WHAT IF…?
Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. John 16:7-8 NKJV
Have you ever asked yourself, “What if…?” Decisions, either made and executed or not made, determine the pivot points of your life. Same is true with people and nations, and especially the Church. In the drama of the Old Testament, several times David’s royal bloodline came down to one person. Had that person died without leaving a male heir, David’s bloodline would have ended and the prophecies of Messiah could not be fulfilled. What if Sennacherib king of Assyria had taken Jerusalem and killed king Hezekiah before he had a male heir? Or Hezekiah’s illness killed him first? Or if the wicked queen Athaliah had killed ALL the male children who were heirs to the throne? No Messiah, son of David!
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. John 14:12 NKJV
As I’m writing my dissertation on the genius anointing, I’m on chapter four dealing with the opposition to the gifts of the Spirit. My heart breaks as I think of what the loss of the gifts of the Spirit has meant to the Church and to the world over the last two thousand years. Jesus said that the believers in Him could do the same works He did. That is ONLY possible through the gifts of the Spirit, and yet the gifts were being lost even before Paul died, not through God withdrawing them – there is no single scriptural evidence in the whole NT to indicate God would withdraw the gifts – but through doctrines of demons, spiritual blindness, rationalization and neglect…think about it!
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5-6 NKJV
Electricity drives modern life, but electricity wasn’t discovered until the 18th century. Electricity has been on the earth since Genesis One. What if some smart, creative, passionate 1st century believer had gotten the word of wisdom on the genius level and discovered it in the first century? Think of where we could be today if the foundation stones of the modern world had been laid twenty centuries ago, not three! What about medicine, the arts, politics, culture, the Church, healings, miracles? Where could we be if the gifts had been stewarded and developed generation after generation? Would there be opposition? Of course! There are still demons. But think of the good that could have been done, the lives, the marriages, the businesses and farms, that could have been healed, the wars that could have been stopped, or prevented. We must not fail this time… we must not lose what we have been given!
CESSATIONISM – THE SUICIDE OF THE CHURCH
This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. 2 Tim 1:15-16 NKJV
You must know that this was not a repudiation of Paul and his personality, his ethnic background or which 1st-century professional sports team he followed. You can’t have the influence that Paul had without a vibrant wit, a humble demeanor and a bright, generous and engaging spirit. Paul was fun to be around, serious in his passion, and magnetic in his personality to draw other influencers like Peter, Barnabas, James, Timothy, Luke, Silas, Titus, Demas and others to him. We like him, the guy who couldn’t remember who he baptized, even twenty centuries later. This was a spiritual attack against Pauline doctrine.
I wish you all spoke with tongues…1 Cor 14:5 NKJV
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Acts 2:38-39 NKJV
Did God call you? Then the promise of the Holy Spirit, to be clothed with power from on high, as evidenced in Acts Two, is for you just as it was for the early Church Christians. Paul was the premier advocate and apostle of the gifts of the Spirit not only in the first century but for all Christianity for all time. However, he died…and this is when the wolves descended on the flock of God.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430AD) was an early church father whose monumental works of doctrine have influenced the Church for fifteen hundred years. He understood and taught justification by faith a thousand years before a monk named Martin Luther rediscovered it again. But he was a cessationist. Now, what is cessationism?
Cessationism is the theological belief that the gifts of the Spirit ended with the death of the original apostles. How could they come to that conclusion since there is not a single, unambiguous scripture that changes what Jesus and Paul taught, and ends the manifestations of the Spirit?
One great reason is that all the early Church fathers, like Origen, Jerome and Augustine were all classically trained under Greek philosophers. Like Oxford, Harvard and Yale of our day, if you wanted to get trained by the big boys you went to Greece. Greek philosophy magnified the REASON of man and ignored the spirit. Reason was divine, and God could only be perceived through the natural theology of man, what man could perceive and conclude based on his five senses. So, man was not led by the Spirit, but by his reasoning ability. Are you with me?
Now listen…reason holds the same relationship to the Spirit as the body does to reason. The spirit is to reign over reason, as reason reigns over your bodily passions. Reason is a good servant but a lousy master. The Spirit doesn’t deny reason; it simply reigns over it. When Peter asked Jesus if he could walk on water, and Jesus said, “Yes,” then Peter had a decision to make – would he walk by his reason, or by the Spirit?
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. James 5:15 NKJV
Reason will always deny the Spirit because it is ‘unreasonable.’ It is not reasonable to put your hands on someone, say words over them, and expect diseases to leave their body. That is unreasonable! But…the Spirit says, they shall lay hands on the sick and pray the prayer of faith and they shall recover.
The second great reason is rationalization. We humans are rationalizing machines; we are always making excuses. My life changed when my Bible college leadership demanded that I stop making excuses and own my decisions, actions, and faith, or the lack thereof. It changed my life. Good leadership!
The rationalization is this: “We are good Christians. If the gifts are not operating among us, if we can find no one who has operated in the gifts in our sphere of influence – because we are the TRUE Christians – then it must have ended long ago.” Rationalization, due to unbelief. If they believed what Jesus and Paul said, they could have received immediately. But they made a doctrine of their unbelief – cessationism – and this is where you get into doctrines of demons. Do you see?
For God has not given us a spirit of fear (Grk. DEILIA: cowardice), but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Tim 1:7 NKJV
The third great reason to deny the gifts was false humility. To say, I can do all things through Christ, just wasn’t humble, or it was treading on very slippery grounds. ‘Better to be safe than sorry’ which is cowardice is the thought…and rationalization. John Wimber, a great lion of God, said, “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.”
But through all his journey God did something wonderful in Augustine’s life. The Lord never condemned Augustine…He just loved him. Despite Augustine’s cessationism, people kept getting healed in his church! What do you do with evidence? How do you disregard evidence? In one two-year period, he recorded over seventy healings in his ministry, and they weren’t even people he was praying for. Augustine saw the evidence and he was humble enough to change his beliefs. Mighty man of God!
But other cessationists were much more vicious then humble Augustine.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron…1 Tim 4:1-3 NKJV
John Calvin (1509-1564) is well recognized as the father of modern cessationism. Calvin wrote:
“But the gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the new preaching of the gospel marvelous forever.”
He doesn’t both to mention that the first century believers did both miracles AND excellent preaching. But he continues…
“Therefore, even if we grant to the full that anointing for the sick was a sacrament of those powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it has nothing to do with us, to whom the administering of such powers has not been committed.”
In defense of Calvin, as we defend some of the Pentecostal fathers of the excesses of the early twentieth century Pentecostal revival, he based his cessationism on attempts to reform Roman Catholic abuses. But Calvin never tried to heal the sick or speak in tongues. Calvin’s utter contempt for the commands of Jesus and Paul would be a poison to be drank by his followers that killed off much of the Church in Europe in the centuries following.
In our class discussions, our professor asked the question, who or what killed the Church in Europe? He then postulated that the cause was industrialization. That got my juices flowing and I sent my response in on our text thread that it wasn’t industrialization, but rather the effects of two world wars which opened the door for the theories of Marxism to corrupt the wounded victims. But it turns out I learned in research that we were both wrong – maybe a little right, but mostly wrong. Spiritual corruption must have a spiritual source. We have a saying – ‘your chickens come home to roost.’ Hitler sourced his hatred of Jews on the antisemitism of the initial Reformation father Martin Luther, and the death of Protestantism in northern Europe was due to the cessationism of early Church father John Calvin. How so, you say?
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 NKJV
The Protestant reformation started in 1517 and really gained steam through the mid eighteenth century, concurrently with what was called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment (1589-1688) was a sea change from medieval European society to a more sophisticated and modern culture. Science and philosophy, materialism and the age of discovery were rising stars, and philosophers like Voltaire challenged the Church to prove the validity of Christianity. But the Church couldn’t, thanks to cessationism, because it had no power – no miracles, signs, and wonders like Jesus promised in Acts 1:8. The result was the defamation of the Spirit and the coronation of reason…and the death of the Church!
Today in Europe church buildings are tourist attractions, hay barns, community centers or mosques. Perhaps one percent of the total population including Russia of 745 million are born again ones. What killed the Church in the cradle of the Reformation? Cessationism. On the other hand, what has inspired the Church in the Global South is…you guessed it! The power of the Holy Spirit, and we are coming to bring help to you!
A NEW HOPE (actually an old hope…but new today!)
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over (THE SEA) to Macedonia and help us.” Acts 16:9 NKJV
Let’s not lose what we have been given through neglect, false humility, rationalization or the thought that we know everything there is to know about the Holy Spirit. HA! The pride of men may still be in us. Don’t lose your hunger for God! The vision of the old Anglican missionaries going into Africa was, I GO OVERSEAS TO GIVE HELP. Lightbearers has missionaries, and is sending missionaries to Europe to bring help, to plant schools of ministry in every nation to advance the kingdom and bring in the power of God. After we do Europe we will do the rest of the nations by the end of 2030, and better men and women than RM and I are leading the charge, bless God forever. Hang in there guys…help is on the way! Amen? Love you!
Remember dear ones we must be about our Father’s business…