Cessationist Critics of the Charismatic Movement: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Let me give you an advance warning here. If you're looking for some type of sensationalistic stuff, some, oh, I can't believe he said that, oh, he crossed the line, no, no, it's not going to happen. I'm going to name some names today, but only when I have something positive to say about those whose names I name and where I have some differences I'm going to paint in some broad lines because there are larger issues involved.

In other words, this is going to be to the glory of God and as constructive as can be. Michael Brown here. Welcome to the broadcast. If you're not getting my emails, we are sending out so much essential information to equip you, to help you, to build you up, and some major developments coming in the new year we'd love to tell you about. Take a moment, if you're not getting my emails, go to AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org.

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I've had this on my heart to do because there's just been a renewed conversation about cessationism. There has been a renewed attack on various things of the Spirit. There is, in my view, tremendous misunderstanding on some key subjects, sometimes both ways. I don't want to do my best to flesh things out, but what I want to do is start out by being positive and naming names in a positive way. I think it's important that we do that, otherwise we just demonize each other, we think the worst of each other, we look for the worst examples of one another, and then worse still, we don't recognize as brothers and sisters people who have been bought with the blood of Jesus, people whom God recognizes as being in his family, and we're saying, well, you're not saved, well, you're not saved. And God's saying, kids, you're going to spend eternity together.

Get it together. So, I definitely have profound differences with my cessationist colleagues. Those who say, for example, that speaking in tongues or prophecy as described in the New Testament are not for today, or that gifts of healing and miracles are not for today. I have some profound differences, and as an eyewitness to the work of the Spirit all around the world for decades, and as someone who has been speaking in tongues since January 24th of 1972, and as someone who tried to get away from these things in the late 70s, early 80s, I questioned a lot of my Pentecostal roots, I questioned a lot of things in the charismatic movement, I became very critical, very skeptical, I became in certain ways even a mocker, but it was the Word, it was the Word that compelled me to continue to believe these things, even when my experience was different. In other words, I wasn't seeing things that I expected to see, I wasn't seeing what was written in Scripture, and I was not experiencing it or seeing it as normative, it was the Word that convinced me. God is my witness. I bought books against Pentecostal charismatic beliefs.

I remember specifically getting books like B.B. Warfield's Counterfeit Miracles or Robert Gromacki's Modern Tongues Movement and other books like that, and I would be reading them and I'd be looking at Scripture and it's just, what can I say? I'm earning my PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at that time at New York University, I'm digging in the Word, I'm getting to the original languages as best as I can, it's like, I can't deny that's what Scripture says, and I thought, well, that's what Scripture says, I have to embrace it, but I guess a lot of what's in the charismatic movement is not real.

That was my conclusion. And then when God really visited me with a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in my own life and brought me to deeper penance for spiritual pride and for hyper-intellectualism as opposed to just bowing down at his throne and feeding on his Word, it was just such an intellectual theological reading of Scripture, and God brought me back to my first love, with that came a wave of the Spirit in my life, and watching God move powerfully, and I've watched ever since. There is much more I believe we should see, just like in many, many other areas of Scripture. In other words, you look at the way people are converted and transformed in the Book of Acts, and often we don't see that. Sometimes we do, we see radical deep conversions, but many times it seems superficial. The unity that Scripture calls for, that we're supposed to walk in, we are a million miles from that. Standards of holiness and purity that the Word of God says we have been empowered by the Spirit to walk in, not perfect in this world, but on some level dead to sin and alive to God and having put to death the lusts of the flesh, that should be a norm in our lives, and yet many times we feel we're falling short of that. So we see things in Scripture that are clearly spoken of in terms of our salvation, in terms of our consecration, in terms of our walk with God, in terms of our intimacy with God. We don't deny that they're real, we just say we have to keep growing, the same with the gifts and power of the Spirit. Where things are falling short, we don't deny what's written, we simply say, God, do everything you promised to do for your honor and for your glory, for the exaltation of Jesus, for the good of a dying world, and for the good of your people. So let me start off with the good.

Maybe the best known or one of the best known critics of the charismatic Pentecostal movement, in particular the Word of Faith aspects of that movement, would be Justin Peters. So finally, early this year, I got to spend time face-to-face with him. We've done Zoom talk together, we've exchanged emails numerous times, talked by phone at least once at some length, then finally got to meet him face-to-face. When the footage is released of the dialogue that Dr. Sam Storms and I had with Justin Peters and Jim Osmond, when that is released on its own independently three-something hours of interaction, you get to see the Spirit in which we did interact.

I'm looking forward to that happening when the folks who have the footage are able to put that together and release it. But as I said to Justin then and to Jim Osmond as well, I believe that Justin really cares about people who've been burned and hurt. And I found that with other critics as well. In other words, they've talked to people who are casualties of bad teaching. They've talked to people who are casualties of bad theology.

They talked to people who almost lost their faith in God entirely because of bad teaching and bad theology. And Justin Peters, having a disability himself, is extremely sensitive to people in healing meetings not being healed, to someone leading a meeting and proclaiming healing. And he would say no one's miraculously healed in meetings that he's been in. But even if some were, he would say, well, what about the vast majority and all the visible ones in wheelchairs or the visibly blind or disfigured?

None of them are healed. And they're just left to walk out wondering, does God care about me? Does God love me?

Is there something wrong with me? Do I not have enough faith? So from all my interaction with him, I don't believe this is his racket. This is his way to make money. Maybe I'm naive about lots of people, but when I get to know people, unless I have evidence to the contrary, I do believe the best. And from what I could tell, interacting with him, he's grieved over these things. And he genuinely believes that some of the leaders involved are wolves that are fleecing the flock, and it grieves him and upsets him. He genuinely believes that. And he has met many, many people who have been helped by his ministry. So when we've talked, he said to me, look, he would like nothing more than to go back to evangelism and winning the lost.

He would like nothing more than that. I take him at his word. And I'm going to phrase this a certain way. I don't mean that he's in this for money.

I'm going to phrase this a certain way. If nobody was buying what he was selling, he'd be out of business. The reason that his ministry continues is not just because of people that join on and they're attacking and they're feeding off what he says. And he knows, I've said this publicly, the reason I had him blocked on Twitter was not because of him, but because of what's followed in his wake. Some of the ugliest, most unchristian stuff I had seen, it would come flooding into my feed.

It's like, okay, Twitter now X, I just have to block it. So I mean, he understands that. But I don't think that's what keeps him going. It's that he constantly meets people who thank him and say, wow, now, you know, through what you said, I feel God's love again, or I have confidence in the scripture again. In other words, if there were not casualties of Charismania, of bad teaching, of erroneous theology, of bad practice, then he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. So I believe there are others like that, that they are genuinely sincere that they have seen people who have been hurt. I genuinely believe that.

And for me, I'm working with so many quality people in America and around the world. Some of you say, well, what about this? What about this? Just don't react, okay? Don't react for a moment. If you got in the trenches with me and went around the world with some of the brothers and sisters I work with in different nations, servants, people who are Christlike and Godly in every way, and some of the fine churches I work with in America and met the young people on fire for the Lord, loving the word of God, loving the lost and the mature believers and solid leaders in the Charismatic Pentecostal movement. If you love Jesus, you'd rejoice with me. I see so much good and I work with people bringing forth so much good. I don't hear about that many casualties.

And over the years, I can say honestly, I don't think, boy, I mean, we get tens of thousands of emails and communications, hundreds of thousands of social media things. But in terms of things I've seen, I don't remember ever hearing from someone who said, Dr. Brown, your teaching on healing messed me up. And I went off my medication because of it.

I got really sick. And I have a whole book, Israel's Divine Healer, which grew out of my doctoral dissertation on the Hebrew word for healing, the Hebrew word Rafah. It's called Israel's Divine Healer. I don't recall ever hearing from one who's saying that your teaching on prophecy or the gifts led me into this or that, or I lost my faith over it. So I'm not aware of that. There may be other things I've taught, surrender to the Lord, or holiness. And so and so I feel condemned or you're preaching works, righteousness, and there's been this misunderstanding or something. But all I'm saying is I am not running into all the casualties.

I'm not hearing from them. We hear from tons of people, but I'm not here for them. That doesn't mean they don't exist. So I believe that one thing that fuels the fires of cessationism is the bad experiences that many have had in certain charismatic Pentecostal circles, be it flaky teaching, be it overall bad theology, be it bad practice. And in point of fact, I've read many people posting online saying, Dr. Brown, I totally agree with you.

I'm a continuationist, but I got out of the charismatic movement. At least they found problems removed, but yet they agree with me theologically and spiritually. So let me start with the good that there are needs where people hurt. And there are things like Justin Peters. I don't doubt Jim Osmond's sincerity and where he's coming from. Men I've interacted with Jim just a few days ago. So they're trying to do good and help people who've been hurt. I commend them for that.

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If you go online, go to triveda.com. Use the code BROWN25 to get the special discount and to get your funds donated to the ministry. Okay, another positive thing about Cessationist critics is that they are doing some work that Charismatic and Pentecostals fail to do. They are holding people accountable for prophecies and things like that. Now, this is not that no Pentecostals, no Charismatics do it, and there is no Pentecostal or Charismatic Pope, etc. And obviously there are many different churches and groups and independent movements and denominations, and there's more accountability in different circles than others. But by and large, we have an accountability problem, especially with major ministries and voices that you can say and do almost anything.

And there seems to be a little accountability. I don't mean for sexual sin or for monetary sin. I mean, in particular, for just abusive spiritual practices, false prophecies, manipulating people with words and things like that. Now, again, I've sought in my own world to draw attention to this. In my 2018 book, Playing with Holy Fire, I shout out very loudly about this. I have a whole chapter on unaccountable prophecy.

And in the circles in which I travel, there is accountability. And several of us leaders put together a major statement, Prophetic Standards. You can read it at PropheticStandards.com. And when all the Trump prophecies were coming that he'd be reelected in 2020, that he had eight consecutive years in the White House, that Joe Biden would not be inaugurated, etc., of course, they were wrong.

They were false. And if you say, well, he was reelected, it was stolen. Well, God should have told someone it's going to be stolen. That would have been nice. It's like I prophesied to you, you're going to get a new car tomorrow. What I didn't prophesize on the way someone's going to carjack it and take it. In any case, in any case, as one who loves the gift of prophecy and prophetic ministry, as one who has benefited from it and been used in it, I long for greater accountability. And colleagues I work with have called for that and long for that as well. So to use Justin Peters again, when there was false prophecy after false prophecy about COVID diminishing by April 15th, by Passover of 2020, he put together a video and we deserved the scorn of it.

What can I say? We deserve to be called out. And it's a crying shame that we didn't wake up then to that major error and use the gift as as God intended it, as opposed to just trying to make predictions all the time. Use the New Testament gift as the Spirit ordered it and not to kind of sit around and, you know, what's the Lord showing you about who's going to win the Super Bowl kind of thing. In any case, we didn't learn, we didn't take heed.

And then we brought public shame to the name of the Lord into the things of the Spirit with this massive failed Trump prophecy, false Trump prophecy. So sometimes the critics have had to do what we failed to do, which I appreciate. I do appreciate.

I wish we would do better on it. I may not like the way they do things certain times, but I've said it publicly, you know, after the video. And Justin sent me certain things that I have to say, yeah, I'm ashamed.

It happened. I'm ashamed. So there is good. In other words, they're helping people who have been hurt and they're exposing exposing error. And for example, if I talk about good, I have profound differences with Pastor MacArthur and Strange Fire Conference, but I have tremendous appreciation for the fact that that he, like many, many other cessationists, revere God and revere the word of God and are unashamed of the gospel and unashamed to take stands for him and don't fall into a lot of me centered theology that bypasses the cross. So there are many fine people who are cessationists. There are there are many missionaries around the world and many people working with the poor. There are many godly moms and dads and young people who are cessationists.

And I'm glad to have them as brothers and sisters. That's some of the good I could mention. A brother, a pastor named Andrew Rappaport, a fellow Jewish believer, reached out to me a few weeks back after I'd given a public invitation to anyone involved in the cessationist movie or who had attended the Strange Fire Conference, not attended, a speaker at the Strange Fire Conference, any of the major cessationist leaders, to have a full length public moderated debate where we could really lay out the issues. And Andrew responded and said that there was a cessationist conference he was part of at his church, or was it a Jim Osmond's church, I think, and that he participated in helping get the movie done on some level.

And he'd debate. We've had some great fellowship over the phone. We did a podcast earlier the week where we talked together as Jewish believers about what's happening in Israel. And our whole goal is to glorify the Lord, not to have gotcha moments, not to like, ah, I gotcha, caught you, look at my son, got a soundbite. No, rather say, hey, let's really present things as best as we can so the body of Christ can be able to look at the evidence, look at the scripture, take it before the Lord and weigh it. So I appreciate that. I appreciate his spirit in it. I prayed that it would really be a God glorifying debate.

Probably sometime next year, we're hoping to do something face to face. When it comes to the bad and the ugly, I'll say up front what the bad and the ugly are. The bad to me is very blatant. It's wrong theology. Absolutely not what scripture says. And I firmly believe deeply that if, now some of you may be Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, in which case you believe in church tradition.

So what I'm saying is going to be a little different for you. But for those of us evangelical, those of us who I'm a messianic Jew, but in the larger evangelical Protestant tradition where we say so the scripture, we say the word of God is our final authority, not later church tradition, et cetera, that I'm firmly convinced if someone was alone with God and the Bible, and they could read it fluently in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and they read it day and night for 10 years, and you put 100 people in a room and 100 came out, I don't think one of them would be a cessationist based on reading the Bible. I would think that they would expect, just on the clear testimony of scripture, that these things would be continuing to this day. Now, I think some would come out with different beliefs about a number of other theological things that could be debated.

But I personally don't believe anyone would come out cessationist. That to me is very bad. It's bad, wrong theology. And it's bad because it's not encouraging people to receive everything God has and a certain intimacy in our relationship with him and hearing his voice that is so beautiful and wonderful and part of the glorious relationship that we have.

And suddenly the word tells us we should have. So rather than encouraging people to receive everything God has and to be used by God to touch so many around the world as the Spirit is now doing, they're either discouraged from it or told it's not for today or it doesn't exist. That's the bad. The ugly is the way that some critics conduct themselves, the use of unequal weights and measures that they hold their side to one standard, those they differ with a very other standard. That there's often an immature mocking and name calling and things like that, which is unproductive.

And I watched the fruit that it does produce. What it does produce is negative, destructive, totally contrary to the fruit of the Spirit, totally contrary to biblical ethics, spreads division, spreads dissension, spreads misunderstanding. And it's really, really unfortunate. And no, I'm not going to get in the dirt and throw mud back at those throwing mud. And for those that attack me personally, 99.9% of it I'm not aware of because just people out there doing it. But I made aware of it.

I feel bad for the people. I'm blessed. I'm enjoying the favor and grace of God. And with all my heart, I'm seeking to please him and honor him and serve you and serve others.

I'm blessed. I feel bad that they really don't know who I am. And we could be friends or I don't want to be your friend, but that's okay. That's okay. But I have the cure that can help them and bless them and serve them in different ways. And I feel bad because they're spreading misinformation and hurting others in the body.

That's the ugly. So we're going to unpack this a little bit more and we'll take the calls. 866-343. I'll also try to weigh in on the election yesterday. Hey friends, Dr. Michael Brown here. Do you remember when people thought I was crazy when I said it's not too late for America, that God can still do something in our country, that there is going to be a pushback, a gospel-based moral and cultural revolution. And do you remember when people thought that you were crazy because you felt the same way, because you believe what I was saying and already felt it in your heart? Well friends, that pushback is here. The gospel-based moral and cultural revolution we've been talking about for 25 years is unfolding and we are right in the thick of it.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the Line of Fire. Okay, a couple of quick comments and feel free to call in and differ with me. One thing I will not do, 866-34-TRUTH, one thing I will not do is take calls where you say, what about this one, what about this one, what about this one, but you say this one's not stable, you say this one's not stable, you say this one's not right with God, but you say this one's a false statement, you say this one's a false prophet.

There's no end to the list of people that people are going to come up with and it's not the purpose of the broadcast, it's not why I'm here, I don't see how it glorifies the Lord. Feel free to say, I've heard certain teaching, do you agree with this? That's perfectly fine. Do you think that this is a good practice? Perfectly fine. But I'm not going to play the game. I've done it in the past.

I tried many years ago interacting with folks and the list never ends. It's like, yeah, I reject that one's ministry. I don't agree with what they're saying.

What about this one? No, it's a good brother. Oh, you won't, okay. Then you're just working with the heretics, like, hey, that's not a game I'm going to play. You say, well, Dr. Brown, you're talking about the bad, the ugly, how come you're not naming names?

Well, there's a time to do it and there's a time not to do it. For example, if you read my authentic fire book by response to strange fire, I'm gracious, but very specifically quoting Pastor McCarthy or other critics, dealing with him very, very specifically by name in my book, Hypergrace, where I'm calling out some error and bad teaching, largely in charismatic Pentecostal circles. It's documented, it's laid out and I name names there. I have quotes. You can look it up. Whole books have been written by folks that I cited differing with me and attacking me and telling me I'm wrong. Literally, whole books have been written to refute my book and endless video series and things like that. That's fine.

Have at it, public, etc. In playing with Holy Fire, I addressed issues, not names. And by the way, Paul does both. Peter does both. Actually, we don't see in 1 and 2 Peter, Peter referencing specific names.

He talks about people are wrong. 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, both. General, rebuke, general correction, as well as people mentioned by name. So Paul, for example, talked about the super apostles, the false apostles. Second Corinthians 11, 13 through 15. Such are false apostles. They're deceitful workers. If Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, so can these false apostles.

Who are they? They're not named in the New Testament. Yet he mentions others, like Alexander the coppersmith, who did him much, much evil. So there are times to mention names. There are times to speak generally. And the word of God is my guide for that.

The word of God is my guide for that. So in playing with Holy Fire, because I'm talking about things on an international level, because I'm talking about things that have happened over the years, people may have repented of certain positions over the years, they may have changed. Other things, I've heard several reports about the same bad phenomenon from others in certain countries, but I don't know the people and specifics.

Therefore, I report about the bad phenomenon. But my reason here, when I talk about the bad and the ugly for not naming names, is because to me, it's not a battle against people. And my goal here is not to discredit a person or a ministry. And there is so much misunderstanding and division that, to whatever extent you look to me as a sound teacher or leader or prophetic voice or whatever, and I say something, now automatically that name I mentioned, you're going to think of negatively, or you're not going to trust anything. They may have some good stuff in their ministry and other things that are bad and wrong. So I'm not going to do that here. And it's not a personal thing.

It's the larger issue. So the bad again, in terms of cessationist critics, is that there is a beautiful walk that God has invited us to have. 2 Corinthians 13-14 speaks of our koinonia with the Spirit, our fellowship, our participation in the Spirit. In John 10, when Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, that is an ongoing and continuous thing. Him being our shepherd. Psalm 23, he's our shepherd. John 10, he's our good shepherd. Hebrews 13 is our great shepherd.

There is an intimacy. There is a hearing his voice. There is a being led by the Spirit on the one hand, which is leading us to say no to sin and yes to God, but also a walk with God. There are ways that he communicates. Some of my friends, he's communicated to in beautiful, wonderful ways through dreams for many, many years. And there's confirmation. Godly people dreaming the same dream, the same time, getting the same message from God, bringing encouragement, confirmation. Look at how the Holy Spirit worked with Paul and his team in Acts 16.

Don't go here, don't go here, go here. By a sense of what the Spirit was saying, and then by a dream, and they interpreting what the dream meant, concluding it meant a certain thing. It's a beautiful, wonderful thing. And to discourage people from that, to say it doesn't happen, that to me is very sad.

That's a bad aspect of of cessationist teaching and criticism of the charismatic Pentecostal movement. Let me take that a little bit further. I have been crying out to God for certain things that he promised me for 25 years, 25 years. They are things of national consequence. They are things that are so far beyond my ability, and they're not about me.

I may be used in the midst of it, but they're not about me. They're about his kingdom and his work. For 25 years, there are things that he's continued to lay in my heart.

Now, we've seen God move. We seek to make disciples day by day by day. We live our lives like everybody else, right?

You get up, you go to work, you do whatever, you have your life, you have your family, et cetera. And no, I'm not every day getting this revelry angel walked into my room, and I was taken to heaven for 90 hours, and now I'm doing that every day, right? And even as I'm talking to you, I'm seeing all kinds of visions around the room. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is I have a wonderful walk with the Lord, and he does speak to me, and he does lead me, and I do experience him.

And so, so many different ways. So I've prayed. There are things that God spoke to me. And over and again, as I pray, he reminds me he's going to do this. He's going to do this. He's going to do this. How beautiful it was to get a text from a brother, the first text I've ever received from him, a very solid man of God who has a great track record of hearing the voice of God through dreams.

And he doesn't know any of this. And he tells me how he had this dream and had scriptures in it from Hebrews six, and that God's faithfulness and promises to Abraham that took 25 years and how God is answering prayers that I've been praying for 25 years. That's very meaningful. That's very meaningful when that's what you're feeling in your heart, and that happens.

I'll just give you an example of something little. It was, let's see, I guess 1993, late 93, early 94. I was trying to lock in dates for ministry that year in Italy and in Finland. And we were just having a hard time communicating overseas. It was, you know, before this email made everything so easy and that everyone had that and so on. And my assistant, my secretary, was having a hard time locking things in.

I was a little frustrated because I needed to lock things in on my calendar because I would have trips two or three weeks long at that time and need everything locked in. And I was praying on a Sunday night, and I felt the Lord say to me, tomorrow, so within 24 hours, you'll hear from Italy, you'll hear from Finland, and also you're going to hear from England. It was out of the blue.

I hadn't preached in England since 1987. Well, the next day, phone call from Italy, fax from Finland, I forget which was which, hear from my secretary, yeah, phone call from Italy, fax from Finland. She goes, oh, and by the way, you got a call from this brother from England, gives me his name, and he wants you to come over and speak at a leaders' conference that he's having. And I thought, that's, I said to him, that's unreal. God told me last night that I was going to hear from England. It's completely out of the blue. For years and years, I hadn't heard from anyone in England with any invitation or anything like that, let alone a phone call to our office. When we get on the phone later that day, find out in the most uncanny and unusual series of events, he ended up with one of my books in England, Whatever Happened to the Power of God?

Is the charismatic church slain and the spirit are down for the count? He actually got it while sitting at a pastor's office in Scotland. This pastor had got it when he was on Long Island at a church where I'd spoken, and the pastor said, go through our bookstore, take anything you want. He took one book only, it was my book. And I said to the guy, I said, I don't know anything about you, except God told me I was getting a call from England today, let's do it. He goes, I don't know anything about you, but God told me to call you today.

And that formed a relationship, a dear brother, friend to this day, years of ministry there in England that were very, very fruitful. That's a beautiful thing when it happens. And to tell people it doesn't happen, the amount of people we know that have been miraculously healed, the advance of the Gospel worldwide, and signs, wonders, and miracles, so many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of people wonderfully born again, so many of them through a demonstration of God's power, that exalt Jesus and exalt the Word of God, and make people understand that there's one God and one Word only to say it's not happening, or that we shouldn't pursue these things, as 1 Corinthians 14 explicitly says, it's a command from the Lord to earnestly desire these gifts, especially prophecy, it's a command. So that to me is bad. It is depriving something beautiful, wonderful from the body, or at least discouraging people from pursuing what God has promised. The ugly, as I say, is the mockery, the misrepresentation, the unfair use of things. For example, one rabbi said that you should not take the best of your religion and compare it with the worst of someone else's religion.

So clips are taken of meetings that may be the most wild, charismatic, Pentecostal meeting I've seen in my life, right? Maybe I agree with it, maybe I don't, but that's taken as if that's the norm for everybody. Or rather than look at the fruit of someone's ministry, look at thousands of people that have been led to the Lord, look at hundreds of churches that have been planted, look at thousands of poor who have been fed and clothed and sheltered, and thousands of children educated, and those who have been laid down their lives for the gospel who've been converted through this ministry, rather than look at that and see the fruit of it, and actually go and investigate it and spend time and see it firsthand.

Instead, you'll put up some clip of that person acting weird publicly, and now the whole thing gets rejected. That's unhelpful, that's unfruitful, that's immature, and then the mocking names and titles and things like that. It does not advance truth. It does not advance the pursuit of truth. It does not glorify Jesus. It doesn't edify the body. And if I wanted to put together a documentary like that on cessationism, so I find all the dead churches, all the dead, Reformed churches, cessationist churches around America, around the world, take pictures of people sleeping in the pews, and get stats of not a single convert in the last three years, and get some weird quotes from someone who was in a cessationist megachurch, and they were this, and they were abusive, and they were authoritarian. You could make anybody in the world look bad.

You could make any group in the world look like a bunch of idiots and jerks. It's not edifying, it's not helpful, and we've got no business doing it. It doesn't do God's work. You can bring righteous criticism and correction. You can point out bad practices.

You can call people to step higher. There's a right and a wrong way to do it, and a lot of it, sadly, is wrong, bad, and destructive. Good news is the Spirit keeps working. It has not stopped the Spirit. He did not get the memo. The Holy Spirit did not get the memo about cessationists.

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So call now 1-800-771-5584 or online at trivita.com. This is how we rise up. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So as soon as this show is over, I'm in Dallas right now, run right back over to my apartment in Christ for the Nations, literally run right back over there, grab my luggage, drive over to Fort Worth where I'll be at Mercy Culture the next couple of days teaching in their ministry school and broadcasting from there, God willing. And I'll be on with Remnant Radio in what, like an hour from when this show is over, talking about the cessationism, actually.

So you can join me over there. Before I take a call or two, 866-34-TRUTH, just some reflections on some recent things that have happened. The House voted to censure Rashida Tlaib for her support of demonstrations and verbiage that said, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free no matter what spin she put on it that is calling for the annihilation of Israel.

I'm glad that happened. She said she's spoken against what happened and the terrible suffering of the people in Israel. I don't doubt that. I don't think that she rejoices that men, women, and children suffer. I should say children, women, men, elderly suffered what they did.

But you don't call for the annihilation of Israel, the Jewish people. That's what that chant does. You can't downplay it, you can't soften it. That is the reality. So that happened.

That's positive. But friends, we really got to wake up. We cannot just take for granted that America will stand with Israel and the Jewish people. It's a demonic battle, as I talked about yesterday. What about the fact that Ohio, which is a red-leaning state, GOP-leading state, voted to make abortion, and actually radical abortion rights for any reason basically up to conception, if you really look into this, they voted to enshrine that as a constitutional right. Well, it's a terrible shame. It's grievous.

It's ugly in God's sight. It will mean more human suffering, both for babies and children. It will mean more hardening of more hearts. Was it simply a matter that they got better advertising, that they had more zeal for it? Is it a reflection of more money to spend for ads? Is it a reflection of better strategies to get voters out? Or is it a reflection of the fact that many Americans are afraid, even some conservatives, about a total ban on abortion or anything like that, and this is pushing back? There are lots of questions, but for sure we have to continue to work hard to change hearts and minds.

For sure we have to do that. And I am not looking to the GOP to change America. I vote Republican. I'm a registered Democrat out of conscience before God to not belong to a political party. That's your call to do other.

I don't judge that. But I vote Republican because of policies, because of pro-life policies, because of policies against things like transgender activism, because of stronger stands with Israel, a stronger push against international terror, various things like that. I vote GOP. At certain times I may have to sit out an election in a certain place because I'm not happy with either candidate. But my hope is not in the Republican party. My hope is not in the Republican party to transform America.

My hope is in God reviving the church and reviving the church leads to reformation in the society. What about Kentucky? Did the Trump endorsement hurt? Did Trump endorse a Republican candidate who then won but who is not the best candidate and hence, in a very red state, a Democratic governor won?

Or was it just that he's popular in other ways? I'm not an on-the-ground political analyst to say. But I would say that with the good that President Trump did, there was also a lot of bad and there's a lot of aftermath of upheaval in the Republican party and people just need to pray for God's best. People need to step back from personal loyalties and I'm a Republican, I'm a Democrat, I'm for this one, I'm for that one, and really pray for God's best for the nation and for the right people to be raised up to serve and then above and beyond that for the church to do its job.

Okay, a lot more to say but we've got a whole lot of time before coming elections to reflect more on that. Let's go to the phones here and we will go over to Kieser in Toronto. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking the call, I appreciate it.

Big fan of your work and then a big supporter, thank you for all your work, you know, spreading the gospel. Regarding the topic of cessationism, I myself am Reformed, I'm just wondering, it's something that I'm currently studying through right now, especially being a biblical studies and theology major in university, but I'm just trying to understand if I'm watching all the cessationist arguments about, you know, what was the actual operation of, you know, for example, tongues and prophecy in the New Testament, if we look at kind of examples today of where we perhaps see things like that, does it look the exact same? An example of that regarding my question would be, you know, if people are kind of speaking but not in a known human language, how exactly do we understand these things?

How exactly do we approach these conversations without being harsh, but at least recognizing that, hey, maybe there is a difference in terms of what is happening and hence that could be one of the stronger cessationist arguments there, right? Yes, so here's the first problem. The question is not what's happening today, the question is what does the word say. In other words, if the word promises XYZ and we're not seeing XYZ, do we say the word's not true? No, we say, God, where is XYZ?

It's promised. So, to me it's a flat out, with all respect to my friends who differ, flat out the Bible says these things will continue. There's not a hint in scripture that they're going to stop. There's not a hint in scripture until Jesus returns that any of these are going to stop and we're commanded to pursue them.

So, that's number one. So, if we're not seeing what's in the Bible, then we should be. So, I want to start there because we're word people. Secondly, what we're seeing with tongues is exactly what we should expect. You have the one time in Acts 2 where it has to do with the gospel being heard in different languages for different people. There's not a hint of that in Acts 10 that had anything to do with evangelism, right? Peter speaks, the Gentiles hear the message, they begin speaking in tongues, that's just a sign for Peter that they receive the Spirit. They start speaking this new language, new languages, there's nothing to do with evangelism. Same in Acts 19, after these disciples have found the Baptist hear the rest of the message and are immersed, they receive the Spirit, they speak in tongues and they prophesy. It had nothing to do with evangelism, but the explicit teaching that we have in 1 Corinthians 14 says you're speaking mysteries in your Spirit to God, that no one understands you, unless there's someone there who has the gift of interpreting, you shouldn't speak. And ask yourself this question, why would God move on me to pray in German alone?

How does that identify or help anybody? But he would move on me to pray a spiritual language around communicating mysteries in the Spirit to God. Not only so, he says if someone comes in from the outside who is unlearned or who is an unbeliever and they hear you doing this, they'll think you're crazy. And, interestingly, the King James says they'll think you're barbarians, which comes from the Greek bar-bar, which is like gibberish. In other words, they're going to think you're speaking gibberish. That's the complaint we get, yours sounds like gibberish. Paul said, yeah, if it's misused, that's what people are going to think.

So it's exactly what I would expect. And what's amazing, Jesus, is around the world we've seen this, praying for people who had never heard of this, and suddenly they began speaking in tongues. I was preaching at a church in Raleigh, North Carolina some years ago, and the pastor told me that his mother was part of a group of Baptist women, they were praying in the 60s, they'd never heard of any of this, and the Holy Spirit fell in their prayer meeting, they began speaking in tongues, didn't know what it was, and then started to find out what was happening, part of the charismatic renewal. But it's exactly what's described in Scripture. As for prophecy, the fact that anybody can potentially prophesy, Paul said you would all prophesy. So the fact that anyone can potentially prophesy now opens it up to potential error and false words and things like that. So Paul is explicit in 1 Corinthians 14, two or three should speak, and the others should judge carefully what's said. 1 Thessalonians 5, don't despise prophecy. Well, why might people despise it?

It could be unusual, it could be different, but maybe there's some junk with it. Don't despise prophecy, test everything, hold fast to that which is good. This is within the body, this is not a false prophecy on the outside, this is within the body.

So people speaking words, words of direction, it's primarily within the body for encouragement and edification. 1 Corinthians 14, three, an exhortation, but everything has to be tested. When people speak of gifts of healing, say, well, you should be able to clear out every hospital. Well, hang on, where does it say that that's how it operated in the New Testament?

It doesn't. And ironically, you know, Paul didn't heal Trophimus, Paul didn't heal Timothy, et cetera, and here and there it's recorded that everyone was healed, like at the end of the book of Acts, and Acts 28 on the island of Malta, everyone there was healed. But it doesn't say that that's the normal what always happened, or even that that's what gifts of healing are. So I find that a lot of times we come with our own definitions and understanding, put it on scripture, and then say, well, where is it? But it's not what scripture self-describes.

Do I believe that we need to grow? And you say prophetic? Absolutely.

Do I believe that there's some immature use of tongues? Absolutely. Do I believe we should see a greater demonstration of God's healing power?

Absolutely. But I thank God for what he is doing, and just like all these other areas, sanctification, growth, unity, I pray that we'll grow and deepen in God. So, sorry for the long answer that doesn't give you much time, but any thoughts in the last seconds we have? Yeah, no, I appreciate the answer.

It's just, you know, it's a massive conversation, and obviously it can't be encapsulated in a short period of time. But I appreciate you taking the call and just giving some perspective on it. I'm grateful for your work, brother. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Hey, since you're Reformed, why not read the work of Dr. Sam Storms, my friend Sam Storms, who's president at one time of the Evangelical Theological Society, professor of New Testament at Wheaton, so respected scholar, Reformed himself, and a millennial in his beliefs, so I'm historic pre-millennial, he's amillennial, I'm not Reformed, he is, but we're dear brothers and friends, and his writings of the Spirit are great, excellent stuff. So thank you for the call. May God bring all of us, all of us, every one of us, into the fullness of his grace and truth. May we learn from each other, may we help each other glorify Jesus, and may we lift one another up, rather than pull one another down. And may we make mistakes, may we receive correction from God in one another, that Jesus be glorified. Beautiful. This is how we rise up, it's our resistance, you can't resist us.