You're listening to Megiddo Radio. Megiddo Radio is a radio ministry of Megiddo Media. For more, visit our website at MegiddoRadio.com. That's MegiddoRadio.com. Welcome, this is Paul Flynn with Megiddo Radio for the 7th of November 2017. Just almost forgot the date there. Thank you all for tuning in. On today's program, we're going to change from last Saturday's program where we talked about the charismatic movement. This story was kind of sitting on my desk. But, uh, this, you know, you, if anybody is on me, get a radio.com and listen to the last program. We know they know what I was talking about the whole situation, Brandon house. And he's unfortunate attack on Sinclair Ferguson. It's gone pretty ugly on Twitter and various people have written about it. My voice, my advice would be just to honestly just avoid it. Walk away from it and Unfortunately, I think people are going to just destroy their, well, whatever is left of their own credibility, and I just think maybe we should just not give attention. There's just people who are just endlessly tweeting about it for months, and not just this, but other issues as well. It needs to stop somewhere and Lord willing, there's look on Twitter, there's the mute button and there's the block button if necessary. So maybe use it. Pray for this situation. Pray for all those involved. I don't know a ton about Sinclair Ferguson, honestly. He seems like a sincere man, loves the Lord, I don't know from what I can see, and he did nothing wrong with what he said. And just if you want more information, just listen back to the last program. But honestly, I really don't want to say much more about it than that, because it's just, it's a farce, a non-issue situation that has gone on, honestly. And another needless controversy and poor reporting, which is just going to take away from any opposition to the interfaith dialogue that, you know, we were talking about on this program. We had my friend and he was a pastor as well down in Dublin, Mark Fitzpatrick. Honestly, unfortunately on our side now, on the whole Interfaith Dialogue, you know, people were against Interfaith Dialogue and what happened with James White and Yasir Qadhi and all that. Unfortunately, on our side, what's left is not a whole lot. I mean, look, there's plenty of people disagree with it. It's just they haven't written about it. They talk to people and say, no, that's wrong. But be that as it may, unfortunately, we are where we are. We need to stand in truth, regardless of who's with us or not. But we also need to be gracious. Just because somebody disagrees with us doesn't mean we get the bazooka out. And where possible, we try to be gracious. I have disagreements with Sinclair Ferguson. You know, maybe some of the people he might promote or have forwards written, writing in their books and stuff like that. I wouldn't have them myself, but people have blind spots and whatnot. Okay. So we should try to be gracious where possible and pray for him, pray for all the people as well. And again, yeah. What else, what more can you say? Now, I'm going to be talking about Desiring God, the organization, today. And the whole charismatic movement. Now, look at the two articles today in front of me. I'm just going to be responding to them. Every now and again I want to look at the charismatic movement, but I don't want to be obsessed with it either. I don't want to be kind of always that that's my thing. Adam Mabry is his name, who wrote this article called How Not to Welcome the Spirit, and I thought I'd respond to this one. He is a author with Desiring God. He's a pastor in Boston, Massachusetts. And in this article, and I'm also going to reply to a Charisma magazine article, about how Martin Luther confronted false prophets and I thought it fit in well with the time of year it is, remembering the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and all that. It's kind of late here so I don't know how long I'm going to be able to go by God's grace but we'll see how we go. There's a number of other things that I would like to do and get up on the internet and we'll see if it's possible. There's also a Karl Lentz video from Hillsong. New York City, and there's a whole video about him on The View, but I won't get into that here for the sake of time. But if you've got any more news and things like that, you can personal message me at And what is it? Oh man, it's facebook.com forward slash Paul Flynn, Miguel Films, or you know, if people want to want to add me on Facebook within reason, maybe just. I try to add people who are. clearly Christians and stuff like that. The reason I do that is just for peace, honestly, because there's not troublemakers and stuff like that on my page and all that kind of thing. I mean, if people want to argue or make stuff up and twist what I say or twist what other people say or slander and all that, you know, I don't allow any kind of comments on my Facebook, just for the sake of peace. I try to let it go before and it just went crazy and people are arguing back and forth and all that and it ends up being ugly after a while. But please feel free. And look, it's not that you can't comment. I don't mind if people disagree. You can disagree without being disagreeable. OK? Just write your comment. If you disagree, that's fine. Just do it respectfully. That's all I ask. And don't blaspheme God in any way, in your doctrine or anything else like that. And be respectful, okay? It's not a free-for-all. So that's that and some people want to add me on Facebook, that'd be great or whatever or Twitter. And just type in Paul Flynn. It's the handle is Megiddo Films. I've only really started doing Twitter a lot in the last maybe six months, maybe a bit longer than that. So I've had it for years, but I never really used it much. So, anyway, Lord willing, hopefully that can be used for the glory of God and to spread the truth and things like that. Okay, so how not to welcome the Holy Spirit? Now, the author here in this article on the DesiringGod.org website starts off by a story. He says, Dad, can I have dessert? I guess so, he said. We have some ice cream in the freezer after all. But when my wife chimed in, um, I don't think so. He sheepishly said, but dad said I could. She replied, yes, but I already said you could not. Nice try, son, but mom wins again. Anyway, so he's given a story. The father says yes. The mother says no. And he's trying to, I suppose, you know, with this analogy, he's trying to put that there's some kind of a difference in the will between the spirit and, you know, when you're praying, treating like the Trinity is not one. Okay, asking one for another thing and all this kind of stuff. Let's read the article. Let's try not to put any words in the author's mouth. But when my wife and I are one flesh, good parenting means we stay in the same page and we don't allow our kids to pit us against each other unwittingly. Yeah, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, we we often treat God and his word precisely that way. And it's true in a charismatic movement, especially they they talk about audible things. God told me God led me in this direction and things that are patently unbiblical. Jesus Christ is the word. The word made flesh and dwelt amongst us. He is the Word of God. He's the Bible. You know, he is the very Word of God. So, you have that, and then you have this theology, and a lot of the charismatic movement, that is patently at odds with what is revealed in the scriptures. So, yeah, I can agree with him on that. The writer goes on to write, Adam goes on to write that, the history of the spirit of the church is wonderful, weird, supernatural, and super strange. He says, we all love the miracles of Acts, but many of us resist those who pursue the same miracles today. Why would you pursue the same miracles today? You cannot compare the book of Acts to today. The book of Acts is a book of transition from the Old Covenant to the New. Are you saying that there's no difference between now and Acts, which is really disturbing? Don't you think there's some massive difference that went on when they were in the Old Covenant, and then talks about in Hebrews chapter 8 that which is, you know, waxes old and fades away? And it talks about the Old Covenant going away and the New Covenant coming in. 2 Corinthians 3 talks about the simplicity, if you compare the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, the simplicity in the New Covenant compares to the Old Covenant in terms of worship and things like that. The Old Ceremonial Law goes away and fades away. A number of passages in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, talk about this. And comparatively, the blessings are so much greater. And also the Gentiles are grafted in. Gentiles, you know, the Samaritans are grafted into the body in Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 10, the Gentiles are grafted in. So, and then when it's talked about Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, especially the second half of the chapter, talks about made nigh by the blood of Christ. And those who were far off from the commonwealth of Israel were brought Niba, blood of Christ, and Brody. And these two people, they're no longer separated. Those in Christ are one. There's neither Jew nor Greek, and there's neither Jew nor Gentile anymore. There's all one in Christ. So there's many things that changed from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, okay? is neither male nor female. In the old covenant, male members of the visible church were circumcised, okay? And they represented women. But in the new covenant it's different. All, male or female, are both received the covenant sign, the sign and seal of the covenant of grace. So there's a number of things that change. And how do you know it changes? Otherwise, it's, you know, a couple of people turn up and trying to speak reverently here and just say, you know, things are just going to change now. You need divine authority with signs and wonders to authenticate the message from the word of God. There's a difference between acts like John the Baptist. How many miracles did he do? I mean, it wasn't at every period. It was miracles during Moses' day. Why? Because it was a period of transition. Now pouring of the supernatural, why? To authenticate that Aaron and Moses were of God and they were divine messengers, channels of divine truth. and also the prophets that went and warned Israel with specific messages of judgments that will come. See, when people do it today, it's frauds. Frauds and people who are misled and they're sincere, but they probably, you know, they try to get passages from the Old Testament and apply it to the United States or whatever. You cannot say specific bad things that happen are for this specific purpose. We don't know the secret things of God. The Lord may be using this to chastise and weaken a nation and all this in judgment. We know that God does that. Don't get me wrong here. God does judge nations by weakening defenses and allowing foreign armies to invade and all this kind of stuff, but we cannot look into the secret things of God and what God is doing. Bad things happen to God's people as well, to faithful people as well. You know, people lose children or people suffer bereavement and all that, but all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose. So all things work together for good. We don't know what the secret things of God are, what his decree is and what his purpose are. Just trust God. So anyway, long story short, we know the book of Acts is a book of transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. we're not to expect what happened in Acts, the supernatural, signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders. Apart from the preaching and things like that, yeah, that's going to continue, and the hurling of the gospel, and baptizing of converts, and people being brought into the kingdom of God, that continues. However, signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders had a specific authenticating message. If there's nothing special about that, well, why can there not be extra biblical revelation today? And that was the claim of Rome. We might get into it later. B.B. Warfield talks about it in his book Counterfeit Miracles, which is excellent. And if people want to, this was published like about 100 years ago. I don't know when he actually gave the lectures themselves, but talk about Rome Catholicism. Now Roman Catholicism, basically what happened to Roman Catholicism, one of the many things that happened with Roman Catholicism, which was an apostasy. It was a church, but apostatized from the truth and eventually became cut off from the visible church at the Council of Trent. It anathematized the gospel, officially. But much of the church had already broken off by that point. But I'm talking about officially now. A lot of it was Pelagian and allowing in free will and all this kind of stuff. But in this book he talks about Roman Catholicism, how they believed more and more in the miraculous. See this, like, it wasn't just Montanism, but it was also what eventually became called Roman Catholicism or, you know, Medieval Catholicism or whatever you want to call it. Heresy that entered into the church and You had more and more sacramentalism, depending on the sacraments for salvation in the medieval ages, medieval period. And you had this authenticating of these extra, you know, canonizing all these people and all this kind of stuff as being the measure or the challenge of divine truth. And what was authenticating to them was the signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders. Hopefully, if we get time later on, we'll go into that, maybe if we get a chance in this program. So anyway, going back to this article, commenting on after that part about the Book of Acts, we want Jesus to heal our dying grandmother, just not through a strange charismatic prayer service. Yeah. True. Why? Because we shouldn't expect it. Yeah, God still heals, but not to authenticate an apostle or something like that. Apostles did that. Or people under the apostle's authority. Again, it was to authenticate that they were the channels of divine truth. Okay? God is not the author of confusion, otherwise anybody could claim that, and how would you know the difference between one and the other? Okay, now, after all we console ourselves, the article goes on to say, God is sovereign and he can do what he wills in response to my simple prayer. While this is true, it is not the whole truth. Regarding the Spirit, there are three ways we play mom against dad, as it were. Number one, obey the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the greatest gift of our Reformed heritage is the recovery of biblical authority. Without the Bible, the Gospel of Grace would lay hidden, buried under a complicated and heavy labyrinth of the traditions of men. Yet, we who say we're willing to obey the Bible, wherever it takes us, are often reticent when the Bible takes us to the Spirit. No, the Spirit takes us... Look, the Spirit and the Bible, they don't work contrary to each other. It's not like the Bible just hands us over to the Spirit, and it's something contrary to what the Word of God says, by the way. Yeah, we're supposed to walk in the spirit, but the spirit, what it does is illuminates our minds so we understand the scriptures. And with our brains, it's not some alienation of mind like some of the early montheists in the early few centuries believed. It is a thoughtful understanding of the scriptures, obeying the scriptures from the heart and the mind, OK? So the article goes on to write, we love that the Spirit says what the Spirit says about salvation, preservation, sanctification. Yeah, because the Spirit wrote the Bible. They go together, by the way. And we're not just too sure about the parts regarding supernatural impartation that the Scripture still says. Who's we? I'm sure lots of the modern church are not sure about it, which is one of the reasons why desiring God is so charismatic, because the church isn't sure. You listen to John Piper, he says he's not really sure too much either. That's what he says a lot. He's very open to things. The default position when people aren't too clear on it often, not always, but often can be, well, I don't want to completely neglect it completely. Look, I'm coming from the position of I had a kind of a bit of a weird, slight experience when I was converted, honestly. But I can't depend on that. The Bible is sufficient, and I have no reason to. You know, I think I heard an audible voice when I was like, just converted or whatever. What that was, I do not know. Okay, but God has spoken in his word. So I should not be adding to scripture saying that this is extra biblical revelation. That would be wrong and that would be wicked. What it was beyond that, I don't know. What it was my imagination or something like that, who knows? Maybe I wanted to believe I did. Whatever the case, I cannot depend on it. And I get it. I get it. You experience something and it makes it more memorable. It's one of the reasons why the Lord gave us the sacraments. because they appeal to our senses, okay? They, through baptism, which is a sign and seal, which signs and seals washing away the filth of our sin, and salvation, and the effect of regeneration, things like that, and also the Lord's Supper, which is a sign and seal which represents how Christ nourishes us. We feed on Christ spiritually. The Lord's Supper. And these are sensible signs and seals that sets before us redemption. The gospel, it is the visible word. That's what Augustine said, a visible word. We have the audible word and the word of God, and the visible word, what we can touch and taste and smell and everything else like that, are the sacraments. They're there to aid our faith, to whip us, enable us, and they're there for our blessing and our benefit. And so that's why the Lord put them there, but we have so much more of an abundance of the Spirit of God in the New Testament era... from the Old Testament era, that we're not to depend on the sensible signs and see it anymore as much as we used to. There were so much of a greater degree in the Old Testament. If you want more on that, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 talks about that, the comparison between the old and the new covenant. And I've done programs on that as well. And you can just go to megetarady.com, type in old covenant or new covenant or something like that. And you'll be able to find that program. So, anyway, are we sure about what the role of supernatural impartation is? Yeah! It was to authenticate that... How many people have written books on this, by the way? This is not something new, this is something that goes back centuries. That this was to authenticate that the apostles were to challenge the divine truth. that they were the ones with the message from God. Okay? They would be the ones penning scripture, things like that. Okay? It was a period of transition. Notice how, okay, the miracles, the signs and wonders, the New Testament is written. You've got Moses writes the Pentateuch. You have the prophets. Because otherwise, if there was no miracles with them, how do you know that the message that they're giving is actually from God? See, God is not the author of confusion. There was a purpose and reason for the miracles. So he talks about earnestly desired spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. He's referring to 1 Corinthians 14. And look, Chris Austin wrote about this in, what was it, the 4th century. Trying to get the exact date in front of me now. Chris Ostom, who lived from 347 to 407 AD, wrote in his homilies on 1 Corinthians in volume 12, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, said, this whole place, and he started with the spiritual gifts, right? Commentary on spiritual gifts on 1 Corinthians. He said, this whole place is very obscure. But the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referring to, and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur, now no longer takes place. So, and there's other places to go as well, but the place is very obscure, so it's a very easy place for people to go when they want to prove almost anything. Well, one of the reasons why, and Chris Austin's point was this, it's been gone for centuries, okay? Now what's the verse referred to by Adam Mabry, who writes for Desire and God? 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 1, follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy. The whole point of it was, at the time of Corinth, right? Talk about what, the mid-50s AD or around then, You had the gift of tongues, it was still in operation, okay? You still had the spiritual gifts. Follow after charity, follow after love. Love was the most important thing that was pointed out in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy. The tongues and the spiritual gifts all mentioned were given that they may prophesy, that the truth may be revealed. It says in verse 3, "...but he that prophesied speaketh unto men to invocation and exhortation and comfort." And it says, but he that may prophesy, edify the church. It's all about edifying and building up the church. And it talks about prophesying. We don't have that anymore. Why? Because all of scripture has been revealed. We know from 2 Timothy 3.16-17 that is sufficient. Scripture is sufficient for every good work. We're comparing mid-50s, 80s, with later. What does it mean? Look, there are spiritual gifts, but not all of them are supernatural. And we should follow after spiritual gifts in order. And the whole point of 1 Corinthians chapter 14 is that we seek gifts, especially which ones we've been given. When we're born again, those things that the Lord has given us, those talents that we have to labor in the word and develop and all this, that we may bless the body of Christ. with those gifts. Now in this is a specific example, it's talking about like using tongues, you know, somebody prophesied in another language and then the translated and the tongues were there in order to edify and build up the church. In order that the church may understand the message given. That was the whole point of 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Tongues were still being used. But it was real human languages There's nothing to suggest that Nathan Bucinich, who is a professor at the Master's Seminary, did a paper on the patristic understanding of the first few centuries after Christ. the so-called church fathers on, and it's a very good paper, on tongues. What they understood as tongues and as normal human languages for the first three centuries. It wasn't gibberish, it wasn't some heavenly language and anyway there's nothing to indicate from scripture that heavenly language is anything other than a normal human language that somebody understood. How did Saul, later Paul, understand God when he spoke to him in Acts chapter 9? There's nothing in Scripture to indicate, even if you wanted to say that there was a heavenly language, that it wasn't something understandable to men. Okay? Nothing to indicate that. And anyway, when Paul is saying, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and I have no charity, he's saying almost like if. He's speaking hyperbole. He's not saying that he could speak with the tongues of men and of angels with everything. He's making an exaggeration, something that could not, that had not and could not take place. Because even in the next verse, in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 2, have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries. Paul didn't understand all mysteries and all knowledge. He's saying, if I had all these things, but I didn't have love, it's all for nothing. And that was the whole point. It was hyperbole. It was a cameraman, exact Greek structure that was used, but anyway, but it's, it's in hyperbole, something that had not, it could not take place. And I actually, I dealt with that in part in a case confusion, a modern church. There's some imperfections that have found definitely in that movie, but I pray that it could still be a blessing to people. You can go to me, get our films.org to watch of chaos and confusion. Look. There's nothing to be charged for it. Copy it, spread it around, do whatever you want. If you want to support future projects, sometimes people do, there's donate tabs around the place, but I don't like charging for material, honestly, I don't. I don't know, I kind of a couple years ago just decided, just give it away. Because with the internet you can. I'm not against people buying books and things like that from other people. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just I think today we should as much as possible minimize the cost. Honestly, I think even pastors should keep the price of their books down. Keep it cheap. Keep it like five pounds or something like that. I was talking and promoting the book by David Silversides, the latest one, The Kingship of Christ. That's only about five pounds and it's well put together. It's not some cheap looking booklet or anything like that. It's a nice little book. And I don't know, it's about 150 pages or something like that. You can buy from covenantorbooks.com. I'm not getting any commission, so just promoting it again. And there's actually a number of good books you can get there and support. Maybe just even just have a look at the website, covenantorbooks.com anyway. So, okay, let's go back to the article from Desiring God before we get to sidetracks. So, look. Be very careful when people...it's a very easy...1 Corinthians chapter 14 is very easy to take out of context. Okay, now let's go on. And no one, this is back to the article again, and no one hearing that letter read aloud in the early church would have thought prophecy meant preach really well or encourage somebody. No, they didn't. But it was a time when the spiritual gifts were being abused and it was calling for regulation, things that don't even happen in the charismatic movement anyway, about Corinth was doing everything wrong. Immorality. Verse, like chapter 5 for example, says in verse 1, is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. Scandalous things! And there were so many problems! Things which improved later on, and just notice how there's so many problems in that church, but... All didn't just say, hey, abandon ship and we will start again like some people, you know, very schismatically do. No, you work with the church. You try to move in the right direction, repentance and faith and growth and all this kind of thing. And you labor with imperfect people by the spirit of God, calling out sin. It doesn't mean you ignore sin. This is not an excuse to ignore sin, by the way, and ignore false gospels and all that kind of stuff in the name of a so-called false unity. But you labor with people, as much as you can labor with people. Laboring together in the bond and have the same mind towards Christ, okay? So, anyway, again, it's a straw man. Prophesying was revelatory. And in order to benefit the church, the tongues rather than just being show off and all this kind of, look at the spiritual gifts that I have and all that, which is what's happening in Corinth. Corinth was very fleshly. That it was there to edify the body. That's what 1 Corinthians chapter 14 means. The straw man that's been erected there. Back to the article. I know that some are inclined to say, listen, I'm all for the supernatural. I just think that the revelatory gifts have ceased. For instance, a seminary professor of mine once said in class, Look, I just don't have a category in my brain for revelation from the spirit that isn't scripture. Again, this is not a strawman, but with all due respect to my professor, I believe that it is his problem, not the Bible's. Yeah, look, this is not exegetical. You want to make this case? Make it from the scriptures. Not from... Look, there's people on the right side of theological disagreements. It doesn't mean they do a very good job of defending their view. You know, we saw a recent example of that on the last program. Just because you're on the right side of one issue, it doesn't give you carte blanche to do whatever you want and make any arguments you want. There are biblical arguments. We must rely upon Scripture for our views, not anecdotes. And you just see this, unfortunately, from a lot of charismatics. Especially people like Michael Brown. And you know what? What's really annoying is that he gets away with it. And he's given the thumbs up for much of his anecdotal, non-scripturally backed views about some pastor in Germany and all this kind of stuff. I mean, this is not biblical. I could prove anything. I could prove any absurd theory by said approach. The article goes on to say, the Bible certainly has a category for divine revelation that wasn't to be written down in Scripture. And that's true, but it was binding on the whole church. On top of Old Testament and New Testament, it was binding on the whole church. It wasn't like optional. So there was a time, it's true in the Old Testament times like that, not everything was written down, but we have everything that God wants to preserve. None of the teachings were lost, et cetera, and so on. But we have everything that God would have us in our hands and things like that. There was sometimes revelation that was spoken. Again, not everything's written down and all that kind of stuff. But that's another issue. Okay, whenever there was divine revelation, it was authoritative and binding on the whole church. It wasn't just an order for one person. Whenever a prophet was told something, it was to send a message to the church, not just some private little message, hey Elijah, like just for him and him alone. No, it was a message of repentance for the church of the day. And the word church is very biblical because it's used in the New Testament Acts chapter 7. We're into the church in the wilderness. If any of you got a dispensationalist background. The church began after the fall of man. It is the people of God, the Ekklesia. The word congregation is used in the Old Testament but it's the same word. The same word. He goes on to write, the people in Ephesus prophesied, but we don't have what they prophesied in the text. The daughters of Philip, the evangelists prophesied enough to note from the Bible. Again, notice how he's making reference to Acts 19.6, Acts 21.9. Yeah, but you're talking about a period of transition where all the scriptures were not given and there were times of revelation and all that to aid the church in time of infancy. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is, I believe that's referring to Scripture, that which is in part shall be done away. When the church has grown up in maturity, when it's no longer almost like to use the analogy of a tricycle with a bike, eventually that child is grown up, reaches maturity and no longer needs those extra wheels as a tricycle anymore and they're taken away. The building blocks are taken away. So there's that message of the growth and maturity and those things removed at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Again, the examples don't work. what you're trying to prove for today. You're taking early church history when, yes, these things were there. Not today. But we don't have what they prophesied in the Bible. And that's the point. We want to honor the fatality of the Word of God, but we can't do that by disobeying it. Now, in the first century, if you were living in the first century, let's get this clear, you were following the Word of God, okay? And because it was still revelation, Right? You had the written word of God and you also had God was still, you know, speaking in dreams and things like that, you know, telling Joseph to return, giving instruction and things like that. But you have, how would I put it? At that point, not all of the scripture was revealed. We're told in, I think it's in 1st Peter, that we have a more sure word of prophecy. Trying to get the exact reference here. I dealt with a lot of this in Of Chaos and Confusion in the Modern Church, if you want more details on this. So it's not like just, we're gonna be just dealing with this today. But I don't want to be flippantly just skipping through things and just pointing towards that and doing a poor job of explaining it, but if Nah, it's not 1st Peter, it's actually 2nd Peter. Yeah, 2nd Peter, chapter 1. And it talks about not following funny, following cunning device fables. Verse 16, I witness of his majesty. And verse 17, for we receive from God the honor and glory. For he received from God the father honor and glory, when there came such a voice from him from excellent glory. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard we were with him in the holy mountain. Now this is the voice, the very voice of God. What does it say about this? We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto you do you do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in the dark place. You can read the rest of it in your own time 2nd Peter to the end of the chapter 2nd Peter chapter 1 from both verse 16 onwards or maybe from verse 13 more sure Word of Prophecy, the written Word. And what are we told about Scripture? All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Passographia and Eustace. Everything written down is God-breathed. That's what it literally means. Everything written down is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, that's mature, equipped, thoroughly equipped unto all good works." Thoroughly furnished. Unto all good works. Scripture is sufficient. It was one of the teachings of the Reformation. Scripture is sufficient. The revelatory gifts, the authenticating signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders are taken away. Why? Because we have the more sure word of completed... You're using these examples and they're anachronistic. They don't prove your point. Nobody denies, not that I know of, and if you do deny that there's miracles in the first century, you're a liberal and you don't really believe the scriptures. So, and unfortunately this is what happens, it's not anything new, but there's this idea that the part of the church that neglects this says, oh, well, it doesn't really believe that there's miracles in the first century in the first place. And it's kind of like semi-implying, or some parts even outrightly say that, you know, that they're kind of liberal or something like that, that they're really... I think it was Tertullian, as brilliant as he was at times, seemed to imply in one of the quotes that I read from him that the part of the church that didn't embrace the monotonous errors that he did, know the the Montanus church was the church of the spirit and the cameraman exact term that was used for the rest of the church it was kind of like the church of the flesh or something like that but there was this kind of prideful boasting a lot this these quotations are actually in of chaos confusion of modern church and Tertullian kind of believed in the alienation of mind and Tertullian was pretty Brilliant. You see, in the first few centuries, you have to realize they didn't have the internet. They didn't have all this kind of stuff. So you've got to be a lot more gracious towards them. There were a lot more errors. There was no, they didn't have many, many books. to access, they don't have bookshops, they don't have Amazon. So we're so blessed today, but we're so ignorant at the same time. We have less excuse than they do, far less excuse than they do. And we can have many different ways of helping us through godly books and things like that. We're so blessed, brethren. What are you doing wasting? What are we doing wasting our time? So many foolish things that we have, that we spend our money on, we spend our time on, unfortunately. Okay. So he, and then he also mentions, uh, we are to honor the fidelity of the word of God, but we can't do that by disobeying. And, uh, anyway. So you will not find a passage anywhere in scripture that makes some neat delineation between so-called revelatory gifts and the rest of them. No, but every single time, well, you could say the same thing about, you know, that, oh, well, give me that verse that says about the Trinity. There are gifts and it talks about the purpose of them in various different places. I'm trying to remember, was it Hebrews chapter 2? The whole purpose of them and you know, if you go everywhere, even at the end of Mark 16, I won't go there now for the sake of time, but read the end of Mark 16, the dispute of passage, you know, when we talk about textual criticism there. A few weeks ago, you know, the Nissan Aland rejects that, unfortunately. Now, so, for example, just this one passage, Hebrews chapter two, verse four, God bearing them witness, this is the witnesses who spoke by the Lord and was comforted by them and who heard them, bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. There's various different passages like that, talking about the purpose of signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders. And they were never normative, even biblical times. They were never normative. Otherwise, I remember the analogy being given one time, just say you were to meet somebody at the airport with a red cap, and then, but you went to the airport, and just say that the miracles were normative, cross, and there still are, were before. Well, they were authenticate. Well, what if everybody go to the airport and you're to meet this guy named Tom? But when you get there, everybody's wearing a red cap. So it's just confusion. And what was the purpose of them in the first place? It was to bear witness. Now, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 2, God at sundry times in diverse manners speak and time pass unto the fathers by the prophets. talk about revelation, how did God speak in times past by the different ways, by the prophets, he authenticated through signs, gifts, miracles and wonders through the prophets as well to show that he was speaking and there was no confusion. He said, half in these last days These last days, Paul was in the last days. The last days go from the second coming of Christ. Paul says he's in the last days. If you do a search, I think it was in Show 100 a number of years ago, I did a program on, just went through the Bible and what it said about the last days. We've been in the last days for the last 2,000 years. It's not the last generation, that is, Dispensationalism. Okay? Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. Okay? He has spoken in these last days on to us. So before that, he spoke in different ways. Okay? And, you know, desiring God and we will agree with that. But since then, he has spoken By His Son. Who is His Son? The Word of God. Okay? Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He had made the worlds. And it goes on from there. Who is Jesus Christ? He has spoken. Are we going to deny the sufficiency of Scripture? That He has already spoken? No longer. Like He did before. And praise the Lord, because the clarity for us is so much greater. And the Old Testament prophets, oh, how they would have longed to have clarity of the New Testament in order to interpret, compare Scripture with Scripture. Now be careful now, because I'm not saying that the Old Testament is sub the New Testament, but the clarity in which the truths that are already there in the Old Testament are brought out more so in a clearer way, by Jesus Christ and his resurrection, his life, death, burial, and resurrection, give to the Old Testament Scriptures. We should spend as much time in all parts of the Scripture, not just the New Testament. I think there's sometimes a bit of a danger you just see pastors and ministers preaching only from the New Testament, or just the New Testament maybe a tiny slither from Isaiah or something like that. No, you need to go through the whole thing. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. All of it is to be used for approval. It's not just, you know, the faith which was once delivered unto the saints, that body of doctrine is talking about in Jude 1, verse 3, is talking about the entire Bible, not just the New Testament. So be very, very careful of that. Now, Part two, I'm gonna skip on a little bit. Okay, so if it is true that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, then how can we not, for the sake of our own joy and happiness, for the sake, notice how this is what Christian hedonism does. It makes it all about our joy and happiness. For the sake of our own joy and happiness, seek to enjoy God in the person of his spirit. Not gonna spend a long time on Christian hedonism. It's a torturing of the question one of the Shorter Catechism. What is man's chief end? Yes, it is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And in Piper's redefinition and just changing of the sentence, it's to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. What's the danger in that? The danger in that is it makes it everything about pleasure. pleasure. And that becomes the chief end of everything. Yes, enjoy God. I'm not saying we don't or not to enjoy God. That's the joy of the Lord. We pray that the joy of the Lord will be our strength, that we wouldn't seek joy anywhere else. But we obey God. We serve Him. And through that, The effect of that is we long for Him more and more and we don't long anything else. That is an effect, a fruit of obeying Him. We don't follow a feeling, we follow God. And the effect of that is to enjoy Him forever. Because our heart has been so changed that we will enjoy Him. But if we go leading off with for the sake of our own joy and happiness. And that's what Christian hedonism does. E.S. Williams talks about it a bit in his book, if you're interested in that, Christian Hedonism. I can't remember the subtitle, but you can get it from Amazon. Another person I'd like to get on the program. One of the reasons I haven't got a number of people have mentioned I want to get on the program. If you know some of these people that I mentioned about getting on the program, maybe contact them. It's just basically a lack of time. I am recording this program way too late and yeah, so if you can pray and if you think of other people that might be good to get on the program. Because I'd like to do more interviews in the future. I've already done 14 shows with interviews since Magita Radio started back in 2011. That's when it started, that's like what, 6 years ago now? So, not a lot. I didn't start doing the first interview that I did. Was i think about three years ago richard bennett and i did a number of interviews with him so i'd like to get different people. Different types of people and i really really enjoy getting jeffrey lawn. I some of the best shows have been just interviews like i don't want to do more you know one show on the comedy. My favorite favorite show I think hands down it was a program I had Kenneth Stewart of Glasgow Reform Presbyterian Church. on the phone, on Skype, and he was preaching for us actually in our church over the weekend, and we were, it was just a real blessing. I don't like raving about pastors and all that, but seriously, I was really, really blessed by the preaching. I didn't realize, sometimes you don't realize how good of a preacher, I've heard him a few times in sermon audio, but you just, I forget, I forgot how natural of a preacher he is. But anyway, but We were talking about exclusive psalmody and the book Songs of the Spirit, which he edited and there was a lot of different authors on that. And we also had a quote unquote in studio here in my house. We had David Silversides, who is the minister in Lough Bricklin Reform Presbyterian Church of Ireland. And so I'd like to get more. People on the program. I really enjoy it, I really enjoy the chat, sometimes it it's nice to bounce things off people and things like that. So, you know, if you go to MagiddaRadio.com forward slash interviews, you can listen to or you can watch them on YouTube. A lot of the interviews that have been done, I'm not trying to get quote unquote, the big names. They might be big names. My policy has been from day one, there's a topic that needs to be covered or I'd like to cover or whatever else, who is one of the best people I can find? And that's kind of what I want to go with. And I've yet to get somebody on the charismatic movement, honestly. There was one person I was going to get On that topic to talk about who I thought was really good on it but yeah there's various reasons I would not invite him on there but. you know, I want to kind of more topic-based rather than, oh, I like this person, let's get them on about that. I might do that once or twice. I'm not saying I'll never do that. But anyway, I digress. So let's get back to this article here from John Piper. And actually, do you know what? I'm not going to be able to get on to the next article, but I might, I might, I might, because I'm actually I have a day off work this week, so I might be able to do an extra program. I've got a thing to do on Carol Lentz on The View. Keep me in prayer that I can get all this stuff out. And, um... I haven't talked about the charismatic move in quite a while. So, anyway. If it is true that God... Yeah, anyway, we talked about the Christian hedonism thing. So if it's true about that... Seek to enjoy God in the person of his spirit, Desiring God and that's the name of the organization including God the Spirit means abounding with hope instead of cynicism Whatever that means and in references to Romans 15 13 I'm not gonna look at all the references here just for the sake of time But in Romans 15 Because, so much, you have to be, like, with John Piper or any of these other guys, and to give the proof text, you gotta really check them out. Okay? Not just, oh, look at all the references he has. Well, does it actually say what he claims it says? Now, the God of Hope, this is Romans 15, 13. Now, the God of Hope, fill you with all joy and peace, believing, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. So through believing, in believing, see the joy of the Lord is our strength, that's what we hope for, that we wouldn't seek our joy anywhere else. But we don't seek the joy as a means in and of itself, and that's kind of what it becomes in the Christian hedonism system. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. That you may not look outside of the Scriptures for your hope. The Spirit will take you to the Scriptures. A bounty and hope instead of cynicism, what do you mean of stories of the supernatural? If you believe the scriptures and God has spoken unto us by his word, Hebrews 1 and 2, and you know the purpose of signs, gifts, miracles, wonders, you know what the tongues were, they were actual human languages from the scriptures, you should be cynical or skeptical about any claims that contradict the scriptures, okay? And he talks about overflowing with joy. There's gonna be times when you're obeying God, when you glorify God, and it's going to be tragic. When you weep over your sin. Not everything is joy, joy, joy, joy, okay? Like the fundamentalists would sometimes say. says also in this article, supernatural occurrences like tongues, healings, and prophecy. So desiring God includes supernatural occurrences. And this is just substituted in. And he quotes from Acts chapter 2 verse 4. So But there are kind of Pentecost-like, and some of the Reformers might have talked about Pentecost-like outpourings of the Spirit, but they're called revivals. But they're not accompanied by signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders because there isn't a transition from any covenants. What we have today is an outpourings, we can have outpourings of the Spirit of God, but it's marked by conversions. The same message does not need to be authenticated again and again. Once is enough. And it says, powerful proclamations of the word of God. Notice how that's at the very end, unfortunately. Intense times of worship where our Lord speaks to his church. Oy. So ask yourself, are you okay with all that? Well, he's just substituting in. If that's what God means for it to happen, yeah, sure, but... Are you okay with...? Anyway, but it makes joy the chief end and means. You want to glorify God? God is happiest when you're happiest! This is why, look, this is why Brethren, Piper a couple of years ago didn't have a huge problem with Rick Warren's book. He read it or he claimed to have read it. When he gave that interview a couple of years ago, it made everybody shocked. You know, Rick Warren and his books will say, well, it's not about you. You know how you can glorify God? You do. You know, what's your shape? You follow that. And God says, that's my boy. You know, that, that, that speech that Rick Warren gave before the TED talk. And basically God is glorified when you're happiest and all that. It's incredibly like Warren. It's just smacked of that. I'll be honest. Look, Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's question one. Not by enjoying him forever. That becomes the mean. There's going to be times where sometimes sorrowful. It's not all about joy, joy, joy. Because you just see with this philosophy and Piper and the mysticism from a couple of years ago, you know, we were talking about the pro, this is from years ago now when we were talking about Passion 2012 and the Catholic mysticism Lectio Divina. We were talking about it on the Sunday program years ago now. I can't remember the exact show number. It was like 42 or something. That's like nearly 250 shows ago. And we were dealing with the whole Lectio Divina. you know, Catholic mysticism, because you're chasing an experience and you just see it with the Passion Conferences, which John Piper's so involved in, that they're chasing this experience, the lights are down low, and it's like, oh, how will we glorify him more? Well, more of an experience. His theology, it has consequences, unfortunately. And he says in the last paragraph, we'll wrap it up here. I've been a Reformed Christian for a while now. I often hear sentences like, we are cautiously open to the spirit, or I'm charismatic, but with a seat belt. Are we afraid of the Holy Spirit? I often react to weirdos in church history and in our own day. How do you know who the weirdos are, by the way? It's such a throwaway term. Instead of responding to the written word of God. And who are the non-weirdos in the charismatic movement? You might say John Piper, but Where's the discernment with Rick Warren? Where's the discernment with Michael Brown, who sees Mike Bickle as a brother, who sees no problem with Benny Hinn, who was on his program a number of years ago and still doesn't know if he's a heretic? So how do you determine which is which? Where is the distinction? It's very hard to tell one, if there is any. He quotes a couple of things there. Welcome the Holy Spirit and basically says don't neglect it because we're called to do by scripture. And he says in the last part, God has told us to desire his spirit and all the gifts of the spirit. Well, if we're born again, we repent of his... we want to be controlled more and more by the Spirit of God. How do we do that? What has he provided us with? The Word. So we pray? We read the Word of God, we search the Scriptures, the Spirit of God works in our heart, and the Lord controls us. It's not some experiential... Well, it is spiritual. It is experiential. I don't want to say it's not, but it is not just like kind of just being some experience, shall we say, and just being instantaneously, kind of a second blessing or anything like that. It is sanctification as a process. There's no shortcuts to it. Some people progress faster than others, but it's by the grace of God. But it is faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We need to be in the Word. If you want to grow in the grace, knowledge, and truth, prayerfully read your Bibles and search the Scriptures prayerfully on your knees, crying out to God for wisdom. It's not just take the seatbelt off time. He says, some of the greatest teachers have told us otherwise. Yeah, they have and they've warned us against such excesses that have been taught by desiring God. Actually, if you go across church history, Richard Caldwell Jr., I used to listen to his sermons a lot years ago. He's on Sermon Audio. I can't remember his exact theological, I can't remember if he's Calvinistic or not, but anyway, he's quoted in, of Chaos, Confusion, and Modern Church, at least in audio. And he said, if you go across church history looking for friends, you're going to largely find heretics. That should always make you wonder. The article says, and we like children are trying to obey one by disobeying the other. God has spoken to us by spirit about his spirit. How will you respond? It's true. Some of the greatest teachers have said things like this. Thomas Watson wrote in 1660, sure there is as much need of ordination now as in Christ's time and in the time of the Apostles. There being then the extraordinary gifts in the Church which are now ceased. And you can go John Owen, Matthew Henry, Jonathan Edwards wrote in 1738, in order to the founding establishing in the church, he's talking about extraordinary gifts in the world. But since the canon of scripture has been completed and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased. That's in Charity and its Fruits, page 29. And you go on and on. If you're trying to find people who agree with desiring God, you're going to find heretics. You're going to find people like Montanus and all that. The only people you can really get, like Tertullian, maybe Augustine at times, and all that kind of thing. If you look, and even look, they spoke against it. They were inconsistent at times. You know, Augustine wrote against it, you know, in some of his writings and stuff like that. I'm talking about his commentaries on the scriptures and things like that, and Chrysostom. And you just, like, Montanism for the first few centuries, really strange stuff. And then you go to the Zwicko prophets during the Reformation. Then you end up in the time of Luther and Melanchthon, around that time, right? And Luther is dealing with the charismatics of his day. And what does Luther say? We're remembering the Reformation, are we not? How does Luther, how did Martin Luther respond to Thomas Munzer, kind of like an Anabaptist of the day? An Anabaptist had so many different views, it's almost impossible to, you could say, critique him. Because they were just reactionaries, they rejected different things. Michael Cervantes rejected the Trinity. Okay, so it wasn't just infant baptism they rejected, they just were reactionaries. Many of them weren't Christians. I don't want to say that all of them weren't Christians, but they were reactionary. They were rejected all sorts of things, which led them even at times to becoming violent. Luther was writing to Melanchthon and kind of dealing with the whole thing with the claims of Munster and all that. I just want to make sure the reference is right. 0.046, that's at the back of the page. So, anyway, this is the letter, this is what Luther wrote, and I'll finish the show with this. I haven't been able to get onto the next one. Who knows if I'll be able to get onto it at all, really. It's an article written by Charisma Magazine about confronting false prophets. And this Martin Luther confronted the charismatic false prophet of the day. He said, now let me deal with the prophets, quote unquote. Before I say anything else, this is Luther writing, I do not approve of your timidity, talk about Melanchthon's timidity, since you are younger in spirit and learning than I. First of all, since they bear witness to themselves, one need not immediately accept them. That's that dreaded cynicism that Desire and God are against. He goes on to write, according to John's counsel, the spirits are to be tested. If you cannot test them, then you are to have the advice of Gamaliel, that you postpone judgment. Thus far I hear of nothing said or done by them that Satan could not also do or imitate. You find out whether they can prove that they are called by God, for God has never sent anyone. not even the son himself unless he was called or called through men or tested by signs. I definitely do not want the quote quote prophets unquote to be accepted if they state that they were called by mere revelation since God did not even wish to speak to Samuel except through the authority and knowledge of of Eli. So now I'm just going to read that part again. I do not want the prophets, so-called prophets, to be accepted if they state that they were called by mere revelation. That's what most of them do now. since God did not even wish to speak to Samuel, except through the authority and knowledge of Eli. So there was authority there, or through signs, gifts, miracles, and wonders. It says, look, not even the son himself, unless he were called through men or attested by signs. God is not the author of confusion. And unfortunately, that is the characteristic fruit of the charismatic movement. This has been Paul Flynn. Talk to you again soon. you