apostles?

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Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles?

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Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all translate? The answer to all of those questions is no.

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And Sam thinks he exercises all the gifts. I don't think so. But Paul does say in verse 31, earnestly desire the greater gifts, the greatest being prophecy, and I will show you a more excellent way.

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And then we have the way of love that is given to us in chapter 13. So when it comes to exercising these gifts, we are supposed to do it in love for the purpose of building up the church.

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It's not for ourselves. It is for the purpose of edifying others.

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So let's come back to the start of chapter 14 here, because that's the point that Paul is making. Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy, because it's the gift of prophecy that is going to edify the church.

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Let me back up a little bit. It is prophesying that will edify the church.

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Because the word that Paul uses right here is not prophecy, but prophesying. He does say prophecy back in chapter 12, and he does talk about prophecy in 13 as well.

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But as we get into 14 here, the word is specifically prophesy. And I think there is a broader definition to that than merely prophecy.

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I mean, prophecy isn't mere, but you know what I mean? It's not just foretelling, it's foretelling.

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Foretelling is telling people what the future is going to be. God has revealed the future to me, and I'm telling you, here's what it is that's going to happen.

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That's foretelling. Foretelling is what a preacher does, that he preaches the word of God.

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And there is something being accomplished whenever the word of God is preached, that people are being sanctified.

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When they hear the word, and they listen to it, and they do what it says, it sanctifies.

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As Jesus said in John 17, sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth, as he prays to the

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Father for his disciples. So there is a sanctification that is happening there.

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The church is maturing. It is growing up. And there are things in scripture that have not yet been revealed.

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The book of Revelation. Plenty of things that are talked about there that have not yet come to pass. So there are prophecies that a pastor can say, a pastor will preach prophecy that comes from the word of God.

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And he's prophesying. He's forth -telling, and in a sense foretelling, but it's not that God has given him a new vision.

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He is speaking what has been given in the scriptures. Now, that is a little broader definition of prophecy than some of my cessationist brothers will use.

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But I think I can argue it from chapter 14 here as we continue on. So once again, starting in verse 1, that we may look at these things in context.

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Pursue love. That's coming right off of chapter 13, which is our love chapter. Yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

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And I don't negate that. I don't think that that was just something that Paul was saying to the Corinthians. I think the

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Spirit communicates it to us even now that we should desire spiritual gifts.

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But as I said last week, those gifts that even charismatics tend to want are the miraculous gifts.

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And they will want them so bad that they will exercise them in church and claim that these are the gifts that are going on.

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Look right here, I'm healing somebody, or God has given me a vision, or here I'm speaking gibberish, and this is tongues, this is the

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Holy Spirit with this ecstasy in me that's manifesting this. That's what you'll see happening in a lot of charismatic circles.

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But there are plenty of other spiritual gifts that have been mentioned that you don't hear really being talked about in those same circles.

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I read last week from Romans chapter 12. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy, in agreement with the faith, or service, that's the next one on the list.

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Prophecy or service. But who's really walking around, even in charismatic circles, going, man,

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I really wish that the Holy Spirit would give me the gift of service. Service is not a gift that people typically see.

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It's way in the background. It is something that somebody does definitely for the edification of the church, but they're not going to get a lot of congratulations for it.

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He who teaches in his teaching. He who exhorts in his exhortation. He who gives with generosity.

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I mean, there you're talking about giving most likely with tithes and offerings. He who leads with diligence.

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He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. There's some other spiritual gifts that are mentioned there that just don't get talked about whenever we're talking about spiritual gifts.

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But these are going to be the regular spiritual gifts that are exercised by most people in the church.

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Now, the one that is the greatest spiritual gift, really, as Paul ranks them in chapter 12 and then repeating them in chapter 14, the one that's at the top of the list is prophesying, because that is what's going to edify the church.

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What's at the bottom of the list? Do you remember what gift was on the bottom? Speaking in tongues.

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Why is that gift on the bottom? Because it doesn't edify anybody. The only way it edifies is if somebody translates, and in which case the translator basically becomes a prophet, prophesying or foretelling those things that were revealed in the spirit to the person who was speaking in tongues.

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But it's not to happen in corporate worship. And like I said earlier, there's only three times that we see the gift of tongues being demonstrated in the narrative of Acts, and in all three of those occasions, it's in a group of people.

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There's never a time where the gift of tongues is a private endeavor.

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Not one time is that demonstrated in Scripture. You have at Pentecost, the disciples speaking in tongues, and they speak the languages of the people that are there.

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You have the other one at Cornelius's house in Acts 10, and that is to show that the

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Holy Spirit falls upon even Gentiles. So that the Spirit has not just come to Jews who have come to believe in Christ, but even upon Gentiles.

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It becomes a sign in that way. And then the other time is when Paul finds the 12 disciples of his, really, the missionary brethren that he recruits to go throughout

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Ephesus and Asia Minor preaching the gospel. They didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. But when they hear from Paul, the

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Spirit comes upon them, and they begin speaking in tongues, showing now that they have the Spirit, so that they may go out with Paul and testify to the gospel.

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And that's it. Those are the three occasions that we see speaking in tongues come up, and every time it's in a group.

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It's never a private prayer language. That's never demonstrated in Scripture. So let's come back to this here, chapter 14.

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I think I've said that a couple of times now, coming to chapter 14. But we continue on. So, especially that you may prophesy,

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Paul says, which is the chief of the gifts. And then verse 2, for one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God.

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For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. Now, I had mentioned this verse to somebody online earlier this week, and he was saying that the very statement, one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God.

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For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. And he was trying to argue, see, that means a private prayer language.

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No, it doesn't. Because again, the Corinthians are practicing this gift in corporate worship, and it's not helping anybody.

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Nobody is being edified in this. And so when Paul says, you're not speaking to men, you're not edifying the church, you're speaking to God, does

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God need edification? No. So Paul is saying that as a rebuke.

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He's not saying that as permission to go off and pray by yourself in your tongue, instead of doing this in the corporate assembly.

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That's not what he's saying. The only person that you would be educating in this sense, the only person that would understand what it is that you're saying, is

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God. No one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.

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It remains a mystery to the audience, and they're not able to be edified or grow in what is being said because they don't understand it.

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So then verse three, contrasting the one who speaks in tongues with the one who prophesies.

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But the one who prophesies speaks to men for, and here we have the purpose of prophecy, of prophesying, speaks to men for edification, for exhortation, and for encouragement.

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For edification, for feeding, that's what it means to edify, or to support, to build up.

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For exhortation, and that's to give instruction or imperative. Go and do, that you may go out and live those things.

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Not just hearing it, not just giving mental assent to it, but now this is going to transform your life so that you may go out and live these things that have been testified to you.

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And then encouragement, literally to give them courage, encourage, to give them hope, to give them direction and meaning and purpose.

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And we find all of those things in Christ. The one who prophesies does this for the body, edifies, exhorts, encourages.

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Verse 4, one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.

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That's not good. That's not permission to, well,

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I can pray in a tongue because it's good for me to edify myself. That's not what Paul is saying. The word that is used there for edify,

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I did a word study on this one time, this word that is translated edify is only used in the

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New Testament for helping to build somebody else up, except in this verse in 1

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Corinthians 14. That's the one place. So it cannot be that Paul is saying, go off and edify yourself with your private prayer language.

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He's saying that it doesn't come to fulfill the purpose of spiritual gifts, which is to edify the church, not yourself.

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So one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. That's not good. But one who prophesies edifies the church.

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That's the whole purpose of edification. It's to build another up. But I wish that you all spoke in tongues,

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Paul says, even more that you would prophesy. Yeah, I wish that you would all speak in tongues.

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Paul has had this opportunity to speak all kinds of tongues. He's gone all kinds of places and has been gifted with foreign languages that he may speak to a people and they may understand what it is that he says.

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Now, we're assuming that is the case because that doesn't show up in the narrative. Paul doesn't talk about it elsewhere in the epistles, but he's been able to speak in tongues.

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He desires. I wish all of you would be able to speak in tongues. Now, remember, going back to chapter 12, he says, not all will speak in tongues.

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So desiring that they would all speak in tongues and that everybody would speak in tongues are two different things.

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Going on, he says, greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues unless he translates so that the church may receive edification.

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And once again, the translator at that point becomes a prophet because he is edifying the church with what was said by the one to whom the tongue was given.

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Verse six, but now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will

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I profit you unless I speak, listen to this, unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching?

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Now, remember, I said that I take a little broader view of prophesy, that prophesy would be forthtelling as well as foretelling.

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It may be foretelling, but something that a pastor does on a regular basis is forthtelling.

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A pastor prophesies. I've heard Paul Washer say, a pastor is a prophet or he's nothing.

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And I agree with Paul Washer in that. Again, that's taking a very broad view of the word prophet.

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When Paul Washer says that, he doesn't mean that a pastor is still receiving revelation from God that he may speak to the people in this way.

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He's talking about a pastor being a prophet in the sense that he prophesies. Paul called

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Timothy a man of God. Timothy is the only person in the New Testament that's called man of God.

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Who else is called man of God? Moses was called man of God. Elisha was called man of God.

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The prophets received that title. So, Paul calls Timothy that, as if Timothy continues the tradition or the assignment as was given to the prophets.

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God is speaking, and the pastor who communicates the scriptures to God's people is still fulfilling that role of speaking the word of God to the people of God.

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Now, it's not that God is giving him new word and new revelation. All of that has been given to us in the scripture, but the pastor still fulfills that function of prophesying in that way, that he speaks

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God's word as was given to the apostles and the prophets and written down for us in the Old and the

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New Testament. This is the charge that Paul gives Timothy, that he may go out and continue to be that man of God, speaking

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God's word to God's people. Here you have prophesying defined this way in verse 6, either a revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching.

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So, you have prophecy that comes in there with regards to what is prophesying, but prophesying is not limited to prophecy.

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It's also teaching, revelation, knowledge. I believe that when, as a pastor,

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I am preaching to a congregation, that's what I'm doing. I'm teaching, and that falls under that category of prophesying.

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It's knowledge. It is helping people to understand and know the scriptures.

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So, this is that broader definition of prophesying, like I said, and some of my cessationist brothers don't see this the same way.

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Justin Peters takes a more limited view. Jim Osmond takes a more limited view, and I believe Phil Johnson as well.

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So, they're just going to limit the word prophecy to foretelling, not forth telling.

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But I can speak for myself and for Tom Buck, because we've both had this discussion, and he said the same thing.

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Prophesying can also be forth telling. So, in that way, as I desire the spiritual gift of teaching,

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I'm desiring to prophesy, and that is in fulfillment with the instruction that's given there in 14 .1.

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

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Now, once again, not everybody is going to be given that gift of teaching. Not everybody is going to be given a gift of prophesying.

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Going back to the questions that Paul asked in chapter 12, and like I said from James 3 .1, not many should aspire to become teachers, but it's a good thing to want to desire.

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And even if you don't think that the Spirit is going to grant to you that opportunity to teach, to most women,

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God is not going to give that platform to teach, especially a group.

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For you know, as is said in 1 Timothy 2, that the role of teaching in the church, the role of preaching in particular, that office and that function is limited to men.

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There are women that are going to teach other women, and we see that in Titus 2. You see even

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Priscilla with her husband Achilla, who is evangelizing to Apollos.

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So there are other areas in which a woman may step into and teach, but it's not going to be as common for women as it will be for men.

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So with a person that will not be given that gift of teaching, still desiring teaching would stir in their heart a desire for a teacher to come who will teach us soundly.

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Maybe you won't be that teacher, but you will want teaching to be done. And I think that drive in your heart will be the thing that leads you in prayer to want godly teachers to rise up in your church, in your community, in this present day, that the people of God may be edified.

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So earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

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That's the context there of 1 Corinthians 14. And again, Sam Storm cited it as, see, we're still supposed to pursue speaking in tongues and prophecy.

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But is that really the context of what Paul is talking about there? And remember, you can't skip past what was said back in chapter 12, that not all will receive these things.

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It's one thing to desire it. It's one thing to be given it. And again, Sam says,

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I practice all the spiritual gifts. Verse 12. So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

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Okay, let me skip ahead to there. I read through verse 9 in my opening reading.

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Here's verse 10. There are perhaps a great many kinds of sounds in the world, and none is without meaning.

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If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

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The barbarians were simply not Greek speakers. So if you know the Greek language and you go to the barbarians, but you don't know their language, then you're not going to make any sense to them.

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When they speak to you, they're not going to make any sense to you. So if we don't know what one another is saying, we're just barbarians to each other.

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That's really what that comes down to. So then Paul goes on in verse 12 to say, so also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church, not edifying yourself.

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And speaking in tongues edifies yourself, unless someone is translating. So don't be going after that one, especially when it comes to the corporate body, because it doesn't help to edify the body.

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We continue on to the next verse that Sam Storm cited, verse 39. So my brothers earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

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Now, Paul is not forbidding speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 14, but it's very evident that he is discouraging it.

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He's discouraging the practice of speaking in tongues because it's not supposed to be done in the corporate assembly.

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He doesn't forbid it because maybe the spirit will move in a person in such a way to speak a foreign language, and then somebody might step up and be able to translate it.

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Then it becomes edifying to the body. So he doesn't forbid speaking in tongues. And he clarifies here, the way that I'm talking about this is not for you to forbid speaking in tongues.

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Don't forbid it. But prophesying is what this church needs. Now, when it comes to Paul saying this to the

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Corinthians, note that canon is not completed.

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One of the books of the Bible is being written right here, 1 Corinthians. So there is a certain sense of foretelling that is happening in the church with these prophets.

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And he talks about the qualifications for prophets, the way that they prophesy in the gathered assembly.

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That's right here in chapter 14 as well. They are being given new revelation in the context of the

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Corinthian church because canon is still being written. Canon isn't closed yet. So those kinds of prophecies are being given to these elders or these prophets in the church that the church may be edified.

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But again, as we had reviewed last week, even during the time of the apostles, the miraculous sign gifts that verify the word is being spoken as being from God start to diminish.

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Even during the time of the apostles. So that when you get to the letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, and this was likely after Paul had gone westward to Spain, he writes to Timothy and says to Timothy to drink some wine to help with his stomach ailments.

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He doesn't heal Timothy of his stomach ailments. And that's because once again, even the usage of these gifts are diminishing.

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And the purpose of the gifts was to verify the message that's being spoken as being truly from God.

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Something miraculous has happened here. So this could only be of God. Therefore, we know the word that is spoken truly came from the

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Lord. There wasn't a reason to have to testify to that for Timothy. So Timothy is to drink wine for his frequent ailments, and we see the spiritual gifts even begin to decline over the course of the

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New Testament. Nonetheless, Paul says to the church, and I think there is a certain context in which this applies to us, my brother's earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

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I've never forbid speaking in tongues, but the gibberish thing that people do in charismatic churches and call that speaking in tongues is not speaking in tongues.

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When Sam Storms talks about speaking in tongues, he says that speaking foreign languages is just one kind of tongue.

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But speaking a heavenly language or an angelic language or even something that is unique to every person that is an expression of ecstasy is another kind of speaking in tongues.

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That's not in the Bible anywhere. Like, where do you go to in scripture to verify that there's nothing even in a narrative that demonstrates that happening?

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There is nothing supernatural about speaking gibberish. Pagans do that.

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Jesus said in Matthew 6, 7, when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the

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Gentiles. And by the way, that word Gentile synonymous with pagan, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

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Therefore, do not be like them. For your father knows what you need before you ask of him.

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Pray then in this way, and then you have the Lord's prayer, a clear prayer. And every prayer of Jesus that we have in the four gospels is clearly understood by his disciples in the sense that they know what language he's praying in.

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He's never praying in a tongue or another language. As Jesus prayed, so should we pray.

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The way that Paul will write down prayers in his letters that he sends to the churches, there's two of them in the book of Ephesians alone.

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Those are clear, articulated prayers. So we should pray in the same way. There is no instruction anywhere to pray something of nonsense that makes no sense to you.

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It doesn't even edify yourself. I mean, as much as there are charismatics out there who want to use that verse to say, well,

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I'm edifying myself, as it says in 14 .2, in that the verse for one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God.

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For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. That wasn't the one. Verse four, one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.

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Okay. They'll use that verse and say, see, I can have my private prayer language that edifies me.

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No, it doesn't edify you. It doesn't have any comparison with prophecy, which is speaking the word of God that a person may be built up by that word.

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Once again, back to John 17, it is the word of Christ that sanctifies. Speaking gibberish language doesn't sanctify.

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It doesn't even edify you. And like I said, pagans can do this and there's nothing miraculous about it.

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When you see a person speaking gibberish, you don't just automatically go, oh, well, that person is, there's something supernatural happening here.

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Nobody does that. No one thinks something supernatural or miraculous is happening because someone is saying,

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I thought about IKEA, but I bought a Honda, which translated is, I thought I bought

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IKEA, but I bought a Honda. That's the, uh, that's the, the go -to one that I, that I will use to give an example of, uh, of gibberish speaking in tongues.

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So anyway, we're, we're coming close to the end of the hour here. I still haven't gotten through all the part one of, uh, of Sam Storm's thing here, but let me mention something else here about speaking in tongues.

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And then next week, I'm just going to go ahead or next week or two weeks later, whenever it'll be, I'm just going to jump straight to part two.

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We'll skip the rest of this one from Sam Storm's and get to, get to part two here. So when I was,

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I mentioned to you last week that I was in charismatic churches for 10 years from the age of 18 to 28, at least that long might've been 29.

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And then I continued, uh, as a continuous until, um,

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I was, I was about in the first five or six years of being a pastor. 2016 was really when

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I, I, I came out of continuism and came to understand the cessationist perspective.

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When I was in high school, me and some friends of mine would drive from our little

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Southwest Kansas town up to garden city. Also in Southwest Kansas, it was about 70 miles away.

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And there was a church there. It was a church. I would eventually, uh, attend when I went to college there. I went to community college in garden city and, uh, and they had a special night.

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It was once a month. I can't remember if it was like the first Sunday or the last Sunday or whatever, but they would have a special night once a month in which they would do a lot of popular praise and worship songs that were coming about at the end of the nineties before Christian music hit its big praise and worship boom, where it's really happened in the two thousands.

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But there were some of those popular praise and worship songs that this church was doing. None of our churches in our small

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Southwest Kansas town were doing these kinds of songs. We were still singing hymns out of the hymnal. So we thought this was cool.

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We would pile in the van and we would drive out to this special praise and worship night. And we did that for several weeks.

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And I think some of us really weren't all that exposed to charismaticism. There were charismatic churches in our

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Southwest Kansas town, but, but, but we weren't attending those churches. We were attending our, uh,

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Mennonite and Baptist churches, which very much were not continuous churches, at least not in a practical sense in which you saw those things regularly happening.

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I think there were certainly people there that thought God was speaking to them and stuff like that. But you just didn't see that charismaticism playing out in the, uh, in the congregations that we were part of.

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So anyway, we had been attending this for several months, may have even been attending it for a year. I don't recall.

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And then after one of those nights of praise and worship, there was a fun center there in Garden City.

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It's not there anymore, but it was a place where there was like go -karts, mini golf, laser tag, stuff like that.

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And we were all going out there to have some fun after this praise and worship night. So we were, uh, one of the groups was playing laser tag and that's where I was at.

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My sister was with another group and they were meeting in a room in private. And I don't remember why, but the, so my sister went off with them.

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I was playing laser tag with my friends and then we were going to meet up together and head back to the van and we were all going to be heading home.

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When I came to that place where we were all going to meet up, my sister came out of that room almost running and she was bawling, but trying not to, like she's trying to hold back her tears, but she can't help it.

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She's just crying. She's sobbing. And I said, what's wrong? And she said, I'll tell you later. And so we got the rest of our friends together.

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We got in the van, we headed home. I dropped off everybody because I was the driver. That was my role.

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So we're heading back home. And I finally asked her, I said, what was going on in that room that made you cry when you came out?

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And she said, they all started speaking in tongues and I'd never heard it before.

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It was the first time I had ever experienced this, them speaking in tongues. And I said, well, what was the problem?

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And she said, it felt evil. And she said,

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I just cannot explain it, but it was evil. I did not sense

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God in that room. I felt like I needed to get out of there. A lot of the friends that I hung out with at that particular time of my life, almost none of them, with the exception of very, very few, maybe a few of those friends that I haven't checked on, you know, uh, stalk them online on Facebook or something like that.

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Almost all of them have walked away from the Lord. Now there are cessationists out there who will, who will apostasy, uh, you know, apostasy happens even among cessationists of apostasy happens in any group.

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So I'm not saying that charismatics or charismaticism leads to apostasy. Whereas cessationism, you're safe.

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That's not the argument that I'm making, but I certainly saw it a lot more when

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I was in continuism. Then when I came out of that movement, I saw a lot of people walking away from the faith.

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And the reason why is because they had this, they were convinced that these things that they were doing were manifestations of God, these miraculous healings, these prophecies,

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God speaking to me and revealing something to me, these speaking in tongues. And a time came a little bit later on in their lives where they recognize these things aren't actually real.

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I've never healed anybody. I've never seen anyone get healed. God, it's not actually speaking things to my mind.

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I've never spoken in tongues. I just went along speaking gibberish along with the rest of my friends.

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And it's just not genuine spirit filled worship.

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Now, with what happened with my sister, I'm not saying that every time somebody does that gibberish thing that they're under the influence of evil spirits, they're probably acting out of some sort of a feeling.

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It's still of the flesh. It's not of the Holy Spirit, period. That's not of the Holy Spirit. It's still of the flesh, but I'm not saying that it's something evil that is taking place.

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It's just not real. These things are really not of the spirit. When a person speaks the gibberish language or the private prayer language and they have that feeling of ecstasy,

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I know they want to believe that that's the Holy Spirit, but you're really just experiencing that in your flesh.

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It's not supernatural. What's happening is not supernatural. Like I said, pagans do it.

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Jesus even warned against doing it. The Hindus have that Kundalini thing that they do where they will flop on the ground and they will speak the gibberish muttering nonsense and it looks like a charismatic worship service where charismatics are doing the same thing.

01:00:14

That is not a movement of the spirit that is taking place. It is imitation.

01:00:20

When it comes to understanding what the spiritual gifts are, we need to come back to the way that scripture defines them.

01:00:30

And very unfortunately, even with Sam Storms, with some of these responses that I've seen to the cessationist documentary, these folks are not even defining their terms.

01:00:40

Storms has started off here in part one by talking about desiring these spiritual gifts like prophecy and speaking in tongues, but he doesn't define what they are.

01:00:48

I've taken great care as I've explained these things to tell you exactly what they are.

01:00:53

Now, that's not to say that I don't think Sam never defines them because I have heard him define them and I've heard him explain that tongues are things like angelic languages, even though scripture doesn't say that.

01:01:07

It's a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of something that's said in 1

01:01:12

Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but Paul is being hyperbolic there.

01:01:18

He's not actually talking about speaking the tongues of angels. So we need to understand what the scripture says about this.

01:01:25

We should absolutely desire spiritual gifts. Yes, we should.

01:01:32

And I mentioned some of those gifts in Romans that we should desire. They aren't popular.

01:01:39

They're not the showy gifts. They're certainly not miraculous, but they are blessings that the spirit gives to a person that we should desire and walk in for the purpose of building up the church service, giving administration discernment.

01:02:01

These aren't showy gifts, but they are gifts that serve the body.

01:02:07

And that's the purpose of those gifts that we may build one another up in love.

01:02:13

Let me go to Ephesians chapter four and read that to you. And we'll conclude with this and I'll pick up again, you know, in a couple of weeks,

01:02:21

God willing with the next part of this response. So chapter four, verse 11, he himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets.

01:02:30

And by the way, we are still under their authority today. There are not new apostles and prophets, but every time we open the

01:02:39

Bible, we are reading from the apostles and prophets. That were given by God to speak this message that has been written down in the pages of scripture.

01:02:49

So he gave apostles and prophets, some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature, which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

01:03:16

So that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

01:03:27

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head that is

01:03:37

Christ from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

01:03:58

And that's the purpose of the spiritual gifts. And that's what we should desire them for that the body of Christ may grow up in love.

01:04:11

Heavenly father, we thank you for blessing us with your spirit. I think of the, of the words of the late

01:04:19

Keith green. Thank you, my father, for giving us your son and leaving your spirit till the work on earth is done.

01:04:31

Help us to continue in this work, to do it faithfully and humbly to the glory of your name and the edification of your body.

01:04:41

It is in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor

01:04:47

Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .tt

01:04:52

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