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Travis

I believe that cessationists believe the way they do because they have a false understanding of how the gifts of the Spirit operate. I can't count how many times a cessationist has said something like, "If the gift of healing was around today we would see someone in that gifting go into a hospital and empty the place out". So obviously they think these gifts are something that can be called up and acted on by a whim. But we see this gift in Acts 14 operating through the apostle Paul.

And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting; a cripple from his mother's womb who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed said with a loud voice, "Stand up straight on your feet." And he leaped and walked. Acts 14:8-10

So you see here that God gave revelation to Paul that the man was in a position to receive healing by faith and so Paul spoke the command to be healed and he was. Gifts of the spirit operate by the Spirit and are not initiated by the one having the gift. And that is where people miss it. They assume that if someone has a gift, they can just use it like it was their own personal toy. You never see that in scripture.

-Daniel

So Travis, the truth of the matter is that there are true and false supernatural occurrences that have happened all throughout church history, and some say that all these supernatural events are of God, and you have another group that says they’re all of the devil, so we need discernment and we need to look at the whole picture. But there’s so many false judgments going on today and I’m Charismatic like you are. By charismatic , I mean that I believe in the gifts of the Spirit, but I don’t believe that every manifestation that takes place is of God as a matter of fact, even in true revivals there are false manifestations, I’ve studied revival and this has been going on since the Great Awakening, true and false manifestations, the Spirit of God moving, and the flesh being active, and even demonic manifestations taking place all in the same revival .

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Mike

Brothers and Sisters who want to be done with it:

What I have always liked about this forum is the fact that there is a lot of disagreement, but it seems like it is handled by all in a loving and honorable manner.

It is important that we don't draw back into an echo chamber of people that agree with us and make us feel comfortable. Positive reinforcement in the world of physics always leads to structural failure. Watch a documentary sometimes on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. We need people pushing against us and disagreeing to drive us to the word of God and make us test these things.

Personal testimony: I used to read books about Lake, Wigglesworth, Parham, and etc. when I was in my early 20's. I was so hungry for the manifestation of the Spirit that I saw my own church as dry, dull, and dead. So I began to run after what I was hungry for.

I fellowshipped with people from the Word of Faith Movement. I have been in the Copeland meetings and the Benny Hinn meetings. What I longed for was not there either. They had a show all right, but it was an empty show and lots of error was there.

I was at IHOP when it was still a double-wide trailer. That goes back a long way. I was in the prayer room many times. I have been at the One Thing conference several times. But I have to be honest. There was not powerful move of God there. I dug into the foundational teachings of IHOP, and they came up short Biblically. They were just not Biblical at all. My son did a One Thing internship and his experience led him to a point that he would never recommend IHOP to anyone today.

Finally, the church I was part of began to run hard toward the NAR movement. Tony Kemp visited the church. The pastor is running around with Dutch Sheets and company. And again, this was not the way to the things I had always been hungry for. I have seen this movement from a front seat vantage point, and it is not of God. It is off....way off. I finally left because I could no longer tolerate the Biblical error.

So what of the things I hungered for? In the process I have listened to people who call themselves cessationists. Now, I am NOT a cessationist. I am NOT a restorationist. I am firmly a continuationist. But I found that, when it comes to the truth of the word of God, Christology, and theology, I have much more in common with many cessationists than I do with most anyone who espouses the doctrines of the NAR movement. By the way, I found that IHOP, the NAR movement, and the Word of Faith are really just three branches of one big movement that, honestly, is full of error and getting worse.

Are there genuine believers in these movements. YES!!!!!. Are there ministers and leaders in these movements that genuinely know God? YES!!!!! But there are also deceivers who teach at high levels in these movements and lots of very false doctrine. The question is, how long can you be part of this without being destroyed spiritually?

So don't leave because it seems people disagree with you. In the discussion, if the attitude is right, truth will, I hope, be realized.

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Travis

Good balanced post Travis. I have to say this though, that there are some godly men out there like Joe Sweet that are true to the word, and still believe in the supernatural. Cessationists are not balanced.

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Mike

Joe Sweet may be a godly man. I don't know his personal life. What I have watched of him, as far as sermons online go, he seems to have an honest heart and a pure hunger for God. I don't know exactly how to say this. I guess I will say it this way. The doctrinal company he keeps, the circles he fellowships in, are way, way off, and I fear for him.

As far a cessationists go, here is what I have learned. (If there are cessationists on SI that read this, PLEASE chime in and correct what I say if I am wrong, or give a better understanding of this.) There are, obviously, different doctrinal slants among cessationists, just as there are among continuationists. But here is what I have learned in a nutshell.

Men being given gifts by which they speak prophecy, perform miracles, and heal the sick, was something given to the Apostles to demonstrate to the world that they were speaking for God. (Actually, the Bible does say in several places that the original 12 and Paul were given special abilities by God that the rest of the church was not given.) Since they were given to the Apostles, then they ceased when the Apostles were done on Earth and died. God still works supernaturally in the affairs and lives of men. He heals, even instantly and He performs miracles. He does these things by His sovereign will, meaning when and how He determines to do it. We should pray for God to heal people, but it is up to Him to answer as He wills to do so. God may even use a person to speak in tongues, but it will be a known language and will be accompanied by an interpretation. Much of what we hear in the church right now is gibberish, not legitimate tongues.

That, in a very small nutshell, is my understanding of what a cessationist believes. I have heard many who counter cessationists characterizing them as believing there are no more miracles, or that God does not heal people today. I have not heard any cessationists say these things.

I disagree with cessationists for the most part, but I agree with them in some things.

I believe God does use men and women in the gifts of the Spirit. I do not believe that any man HAS any of the gifts of the Spirit. I believe that God may use any believer in any one of the gifts of the Spirit as He wills and in His timing. That believer will be used in that gift at that time and maybe never again, or maybe again at some time. Do all give a message in tongues? NO. Do all prophesy? NO. He distributes severally as He wills. You get the idea. There will NEVER be a believer who has access to spiritual gifting to perform miracles and healings on the level of the original twelve and Paul. That was something special, reserved for them.

So in this I agree partly with cessationists, yet disagree with the general premise of their belief. But it is important that I learn what they really do believe. Otherwise it is easy to villainize and marginalize them, not listening to the perspectives they have on many things that are good.

You might say, am I marginalizing or villainizing the NAR or the Word of Faith. I would say no. I have been part of those movements. I have studied deeply what they believe. They actually preach another gospel, one that violates scripture in, to be blunt, most every one of their distinctives. I have dug deep into what they teach and preach.

So, I guess, back to Joe Sweet and others like him. There are men, even pastors, in this movement that have genuine relationships with God. I just don't know how long you can be there and how deep you can go before it runs off the rails.

I will give you a case in point. The pastor I was with at the church I spoke of once admitted that for a number of months he had lost the ability to hear from God. This was during the time when he had decided to run hard after this movement. Then one day he said, "But suddenly God started speaking to me again. I asked God, why did I go so long and not hear your voice. God told me, 'It is because the devil had figured out how to hear what I was saying to you and I had to find a new way of speaking to you that the devil could not overhear. So I will speak to you differently from now on." This was the moment the church began to run off the rails. Draw your own conclusions.

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Travis