Strange Fire Update: Justin Peters/Phil Johnson Q/A

Phil it's it's good to be with you and good to be with you really thank you for for joining us I tell you I really really appreciate the ministry of grace to you what you and John MacArthur and the others do at Grace to you I dare say probably grace to use is the single largest ministry at least has the the greatest scope of any ministry that is out there promoting sound doctrine and in refuting a lot of the false teaching that's out there so it's an honor to have you with us yeah thank you we like that likewise appreciate what you do I haven't you have the probably the world's largest collection of videotapes of charismatic nonsense anyone I know and whenever I need a like an illustration or documentation of some you know charismatic craziness I always know I can go to Justin he has he has it on video yeah and you know sometimes people will ask me where you know where do you just watch hours and hours and hours do you just live in front of after a while people start to send it to TV again some people will send stuff to me and and they do but I tell people that it's it's not hard to find this stuff I don't have to I can turn TBN on and within 15 minutes I'll see something that I think man I need to put that my seminar so it's I mean it's and I know you're not exaggerating I've done the same thing I'll turn it on and think how long is it going to be until someone says something that's seriously heretical and it's it's usually immediate right right it doesn't take long it does not take long and you know I also will tell people that the to get an idea of how popular you are speaking earlier about how this movement is not just a phenomenon in the United States but it's worldwide and Christian television quote-unquote Christian television it's just a function of supply and demand and whatever the demand is that's what they're going to supply because that once makes so it makes money so when you turn on Christian television you don't see John MacArthur or Phil Johnson or Steve Lawson or you know one of these guys you see an endless parade of Joel Osteen and Vinnie Hannah and Kenneth coke and so it is a huge huge movement yeah Scripture acknowledged those days would come Paul said you know time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine meaning they won't tolerate it they don't want it right they want to have their ears tickled and that's what they get so the heap to themselves teachers and every time I hear see that verse or hear it quoted I always think of TBN this is a heap of bad teachers right I love you I love Jill astray the clown car of TPN I want have to steal that from you you could use it okay thanks Phil one of the things we wanted to bring out in this documentary den of wolves is that is to look at the the origins just a little bit and the the connection to Tulsa Oklahoma and and I tell people often in order to have a fully orden understanding of a movement it's really helpful to have a working knowledge of the origins of the movement and and theologically we could go back to as a Kenyan and some of those guys and the charismatic the birth of the charismatic movement William Seymour in Charles Parliament but more more modern Tulsa Oklahoma plays a very very prominent role in the expansion the promotion of what is the modern prosperity gospel modern word of faith movement so tell us a little bit about that and the the connection that Tulsa Oklahoma has yeah then you know in a sense it goes really back to the very start of the charismatic movement you mentioned parem he was pastoring a little church in Kansas just north of here north of the border Tulsa is the closest city to where the charismatic movement erupted I don't think that's why Tulsa became the hub it was more related to the fact that the two or three best-known and most influential evangelists in the early days came from Tulsa I mean there there were exceptions Aimee Semple McPherson was on the west coast she was in LA and in a similar way LA became a hub for a lot of charismatic chicanery but Tulsa became the capital of it you know people refer to Tulsa as the oil capital of the war because there's so much oil business here I always call it the oral capital of the world because it's Oral Roberts you know and Oral Roberts University has attracted and trained well they've trained the current generation of you know word faith evangelists but Oral Roberts presence here also attracted fellow evangelists and Tulsa just in the in the 40s and 50s became the national hub for the charismatic movement as it branched out into television and mass media and mass meetings and and all of that you know Oral Roberts was here Kenneth Hagin was here and I would say they are probably the two most influential word faith teachers practically every one who's teaching the prosperity gospel has some link back to either Oral Roberts Kenneth Hagin or both of them and some roots in Tulsa Kenneth Copeland was trained he was I believe he was the pilot for Oral Roberts during his college years and he went to college how are you and got his start by imitating you know what Oral Roberts taught and it just kind of became the hub when I was in junior high here Tulsa is my hometown I grew up here just a few miles from here and from the time I was in junior high until I graduated from high school my best friend was the son of a Pentecostal traveling evangelist he was well known in the Assemblies of God he did most of his ministry overseas but in places like the Philippines and and Southeast Asia and he ministered some in Africa as well he could draw crowds of over 10,000 people with the promise of healing and miracles and and they raised a ton of money from third world countries where people really can't afford to give but they're paying for the hope of a miracle and that was my best friend's father he was one of the one of the leading faith healing evangelists and so you know those were in the years before I really understood the gospel myself wasn't a believer wasn't genuinely a believer I was a nominal Christian went to church and my friendship with I didn't go to a Pentecostal church but my friendship with this Pentecostal friend kept me keenly interested in the Scriptures believing that the scriptures are the Word of God but trying to sort out what it all meant and when I finally really discovered the gospel and what it teaches I realised almost immediately that one of the one of the big failures over years of friendship with this guy was he had always tried to get me to speak in tongues he'd always told me about miracles and you know the baptism of the Holy Spirit and all that he had never once had a single conversation with me about the gospel and what it is and I don't know if he really understood it because subsequently his father the faith healer came down with a very well an incurable kind of bone cancer that leads to an agonizing death and he was hospitalized and in severe pain for two years before he finally died and in the process of watching his father die and coming to realize that he didn't have the healing power he claimed he couldn't couldn't get well himself and you know he was the person he was the one person in the world who my best friend thought really has true faith and yet he couldn't be healed and he died in agony and my friend abandon the faith over it well and that is a real danger isn't it it is a cause it happens all the time right and if you read the the fantastic stories that are coming out of Africa right now about some of the I mean the the movement over there is huge bigger than it is here in America now and there are some very influential and wealthy pastors who prey on poor people and at the strange fire conference Conrad and Bayway who's a pastor in Nigeria who sees this stuff firsthand up close he basically said what they're doing is no different from the old animistic and voodoo style religions that dominated Africa 300 years ago and longer they've just become witch doctors without bearing that name but the charismatic evangelists who are having the most influence in Africa right now are basically witch doctors they're practicing right the same old routines that witch doctors always practiced and it's the same false promises Yeah right I've been to Africa a couple of times have been young ganda in South Africa and you're exactly right and it's the hauling isn't it is appalling the story this year about one of those guys who persuaded his his congregation to eat grass like sheep and they were dutifully doing this because a preacher whom they view as you know with apostolic Authority whatever he says they must do right they start eating grass right yeah you know when Benny Hinn has Crusades here he's not nearly as popular here in the states now as he was say 10 12 14 years ago he's declined but in Africa he can draw crowds even now in the hundreds of thousands hundreds of thousand I know in to me one of the saddest things about the influence of the prosperity gospel and the whole word faith movement is that it tends to flourish where people can least afford it right and in a way it's like the lottery you know it holds out this promise of quick and easy wealth and prosperity and people desperately give everything they have to try to obtain that and the only person getting rich is the American evangelist who's exporting this stuff and then now the African witch doctor who's taking advantage of it they're the ones who get wealthy off of it exactly when I was in Uganda I went over there to teach against the movement me and a friend of mine named Mike Miller and and long story short there was a pastor native pastor from Uganda who invited us over and they bill pastor Bill and he arranged a number of different venues and we went and preached in these different venues throughout the country of Uganda and pastors from the churches in the area would come because they heard that the Americans were going to be there so they came and when after our teaching pastor after pastor after pastor came up to bill and they said where did you find these Mizzou goos that's what they call white men where where did you find these zum goos they they said are you sure these are Americans they could not believe that we were American because all they've ever heard from American preachers is what a faith prosperity gospel and they were absolutely shocked yep that we were from the United States I to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union the year the Soviet Union dissolved with John McArthur he was there to do some pastors conferences the those countries had opened up for the spread of the gospel and they were being flooded by you know Karris Mattox who were giving them these doctrines that they'd never heard actually the church flourished more under communism at when they were being oppressed than they have in the years since but I remember vividly sitting in a in a hotel having breakfast in Ukraine in Kiev and I looked up in the television was playing Jan Crouch she was on the she was on it was TBN yeah and I mean the Soviet Union had only been dissolved weeks before and TBN was already there giving people these false promises right and it broke my heart because that is the impression now that I mean the vast majority of Russian people had never been exposed to the gospel or Christ if they had any religion at all it was you know Eastern Orthodoxy and and now they're seeing for the first time what religion looks like in America and that was the face of it that's what they saw yes yeah I echo that when we were in Uganda we were staying a little guest house and Bill and his wife and five kids came over they had a little black-and-white television in our guest room and the kids turned on the television and I kid you not the very first thing that warmed when that little TV warmed up the very first thing that was on the screen was Jan Crouch with her paintings everywhere yeah her pink hair extensions yes not really her hair but um yeah yeah it's sad it's it's very sad and what's what's even sadder is I think a lot of well-meaning Christians actually send money to enterprises like that thinking well they're reaching the world you may not agree with them doctrinally but they're reaching the world in the name of Christ I'll support what they're doing because they're getting into Russia nobody else is there that kind of thing and well-meaning people send money to that kind of thing and it's really an abomination right it is it tagging off of that I wonder would you have any comments upwards of 97 98 percent of what you see on TBN and Daystar and inspiration all this is exactly what we're talking about every once in a while you'll see one of the supposedly good guys on there and I have seen one of the very prominent good guys pastor in California and and I've enjoyed some of his teaching and I he's not where two faiths he's not charismatic but he was on the set of TBN with Paul Crouch when you know Paul Crouch is dead now but it's about two years ago with Paul Crouch arm in arm with him raising money for TV and praising TV and praising Paul Crouch and actually preached a sermon to get people to give money to TV in is that a problem is that a problem serious problem for me because I think it's a violation of every principle scripture gives us of how to deal with false teachers I quoted my message tonight from Galatians 1 where Paul says if somebody comes with a different gospel let him be accursed and that's loaded with implications if he's accursed we're not to have anything to do with him Romans 16 forbids us to have anything to do with with someone who's that far away from the you know the the Apostolic truth the gospel second John that's what the Epistle of the little epistle of 2nd John is all about right it says when somebody comes you know and they don't have the doctrine of Christ that's the way John says it but I think that's an equivalent phrase what Paul says in Galatians 1 where he says a different gospel so he's not saying if you disagree with him on some minor doctrine you know cast them out but he's saying if their message substantially changes the doctrine of Christ that is the doctrine the gospel Christ himself taught and preached then Paul John rather says in 2nd John don't admit him into your house don't even give him a greeting and he goes on to say the one who gives him a greeting becomes a partaker in his evil deeds well if you if you become a partaker partaker in his evil deeds by simply showing him on earth that's what it means to give a greeting it was a kind of ceremonial honor bestowed on him then certainly you become an inexcusable participant in his evil deeds if you're actively raising money and support for the guy so yeah I have a serious problem with that yeah absolutely turning back just for a minute to the to the Tulsa connection of what would your thoughts be on any level of culpability that the evangelical churches in this area particularly as the movement was just getting a foothold and becoming popular the evangelical church is non Word of Faith non-charismatic were absolutely silent they said nothing about it they did not oppose it what culpability do churches have when they remain silent and they do not speak out against this yeah well it's to remain silent to look the other way and and just be silent about it I think is is a form of you know willful disobedience against the commands of Christ particularly for the Shepherd you know one of the duties of a shepherd is to guard the safety of the flock to feed the flock and guard them from predators and those two things are connected because you're feeding them the Word of God that's their spiritual sustenance as a Shepherd of the flock of God you feed them with the Word of God you also use the Word of God as the sort of sheepfold to protect what they're being taught protect them from error and all of that and so the things the two things go hand in hand and I think there are a lot of preachers who think well I can honor Christ and be good by simply always being positive never criticizing anyone else never and that would be nice I would love to live in a world like that but you know there's that famous phrase that all this needed for evil to prosperous for good men to do nothing in this case all that's needed for evil doctrine to prosper is for good and godly men to say nothing and that has happened and I have to say I I'm actually pleased with the direction Bible believing evangelicals in Tulsa have gone in my lifetime when I left Tulsa when I went to college people would often ask me what churches do you recommend in the Tulsa area and honestly I didn't know of any and that's not to say there weren't any but in my in my experience and my search for Bible believing churches there were two on the list that I could say I know these people believe the Bible it's different now there are there are several churches this is one of them in the Tulsa area where people can go and be faithfully taught and grow spiritually and so I'm I'm glad for that and I think really that's the answer to the dilemma you're talking about what what do evangelicals who believe the Bible and want to be faithful to Christ what do they need to do they need to continue to proclaim the gospel to do it powerfully and clearly and in the process confront the lies that are swirling around particularly in this community it's not an easy thing and won't win you any popularity contests but it's a necessary thing and Christ himself modeled it for us I mean look at how he went after the Pharisees he wasn't he wasn't affirming in their spiritual journey right no no he wasn't absolutely not in the looking back over the past year since a strange fire conference up I want to talk a little bit about the what seems to me to be almost a direct correlation hand-in-hand once you take a continuous position once you affirm that all of the apostolic gifts including tongues interpretation of tones miracles physical healing all those gifts are still in operation in the church today once you take that position when a preacher takes that position it seems like in evitable even if his doctrine is good in other areas it seems like inevitably it leads to a tremendous lack of discernment and associations with some surprising some association and it's predictable and understandable why that happens because if you if you ultimately decide that because there is no proof text that says on such-and-such a date these apostolic gifts will cease then you're forced to the position in some degree or another then different people hold this with different degrees of clarity and understanding but you're forced to the position to say really the canon isn't closed the Canon Scripture isn't closed God is still speaking truth is still being revealed there some people even say in fact many of the word faith heretics are saying there are apostles today people with same apostolic authority as the Apostle Paul and that is that is precisely what leads to the formation of cults pretty much every major cult started because some guy claimed to have a private prophetic gift where he could reveal some truth in addition to scripture that sheds more light on what scripture actually says so the key to understanding scripture is outside Scripture that's what the Mormons say that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say that's what all the major cults say and it's it's in effect what most charismatic say as well and in practice what they do I've heard charismatic say you know you're concerned with the dead letter then they're talking about Scripture right we want the Living Word of God and what they mean is they want the fresh prophecies that God is revealing - I don't know Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer and whoever else claims to have a fresh word from the Lord and so inevitably if not in practice and consciously and deliberately but subtly in your thinking if you really think God is still speaking fresh birds of prophecy those fresh words have to take precedence over you know the eternal Word of God and that that is I think the fundamental travesty of the movement it's really the the root and the source of every other charismatic error right the idea that Scripture itself is not sufficient and it's not final and it's not definitive and therefore you can't judge a man's teaching like the Bereans did by comparing it to Scripture because or you can maybe up to a degree but you can't ever conclude with finality that this claim being made by this man who's declared himself a prophet is false because it's not in Scripture it doesn't agree with Scripture but to a charismatic I can't write it off because they're afraid they'll you know commit the unpardonable sin or something like that if they if they denounce or disagree with something that maybe the Holy Spirit actually revealed and you see the same thing not only with the words of prophecy but with the actions they do that the silly things abundantly silly things that have proliferated over the past 20 years with the laughter of the Toronto blessing and an even more bizarre animal-like behavior and you know going all the way up to Todd Bentley your friend and and it just gets worse and worse and if you're if you're a consistent charismatic there's no way you can say with any kind of definitive finality this is hogwash even though it patently is hogwash even the world sees that it's hogwash but as a charismatic Christian you can't write anything off lest you you know say something of negative about the Holy Spirit and they go back to you know Gamaliel in the New Testament who said of of the disciples we'll leave them alone and if this is not of God then it will amount to nothing Meganium Gamaliel wasn't a believer right he's speaking as an unbeliever and a Pharisee there and it was bad advice providentially it took some of the pressure off the apostles and that was nice and good and all but don't look at Gamaliel advice as if that's wisdom because what he's telling them to do contradicts everything jesus said to do right and it was interesting I'm glad you brought up Gamaliel because if you had not I was going to ask you but right on the the eve of I believe it was the strange fire conference dr. Michael Brown who is I suppose if you could say this was is one of the leading apologists for the charismatic movement and the loudest certainly the loudest yes yes and he actually used Gamaliel advice as as an argument against a strange fire conference right he said you guys shouldn't criticize the charismatic movement do what Gamaliel said leave us alone and if we amount then if we if we amount to nothing then you know we weren't of God my response to him was and I corresponded directly with dr. Brown take your own advice leave us alone and you know if the strange fire movement isn't of God it will amount to nothing what are you so worried about if you believe Gamaliel 'he's advice right uh but then i went on to say that's that's not sound advice in any case and you know it's not the fact that you know it's not sound advice explains why you feel compelled to critique non-charismatic s-- because you know there's a danger in error you can't just leave it alone and see if it comes to nothing right alright the Java's witnesses didn't come to nothing the mormons haven't come to nothing islam didn't come to nothing exactly and if you just leave error alone those are the kinds of things they germinate into it sometimes it's on a small scale like David Koresh but people die sometimes it's on a large scale like Islam and nations are subjugated to serious error in all so we have a duty to do what Christ commanded and that is to expose and refute error exactly yeah and in speaking of Michael Brown dr. Michael Brown he one of his big criticisms that the strange fire conference painted with a broad brush he left you lumped all of us into the extreme fringe of the charismatic movement and yet just a couple of months after the strange fire conference he did five programs of Benny Hinn exactly yeah I wrote an article in response to that you could probably do it by doing a google google search for my name strange fire and broad brush and I basically pointed out that dr. Brown and Sam storms and John Piper and and these are men who in many ways we would respect some of the work they've done you know men who I think are faithful enough the gospel that I would I wouldn't blow them off as you know and say they're unbelievers but I think they're wrong seriously wrong on this point and if you examine what they're doing they all have connections that are just a degree or two away from you know Todd Bentley and writing in and all of that and uh and I and I basically just pointed all of this out Sam storms for example spent years with the Kansas City prophets he was supposed to be their theological mentor and after he did that for twelve years or so I couldn't tell that he had influenced any of them for good and and at least the two most prominent ones fell into serious moral sin were utterly disqualified and he's never commented on that he's never really responded to my questions about it but when I point out all these intertwined relationships that bind the entire charismatic movement together and my response was I don't own an extra-wide paint roller that's wide enough to paint that right and and also I also think dr. Brown is either confused or willfully sort of trying to obscure the question of which is the fringe and which is the mainstream when it comes to the charismatic movement are these good guys whose doctrine we would in many cases agree with except for the charismatic element are they the mainstream and the people you see on TBN the fringe or is it reversed and i say if you go by sheer numbers you have to say that the charismatic mainstream is more reflective of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland than it is of Sam storms and John Piper I think undoubtedly that's the case undoubtedly dr. Brown is good friends with Sid Roth who has program on TBN it's supernatural and just this is end of october 2014 just about three months or so ago sid roth was interviewing a guy on his program who claims to travel up into heaven into the throne room of God and he eavesdrops on conversations between God the Father and God the Son and then he comes back and he tells everybody what they're talking about so it and Sid Roth gives credibility to accounts like that right and Michael Brown lends him credibility in turn and that's why it's such a problem that's why idly reject the broad-brush complaint because I my comment to Michael Brown was if he was just half as aggressive in pointing out the errors in his own movement as he has been you know complaining about the strange fire conference I believe it to him and let him critique the movement but he's not diligent when it comes to critiquing the problems in his own movement and when you challenge him on that his question is why should I you know they're doing the Lord's work these are good brothers and I don't think their error is as serious as you think it is right and that gives me great concern about him and what direction people who are influenced by him might go right and Michael Brown also pledged after the brouhaha of his appearances on TV on a Benny Hinn's program he pledged to confront Benny Hinn in his air and to get to the bottom of some of these you know Myriad's of controversies and I had an email exchange with him this past July and so this was six seven months after his appearance with Benny Hinn and no more contact with Benny Hana's not confronted him he's not followed up he's not done what he promised he would do yeah that that that is a pattern not not only with him but with if you could if you could sort of segment the movement and and put the the very best charismatic brothers in in one corner that's a pattern among all of them they are disturbingly silent when it comes to pointing out you know the extremes in the movement when when these new fad Edd's come up like Todd Bentley or you know the Toronto blessing going all the way back to that they're never the ones to be raising the concerns and that's very troubling it is it is I'm always struck by these people who claim that it's always God's will to be healed for example Bill Johnson you mentioned Vil Johnson in your in your presentation a little bit ago and his students walking on water even reports of them passing through walls things like this just incredible and it's always God's will to be healed you can be healed as long as you have enough faith and and yet Bill Johnson wears eyeglasses right and that's right and and you know when you hear these things repeatedly from one source like that and I've been watching for four or five years with concern increasing concern the trajectory of bill Johnson's ministry and you know Bethel Church they have a school for prophets there with so they've become very influential in the larger charismatic movement and they're treated with great respect because they're popular because their worship team their music group is popular among young people so they they spread their influence through the music and many people would consider them I think you know mainstream and okay and acceptable but as I watch and listen to what is taught in that church the trajectory there I think is more off-base and more dangerous than anything I've ever seen come out of Tulsa right and and it's getting more and more bizarre and when you hear these testimonies like our young people have walked on water and passed through walls and and we have a dead raising team and and they have the power to raise the dead there is no more there's no reasonable conclusion you can come to other than that these are deliberate lies he knows that's not true right and if it were true where is the cell phone video but it's not true we all know it's not true I think in their hearts most charismatic even know it's not true and if a man is willing to just make a bold-faced deliberate lie like that repeatedly and continue to propagate these lies and and dummy up phony phenomena like the gold dust that comes from their ceiling and all that sort of stuff all right um if he's willingly lying like that and we know he is that's that's deadly dangerous and for Karris Mattox with any kind of real commitment to biblical truth and true understanding of biblical doctrine to turn a blind eye to that and refuse to criticize it because they're afraid you know they might blaspheme the Holy Spirit or whatever that is that to me it seems like the height of danger and it makes me fearful for where that whole end of the movement is going to go really I've said many times I think the evangelical church today is in a far worse state than Roman Catholicism was before Luther's time we need a new Reformation and it's a remnant of people even in the broad of angelical movement who really seem to have enough understanding and commitment to scripture to to really you know that we could embrace them without fear or concern that yeah these are we believe these are true brothers and sisters in Christ it's becoming a smaller and smaller remnant and I know that reflects how God has always worked he saves a remnant and the people of God the visible Church and even visible Old Testament Israel throughout history of shown a pattern of apostasy and serious apostasy and I think we're in one of those times of apostasy that when you look around and size up what's going on it really exceeds any period of apostasy I know of in the history of the church you know and rivals some of the worst apostasy zuv Old Testament Israel right sobering sobering field to play to play devil's advocate what would you say to those people who claim and I've heard this so many times you're putting God in a box how can you say that God would not do these things how can you how can you definitively say that God is not going to raise the dead how can you definitively say that somebody could not walk on water yeah aren't you putting God in a box no in fact I would say definitively God is going to raise the dead he's just not doing it right now right and if you think he is show me you know even in Jesus time uh that Jesus didn't raise that many people from the dead and when he did like Lazarus it was in front of a crowd of people there was no dispute about it that was true of all the miracles of Jesus he never had a miracle where you could look at and say he faked it you know his worst enemies read the chapter it really comes through in John 9 when he heals the man born blind he he makes mud out of his own spit and sticks it in the guy's eyes it's not a way to heal somebody from an eye disease but it is as if he gave the man new eyes and he could see and the Pharisees were angry about this and they hated Jesus but never once did they dispute the reality of his miracles because those miracles were indisputable that's why they were signs people saw these things happening that's what a sign and a wonder is all about when it's something that you know Benny Hinn has to tell us about but can't produce any real evidence of it that's not a miracle it's not a sign and it's not a sign of anything and so what I don't say God can't do these things I say he's not doing them and nothing in scripture leads us to think he will do them if you look at the miracles in scripture they really fall into mainly into three time periods there were lots of miracles during time of Moses and Joshua lots of miracles during time of Elijah and Elijah and lots of miracles during time of Jesus and the apostles and in the times in between which is the vast majority of biblical history God wasn't routinely doing miracles there are maybe half a dozen miracles that fall outside those three time periods in Scripture and miracles weren't common in Scripture they're not even common in the latter chapters of the book of Acts there's nothing in Scripture that would lead me to think that miracles are supposed to be routine and commonplace if they were it really wouldn't be miracles that's what makes a miracle spectacular it's extraordinary it's unexplainable and undeniable and charismatic miracles don't fit any of those categories so that's the thing I'm not putting God in a box I'm simply saying I don't accept these stories that they tell without confirmation as genuine biblical quality miracles if I did I think it would denigrate the quality of the miracles we are we do have in Scripture which are attested to with solid eyewitness evidence I mean Paul says more than 500 people saw Jesus in the flesh after his resurrection that's a well attested miracle you bring me a kid from Bethel who can walk on water with that kind of eyewitness testimony and I might reevaluate my assessment of their walking on water but until that happens there's nothing in Scripture that obligates me or even encourages me to believe claim claims like that and even at that even at that scripture gives abundant esta mony that there are lying it's signs and wonders yeah that's right we're cautioned to watch out for the lying signs and wonders and one other thing back to what you originally asked me putting God in a box saying he can't do these things there are certain things God himself says he cannot do he cannot lie you know God's character is defined by or I should say it the other way around God's character defines what real righteousness is you know and he himself says he cannot lie so the old conundrum you know can God make a rock that's too big for him to lift up it's a it's a senseless question but but yes there are things God cannot do because he won't you know and and one of them is fool people with false miracles and in Scripture the standard for a false prophet was so high that if a guy one time prophesied falsely in the Old Testament he was to be stoned in the New Testament he should be disregarded and and not given a platform on which to teach but modern charismatic have turned that all around and they admit that their prophets are wrong most of the time in when the Kansas City prophets were at their peak they were boasting that they had finally achieved 30% accuracy one out of three of their prophecies was correct I get better results like that from the magic 8-ball because it's right 50% of the time you know and and so so you know nothing obliges me to give them credibility that they haven't that they can't demonstrate they deserve and when they mishandled the Word of God when they tell deliberate lies when they fake miracles when they make promises that can't be fulfilled when they make false prophecies and all of those things there's only one way to look at that and say that's rotten fruit and Jesus was very clear about what to do with the tree that bears rotten fruit right one of the questions I get often in my teaching you and I are card-carrying cessationists yeah and I a cessation is often times we are labeled in other cessations you don't believe in the power of the holy spirit and you don't believe in healing now and I want you to answer but what would you say to those people who say well if you're cessation that means that you don't believe that God heals people - is there a difference between healing in general and the Apostolic gift of healing yes absolutely because I do believe God heals in fact I believe every time anybody's healed God controlled that by His Providence even if you use medicine it's not the medicine that heals ultimately and scripture is full of this teaching that we shouldn't trust in horses for example because victory in a war isn't dependent on the horses is dependent on the Lord well that's really true of everything in life if you believe God is sovereign that he's in control and so if he uses an aspirin to cure me of my headache I can give God thanks for that and I give God credit for that not the man who invented aspirin I'm thankful for him but I give the credit and the glory to God and I did a whole message on this at strange fire it's called Providence is remarkable and it says much more than I can say in this context but I encourage people to listen to that I I believe God is active in everything we do all the time the accusation from charismatic says you don't really believe in an act of God I think the my concept of God has him far more active than the typical charismatic concept of God which seize him as inactive unless he's doing miracles right and I agree with Scripture that God ordinarily works through ordinary means but he's working in every single thing that happens if you don't believe that how could you believe that he works all things together for good because the only way he can work all things together for good is if he's working in all things so that's a that's a specific declaration of the sovereignty of God and everything that happens and that means everything that happens I can give God glory for and even if I have a sickness that I don't get well from there's a there's a purpose for that that God derives glory for and it's my duty as a Christian to to embrace that and and you know give God the glory and trust that whatever he's doing is ultimately good and better than any other alternative that God could get glory in someone's sickness is a concept that is absolutely foreign and unknown in anathema to the Word of Faith preachers the primary preachers absolutely unknown yep well Phil what would you say to those and I've received a number of these emails and questions - what would you say to those people who say well I've experienced this I've experienced for example tongues I have a private prayer language that I use and it's real to me how can you question my experience yeah let me back up one two and just respond to what you said just before that that - a charismatic it's Anatomy to say that God could get glory out of our sickness or our weakness or whatever justice past Sunday I preached on 2nd Corinthians 12:9 where Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh he prayed three times have it removed and ultimately the Lord said my grace is sufficient for you and the very lesson Paul was learning is that God is glorified in our weakness his strength is made perfect in our weakness there are times and many times in which God derives more glory from our sickness and our weakness than he would from you know the kind of strength and health that people are tempted to boast about God has chosen the weak things of the world to found them the strong and the wise and that's how god that's just how God works so yes he absolutely does get glory out of weakness right now as to your other question I forgot it it was about people people who say that I that they have experienced oh yeah yeah how do you argue against somebody who says how can you question my experience I would say how can you question my experience you know because ok you have a different experience than I do how do we settle between the two conflicting testimonies that are based on experience there's only one way and that is to go to the Word of God and if your experience isn't confirmed and and affirmed by the Word of God and taught in the Word of God then I I'm entirely within my rights to reject it as a false experience yeah you know and and people do have remarkable experiences I mean we all have when I had my wisdom teeth pulled they used a drug that gave me such hallucinations that you know I would have sworn this is real the human mind is the human mind is capable of being deceived like that it's that's another thing scripture warns us about nobody should ever build his theology on his experience and that's what scripture is all about you know it's a more sure word of prophecy very thing Peter saying in that context he actually talks about his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration he saw the Lord in his glory and he describes that he's giving testimony to this and it's an affirmation even of his apostolic credentials but then he immediately turns around and says but we have a more sure word of prophecy more sure than what more sure than Peters experience and he's an apostle and if the Word of God is more sure than his experience I guarantee it's more sure than yours or mine amen amen to that Phil thank you very much thank you very much

Channel: Stephen Melniszyn

Views: 151,763

Rating: 4.7732282 out of 5

Keywords: phil johnson, justin peters, strange fire, strange fire redux, grace to you, word of faith movement, tulsa, oklahoma

Id: BtGBjwVOjFg

Length: 47min 44sec (2864 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 12 2014