An Apologetic for Cessationism

This is apologetics live to answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries

Howdy no, I'm not Andrew Rappaport But I am drew from matter of theology who is basically

Andrews co -hosts now and I fill in when Andrew can't be here But we're excited that you are here, especially given the topic.

We're gonna be talking about cessationism Which is a topic we we have seen to be covering quite regularly

Here, but let me bring in my co -host. Of course my partner in crime with matter of theology

Chris Hough, what's up, bro? What's up, man? How you doing? Oh, you know same old same old

I'm living the dream as always but here's the thing, you know, I Started a new job, right?

It's true You did and that was something that I've been trying to do for a while I've been trying to get out of FedEx and get into a new job and I've gotten into a new job

And so I'm now working in sales so That's something

I never thought I would actually be in but I'm in sales and I'm working for a company that makes

Fragrance oils. I mean,

I'm happy for you about the job. I'm happy that you're no longer in FedEx But you know you do what you gotta do, bro, but no, let me tell you about this

Let me tell you about this. Okay, so I did not realize that the market for fragrance oils.

Well, it's huge Oh, yeah, it's huge and I'm talking all over the world. Yep I mean,

I've got a prospect list right my leads and It is Just in in my territory

It's just almost a thousand different companies right little companies of people who are making candles making waxes and Broke his microphone apparently

It just came right off. Keep going. That's weird. But uh, you know, so so I'm into doing that now, which is good you know, it's easier on my body and you know, especially lunchtime gives me a lot of time to study read scripture and a lot of people there are professing

Christians now, I don't know him well enough to say possessing Christians, but they are professing

Christians and Sometimes we have some good talk. Sometimes there's even At moments there might be some prayer time in there nice one -on -one.

So so that's good That's a fix the mic all as well. Okay, good job. Well, what's going on with you man?

Oh, man As you would say live in the dream Work is going well, which is which is awesome

Family's doing well Gosh what else I'm reading a lot right now I put my current book list on IG stories and and it was a reminder of how much

I'm reading But but yeah, man doing doing well plugging along sweet sweet You know,

I want to bring up a comment here Melissa says Congratulations drew you get a new job and you get to smell good and this is so true, right?

we have a lab where we develop all these scents these fragrances and but but we have like seven buildings on this one road and The entire road smells so good.

I Mean, I mean it smells like Belgian waffles like it's amazing

It's so good So if you are starting a candle company or whatever and you need some fragrance oils to add

Let me know hit your boy up. Look up aromatic fragrances international, you know,

I'd be glad to set you up, but We have some announcements do it

Andrew sent me these announcements. I think they're really good announcements One of them is pretty big. So let me start with the second one that he sent me

Next week's episode will be the episode with Andrews friend Anthony on gay

Christianity It will be Anthony trying to now not

Anthony Silvestro, right? No, but but Andrews friend Anthony He will be trying to defend the notion of gay

Christianity So that's next week's episode But this is one.

I think is pretty big. Okay? Michael Brown and Andrew are in the discussion phase

Of setting up a debate on are the miraculous gifts for today

Now, I think that's that's pretty amazing. That's that's crazy. That is because there was

When when Tom Pennington's book came out Michael Brown did an episode on it.

Yep, and you have it right there a biblical case for cessationism We would say is a a more expansive work on his sermon from the strange fire conference

Yes, and if you haven't listened to that go to the grace to you app Look up truth matters strange fire conference, correct?

All the all the sermons messages are in there. Let me take off that comment

You can also just go to gty org and just search strange fire Tom Pennington Gty org also has a cool feature that if there's a quote that you've ever heard by John or Bodhi or Lawson or anybody that's ever preached and they have the sermons on gty

All you do is type in I think Steve said give us some men who know the truth Like and it will that the way the search feature works is you it'll take you right to the sermon that that gets from yeah

Yeah, that's awesome. So so dr. Brown did this episode on his podcast? Trying to Trying to disprove

Tom Pennington's book and I have a baby running towards me right now. I hear that.

Okay He's not running towards me. He's running towards his mommy But here's one of the things that I found was really fascinating in this this episode of Michael Brown Chris He the point was basically to disprove

Tom's book. Yeah, but He didn't disprove Thomas know what he did was he basically took the the

Argumentative claims and he addressed the argumentative claims He didn't address the support that Tom Pennington provides for his claims, right?

So it's a proper way to argue if we're laying out a biblical case and and we're bringing out an argument

We're going to state our claim first Yeah, then what follows is the defense or the proof or the support of our claim

Now Michael Brown didn't didn't address any of his support. He just addressed the claim

So with that did Michael Brown Refute Tom Pennington. No He just he just took the claim and then threw in His what his view of what the claim should be or or the charismatic?

Refutation of that claim without addressing the support. Yeah, and this this goes back to something we kind of talked about last week

Was that just last week? We're talking about debating and yeah. Yeah It's been a long week is

Whenever you're engaging with something like this engage The work that's been done engage the scriptures engage the argument

And that's one of the reasons that when you and I were talking about what to do tonight I wanted to address this is because We need to have a solid apologetic

Or cessationism right and and the biblical case for it because right now as of you know, today is

October 5th 2023 Coming off of the heels off of the g3 national conference where they announced that next year 2024 this same time

October 3rd through the 5th of 2024 at Grace Community Church the cessationist conference

Lord willing will be taking place right and so when that was announced the

The I'll just call it what it is the immature Continuationist ran amok, right?

and Complaining about everything from the price of the conference to Calling, you know, and we're gonna get into this a little bit later

But but saying that you know a friend of mine recently said that cessationist an atheist have more in common that they want than they want to admit

Said by a disqualified pastor anyway, um, you know, but but but the issue is brothers and sisters

We need to engage with the arguments like don't because this is something we see often especially on social media but it also can be something that happens when you're face to face with someone is don't fall for The ad hominem don't fall for the misdirection don't fall for the distraction

One prime example of that just while we're talking about this This this guy named Shane Eidelman he's the the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Church in Southern, California and he

He sent out a question on October 3rd on on Twitter or Twix or X what everyone call it

I call it Twix cuz I like Twix, but I'm Twix cuz I'm trying to be healthy. Anyway, um And a social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Yeah, right. He said this he said quote I'd like to ask a question to the people below. I'm genuinely curious

Would you have been embarrassed in the upper room on Pentecost when the spirit fell or was it such a stupid question?

Oh, it's so ridiculous Or would you have loved to have been there more below any tag

Josh Bice MacArthur Phil Johnson Justin Peters Virgil Walker Scott annual

Tom Pennington Todd Friel and multiple people responded and I I affirmed

The responses by Josh Bice and Justin Peters and I said spot -on and I said not to mention

What happened when the spirit fell on the day of Pentecost and both of them by the way Both of them said of course No I wouldn't be embarrassed that would be amazing to be there when the church starts or I Think Shane at one point asked about the amount of transfiguration as well and Justin Peters was like I was mystified by the question.

I wouldn't write it. Why on earth would I be embarrassed? All right, and and then I said not to mention what happened when the spirit fell on the day at Pentecost Well, I heard that bro.

I heard that pop and and then I and then on the Mount but transfiguration is much much different than what we see coming from the

Charismatic movement today. That was my response. That's all I said and this guy named

Ezra the scribe He said listen to this quote he said because there were dozens of them

But a billion of us you do realize there are literally more people praying in tongues as a routine

Part of their prayer lives then there are Calvinists Oh, I forgot

Calvinists don't believe in a real God who speaks acts thinks hears or answers period so Drew you see me do this very rare It's very rare brothers and sisters.

If you don't know me and drew knows this Andrew knows this about me As well,

I don't get into debates on social media It drives me nuts, but every now and then one comes up or two

Another one came up with another continuationist this week as well Where I'm like, you know what?

No, no, no. No. No, I'm not gonna let that one lie. And and so I responded now

I Clearly pointed out I said brother Biblical Calvinists believe in the

God of Scripture who does each of those things according to his living active sufficient and authoritative word

Aside from the ridiculous display of not understanding what biblical Calvinists believe at best and or completely

Intentionally misrepresenting what Calvinists believe at worst you proved my point But first I must say that the number of people is not a defense for something being

Normative and ordained by the Lord for use today There are billions who worship

Buddha millions of Roman Catholics Does the sheer number prove with it what they believe is true now to my original point and then

I proceeded to go in there And and talk about that what we saw in the New Testament as far as tongues

And I know we're probably gonna get into this. So I won't go through what I went through there. No response So don't

I say all that to say? Be I was respectful. I called him brother and I said if you'd like to engage further on this or any other topics

Let me know we can set up a zoom call or something You know no response whatsoever, so right it's important that we when it comes and the reason this is so important and This is at the cruciform conference.

The first cruciform conference that you and I did. I think it was 2020. Yep. I said we were sitting in the hallway in between sessions and it was a

Hugh me Andrew Justin and we were talking and After the experiences that you and I have had with continuationist and continuationist churches

Yep, I Justin and I were talking about it and I looked at Justin and I looked at you and I said I'm of the opinion just my opinion that this issue is a

Primary issue. It's not secondary. It's not tertiary now for Everyone out there listening what

I mean by primary is that it's a it's a tier one issue Meaning that scripture clearly defines how the

Holy Spirit is to work in what we call the church age the age that we are in So any affront to that and any affront to the sufficiency authority?

And the veracity of scripture is an affront to God himself the issue of Cessationism versus continuationism is an issue that needs to be ironed out.

I am of the opinion This is just me personally. I'm not telling anyone listening that they should or shouldn't stay or leave a church

If if you know, there are differing views But for me and my family, we will not attend a church where the elders are continuationists if After a detailed and lengthy biblical loving gentle conversation

We can't go. Okay. No, we're just saying the same thing, but in two different ways, right? I will not stay and I will not let my family stay in a church where the elders

Repeatedly question scripture as is as if it's not enough and or Assigning works to the

Holy Spirit that he had he has and wants no part of right right now first I have to I have to answer this question from Kofi deep dive discipleship.

He says drew is that bluey in the background? Yes, it is It is bluey in the background bluey stays on in the house all the time

Yeah, all the time and the reason being is because It's one of the very few shows that are actually very clean

Yeah, that's actually a good show. Now. There are some episodes. I don't particularly like Because you know one teaches evolution you can tell through how they're playing it teaches evolution

I don't particularly like that one. Yeah, but it's a great show for parents It's a great show for kids me and my wife will watch it just the two of us after the kids go to bed

We're just still watching it and we've seen them over and over and over and over and over again

We love bluey around here Nice, but to address what you were saying, yeah, man,

Chris The idea of tier one right and we've talked about this through the years just you and me offline

Mm -hmm is Some people would say is this a tier one issue a tier two issue.

Is this tertiary? well when we start talking about the gifts and how

God the Spirit moves We're we're talking about his nature

We're talking about the things that he does and so we have to be very very careful as To what we attribute to the

Holy Spirit. Mm -hmm So we and Justin has made this point numerous times in all the play and all of the documentaries

He's been on and and the interviews he's done and the teachings he's given He he has he has always said you have to be very careful of attributing works to the

Holy Spirit that are clearly not of the Holy Spirit and Done through people who are clearly not people that God would choose to work through in that manner, correct?

Absolutely. Yeah, because because what are we saying about God at that point? Right, if well uses charlatans and tricksters to do all of these things and saying it's a movement of God What are we saying about God and that's that that's the biggest thing about this man is you've got all of I mean you've got when you look at let's just let's just take away the

Nonsense that we see today as far as the charismatic chaos and the charismania that goes on the the fringe groups, right?

But but overall the question is are they even fringe? There because the fringe groups would be the people like the sandstorms

Right people like the Matt slicks the people like the John Pipers. Those are the fringe groups, right?

Yep. Yep. Yeah, man. I mean so but when you look at that when you look at the

The the the epics in in in Scripture where Where the

Lord did gift people with with miraculous gifts when you look at that They were they were believers

They were truth -tellers. Yep They they they sought after holiness.

They did not want to lead people astray. They loved Christ. They loved his word There's the key

They The whole point was to always establish authority in that that so so that whoever heard and then us

Would benefit from the scriptures and going thus says the Lord. Yeah, that's authoritative How do we know that because he gave them the ability to do those things to validate?

Who they were to the Lord and how they were going to be used throughout church history Yeah, yeah now you mentioned the three the three epics or epochs.

However, you want to say that? Throughout church history from the Old Testament to the New Testament where you have

Moses Right the time of Moses and Joshua. Yep You have Elijah and Elisha and then we would move to the

New Testament and say Jesus and the Apostles, correct? now Michael Brown is one that has made the argument that that's not true

Because even when we see prophets who are outside of those times That's God moving in a miraculous way the fact that you have prophets.

Well, that's not Exactly the case Where do we see the miracles taking place the signs and the wonders taking place?

We see them primarily in those three epochs Now God has had his messengers the people who go and speak for him

Yes, right and in between each of those times where miracles weren't being performed

Scripture was being written correct. Okay now Let's just let's just entertain.

Dr. Brown's argument Think about this in terms of statistics. Okay. Now, I'm sure all of us who have been through maybe higher level math in in high school or Math in College for everyone that went to college.

We've probably taken the statistics course, right? Now in statistics, what are the things that that you're doing?

you're looking at clumps of data and the clumps of data give you the accurate range of What's taking place, right?

Now Chris in statistics, are there outliers? Always always

So but so outliers are things that are outside of the norm.

They lie outside of the data group Now while outliers happen, do we look at the outlier to try to discredit the data group?

No, no because because that cluster In the in the that statistical group gives us our answer

It gives us it gives us the range of what we're looking for So when we look at all of the miracles that are done

They're grouped in these three sections because that's where the signs miracles and wonders take place

Sure, there can be there can be outliers But the outlier is is not to take away from the main statistical grouping right, right and It's It's fascinating to see that Andrew has written

He's given a sermon on this at the cessationist conference that took place at Kootenai Community Church Jim Osman's Church Which I think was last year

He and he also turned that message into a blog that you can find on striving for eternity. Yep, and in that He lists out the number of miracles that are listed in the entire

Bible and When you look at the spread of those miracles in the Old Testament You can't help but see the groupings that show up right, and so that's where they get those three epochs the the the

Moses and the and the Joshua section the Elijah and Elisha section and the

Jesus and the Apostles section Correct. Well and Another another key thing to point out while there are principles that we can take

From the narrative portions of Scripture, right? There are principles that we can take and apply to our lives

That we see in the the narratives the storytelling that takes place through the Bible In no way shape or form does the description of those narratives become a

Prescriptive command for us to participate in When you see when you see

Moses coming down From from the mountain with the Ten Commandments and and Aaron and the

Israelites have fashioned the golden calf What happens, you know a lot of people are killed does that mean that we should identify all the false worshipers around us and as Benny Hinn would say take a

Holy Ghost machine gun to him No, that's a that that is a narrative.

It does highlight how serious the Lord takes worship It does highlight for us that the

Lord will not tolerate False worship. Mm -hmm. So yeah. Yeah.

Well, there's you're talking about descriptive text versus prescriptive text Now this is a hermeneutical issue

Yes, we don't take descriptive text something that just describes what's going on and treat it as though It's a prescriptive text, right?

We can't do that But There was something else you just said

I wanted to touch on but then I forgot it. It literally just like left left my brain

But we do see serious worship. Oh That's what it well it relates to that.

Okay sort of relates to that So what we see in the New Testament or or let's not say the

New Testament. Let's say today We see these modern -day quote -unquote prophets, right saying that they speak in the name of the

Lord Now at the same time they would they would tell us they would come against us as cessationists and say we don't believe the

Bible Be as as these gifts being for today Now the problem is they don't believe the

Bible where the Bible says if you prophesy falsely you should be stoned and Yet and yet what is is the the rate of?

quote -unquote Prophets who get their prophecies wrong? Yeah, so it's

Here's something very very important When it comes to prophecy as in the

Foretelling of future events not the fourth telling of what has already taken place or the proclamation of the word

When it comes to prophecy and prophets in the scriptures both Old and New Testaments the

Bible nowhere rightly divided using correct hermeneutics

The Bible nowhere supports the structure of a first -tier or second -tier prophet

Right now what charismatics would do is they would say well people like Chris Vallotton For example, right and you you find all of these prophets who predicted that Trump would be elected president in 2020

Well, that didn't happen Still hasn't happened. Oh, I got that one wrong.

That's okay. You ever notice how they always prophesy the Republican Nominee for president, but they never prophesy

But but but but here's here's the problem overall with this number one you cannot

This is what I can't get my continuationist friends to understand How can you say that you believe in this is what

I challenged Matt Slick with when he when we were talking about this And and it was a good conversation ended up being a very good conversation that got heated there for a minute

But you cannot say That you hold to sola and tota scriptura scriptura and not be a biblical cessationist, right?

You can't Because that means I'm open but cautious So that means that you are open to to the idea that the canon of Scripture is not closed

Well, there goes there goes there goes sola and tota scriptura right there, right there goes it's out the window But then you you you open the door for the doctrine of demons to come and you open the door for manipulation and deception

When scripture in Psalm 19 says that the Word of God the law of the Lord it makes wise the simple

That means it shuts the door to the leaving it wide open to whatever could come in Shut the door of your mind.

How do you do that with the Word of God? So so that there are that this whole thing that you can you can be a

Propheting and get prophecy wrong and it's okay. You're still you're not a false prophet.

You just got that one wrong Absolutely, not. Do you understand the gravitas? What you just did you're displaying you have no fear of the

Lord No God said the Lord the Lord appeared to me in a vision and he said that Donald Trump was gonna be elected

No, I know. This is just one example. I Think of bro. We did an episode of matter of theology on on the whole wake up all of thing

Right. Did you look at number? Mmm, it's my mind is getting ahead of my mouth.

It's There are eternal damning consequences

To being open To prophecy and saying thus says the

Lord when we have the completed word the more sure words Peter said Yep, you have eternal consequences

That's enough. But if it wasn't there the temporal consequences of The heartbreak in the turmoil and the struggle now

I remember when Bethel and Bill Johnson and that whole wake up all of thing That was the thing that hit me here in the heart and the chest the most

Was you need to let you need to be pointing these parents to Scripture, right?

and let the let the let the Holy Spirit through the through the The Word of God the living the active the authoritative sword

Comfort them and you're giving people these false hope and these false assurances and it's like It is just one of the coolest things in the world to operate that way instead of saying let's go to the scriptures and look at what the scriptures say about suffering and the sovereignty of God and Etc.

So on and so forth. So, you know not to mention that there are rules first Corinthians for Most charismatic love to write first Corinthians 14 first Corinthians 12 through 14, right?

We are we are Continuationist well, okay. Well then okay if you're charismatic and continuationist, then what do you do with those rules in first Corinthians 14?

when it talks about that number one that only two or three people at most were to prophesy that number two that Everybody in the congregation were to evaluate the prophecy against what?

previous biblical revelation What do you what do you do with that and then number three is those with the gift of prophecy?

I'm quoting Tom Pennington right here those with the gift of prophecy were to speak one at a time

Yep, and continue continue with those rules if you spoke in tongues Two or three at the most are to speak in a tongue in turn

But then you must write it's not a suggestion. You must have an interpreter, right?

And not only that Women were not allowed to speak in tongues either because of the command in first Corinthians 14 to remain

Silent and what I can tell you I can tell you from experience Okay in many

Pentecostal ish Churches today Pentecostal and Pentecostal ish churches today

There are numerous women who sit in the pews who will just blurt out in what they call tongues

Right, right Well, and let's I mean

Let's talk about tongues for a minute man. Okay, you know the whole thing with with tongues in Scripture Is the the

Greek word is is Glossa well there go ahead so This is your wheelhouse, bro.

Well, there's so the word for tongue. Yes is Glossa But there's also a term that's that's

Interchangeable with that and it's it's also used for language, which is the word dialectus where we get the term dialect

And and we see that term show up in Acts chapter 2 So when when we see tongues first appearing in the

New Testament in Acts at the day of Pentecost they are speaking in known dialects

Correct and this is this is not some kind of gibberish. This is a known language

Okay Sorry good, it's it's not a language of angels

Okay, they're not speaking a prayer language There's what there is honestly no purpose for a prayer language.

No need for it. No, no They are not when not when known not when the

Son of God The second member of the triune Godhead and the Holy Spirit the third member of the triune

Godhead are constantly and consistently Interceding for me to the

Father on my behalf right now nowhere in Scripture nowhere in Scripture Don't let anybody tell you other one.

We can go through them nowhere in Scripture Is there any warrant for some sort of private prayer language where you disengage your mind?

It's quite the opposite It's always Using your mind. That's correct. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Yeah, that's correct. No So so those terms

Are used in in Acts chapter 2 they are used they can be used kind of interchangeably, but the term

Glossa All it means is either to speak or it refers to the organ in your mouth the tongue

Yeah, that's the only thing it means It just means simply means to speak

That's what it is. So now We have all of these people in the modern charismatic church

That are trying to attribute the gift of tongues as this nonsensical gibberish

That is that that it's in it's it's not intelligible, right?

No one can understand it No, no, you never see anyone interpret it what it what it means by what they're saying

So they're breaking the rules, but yet it continues Yep. Yep. Well, and it's the same the same rules by the way that you find as far as prophecy

Apply to tongues like there must be interpreters It must be only only one at a time

It's not it's not multiple and this is all in 1st Corinthians 14 and then women Don't do it, right?

So it's when you examine When you examine the scriptures and compare it right be a

Berean use some discernment to what we see today There's no warrant for it. So in in in I know we were gonna talk about good old

Mark Driscoll But he tweeted today. I took a screenshot just in case he decides to block me because We did interact we did interact

He does it was an interesting interaction He said this to in a tweet today, he said quote scripture alone does not contain anything resembling the doctrines of cessation ism

If all Bible commentaries disappeared tomorrow, so would cessation ism

Period close quote. No it I mean, no, it wouldn't we've been going for what 35 minutes?

And we've already referenced quite a few So, so here show that yeah, we can we can see the doctrine of cessation ism in scripture we can see it where Miracles just aren't being done right

Paul doesn't heal trophimus in Miletus He doesn't he doesn't send a piece of his robe or cloth to Timothy to heal

Timothy He he leaves them sick Yeah, now Tim Paul doesn't even tell

Timothy pray for your stomach ailments that the Lord might heal you He says hey, hey drink some wine for your stomach illness.

Now. Now, why would that be that would be because alcohol is is

Has a medicinal a medicinal use right when you drink alcohol it kills the bacteria

That's in your stomach and they're drinking water. That is that is just dirty water It's filled with parasites and bacterias and things

So, of course if you continually drink the water, you're gonna continually be putting bacteria in your body as you're traveling along But some out some alcohol here some alcohol there

Will kill that bacteria right in your in your stomach

So we see we see that that there are gifts that do start to fade out now another thing that people don't

Quite realize or pay attention to is I think it's 1st Corinthians chapter 13

Let me turn there. I should have had it already man. This is my problem dude all the time even when I'm preaching

You think of something you're like, oh wait No, I have I have the text that I want to go to but I'm not

I don't have it already marked out to turn there I think it's in verse

Let's start in verse Eight. Yeah, let's start in verse eight. It's verse eight that I'm looking at Paul says love never fails

But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with they will be done away

If there are tongues, they will cease if there is knowledge. It will be done away now

The interesting thing where it says prophecy will be done away The phrase done away in The Greek is in the passive voice

Now if you don't believe me go get Logos Bible software Do a word study right there.

It will tell you that it is in the passive voice Okay. Now, what does it mean that it's in the passive voice?

It means Well, no, I'm gonna we're sponsored by log on I know

I'm kidding So What does it mean that it's in the passive voice? It means that something outside of it will come against it to cause it to Stop right something from the outside will come against that causing it to stop

Now where it says tongues they will cease that word cease is in the middle voice

Okay Now let's explain the middle voice We have the active voice

I hit the ball We have the passive voice the ball hit me and then we have the middle voice.

I hit myself So with this word cease in the middle voice

It's saying that tongues will cease on their own and you can actually do a word study

Through the New Testament with this word being in the middle voice and every time it shows up he finished

He stopped right? He stopped himself Right, that's how it's used.

So so it means it will cease on its own. Mm -hmm Yep, any thoughts a lot of thoughts man a lot of thoughts.

I like it that you went there and It's very very true. There is a one verse apologetic on The fact that these things have ceased now

I want to be clear too because one of the attacks and one of the Misrepresentations all the time that we get as cessationist is you guys don't believe in miracles, right?

You guys don't believe that the Holy Spirit moves today. You guys get to that. Yeah. Yeah, so you guys

We can You know you guys you guys don't believe it that that that the

Lord is still moving. No, that's not true at all That's not true at all every time

Every time the Lord saves a wretched sinner like me That's a miracle every single time

Regeneration faith is granted to someone who was once an enemy of the

Lord that the efficacious Application of the finished and ongoing work of the

Lord Jesus Christ on the on the cross for the forgiveness of sins Every time that's applied. That's a miracle from a temporal standpoint every time one of us gets sick and by the miraculous creation of the human body we are healed because of the

Antibodies in our system or the medicine that we take if we go see a doctor or the rest that we get when we sleep

That's a miracle and if that wasn't enough do we absolutely believe that the Lord can

Miraculously, that means that means something that's not normative something that can't be proven

Miraculously heals those who are sick or though. I mean in a providential and or miraculous way.

Absolutely We do no one's saying that the the difference is cessationist believe that the normative

Gifts given to those individuals For those miraculous gifts for the establishing of apostolic authority.

They do not exist today Period yeah, and and you know people use first Corinthians 13 all the time you ask for thoughts

Well people use first Corinthians 13 one as a defense for private prayer language and the tongues of angels

Paul saying if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and do not but do not have love

I have become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. That's a rebuke That's an admonishment to the

Corinthian Church because they were they were over emphasizing these spiritual gifts Over what was written in the scriptures?

They were over emphasizing the spiritual gifts instead of what the apostolic commands they received from Paul and the other

Apostles That was what he was saying and he was saying look Even if there is such a thing as the tongues of angels

But you have not loved you are nothing but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. That is not

The the guys there is a there's a private prayer language the the tongues of angels that we need to seek after and want to speak and That is not what that means

Right. That is not an apologetic. That is not a defense for Unplugging your mind from your worship of God, right, right and there's even in getting into that What does

Paul say about tongues one who speaks in tongues and say in a private in a private prayer language?

He says all he does is he edifies himself And and there's a problem with that because the gifts are meant to edify the church

They're not meant to edify self they're meant to edify the church So what point is there in a private prayer language with a gift that's meant to edify the church?

There is a right one. Well, not not to mention that like and this is where this is where we as believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ have got to Do a better job myself included of thinking biblically

Why did the Lord when the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost Why did the

Lord give the gift of tongues To those preaching the gospel

Why did he do that? well, there was a Part of it was a rebuke to Israel It's one exactly so let's pause there for a second.

It was a judgment It was a judgment of God to to to Israel right, so understand that when

When that happens if you have a place in a church in a person and a pastor who's claiming that he's speaking in some

Sort of tongues that you can understand. That's a judgment. Yep Yeah, yeah

And and it's specifically tied to the to the grafting in of the Gentiles because Christ said what he says

There's a people who are not my people that I will call my people Room well Yeah, well tongues is a gift in order to draw those people so that the gospel can go out

Right to those people by messengers who have not learned that language, correct?

Correct, and that's why it's miraculous, right miraculous now. No, I've had the question now

Chris. Would you say that? That that God couldn't do that today. No, I Would never

I would hope Be so boastful and arrogant to say that God could not do that today as he could he sure he absolutely could if there was if there was a group of people who were part of the elect and there was one person that Went to share the gospel with them and they did not know the language and the

Lord chose In that moment to miraculously gift that person with the proclamation of the gospel of God and the

Lord Jesus Christ according to the scriptures Then yes But it is not a normative practice that we find today nor is it a gift that we should seek after?

If we're gonna go and share the gospel with different people groups that that know a different language

Then we need to be a pro learn that language and the ability to communicate the truths of God's Word in that language now that gets us into more of an apologetic

For cessationism and and against continuationism

Because where we see the modern view of tongues really start to take shape is in 1900 in Topeka, Kansas under Charles Fox Parham and we've discussed this on the show several times but what happened was there was a student of Parham named

Agnes Osmond and The spirit came upon her and she spoke in what she called Chinese Chinese and Supposedly wrote in Chinese and I love what

Phil Johnson says He says if you've ever seen it, then you don't have to speak Chinese to know she's not writing in China in the cessationist movie

They have a screenshot of what it was. Yeah, right, right and of course Andrews wife speaks the language reads the language and you know

She says yeah, that's nothing that's chicken scratch of nothing but What happened was?

Parham sent a group of missionaries to China in Believing that that this group of people would go and the miraculous

Gift of tongues would fall upon them and they would be able to speak in Chinese and convert the people there

So so so what were they thinking that the gift of tongues was Immediately their assumption was that it was a known human language

It was not gibberish Only once they came back and that missionary attempt failed

Only once they came back did Parham say? Oh, well, this must be some kind of other

Ecstatic utterance and that's where the idea of language attributing that to the language of angels came from So they had to change the definition of tongues because what they weren't what they weren't doing was speaking in tongues

So they had to change it But initially they thought this was a known language because scripture clearly teaches in Acts 2 known languages

Yeah, yeah, well acts 2 acts 10 acts 14 and then you see it once in mark

I'd have to go back and look oh Yeah. No, you do see it once in mark. It's in the the textual variant

At the end the added verse long, right, right right added end But still which by the way, if you have a 12 verse long textual variant, okay

Let's just use some caution when we're relying upon that one. Correct. So it's

Here's here's brother. Here's something else to you I've been thinking about man is just as we've been just kind of mulling over this and as you guys can tell this is

Very freestyle. We don't have any notes so One of the things

I've been thinking about a lot lately just because of our background right my background as far as leading music and worship in churches you probably did it with me for a year and You know, but it's amazing how much

Charismatic ministry philosophy Has infected the

Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today And I use the word infected for a reason now.

Let me let me also stop here and be very very clear. I do not and would not ever say

That there are brothers and sisters out there who are continuationist or charismatic who aren't believers, right?

I do not believe that and and do not hold to that and and no one that we would hold to know that either

No, absolutely not say that Andrew wouldn't say that John MacArthur wouldn't say that. No, we're crying out loud

He's got a continuationist coming to speak at the Shepherd's Conference in March. So You know, it's because he's a friend of his, you know what

I mean? And and he is a solid preacher but Like I said earlier we just got to be very very careful

You know, I'm reading a book right now by William Spurstow entitled the wiles of Satan and It's it's only this thick.

It's not very thick. It's Less than an inch thick but it's dense And one of the things that that William Spurstow is a

Puritan points out in this book is That we have to remember as Scripture tells us that even the demons know the

Scriptures and they shudder Satan is a better theologian than we could ever hope to be.

Yep, bro We got a special guest that just popped up in the oh cool. All right I think I'm gonna bring him on.

All right, let me well, let me finish this thought first. Okay, okay Tell you tell our special guest to wait.

I Might regret it I'm sorry But we have to remember that he is older than all of us he knows

God And knows the Scriptures and so we just have to be very very very careful

When we say we are open to my continuations brothers and sisters out there We have to be very very careful when we say we were open but cautious Shut the door.

Yeah, let's just stick to what the Scriptures say and what the Scriptures teach and Stop yearning for more.

You don't need more So it's like it's like I say about leaky dispensationalist, right?

Whenever something leaks it means there's a broken pipe somewhere. You got a fix. Yes. So let me bring in our special guest

Mr. Justin Peters. How you doing, brother? Hey guys Hey brothers y 'all doing all right,

I'm doing great. How are you? Good good. I had to throw in that dispensational joke just because you were back

Figured that was the case. I figured it was either Justin or Jim. I was like, okay. He's throwing that in there

Yeah, I didn't think I drew texted me earlier and asked me if I could come on I really didn't think

I'd be able to because I had something scheduled but that had to be rescheduled So, okay. Cool. I thought

I'd pop in for a little bit. Oh, please. Yes Yeah, we do what we would love it

I mean because this is a topic that you have been dealing with for a very long time and of course if anyone who knows you follows you knows your story and In in seeking out, you know healing from from these supposed faith healers

So you've been dealing with this for a very very long time Yeah, yeah

I have that was kind of my introduction to the movement a lot of people think the reason that I'm a Cessationist is because of what

I experienced as a teenager, but nothing could be further from the truth I wasn't even converted as a teenager

I thought I was but I wasn't so that that really has no bearing at all one way or the other on my theology now so I'm convinced of cessationism because of scripture and the nature of miracles and church history and Yeah, and the observational

Evidence for it simply supports what I already see in scripture, right?

Yeah, and that's you know, when when when I started moving into the cessationist camp

I was going to a vineyard church and Vineyard if for our listeners if you don't know then the vineyard was birthed out of the

Jesus people movement from the 1970s John Wimber And he also which is funny

John Wimber doesn't have doesn't clearly doesn't have a good Gift of prophecy to know that Lonnie Frisbee who helped him launch the vineyard movement was a homosexual weird about that, but Yeah, but but I was in the

I was in the vineyard church and I was going to Liberty University and I had to write a paper on charismatic gifts versus cessationism and of course one of the books that I had to get was the strange fire book and Reading through the strange fire book it blew my mind right just the biblical evidence that dr

MacArthur lays out in there Yeah and then I also started looking at the church itself that I was attending because I would see people have these words of knowledge people

Are having these prophecies? People are speaking in tongues and I'm going

Why isn't that happening to me? Hmm am I not holy enough am

I not seeking God enough? Do I not have that connection that all these other people seem to have what's wrong with me?

And no one's told me no one said well, it's because you don't have enough faith. It was the natural conclusion

I arrived at from watching all these other people trying to do it myself and then failing.

Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly it it it puts a burden on people

I heard MacArthur described the charismatic movement This way he said it is doubt looking for proof

Doubt looking for proof and and that is a great way to describe this movement because the dirty little secret of the charismatic movement is is that the vast majority of Those in this movement don't really believe

What they say they believe or they're they're riddled with doubts about Scripture about the

Bible in general. They're riddled with doubts about the gospel And so that is why they're constantly searching after the next buzz the next dream the next vision the next trip to heaven the next time the next wonder it's this endless hamster wheel of Going after the next shining object, right, you know chasing after the next bug because they're trying to they're trying to find something to to put those doubts to bed because they're riddled with doubts and the

Bible is not enough and It's just not enough for them. And so, you know if if charismatic spent a fraction of the time

Exegeting scripture that they do exegeting their own experiences and their own dreams and visions.

Yeah Well for one thing they wouldn't be charismatic anymore, right? Yeah, it is.

I thought that was a great way to describe. It's an endless hamster wheel. Yeah There's a there was this comment by Melissa Owen and it took me back to something else

But she said I had a continuationist tell me that cessationist churches are dead because we quenched the

Holy Spirit Now that's something we do here right that we quench the spirit you don't believe in the works of the

Spirit, but it took me back to the notion of experience versus seeking holiness through the gospel of Christ because these these charismatic churches they rely on Experience Justin like you were talking about they're seeking after the next thing because why because the the plain ordinary

Means of grace that is the preaching of the word is not enough The gospel message of Christ is not enough for them.

That's right. They must pursue something more. Yeah Yeah, it's standpoint epistemology from a biblical standpoint.

Yep, or they're trying to say it's biblical It's it's all based upon their experience instead of you know, instead of turning to the scriptures

Go ahead and into the point of quenching the spirit. I appreciate that comment from Alyssa Melissa Yeah, I wish

I had a nickel for every time I've heard Charismatics say oh you don't believe in the Holy Spirit.

You don't believe in the power of the Holy Spirit you know to the contrary as a cessationist as Cessationist we should cede no ground in our pneumatology to the charismatics

Hey, man, I I do not believe my view of the Holy Spirit is such that I do not believe

That someone can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit Teach the heresies that these people teach.

I'm not all charismatics, but the big leaders of the charismatic I do not you know, the

Copeland's and the hens and the Bill Johnson's and Duplantis's and all those guys.

I do not believe that they can teach The heresies they teach offer the false prophecies that they offer

Exploit the poor the sick the desperate and the widows for their own personal financial gain Be indwelt by the

Holy Spirit and feel no conviction for that, right? I don't believe that's possible. My view of the

Holy Spirit is far too high for that, right? Truly indwelt by the Holy Spirit the

Holy Spirit of God would drop them to their knees under such heavy conviction That's right. And that's not happening at all.

And So it is not it's not we who have a low view of the help

Holy Spirit It's they who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. All right. Yeah, again, I'll say it as cessation as we see no ground in Our pneumatology to the charismatic movement.

That's right. You know, and one of the things that that we do see it as cessationists within the cessationist group is

I think we see some some people who are afraid to use some of the language

That would that we would use for the Holy Spirit right the Holy Spirit moving or the Holy Spirit in action

Because we have seen it so perverted by the charismatic movement so we kind of stay away from that language because it's been misused by the

Holy Spirit and And let me tell my cessationist friends that might be listening. Don't be afraid of that, right?

We understand the Holy Spirit moves if we have such a high view of the Holy Spirit He does the miraculous things such as Chris you explained earlier

The greatest miracle that that we can we can ever witness where the dead lifeless person comes to life where their their heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh and they have now been born again come

To life in Christ. That is the greatest miracle that we can see. It's not leg lengthening, right?

It's not any type of Temporary healing it is the eternal healing that comes through the gift of salvation.

Amen. Yeah, that's right that's the that's the greatest miracle of all and I tell people maybe y 'all heard me say this if God could heal me right now if my

CP my cerebral palsy he can heal me right now make me run like a deer but even if he did that that Miracle would pale in comparison.

That's right. God did for me when he saved me from my sin right, that's the greatest miracle and I Affirm, I have no problem at all with believing that God still heals people today

Sovereign will to do so That's right, and I've seen a few not a lot, but I have seen a few credible credible testimonies of miraculous healing not not a slow recovery over a time, but a

Miraculous healing I've not seen a few of those so I have no problem with that So I don't reject that what

I do reject that there are miracle workers today I absolutely reject that right, right and I love what you said.

I forgot It may have been in the strange fire conference one of your talks in the strange fire conference where you said

My my cerebral palsy is only temporary Because I have

I have eternity to live without it and I thought that was the most powerful thing Yeah, that could be said and it's so funny because right after the first American gospel came out

Well, maybe not right after it was a little bit after but there was a clip of Something you were saying going around on Facebook and I kind of grabbed that clip and I shared it and this was right after Chris And I met you at cruciform and you know, we spent time together and got to know you

Someone that I used to go to the vineyard church with commented under that and said I think he's just bitter and he's angry and I said

I said well I've just spent you know, the last weekend or so with Justin and getting to know

Justin If you know him, you would never be able to say anything like that because there is no bitterness

He is the kindest person you could ever run into even with those who disagree with him

So I think you might want to change your position on that Well, I appreciate that brother, thank you, that's kind and encouraging thank you

Well, Justin, what would you say man? If you know, I mean, I mean look I mean Mark Driscoll He just said cessationism looks at a world full of infant genocide war and political corruption

Just says my biggest enemy is that artsy young pastor with sneakers and a guitar I'm no fan of skinny jeans, but I don't

I Do not think that that is the biggest Threat or biggest problem in the world.

No, I read that I was like what an absurd thing to say What an absurd thing to say

Yeah, Mark Driscoll my goodness that guy That guy's a dumpster fire,

I mean he is an absolute train wreck on yeah, he's he's he's disqualified from being in the ministry

You know, he's been on this rant I actually want to got so many things

I want to do it and Hopper of things to do but I want to do a video of Mark Driscoll and his recent rant against cessationism and Some of you may have seen this but I have a video clip of Mark Driscoll, it's several years old.

It's maybe about 10 years old now. Mm -hmm, but it's titled. I see things. Have y 'all seen this? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I have wait. Is this the one where he's talking about? He'll be in prayer and a curtain will come down and he'll see what a husband does with his wife.

And okay. Yeah. Yeah Well, yeah, not not just a husband with his wife, but he'll see

He'll get visions and he actually ironic. Maybe this is the gift of discernment. I'm like dude

No, he says that he gets visions of people in the act of fornicating correct in such detail that he can tell what the room looks like in the in the positions people are in which is just Disgusting, isn't it?

It's so weird that all of these people who get these visions They're always so crass and image and Inappropriate.

Oh, yeah, and even even like Todd Bentley where all of his all of his acts center around some form of violence

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, there there's a I tell people whatever a man is willing to do and say in public

Rest assured that it's far worse behind closed. Oh, yeah Yeah, there's something deeply wrong when a man has the kind of Boldness in a negative way to get behind the pulpit and describe in detail

Something like that and then attribute it to the holy emphasis upon.

Holy Spirit Huh, if that's if that's what charismatic theology gets you

I'll pass hard pass on that No, thanks. That is that is so disgusting

Oh, and then then in the same video he talks about how he says he went up to someone and says when you were a

Baby, or I think he said baby Your grandfather did something to you, didn't he?

You know and Let's see he And then he said he went to the person went to the offending person this grandfather.

I know what you did you did you? Did you molest? Your grandson or the granddaughter whoever was did you molest this child?

Well, yeah. Yeah sure did. I'm like wait. Wait a minute Who does that?

Like you're gonna go up to somebody say hey, did you molest this child? You know upteen years ago like well, yes

Yes, I did right. Yeah. Come on man. I mean what a bald -faced lie, right?

Yeah, yeah there and that's another thing that we see with the charismatic movement, right all these claims that can't be verified

No, they just throw these things out these stories. No one else was around them when this happened

And so it can't be verified. You don't know the person so you can't go up to them and ask them Hey, is this true? Right?

It's just like you just said it's just a bunch of lies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right

You know, oh go ahead. No, no, go ahead brother. Go ahead, you know, I'm struck Bob Just what you were saying drew none of these signs and wonders can be verified

You hear all these all these stories about miracles and healings and all this kind of stuff happening. None of them zero of them

Can ever be verified and documented and you don't see in the charismatic movement today what we read in Scripture when

Peter right and John healed the man who was born crippled in Acts chapter 3 in Acts chapter 4 when he was healed and Then even the enemies of the gospel the enemies of Christ had to admit

That a real sign and wonder had taken place. In fact, I've got it for here in front of me Acts chapter 4 verse 16

What shall we do with these men for the fact that a noteworthy sign has happened through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem and we cannot deny it

Exactly and that goes back to you and brother. We're actually on the same page right there that goes back to what I said earlier is

When the Lord Gifted it blessed these men these

Apostles capital a Apostles with the ability to do these things The whole point was to establish their authority their whole point.

They always pointed back to Christ. They were truth tellers. They they Encouraged admonished and edified the church and people around them to seek after holiness to put to death the mortified the deeds of the flesh

Not to boast them in them not to brag on them not to in an immature vile visceral way

Describe things that are gonna cause people to stumble That they would encourage these men to grow up or people around them to grow up in their faith

Not to remain immature to where when you're challenged, you know your whole response is well

Well, the cessation is camped. They tear people down all the time so I can say whatever I want about them. It's like really

You are a 50 -some -odd year old man grow up one number two you profess to be a pastor

Where's the biblical maturity? It doesn't give you permission to sin in response to perceived sin against you.

What is that nonsense, right? Yeah and talking about Because let's take this verifiability.

Let's take it to Scripture right when Jesus healed someone. What did he tell them to do? He though he said either go present yourself in the temple as clean as healed or You had where he were blind were able to to now see

People verified it Yes, someone who was born blind can now see it's verified just unlike you were talking about acts for They healed the man who was lame who couldn't walk and what he it was verified because now he can go into the temple to worship all of all of the the signs and wonders and healings that took place and specifically healings were all

Verified by the people around right now. Now we have no

Verifiability of these supposed people being raised from the dead, right? I mean, how many people did

Todd Bentley claim were that he raised from the dead like it's almost Yeah, it's a ridiculous number and yet none of it can be verified

Reinhardt Bonnke would say the same He would talk about going to Africa and raising people from the dead

No verifiability of anything in the age of cell phones where everyone was just about to say that man

Yeah, yep Francis Chan to you know a few years ago He claimed that he was in a village and where was it

Burma Burma, right? Yeah, and he healed all these kids in the village and when someone asked him why do you not have

Video of this he said well, we didn't have a cell phone signal Well, you don't need a cell phone signal know about your smartphone and take a video.

Yeah, so Which is interesting about that because on the cessationist movie they talk about that Yes They they showed the clip of Francis Chan saying that and then someone who actually knows

Missionaries there says this happens all the time. They bring in some American preacher pastor and they do this healing

Service where everyone gets miraculously healed, but those people that are getting healed they're being paid

Yeah, but by the churches there there there is so much fraud in the charismatic movement.

I mean guys I've seen it. I've been in the trenches. I've been to 18 different Benny Hinn crusades.

I've been to Kenneth Copeland meetings Jesse to Plantis. I'm in the Lakewood Church. I've been Joyce Meyer dollars Into these things and I've seen the fraud

Firsthand I've seen the deception I've talked to a lady before who used to be one of Benny Hinn's a donors like gave big bucks to Ben Until the day so as an a donor

She is afforded Front -row seating special parking at the

Crusades and this sweet lady You know, she was very sincere, but she was sincerely wrong at the time

But she was given special parking around the back and she just happened to pull up Right at the time that they were unloading empty wheelchairs out of a truck

To go into the Benny Hinn crusade and then right at the the same magical time

Every time he does a crusade these wheelchairs just magically appear on the stage and they're empty like, oh, they've been healed

She saw this witnessed it with her own eyes. I talked to her Wow and and then and she was so disillusioned

She was no longer one of his eight owners Left the ministry, but this is blatant fraud

Blatant fraud and and you've got yeah, don't get me started Yeah That goes back to I mean, it's just if I think of John I think of John MacArthur saying

You know if the Lord is going to to give people these gifts Again to establish some sort of authority he is not going to give them to the charlatans those who malign his name malign his word take his name in vain by Attributing works to him that he wants no part of I mean who's really quenching the

Holy Spirit we talked about that It's just not gonna happen and you just think of all of the lives that have been devastated

And and hearts that have been broken and and the eternal consequences. That's what

I think of man I think of I've been listening back through this past week to all of the messages from Strangefire and And You know

John talking about I mean those hearing those words out of Matthew 7 Lord Lord Did we not the sign your name?

Did we not heal in your name? And did we not X Y & Z and Away from me. I never knew you

Who's he talking about in that passage those people who know right? Oh who he is

Who claimed to do signs and wonders claims to perform miracles claim to cast out demons?

Those aren't cessationist now. I'm not saying every cessationist as a Christian. I'm not saying that right, but that is specifically tailored Yeah to people who claim to perform signs and wonders, right, right

That's it. You know now one of the things and I and Chris you and I talked about this last week through text message

When we saw Mark Driscoll's text or his tweet and when we we heard another

Pastor and acts 29 pastor that we refer to as Dollar Dollar General Mark Driscoll Talking about how it's always it's really always the cessationists that are causing divisions in the church

But that's not true. Yeah, because and this is what I said to you It's not the cessationists that are causing division in the church

It's the so -called Continuationists or the open but cautious who are causing the division because they continually

Misrepresent what the cessationist position is even when they're corrected

So so these guys that they they they make a ridiculous claim

They're corrected about what cessation is actually believe but they don't care and they don't saying it anyway

Yeah, they don't care. You know, I'm a obvious a big critic of all these big -name word -faith

NAR folks But I can tell you one thing. I don't misrepresent what they teach, right?

I'm not gonna do that. No, there's no for one thing. There's no need to do it. I don't have Stuff if I wanted to do is play the video and say here, right?

Right, yeah, I mean who can make up speaking a squirrel into existence like one guy did

Literally Spoke a squirrel into existence.

I don't have to make anything up. But you're right. You're right drew that they they constantly misrepresent the definition of cessationism, even though I I Alone have given the definition

Thousands of time. Oh, I know and many many many others have it's not like this is a hard, you know

A hard thing to find out. It's not like it's hard to come up with a real right definition of cessationism, right?

It's you know You know, and this is what we heard and this is what I sent to Chris that this pastor said he said cessationists in the

Church, they have their guard hat on and they don't want to let in anything weird

Whereas the open but cautious they have the gardener hat on and they're trying to nurture and pray with the sick and for the sick and and help grow people and I'm going

Cessationists do that too. Yeah, exactly No, like what do you think? We just we just don't pray for people, right?

We don't try to try to help people along like look when someone tells me whenever we're in Wednesday night

Bible study and we take prayer requests for people who are sick or anything and I'm asked to pray

I always pray that the Lord would heal these people with whatever it is

I pray Lord. Will you reach down and when will you heal these people of whatever infirmity that they have?

Why because I believe in a God who can heal them, right? I don't believe he's inactive in that I believe he can absolutely heal people.

I don't reject that but yeah people want to just say no You just want to let not let things in the church that are weird.

No Well, yeah, I don't want weird things in the church. I don't want bad things in the church

Yeah, but but but it doesn't stop there. I want to help grow people in The Lord I want them to come

And grow in holiness and I want them but I want them to know the Holy Spirit as the

Holy Spirit presents himself in Scripture Amen, not through some kind of nonsense. That's that's taught through people who don't actually know the

Word of God That's right. That's right. Absolutely You know there there's no theology of suffering in the charismatic movement.

No, right? In fact Bill Johnson He said I quote I Refuse to create a theology that allows for sickness

Which is which is very interesting considering what happened last year you two years before Yeah, and you know last summer and I'm not

I'm not trying to make light of it for our listeners, but What's her name

Benny Benny Johnson Johnson, yeah, she passed away of cancer She had been battling cancer for a long time.

So So, how do we relate? That form of suffering with what her husband

Bill Johnson says That's right. That's right It's irreconcilable

Yeah, no, I have a video clip of Bill Johnson from just a few years ago

And he I don't have it memorized but to paraphrase very very closely He says if you're not getting the answer that you're praying for change what you're praying

He says if if you're not getting results The problem is not with him referring to God.

The problem is not with him. So in other words, it's with you So if you're not getting the results for healing

The problem is with you Okay, Bill. Well if that's true, then what does that say about you because your wife just died of cancer

Yeah, and had it for years before she died Yeah for at least four or five years before she died

So and I take no joy in that none of us done right, right But right, but it is interesting that what the faith preachers preach doesn't work for them

And then there was that little olive girl, you know, the little They tried to raise her from the dead

Benny Johnson ironically prophesied that she would be raised from the dead on the third day And and she wasn't so Nabil Qureshi Yeah He also died of cancer and he was at Bethel so they've had some very public very big failures and Well, especially during kovat when they shut down their their healing rooms.

Yeah, right I know it's what it just goes on and on and on, you know, the the evidence is overwhelming

Yeah, they can't do what they say they can do. They can't they get sick at the same rate that cessationists get sick

Yep, they recover in God's providence at the same rate. We do they die at the same rate we do there is absolutely no difference if you go into a let's say you go into John MacArthur's Church and Take a sample of a thousand people at random.

I guarantee you the percentage of people wearing glasses Will be exactly the same if you were to go and take a thousand people at random at Bethel Church I can guarantee you.

Yeah, there will be just as many people wearing eyeglasses at Bethel as there is at John MacArthur Church There's yeah, and was it was it you

Justin who said never trust a faith healer who wears glasses? That's right Never trust the faith healers wearing eyeglasses

But It's almost like every time this topic gets brought up cessationism versus continuationism

It's almost as if there's more Emotional baggage than there is with the argument of Calvinism and Arminianism.

I mean these become such emotional arguments

But between people Just simply saying no, I believe the sign gifts have ceased and then someone says

Well, no, I speak in I spoke in tongues last week and now

I view you as my enemy Yeah, and now I need to go go for your throat I've noticed that a lot lately within the past couple of years.

Yeah Because if you Because their entire theology is based off of experiences.

Correct not based off of Scripture. It's based off of Experiences what they think they've experienced So if you question that, you know that then you're you're undermining the entirety of their belief system

They're there which they hold very Loosely to anyway, because they're so riddled with doubt

But that's like that that's that's the straw that they're that they're grasping is these these experiences, you know

I had a dream, you know, someone gave me a word of knowledge and they're clinging to these these straws

Correct that they're clinging to them and if you take those away they got nothing They've got nothing there.

There are two things. I think of Drew when you when you say what you just said Justin to your point the experience and and when you think about what they're doing when these experiences happening it happening

It's an act of worship For them. It's an act of adoration and affection to the

Lord Supposedly, but I think of drew this quote that we have shared I've lost count how many times we've shared this quote

Dr. Anthony Mathenia, who said he a doctor. I think so. Maybe he's not Anthony.

He's a pastor Even if he's not a doctor, he should be honorary doctorate given by me. There you go.

I'm speaking it into existence anyway But Anthony Mathenia says nothing angers the self -righteous more than being told that their worship of God is wrong

Mm -hmm and That carries weight in this and that when we're talking about this as well

You know, don't you tell me that the way I'm work. No, it's it's a self -righteous thing. It's a pride thing

Ultimately, I think also the reason it becomes so emotional is is

I Hope you know for those who do are indwelt by the Spirit who would say they are brothers and sisters in Christ It's the it's the

Lord convicting them But they're not gonna they're not can submit to that conviction They're not gonna submit to the conscience and like their consciousness as well going this is wrong because their pride won't let them

They're fighting it with all they have Instead of just acquiescing to what their scriptures teach.

Yeah That's right. Yes Yeah, and another thing that people get emotional about is when you say when you point out the fact that hey miracles weren't

Very common in Scripture, you know but just like I talked about at the beginning of the show

Chris where Where you can you can go through Scripture and the entirety of Scripture and look at all the miracles that took place

Yep it wasn't a common thing and and one of my favorite quotes is from Jim Osman who said if if Miracles are normative or if miracles are common, then they're not miracles because then they're what they're common, right?

They're not miraculous. That's right. And I and I put that I commented that on Twitter and people just had a field day

They couldn't understand they couldn't wrap their minds around the idea, right? And then they would say well, oh well

Jesus John said that Jesus did miracles that that wouldn't even be a number of miracles

It wouldn't be contained in all the books and I said, yeah But you're missing you're really missing it because of who Jesus is and the point for Jesus doing miracles

And we can see that in Scripture Why did Jesus do miracles because he's establishing himself as the set one of God and that's not why he came

He didn't come to do miracles. He didn't come to do miracles. Yeah. Yeah, and then when we see the Apostles doing miracles

What are they doing? They're validating the message of Christ. Yes, so everything points back to Christ Yeah, and we can actually

Sorry, just an go ahead. But if you really want a good

Explanation of this Jim Osman in his Series on Hebrews if you just listen to I think it's chapter 1 him going through chapter 1

Which is probably like 10 sermons the way, you know, Jim likes to break things down But but he said he gives you a daisy chain pretty much of scriptures one going through Jesus and Jesus doing miracles and the purpose and then the other through the

Apostles and all the scriptures that list who did who did the miracles, right?

It was Jesus and it was the Apostles and those outside of them who did miracles We see them in two instances, right

Philip and no Stephen yes, Stephen and Philip. I think I think it was now they weren't

Apostles, but they were yeah Yeah, right. All right. Now they weren't Apostles, but they were closely

Associated with the possible Apostles and that's the point Jim makes so the only people we see working miracles in the

New Testament is Jesus the Apostles or those who are closely tied to the

Apostles. Yep That's right. You don't see Christians at large Performing miracles you don't in fact it says

I don't have in front of me X to think it's X to says in many Many signs and wonders were taking place at the hands of the

Apostles among the people right so Yeah, Christians at large weren't performing signs and wonders and I I also want to got so many videos

I want to do on my youtube channel, but I want to do a video and it's gonna be an open challenge to Todd White Andrew Womack who says that he can reach out and touch people and heal.

Yeah. Yeah, and I text you at G3 when you were at g3 about mentioning

Andrew Womack because yeah, he's one that flies under the radar people don't pay attention

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he does but he's he's huge. He's got a massive ministry

So they they claim to be able to heal. In fact, I've got very recent like within a couple weeks ago recent video clip of Andrew Womack Saying that he can heal people not not just pray for or not

You know, the healing is not dependent upon the person now. He can just heal someone. So my open challenge is

Heal me heal me if you come and heal me of my cerebral palsy

Then I'll shut my ministry down It would be a huge PR win for you.

Yeah, and they're gonna say oh, well, you don't have faith only contraire No, I have Complete and total faith that God is able to heal me of my cerebral palsy

There were many times many people that Jesus healed in the Apostles healed who had apparently no faith at all

Right, they didn't even know who he was. He just was they couldn't pick out Jesus They they couldn't they didn't know him from Cooter Brown.

So there were a lot of people that that they healed With absolutely no faith.

So I've got the faith that said I know that God created me He can heal me.

So Heal me. I mean it would be a tremendous it would put to bed the whole of it

It would be a tremendous boon for their ministries. So heal me of cerebral palsy

I'll shut my ministry down and You'll be sitting in the fabled cat bird seat.

So, you know, here's a I Love I love that challenge

And You know, he's not he's not going to respond which is no, you know, he's gonna he's gonna run away from that one but I Wanted to bring this out

Jesus healing the paralytic in Mark chapter 2 now the point of this is

Is not Jesus healing the paralytic right because that wasn't even

Jesus's Goal that what that wasn't the whole goal when we look at the story at what took place so beginning in in verse 4 of chapter 2 of the book of Mark Being unable this is the friends of the paralytic being unable to get to him because the of the crowd

They removed the roof above him and when they had dug an opening they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was let was lying and Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic son your sins are forgiven notice

Jesus doesn't go directly for healing. He deals with the sin issue. Yeah, correct the heart issue

He says your sin is your sins are forgiven, but some of the scribes were sitting there in reasoning in their hearts

Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming

Blaspheming who can forgive sins but God alone, right? And and so there their whole anger is directed towards the fact that Jesus Forgave sins not that he healed them because he hasn't even done that yet Jesus's primary goal is the sin issue the heart issue and they're upset that he forgave their sin

Immediately Jesus aware in his spirit That they were reasoning that way within themselves said to them

Why are you reasoning about these things in your heart? Which is easier to say to the paralytic your sins are forgiven or to say get up and pick up your pallet and walk

But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins

He said to the paralytic I say to you get up pick up your pallet and go home. So he forgave sins

We're upset that that you're forgiving sins because who can do that? But God, you know what? Okay, who can forgive sin?

But God, you know what? I'll prove my power to you that I am from God that I am God incarnate

Okay, pick up your pallet and walk. That's right the healing Was was kind of an afterthought

That just proved his authority to forgive sin So what's the primary focus of Christ to forgive sin to deal to bring salvation and deal with the heart issue?

That's exactly right. That's exactly right, Drew, and I'm glad you brought that up. You're spot -on Hey, I just happen to notice a comment about Melissa Owens there in the

Andrew Womack lied about his son dying and coming back to life. There we go His wife slipped up and said he was in a drug -induced coma and they gave him

Narcan and he came out of it I'm familiar with this story, but I would I did not know this about his wife

So Melissa, I'm assuming you're still watching if you have the the source for that.

I would love to see it Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I was Andrew Womack tells this story pretty regularly up He's mentioned a number of times and I I know like I know my name it's not true

So I would love to see that Melissa if you wouldn't mind You can email me

Justin at Justin Peters org and send that to me if you have it. Thank you All right.

So we do have someone backstage that That has some questions not pertaining to this, but he's an atheist and he loves the show

And he wanted Justin to stick around too he said he has a lot of respect for you Justin But before we bring him on I do want to mention our sponsors

And that is of course if we have been boring you with this talk of cessationism And you need a place to rest your head, you know, just go pick up a my pillow

There it is No one uses 1 -800 numbers anymore. So I don't even know why that's on there

Andrew should probably change that Just go to mypillow .com promo code SFE get it get you a discount get you a nice pillow to sleep on and I mentioned

Lagos Bible software earlier. They're one of the sponsors Lagos Bible software go to Lagos comm slash

SFE the promo code get you a discount on some Lagos. I love it.

I use it Chris have you gotten it yet? You still haven't gotten it. Have you? Yeah, I only say it every time you're on here

I know Justin uses it. Yep. I got it. Yep. Yeah, Justin uses it so much

They actually go to Justin and say hey, we need your commentary on this So we're gonna bring in Evan Evan who is backstage

Evan thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Well, yeah Yeah, I can't tell you

I'm being completely earnest about this. What an honor it is To be here with you guys I listen to a matter of theology

Justin Peters has been profoundly influential on my thinking if I can briefly give a little background about myself.

I'm an attorney I was born Jewish secular Jewish I was bar mitzvahed.

I I can't think of a time I ever believed in God politically, I am very conservative and so I see you guys as Brethren in a sense in a strange kind of way and and I've listened to a lot of Greg Bonson Sermons Paul Washer Doug Wilson.

I've read Spurgeon. I've read Sproul And I've only really been looking into Christianity for the past year

I want to know what my neighbors believe and I have a tremendous amount of respect for you guys and in particular

Calvinists and in particular cessationists Justin I've watched a lot of your videos about these clowns like Duplantis and and Creflo dollar and I think you mentioned the squirrel.

I think that was Bobby Connor. I listened to your That's right. Yeah. Yeah Womack that this this tragic story of this olive girl

Which was horrifying. I read some of the posts on it and it is, you know, disgusting that they're giving this family false

Hope about this And I feel like I'm intruding on an intramural discussion

So I apologize for that, but at the same time You know these people kind of anger me in a way because I think they're blaspheming kind of dignified religion that I see

Calvinists having Michael Brown I've listened to a lot of him and and I know that you've pointed out he's defended

Kenneth Copeland He's defended a lot of these people who yeah, you know Propounding these absurd doctrines.

I've wanted to watch this cessationist film. I listened to James White at g3 the other day

And I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but I'm interested in seeing that when I get a chance And and you know,

I think you guys are fighting against a stereotype that Christians are absurdly credulous Which a lot of these faith healer types are really pushing

And it bothers me, I mean, I you know, I I find myself getting into debates with atheists and people of other faiths who say things about the

Christian religion that are Incorrect and from my listening to people like you guys and and other

Faithful Christians. I'm able to rebut for example. I got into a discussion with a guy the other day.

He said Someone some some organization was called soldiers of Christ and he said where's that in the

Bible? Have you ever read Paul? I mean he specifically calls

Christians to be the soldiers of Christ You know, I think it's a Ephesians 6 where he talks about the armor of God I mean this language is throughout the the scriptures and it's it's amazing to me that people have such a

Paltry understanding of the gospel and of the scriptures and so I have a tremendous amount of respect for you guys

I know Chris Said there earlier that and I noted this at the beginning

Chris that you said you thought atheists shared more in common with continuationists, but this atheist certain certainly doesn't and I feel like I Have a lot more respect for you guys calling out what

I think is very obviously fraud and it's it's sad to see You know, I think

I can defend the the tulip and the doctrines of grace against our minions. I can defend Sola fide against Catholics I can defend

Orthodox Christology. I think better than most Christians with references to scripture And so I just wanted to thank you guys

For edifying me, but I don't believe any of it and I don't mean that in any kind of insulting way

I I just don't but I am fascinated by it And I think you guys are ardent defenders of your faith, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for you all

I do I do have An endless list of questions For you guys if you would be open to it

That I would like to discuss We can we can definitely take some I don't know if we can reach the whole bottom of the endless list

I'll be glad to I'll be glad to come back Yeah, well one, you know thinking about the

Trinity I know I'm kind of curious about and like I said, I Pretty solid understanding of what the

Trinity actually represents the orthodox sense not some kind of modalistic heresy but You the use of this father -son language

You know, I think it's Ephesians 6 Exhorts sons to submit and respect their fathers and I've never heard a good explanation as to why

God would choose to use the father -son language in expressing the

Godhead When it's clear elsewhere throughout scripture Son is supposed to be submissive to the father

So if these are three co -equal persons in the Godhead, why would God use father and son to express himself?

Yeah, who wants to lead after doesn't matter. I don't want to Go ahead.

I'll pick up. Oh, okay so when

When I see the father and son language We see the son typically referred in his incarnation, right so We see

Jesus referred to as the son a lot in the incarnation. And so there's kind of this What we would call almost anthropomorphic terminology right of Identifying The second person of the

Trinity Christ as the son when he was here. So when he was here you actually see

He submit to the father in the way a son would submit To a father right?

He is kind of our he's our example our chief our prime example So how Christ submits to the father in his incarnation is how sons should submit to their father?

And we see this in different places as well and within different roles as well like husbands and wives

We see we see that authority taking place. But while Christ was here while he was

Taking that position of a of a son to a father that does not mean that he is not equal to the father in power and authority

But what we see in the son when he was incarnate is we see him veiling right this we don't see him laying aside deity

We see him veiling some of his attributes. So we would say his omnipresence right now we

Jesus sitting on the throne as 100 % God we would say he is omnipresent He is everywhere now just like the

Holy Spirit is everywhere just like God the Father is everywhere But while he was incarnate he was not everywhere he limited himself veiling some of those attributes

To the time and place in which he lived. So So but does that mean he is not equal with God?

No because we see him use his power While he was here. We see him prophesy

We see him he can see into the hearts into the minds of people But he also limits he chooses to limit himself in certain things that he does

Submitting to what the father would say now in his submission. Does this mean that he didn't know?

What was going to take place and he was just relying on the father No, actually this was something that was agreed upon in eternity past.

So Christ submitting to the father is Christ actually doing what he has already said

He was going to do in eternity past because the the the Godhead the council

Agreed that the Son would go and be the perpetuatory sacrifice that he would come.

So when we see Christ Fulfilling the will of the father crisis also fulfilling the will of the

Triune try unity of God because God can't be split. He can't be separated in his will

He can't be against himself But we see that submission as an example to us because if Christ did not submit here to that will

Which in which is really his will at the same time Then we cannot submit to the will of God and we must submit to the will of God Because Christ did as well

Christ couldn't say He couldn't say God father. It is your will for me to go to the cross

But it's my will to do something different Right. He couldn't be against himself as God as 100 %

God and 100 % man So if you're what Christ says the father is greater than I I want to say that's

John 14 or 10 Somewhere around there says the father is greater than I he's speaking to a kind of voluntary

Subordination to the father. Yeah, that's what I would see because he because he if he if he is co -equal

If he is co -eternal and he is co has co -authority With the father then there's not this hierarchy, right?

There's not this Eternal subordination, right? We would say that eternal subordination is a heresy, but we would say while he was incarnate

Right. He is submitting to the will of God And so in that sense the will or God the father would be higher

As Christ is human in his human sense not in his God sense

But in his is human nature so kind of temporal subordination Yeah, yeah

Temporal and in the the key to this in fact drew One of the reasons

I wanted you to take a lead on is because I was just looking up a video I don't I texted you a link to a video that I did when was this about a month ago?

Okay on this issue. I don't know if you have the ability to like Put the link in the whatever.

I don't know if there's any way to post that or not I'll email email the link to yourself drew and then open it up on your computer

And then you can copy and paste it in here. I mean, it's a long It's like an hour and 15 minutes but it but it if we can get that link to you

Evan and you can watch that video and that will Flesh it out in much greater detail and what we have time to do here but Drew's absolutely right the

The key to this is the hypostatic union that Jesus was one person with two distinct natures fully human fully divine

The natures were distinct and that's a very important It wasn't Jesus wasn't the theological equivalent of yellow and blue make green.

He wasn't this kind of hybrid That's a whole other heresy called monophysitism

Right, and this is Maya Maya physitism I'm sorry, Maya. This is

Maya physitism. What you're not mono physitism, right? So what is my do you know

Maya physitism is I think that's another? I'm not sure. I've never had that.

Am I a yeah, I've been reading about a lot of these Okay, interesting. I think

Maya physitism is some Historian kind of thing or something. Okay. Okay, so Yeah, one person with two distinct natures and while in his incarnation on earth his human nature

Submitted to the will of the father and his human nature didn't want to die That's why

I prayed father. Let this cup pass for me, but not my will but thine be done so in his humanity

He didn't want to die But nonetheless his deity and there's times when you read through the

Gospels you see Jesus kind of Lack of a better way to describe it acting more or speaking and acting more from his human nature and other times

Out of his divine nature, so they were two distinct natures So what some 22 that Jesus quotes on the cross?

I've heard that explained has as he's invoking the entire psalm when he when he says

I'm forgetting the words now my god Yeah God my god Yes, right

And so that's his human nature expressing basically what a man would express on the cross.

That's right Yep, and and then later in that Psalm in verse 19 and then again in verse 24

Jesus said Or excuse me the Psalm psalmist David says but be not far from me

Oh Lord for he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted Neither has he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him he heard and so David had gotten to a point in his life where he felt like He had been abandoned by God, but in reality he had not in reality.

God had not abandoned him. He said it right there Neither has he referring to God neither has he hid his face from him for me.

So Jesus a lot of people mistakenly believe that Jesus while he was on the cross was completely and totally

Separated from the Father and that's just that's not accurate. That's not a right understanding of Psalm 22

Another one I had for you guys is and this is kind of a general thing I I have a tremendous amount of respect for Martin Luther, even though he became a virulent anti -semite later in his life, but What the

Reformation stood for I kind of stand in awe and I think it's foundational to Western society and the

American founding every kind of notion that we have of individual conscience But the doctrine of sola scriptura was always a little unusual to me in the sense that illiteracy was the norm for the vast majority of history probably up until a

Century or so ago and still in many parts of the world And so it always struck me as strange that one would say that the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith

Which is what I think you guys say When the vast majority of people throughout the vast majority of Christian history have been illiterate and unable to read the scriptures yeah, so The Reformation kind of the battle cry for the

Reformation was ad fontis to the source right and when

Luther Nailed his 95 theses to the to the door in Wittenberg he was calling for a debate with with the

Pope and with the the councils of of the Catholic Church and So you're correct that the the illiteracy rate was very high

But that's also why why there was a push by William Tyndale before him John Wycliffe to be able to get the

Bible into Translated out of the Latin and into the language of the common people so that they could actually have a

Bible to read and they'd be taught to read because at that time It all rested on the leaders of the church right the

Pope's the bishops the Cardinals and They were what they were teaching and telling people was not right which is you know why we had the

Reformation and so the push was for the The church leaders to go back to the source to go back to Scripture to say no

You're adding all of these things to the people as a burden. You're basically just the

Pharisees You're adding all of these works that they have to do in order to gain merit to go to heaven

That's not what Scripture says we must return to what Scripture says So that so that we can rightly teach the people how to come to know know

Christ Which is through justification by faith alone And then there was that push to get the

Bible into the hands of the people and that was fought against By so many people.

I mean William Tyndale lost his life because of that Henry VIII had him killed to where John Rogers who was the first Marian martyr he and somebody else

I Forgot his name, but they actually finished Tyndale's translation and had it published under the name the

Matthews Bible and ironically It was published. It was affirmed by Henry VIII, which is really funny

So Tyndale's work ended up getting published by the person who sentenced him to death.

Anyway, Myles Coverdale Myles Coverdale. Yeah, that's right Yeah, I know there's the bishops

Bible the great Bible the Coverdale Bible But Wycliffe is supposed to have translated the the first Bible into English and that was in the 14th century

Yeah, so he translated from the Latin into the English and I I don't think he finished it

If my memory serves correct, I don't know. Yeah Wycliffe no also to Evan you got to think about this to the one of the things that that from a practical standpoint that The Lord or ordained during the

Reformation was the invention of the printing press as well Yeah, and so when you have that Combined with what back drew to your point at font is back to the source

You know simple referenda once reformed always reforming you know the the printing the translating of scripture from the original languages into English and then and then

Coming in with the Reformation with the invention of the printing press all of that combined Contribute to a massive hike and a massive jump in literacy rates

Plus oh But Chris that interests me because so the printing press comes about in like the mid 15th century with Gutenberg Obviously young husk comes almost exactly a century before Luther and I think a lot of the reason that husk didn't set off a

Reformation like Luther did was because of the absence of a printing press. He did set off a regional Reformation in in Bohemia, right?

But but so that's kind of interesting me So I've been looking into a lot of the Proto Reformation movements like the

Waldensians, you know friends of God obviously the Lollards Arnold of Brescia, I mean there are all these

Movements characterized as Proto Reformation that espoused many of the same doctrines that Luther would come to And all of them were you know, brutally suppressed by the

Catholic Church And so are you saying that until the 15th century and to the early 16th century that God was?

essentially Allowing these movements to be crushed under the boot of the Catholic Church until he thought it was appropriate to allow the printing press to be developed

Well, I'll answer that first and then I'll curse. I'll let you I'll let you jump in So, of course while I believe in in the sovereignty of God, right?

I do believe that there were things that God allows to take place Until certain moments and but in those moments

We do see people who like Wickliffe right the morning star of the Reformation. We are able under persecution to see

Who the faithful are so that we can model them, right?

And we see that all through the Reformation as well that took place in in England under Mary In Scotland Between John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots all of these things, you know we can there was a lot of persecution against the church during the

Reformation and You know God allowed that to happen. Why so that God can allow the

Reformation, right? so that he could he could have the distinction between Rome and Protestantism right between those who add to the works of God and those who who say no

We must only hold to the scriptures. We see the difference between normative principle of worship

Which is is actually against God is more self -worship and then the regulative principle of worship that says no

We will only worship God with what God has said So God does allow things to take place, but he doesn't allow things to take place that are without purpose so because we can look all throughout church history from from the time of Pentecost all the way up into today and we can see these great

Times of persecution that took place within the church But all of it was for a purpose and it was for the purpose of magnifying

God It was the purpose to show that these are the faithful and these are the ones that we can model ourselves

After in and long to say I wish I had that faith that they had to that carried them forth

I want that same faith Lord Will you instill in me a faith like that to carry on to push on to not cower?

When when the government is trying to shut my church down, right? Let me stand firm like a

John MacArthur and say come and take it you want my pulpit come and take it You know because we in those we see such tremendous

Moves of faith and people who rely on nothing but the the power of God resting upon his word

So, let me ask you this prior to the advent of Luther And I know

I've listened to Gavin Ortlund on this and he may he likes to call it the accretions that were brought about by the

Catholic Church Adding to the gospel and whatnot over the centuries So my question is prior to the

Reformation, you know for the majority of Christian history were most

Christians who Subordinated themselves to the Catholic Church Would they have been saved would a

Christian who lived between 400 and 1 ,500 who just blindly

Believed in the doctrines of the Catholic Church have been saved well, the the

Catholic Church is kind of the product of In a

In a Christian assembly of heresy after heresy after heresy over centuries So, you know the way the

Roman Catholic Church certainly is today and has at least has been for you know

For at least a few hundred years before the Reformation you can't you can't believe in Roman Catholic doctrine and be saved

Because Roman Catholicism is antithetical to the gospel so But I do believe in fact, there's a book

I have on my shelf. It's called long before Luther yeah, long before Luther written by Nathan Busenitz and Details that the gospel was still there.

It was still being preached Yes The Catholic Church was trying to stamp it out, but it was still there

And so there were there were there were believers. There's always been believers all throughout history, but Let's say the average peasant in the

Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century after many of these accretions have come to pass Would he have been saved if he believed in the

Catholic Church if he paid for indulgences if he believed that You know when a coin in the coffer rings a soul from purgatory

Springs, yeah Yeah, well, I mean, I think you know God has always had a people and he has always had a people that he has preserved.

So the The person who may say, you know, they put their coin in the coffer You know, they may be doing so out of ignorance because they don't know any better But that you know,

I would say to that average peasant who doesn't know You know that but they believe that They must repent of their sins.

They must have faith in Christ You know, I the problem is I don't know what they know.

So so I can't speak to like the average person and say You know this person wouldn't would not be saved and they would be lost lost to hell

You know, I don't know what they know. The only thing I can say is God has always had a people and he has always preserved his people and He will bring them to repentance he will bring them to faith and he will carry them on through that So so so so I mean that that's really all

I can say about that unless one of these guys want to jump in Well drilling down a little bit on that.

So let's say a 15th century French peasant who believed in the doctrines of the

Catholic Church because he didn't know any better In contrast with a Frenchman today who lives in the post -reformation era who understands the

Heresies of the Catholic Church who understands the doctrines of the Reformation would that peasant in the 15th century in France?

Be in a better position with God because he didn't have the ability to know to recognize

The heresies of the Catholic Church, but would he be in the same position as a contemporary?

Well, I would say anyone Regardless of Sincerity or lack thereof if if anybody that believed in a

Works gospel, which is what Roman Catholicism is. No, they would not be saved now that having been said

God has his people of His elect from before the foundation of the world and and all throughout history.

God has gotten the truth to His lost sheep despite the

Roman Catholic Church in spite of the Roman Catholic Church So there's always been genuine regenerate believers all throughout church history in spite of Roman Catholicism but but someone who is

Who truly believes Roman Catholic doctrine? No, they wouldn't they wouldn't be saved regardless of how sincere and sincere they are even if Let's say that the peasant was never taught anything else and was indoctrinated and only understood

They're still accountable per Romans one. They're right. It's the person on the desert island, right that That's never heard the gospel, right?

You know, it's that they're gonna have the same the same outcome, right? Evan I'm fascinated by you

I've Met you, but I've never met a professing atheist who has this kind of yeah, not only interest but knowledge of theology and doctrine and even church history,

I'm Why why are you so interested? You don't know how much that means to me

Justin because you have been profoundly influential on my thinking I Can't necessarily account for it.

Like I said earlier. I think a lot of it has to do with Respecting and understanding the beliefs of my neighbors

I did not grow up with Christianity and did not know a thing about it outside of the pop culture version of Christianity until about a year or two ago like I said,

I think I I Naturally hold very conservative beliefs. I enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school.

There's always a patriotic American I know you you've had a couple of guys on Chuck O 'Neill. I think Mike Riddle who are

Marines too. So I felt an affinity for them, but I like I said, I I've always felt sort of a natural

Impulse Against idolatry even in secular form. So like I'm an attorney you're looking at my office.

I don't post up my Certificates in contrast with other attorneys in my law firm who like to celebrate all their achievements and I've always felt this

Humility about my achievements. I know there's kind of a paradox in me saying that I'm humble But I've always kind of rejected these icons of achievement and I've always seen kind of a parallel with that particularly among Calvinists, there's something that's that's really appealed to me about you guys and seeing salvation come through the heart rather than through wrote repetition of Hail Mary's or You know oral repentance to a priest

There's something about that as always You know struck me as as something very deep and profound in a real faith that I can appreciate and respect

Much more than many others, but I think a lot of it just does come from wanting to understand my neighbors

The the respect I've cultivated from listening to people like you Justin and People like Chris Rose, bro,

I've listened to probably every James White debate. I've listened to probably almost every Matt slick debate

Yeah, and you know, I'm really glad that you said that Justin Because I I do it, you know,

I spent a lot of time Researching and listening to you guys and It's fascinating to me.

Yeah, there is a I'm with Justin. I'm I'm pretty fascinated myself But you know

Evan if if I may I think part of this Your interest

I think it goes a little deeper than just wanting to understand your neighbors

And and I pray this is the case But I pray that it's the

Holy Spirit that's working on on your heart because like Justin said you do have kind of you know an understanding that of the scriptures and of these theological positions

That I don't see from atheists that I have engaged with right

I see continual Misrepresentation after misrepresentation and I don't see that in you

I see a longing to understand But I do think that comes from more of the Holy Spirit working on your heart and I pray that's the case

And so so I want to I do want to speak into that with the gospel

And if you listen to us, then you especially you know, you probably knew that it was gonna come at some point, right?

I can preach the gospel to anyone as well as you guys Right, but but but that's the case right to to just simply preach it and and know the words and know the

The principles of it doesn't mean anything unless you're submitted to it

And and so Evan while I appreciate your knowledge and the understanding that you have

If you were to die today Then you would live eternally separated from Christ and and and from the

Lord and none of us here None of us want that for you. And I think you know that I think you would know the sincerity we have when we say that So that we would long for you to come to repentance of sin and in faith in Christ So that you may dwell with him forever so that you may dwell in eternity worshiping the one true

God Because I you know, I would love to have you On our side as a

Christian apologist, you know Proclaiming the things of God, but at the same time having it actually means something because you are in Christ Right, so so being able to to say the arguments

From an atheist point of view or from as an atheist it doesn't carry much weight if you're not submitted to it and and we would long for you and we would pray for you and I and I know

I know there's people in the chat here that are Now praying for you

They have said it in the chat over and over again that they are praying for you and for your soul and we would pray the same thing

That you would you would come to a repentance of sin and turn to the one true Christ and have faith in him and Man, we even we we just enjoy talking to you.

This has been you know a great Conversation having you on here. Yeah.

Well, I hope we can do it again I would love to return and I have a lot more questions to discuss with you guys

And I do Genuinely respect that drew. I don't there was a video that came out I don't know if you're familiar with the atheist

Penn Jillette the magician But right, you know a video that went kind of viral about 15 years ago that really resonated with me but he talked about there was a man preaching the gospel to him who was incessant about it and ardent and wouldn't stop and And Penn rather than getting annoyed

He made this video and said well if you genuinely believe in this stuff if you genuinely believe that I'm condemned to hell

This is the most loving thing that you could do And so I'm kind of struck by the fact that I so seldom hear

Christians preach the gospel to me much less Christians who have any kind of understanding of their faith profound way

It's it's it's so rare to hear And so I have a great deal of respect for you guys.

I will continue to study the scriptures I'll continue to read the great reformers and apologists and I Hope we can chat again

Yeah, come back Come back anytime. Yeah. Yeah, I know we're I know we're over time here

Yeah Anytime right? That's right. Anthony time Dr.

Sylvester will be on and Andrew Rappaport and I would love to discuss more with all you guys because I have a lot more questions

Christ is who he said he was he is and He laid down his life on the cross

Bore the full undiluted fury for God's wrath on the behalf of his people and if you'll repent of sins and trust in Christ You will be saved and I tell you

Evan you you just moved to the top of my prayer list. Mm -hmm Thank you. That means a lot to me.

Yeah, I mean that yeah. Yeah. Yeah Melissa said Please come back

Evan. We will continue to keep you in our prayers So I'll be glad to come back next week even yeah,

I've been wanting to speak with someone about these kinds of things because I you know, I've been deep in in the study of Christianity and Protestantism and the reformed tradition for the past year or so and you know,

I don't have anyone to talk to I don't you know, I don't really know anyone who's a serious you do know It's amazing to me listening to you guys speaking to you when

I've Probably spent dozens of hours hearing you on recordings To be able to speak with you in person and a million questions pop into my mind when

I listen to you And now it's a wonderful opportunity to be able to ask some of them you know

I sent you my contact information in the private chat, man. I'd love to keep in touch with you Okay, right and you can

I contact information from Chris as well. Yeah Yeah, yeah,

I would love that I'd love to dialogue further with you guys I Can't promise you're gonna convert me

Well, but you know, that's okay because that's that's we don't have that power Holy Spirit will do what the

Holy Spirit may be working inside of you to convert, you know But Evan we want to thank you for coming on We want to thank everyone for tuning in to apologetics life want to thank

Justin for being able to make it When you you told me you weren't gonna make it I said, hey, I understand

But you were able to come on and we're thankful for that. It's always a treat when Justin comes but Remember, like I told you next week

Andrew will be back and it's going to be the discussion with his friend

Anthony on him Anthony trying to defend gay

Christianity I I don't know how how he's gonna work that I don't know but you guys know

Andrew So Andrew gives no one wiggle room for anything so that should be fun and Remember also, like I said

Andrew is working with trying to get dr. Brown to do a debate on are the miraculous gifts for today

So keep that in your prayers. That would be a debate. That is that we would definitely long to see

But with that we're gonna head out of here. Thank you for tuning in to apologetics live. We will see you next week