Mark Driscoll on Spiritual Gifts & Cessationism

in the run-up to this conference they were oh I don't know a few weeks ago there was a internet dust-up that happens from time to time I've heard about her they ever had those and I've heard that you were involved in one of them one of the controversies one of the questions that I wanted to ask you about has to do with cessationism non cessationism revelatory gifts the reform of the reformed world the Calvinistic world has historically not been big on that mm-hmm yes since Warfield especially right so do you see the reform world divided neatly into cessationists non cessationist groups or do you think it's more complicated than that would you say cessationist non cessationist cessationists who believe the world is a weird place what sort of categories do you have when you when you're thinking about the experiences that you've talked about and some of the people who have talked about you having them yeah how do you where do you what shelf do you put them on in your mind theologically yeah I see when it comes to the issues of the supernatural and what we call the charismatic it's it's like a dimmer switch in a room and the Reform world there's a whole range you know so there's the guys over here like the Trinity is Father Son and Holy Bible you know they don't even know what to do with a third guy you know so they just sort of you know and then all the way over to the other side where full-blown charismatic Pentecostals predestined before the foundations of the world to speak in tongues a lot you know there's that whole range and and the guys over here think anybody who's not here is here so they're they're scared and then and then and traditionally no more at least more recent modern you know charismatic theology know you're like prosperity and egalitarianism and a guy in a white suit whose wife looked like she lost a paintball gun war and you know they're on TV taking their 46th offering for their jet you know because their flat screen broke you know and you're like I don't know if that's what charismatic means and you know there's an overreaction but but but my belief is that that the Bible is not a cessation istic book and that exegetically you have to do origami to cease certain gifts you have to do almost in essence this will be controversial unlike some other things I've said you almost have to do to like speaking in tongues what the homosexuals do to other verses okay so what do you do how can you affirm that the holy spirit is still active and alive and what do you mean how can I affirm happiness and how can I affirm that like these boots are on like they are I was gonna okay how can you affirm that the holy spirit is active and alive among his people today and and operative and doing these things and that the Bible is a closed book we are not waiting for volume two or volume three or four how can you have the Holy Spirit operative in a way that doesn't challenge the revelatory uniqueness of the scripture so right but the people on the this far end of the dimmer switch are people who are oftentimes becomes very concerned about the Holy Bible yeah right we we don't want anybody adding to that so how do you assuage their fears if you can yeah I mean I like the Bible okay that's a that's a start and for me I came to a non cessation istic position reading the Bible okay it's the same way I came to a reformed position I don't think anybody's you know born a Calvinist you got to learn some things and so for me it came through biblical study but in that what you're really dealing with is the historical issue that goes all the way back to BB Warfield in the Princeton School where when he went to write his book on inerrancy his fear was if we have any other form of Revelation that could undermine the authority of an errand see and so in an effort I believe to preserve the integrity of inerrancy he essentially sought to obliterate or diminish other forms of revelation and I think you know the analogy I use in book collect doctrines such as I mean I hold a verbal plenary inerrancy and hold the Sola scriptura and as you said they told us Scripture but in that as well the Bible is the Supreme Court of highest authority but the Bible itself does speak of other forms of Revelation okay so now we're into the category revelation I mean we all agree God speaks through creation Romans 1 Psalm 19 romans 2 God speaks through conscience God also speaks through common grace I mean it's solid reform Calvinistic we believe that that you know we go into the guy who's gonna tune the car and we don't expect him to go to Leviticus you know we expect them to work from common grace to figure out you know why we have a misfire in the third cylinder as well we see in the Bible Angels dreams revelations I'm not saying these things are normative and I'm not saying when they happen they're always from the Lord first John says to test the spirits because not every spirit comes from God first Corinthians 14 says if you think God gave you a word run up by the leaders and and the problem is when you differentiate between spiritual character or fruit like Galatians calls it being under spiritual authority and a spiritual gift when you just look at the spiritual gift and you're not asking but are they under spiritual authority and are they manifesting spiritual fruit that's when people are dangerous because they just say God told me and they're like oh so now you're an authority unto yourself and that's that's completely antithetical to the Bible we need to be under Authority with godly character how would you handle the Deuteronomy 18 if something doesn't come true and false prophet hit him with a crowbar yeah kind of one and done that's a simple way to deal with certain guys though you know something they they can understand yeah and and that to me that is the issue of someone prophesying or someone making a declaration like Harold Camping right like you know he just he just keeps you know so guessing the end of the world so if Harry Harold Camping said well I believe in the uniques of the Bible and prophets today are only right 90% of the time I don't believe that I don't believe it I believe that Deuteronomy 18 says if you're gonna say thus saith the LORD then it has to come to pass or you need to be quiet forever need to repent yeah I need to repent and acknowledge and own that but what I get more is I'll get dreams or revelations or hear something and I and then I'll bring that by spiritual authority to ask you know the elders in my church in particular do you believe this is from the Lord and if so I want to test that I'll give you an example of this probably freak you out he probably didn't know this not that even just having here didn't I may or didn't freak you out a little bit but what school and we hang out us it's hard for the bloggers to know which one's the controversial we I just want to thank you publicly for that opportunity there so you're very welcome and you note to the public we did it on purpose Doug needs to look moderate let's go get mark okay so I'll give you a specific case example specific case it cuz you could talk in theory but it specific case example I was a as a brand new Christian God saved me at 19 and I got invited to the men's retreat and Busby was teaching for me free and you were teaching and I think your dad taught and a couple other guys taught and so a bunch of the churches came together I think we went to camp Luton and so went camping I never been to imagine treat a bunch of guys are sing and we're in the woods it was good I had a great time I was really encouraged and I went for a walk and and God talked to me and he told me four things he said Mary Grace preach the Bible plant churches and train men God spoke to me okay and that's what I've been doing so I got my family Mars Hill Church acts 29 Network and resurgence okay that's what I've been doing that's what I've been doing since I was 19 and you've been doing that because God told me gentle to do you're doing what God said to do yeah and so there's time so it's like I would like to quit I would like to drive a bread truck I would like to get a job as a mattress tester like you know you've got those days but to me it's like no this is what Jesus told me to do so if I went to you at that age 19 and then I said pastor Doug I'm not trying to be a kook you know I'm not I don't have a word for the world but I feel like God spoke to me and this is what he said what would you have said to me as a 19 year old kid bringing it to my elder Seattle never work yeah what would you tell me yeah I guess the the question I would probably not tell you anything I'd probably ask some questions okay all right I would say well if you came to me and said everyone if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you'll be saved or God created the heavens from the earth right know the Bible what you're telling me that God told all of us obligates belief on my part oh absolutely right but when you tell me that God spoke to you I have the right to think to myself I don't know Arlis or we'll see or in other words the test that you test you test in the way that you don't test the Bible that's right right you test whether the person's exegesis is right right but if it's if it's there it's binding on all of us God God's Word is binding so if you if you came and told me these things and I've seen many spooky things happen as well and this is what I meant and I'm as a speaking as a cessationist but I don't believe the world in which we live is an ordinary world I think it's a magical place all sorts of screwy things happen so my the categories in my mind are more than able to take what you said and say this is it I don't have just Jesus told him directly audibly the same way he talked to the Apostle Paul in the Damascus Road or it's demons those aren't the only yeah and it seems to me that is some of the conflicts online that I've seen where cessationists are attacking yeah they're like maybe Satan told to preach the Bible probably not probably not you know Mary Grace certainly not pre-plant sure she's like if he was like hey Mary the guy a plant mosques you'd be like I think you dialed the wrong number you know but Mary the pastor's daughter and preach the book that seems like something he'd say okay so um all right then you leave possibly you leave room for that okay the Lord gives guidance let's say I wake up one one morning and I just have a burden for somebody mm-hmm in the church it's and it's not propositional revelation but I have a burden for someone and I would call them and they said oh I was praying you would call oh you know what is that that's the Holy Spirit leading guiding one one time I wrote on this when we were in this controversy I was involved in that meant trying to get a young lady single mom to prevent her from joining a cult an evil cult and we had been flown to another state to talk to her and he was like bouncing ping-pong balls off a bronze statue you know she was just impervious to I showed her how bad the cult was all the you know like it was several days and I got up one morning and was reading in Peter and Peter said false teachers with eyes full of adultery and they seduced the untape unstable and as soon as I read that I knew that she was sleeping with a guy in this you're a charismatic in denial thank you for giving you this opportunity to come clean but no I'm not you are come around yeah one of the concerns is that modern the Enlightenment has trained us to say ah now if you want go down that rabbit trail that I would love to do that okay that's yeah that's what I want to do the Enlightenment has trained us to think that the world runs just the way the deists yes functional deism function D ISM and then God a triune God created the whole thing but it's functional D is done just natural log grinding away and when you believe when you accept that and something quirky had happens or something odd happens like salvation like salvation which is a a miracle of the Holy Spirit right you your desires through what you believe in that one yeah I'll go that far I'm that much of a charismatic you you can believe that the world is a magical place you can believe that the world was a strange place and it's a world a weird place and God does all sorts of things in it that are not Isaiah the the next book after Isaiah you're not claiming revelatory no equality with scripture the Bible is a Supreme Court so I'm going back to your point of the Father Son and Holy Bible you reminded me of Dorothy Sayers once said that she was a missionary was talking to a Japanese gentleman trying to explain the faith Christian faith to him and said the Trinity was just very difficult for him and he came back and said honorable father I understand an honorable son I understand but honorable bird I did others I just don't get that apropos of nothing so so with this it seems to me that that you can believe that God is active in the world and the cessationists the I'll just say the responsible cessationist yeah of whom there are many are simply concerned for a theological construct that keeps you from eroding the boundaries of the Bible that's what that's what they care about yeah they don't care about if you have answered prayer the Georgia guru answered prayer you know yeah they they would glorify God like anybody else but if you have sort of let's say the charismatic untethered no brakes you end up in demonism and spiritual abuse if you have cessationism untethered no brakes you end up in demonism and rash are not demon you nup in rationalism and deism Unitarian is unitarianism so you know so on the flip side they could say well you don't want to be like that guy over there with a praise banner who you know is right in the next book of the Bible like you also don't want to be like that guy over there is a you took Unitarian Universalist because God doesn't do miracles and that means Jesus is still dead so we need to be you know what I'm saying I mean and that's human to me that's the that's the result of the modern enlightenment project it's rationalism skepticism and Pierce ISM which ultimately leads to D ISM and or atheism it's so I had a friend back in his wild woolly charismatic days he was at a meeting once where someone stood up in one side of being it said thus saith the Lord prophesied a few minutes later someone on the other side rooms stood up and said thus saith the Lord that was not me and a few minutes later thus saith the Lord oh yes it was yeah we'd never allow that in a meeting if if you feel like God has given you something you go meet with the elders they'll convene and pray nobody gets to just talk I mean by golly then your church turns into some Jerry Springer episode you know if someone says yeah the Lord gave me a burden I don't want to be revelatory a propositional equivalent of Scripture but I want to be get the elders permission to act on it so going back to the story that I say I knew that she was sleeping without this eyes full of adultery this is the unstable and I confronted her with it and she dissolved just that in repentance it was a it was a bull's eye and I know that God gave me that information yeah all right so you don't have to deny you know no it was just a coincidence or I don't have to go live in David Humes enlightenment or all right in order to process that as a gift of the Holy Spirit or leading of the Holy Spirit and so on and I don't think I guess I would say it this way usually for me it's not God giving me in from and this doesn't happen all the time it's not like Tuesday hey it's prophecy day and Thursday we pork chops you know it's not it's not you know I mean it's a it's just a relationship with God thing that comes and goes but at the end of the day for me it's not usually it's generally not new revelation but it's me not knowing a condition of someone and then passed orally God giving me insight to that so that I can apply the Word of God and so it's it's not changing or adding to the Word of God it's opening up understanding to apply the Word of God like you had I'll give you another example I'll give you you know so I'm sitting in my office some years ago and there's a woman who just you know walks by she's volunteering at the church and I saw her and it again says how about time I saw her being physically assaulted by her husband that's why I called her into my office I said and I would never say the Lord so I said you know I just have this odd question if I put an air bag around it you know if I'm wrong I'm sorry I'm not making an accusation is your husband being physically violent with you she just starts bawling and she said yes and he told me if I told anyone he'd really hurt me let me back up for a minute so it seems to a lot of this hinges on he's a pastor so now I can apply the Word of God to her and she wasn't gonna tell but I needed to know to serve her now if you let's say and I guess run this down the road it seems to me that you were safeguarding it at the front end yeah by not saying thus saith the Lord because you know you've got a pastor and a freshener I believe in verbal plenary inerrancy but not for me okay okay now here's the here's the question suppose she dissolves into tears and says yes it's all true but the husband denies it okay is is this vision of this picture do you have any basis for proceeding to discipline if you did if he denies that she ever arms it I think just like a situation in your church if a woman came and said my husband is abusing then he says I'm not you're at that same unless you got to investigate it you got a so you can put this in the category of the Holy Spirit giving you burdens or promptings or or insight into this situation but you're governed by the same rules of evidence in the same absolutely is everybody absolutely and you would good that that's also why you take to the elders before you take it into ticular counseling situation or whatever yeah and like the latest dust-up on the internet just so you know not everything on the internet is true just some people haven't learned that so I you know we got to get the word out I want you to help me get the word out on that that's a great relief to me personally and the dust-up was you know this guy came up to me after the service and I'm gonna post his testimony this week he's writing it out for me and he was doing just this he said Pastor Mark I think God spoke to me but I don't know and so I want to ask you I said okay well tell me the story and I had a few minutes and he was deeply involved in witchcraft and the occult and I mean real dark dangerous bad stuff and there was an occasion when he clinically died and he heard a voice say something to the effect of he belongs to me and I loved him and he woke up and he didn't know what the voice was his life was spared and he came to Christ and he's been walking with Jesus for a few years and completely renounced his old way of life and I'm having him write it all up it's an amazing story of God's salvation and you know as a Calvinist you go I think yeah I think he could grab a guy cuz that's kind of like it's a thing you know and so his testimony is not I was seeking the Lord and then I found him his story was I was going to hell and God grabbed me I thought well that sounds like how it works so he asked he said do you think that was the voice of God what would your answer be if that guy walked up to you on a Sunday well if I was listen this is my cynical pastor thing coming out if I was in the same church with him as you have been for years has seen the fruit in a community group reading this Bible growing in faith I would take a report like that seriously I wouldn't just you know the raspberry if I'm in a Christian bookstore and I'd pick up it you know his yeah if he writes a book he writes a book 30 minutes in hell yeah the only reason I would buy it is I was gonna take it home and make fun of it yeah today you look at this because this sort of garbage is just disgracing the naming you know it's yes you know there's no regulation there's no policing there's no counterfeit signs wonders miracles don't grieve the Holy Spirit don't resist the Holy Spirit don't treat prophecies with contempt there's some other stuff to factor in you can't just go cooks dismiss I think you have to go because on the flip side you could say just preach the word there are cooks who preach the Lord there are counterfeit teachers false teachers false apostles that use the book to teach insanity so you so with that there's another Deuteronomy test of a prophet there's the Deuteronomy 18 tests it's all got to come to pass Deuteronomy 13 tests is a doctrinal orthodoxy test or they're consistent with leading you after false gods are these taking another direction and I would put under that heading the character and consistency of this person's Christian life so when I hear might if when I hear my my dad is not a Calvinist but he'll come back from a trip and say I've had one of my Calvinist trips and he's the kind of you know he puts he before trip he'll stuff his pockets with tracts yeah I know your dad in town yeah Jackson her do and he'll sit next to a guy on the plane that guy's predestined he's coming closer your native languages there do I happen to have here that's a that's an example have made-up example but it's a it's the kind of thing that it happens to him regularly so when my dad tells me a story just a remarkable story of God's providence and leading in direction I know it the character of his life I know the consistence it's a Deuteronomy 13 Deuteronomy 18 sort of thing I just accept it yes but there are so many fruit loops out there telling so much garbage I think we have to be on our guard and not just be gullible travels yeah no I I don't disagree with you but at the same time I wouldn't say because something is abused it should be obliterated I mean you know the Baptist's do with alcohol and I mean everybody's got their oh that was done wrong get rid of it well by the end you know there's nothing left so the abuse does not negate the use and then the question would be and why we was sort of a little wrapper line like a little hip-hop if I gave the use I mean we could loop that yeah you have some people over there they can do it to you right now I'll just text them yeah you know but bad news Nancy so to wrap this up yeah bring this in first let me say two things though usually when a Calvinist says the sovereignty of God a charismatic says the Holy Spirit right so when a Calvinist says well God in His Providence put this person in front of me to share the gospel with them a charismatic will say the Holy Spirit led me to be with and so sometimes when they say Holy Spirit they're talking about Providence of God right so sometimes it's defining terms and and that those are semantics yes different different communities used if equate I'm sorry this is what God did right and I forgot my second point so with the public school and the Lord told you to seal up the words of the problem so people like John Knox had weird experiences you know where they said things that you shouldn't have been able to say and I don't deny them at all I don't argue with them I think they happened but I think they happened as a cessationist I think they happened in a very weird world right and that's this world is weird yeah I mean it's weird I mean I was like Luther's wife she had a nightmare that he shouldn't take a trip because men were waiting and going to murder him so she woke up and said I think God revealed this to me so don't go he didn't go and then he gets a letter saying it was all true and she saved your life and the Lord shut that down because the Lutheran's would have made very bad charismatic he big it's a weird world well on that note I think we're gonna bring it thank you [Applause] you

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Keywords: mark driscoll calvinism, mark driscoll marriage, mark driscoll ministries, mark driscoll galatians, mark driscoll men, mark driscoll dating, mark driscoll angry, mark driscoll apology, mark driscoll addiction, mark driscoll and john piper, cessationism vs continuationism, cessationism debate, cessationism heresy, cessationism john macarthur, cessationism vs continuationism debate, cessationism john piper, cessationism christianity, case for cessationism, mark driscoll

Id: 8vEiqqfvsh0

Length: 26min 54sec (1614 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2011