 A lot of people think that I am a cessationist. However, I'm not. I'll tell you why. There are those that believe that the gifts of the spirit, the moving of the spirit has ceased. There are some that believe that all or the majority or certain sign gifts have ceased. I however, am not one of those that believe that the move of the spirit that these gifts have ceased. However, let me give a great big caveat to what I'm saying. When it comes to what we see now, the gifts that we see being used or shown in different churches and so forth, when it comes to seeing those gifts, it cannot be said at all that those gifts have ceased because it cannot be said that God has caused any of those gifts to start in the first place. And why do I say that? Because we have never seen partial prophecies, hit or miss prophecies, prophecies that are too vague, prophecies that have nothing to do with the body, but merely uplifting someone else. We've never seen that before in the Bible. We've never seen in the Bible someone being slain in the spirit, someone imparting the spirit to someone and then them falling out. We've never seen that in the Bible. We've never seen the spirit move upon someone and that person be almost healed or in a way that we can't verify or identify. We've never seen that in the Bible. We've seen people be totally and thoroughly completely healed. We also have never seen in the Bible tongues that weren't actual languages. The only time that we've seen tongues in the Bible actually used and we can know what was happening or what was said, their actual language is. We've never seen what we see today. And so I think it would be false to equate what we're seeing today as the move of the spirit or gifts of the spirit. Every time in the Bible we see the move of the spirit, everyone recognizes that something has happened, including non-believers, which is in many cases how a lot of the non-believers became believers. So we shouldn't let those that bring a counterfeit gift have them change the narrative and dictate to us or anyone else that those are the gifts of the spirit. And so for that reason, don't let someone force you to defend your point against something that's already known to be counterfeit. It is wrong to equate what we're seeing today in many of these churches with what we saw in the Bible. So why am I not a cessationist? Well, what I am is a biblical continuationist. I cannot find passages in the Bible that tell me specifically that these gifts have seats. I'm gonna look at some of the passages that people bring up and go through those, but you would most often think, and many folks have assumed that I was a cessationist and I'm not. I believe that according to the Bible, if the Holy Spirit wants to move, I believe he still could. Now is he? Because I will say this, I have not seen gifts such as what I've seen in the Bible. Do I believe that God still heals? Absolutely, all of the time. Do I believe that God can do the same things that he did then? Yes, the question is, why would he do certain things? God didn't just do things just to show himself. He did things to show himself for a particular reason to bring people to him, not to use any particular spiritual gifts for that person's self. Remember, all spiritual gifts, all spiritual gifts are for the edifying, the upbuilding of the body, not to build yourself up individually. And so for that reason, I would call myself a biblical continuationist because if I happen to see what I saw in the Bible, I don't want to pigeonhole myself into a place to where I'm going to deny it simply because that is my doctrinal stance. And I also understand the pushback for this. You see people falling out and doing all kind of just things that are really, honestly, let's be honest, probably embarrassing. When someone looks back on those things, these things are not becoming of a believer. We don't see them in the scripture. They are the very definition of unbiblical. And so I get the pushback, but all we simply have to do is just use the scriptures. We don't have to read into the scriptures. And I think that many of my brothers who have cessation is might do that when they read into the scriptures to state that these gifts have ceased. Remember, Paul is the one that says, but to one and the same spirit works, all things distributing to each one individually just as he wills. He's the one that's going to determine how he wants to move upon an individual. We don't determine it. No one else does. Paul didn't have a specific gift. Peter didn't have a specific gift. What Paul had rather than having the gift of the spirit, Paul had the spirit. Same with us. We have the spirit and however he wants to move, we don't have to ask for it. You don't have to pray or speak in tongues. You don't have to beg him for a gift. He will give you what he wants you to have when he wants you to have so long as it fulfills his purpose. And when someone says they have a spiritual gift, a gift of, you name it, a gift of prophecy, a gift of healing. And we see people actually abuse these gifts. Remember, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shut into the kingdom of heaven. But what does he actually call out? He calls out people who have said, Lord, we've done all these wonderful things, your name, we've cast out demons in your name and prophesy, why those two things? Because those are two things that can kind of be, or is probably even more so, be fudged a little bit. They can be counterfeited. People can't really tell. But remember in the Bible, when those things did happen, everyone knew. And if a person has an actual spiritual gift, what should they do? They should use them. They should exercise, though. Why do we say that? Because Paul says so. He says in Romans 12, starting in verse 60, he says, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. So if you've got the gift of prophecy, prophesy away. If you've got the gift of tongues, have tongues at it. Do it to your heart's content. If you have the gift of healing, get to healing. And where should you be healing? Well, where do they heal in the Bible? They healed everywhere they went as the Spirit moved upon them. Do you have to go to the hospital? No, but remember, Jesus at the pool of Bethesda. What's that? That was it. There was no Methodist hospital in Capernaum. There was no St. Vincent's Hospital in Judea. No, what they had was pool of Bethesda or different places where the sick would hang out. And then we found, we find Jesus there doing what? Healing, and it was done immediately. Or if you do have this ability, I can promise you the name, your name will get out. People will know and they will find you. But as Paul says, whatever gift you have, use them. Now, why do I say that's not a problem when it comes to someone who believes that people are abusing or misabusing or mishandling or lying about these gifts? The reason why it's not a problem is because we simply just try what they're doing, test it according to the scripture. We'll let the scriptures decide because if it doesn't look like what we see in the Bible, then you don't have a gift, which is why I call myself a biblical continuationist. Now in 1 Corinthians 13, it says, love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. The reason I do not take this to mean that those gifts will cease, one, because there's three gifts named there. One, it's prophecy. Two, it's tongues and three, knowledge. Now, again, I don't think that we ought to let people that have a counterfeit hold on these scriptures, on these gifts dictate what these gifts are. Remember, prophecy can be any sort of revelation. It can be foretelling, but it can also be foretelling. And since the majority of prophecy in the Bible is foretelling saying what is or does say at the Lord, I don't have a problem with someone giving a revelation. Remember, Paul says that we should desire these spiritual gifts in order that we prophesy. First Corinthians 14, one and five. So the point of these gifts are to bring about a revelation to the people, which again, that's what they use for at the beginning of the church because people didn't have the actual book, the canon. And so that's what I take prophecy to be, not what people have made it out to be nowadays. I don't think that that's necessarily the gift of prophecy. Could it be? Could someone legitimately have the spirit come upon them and then they give a predictive prophecy? It could happen. I won't say that it won't happen, but if it does, we're gonna judge it by the same standards as the Bible. Same thing with tongues. All throughout scriptures, as a matter of fact, for the first 1900 years of our church, we have always identified tongues, close eyes as languages. But now, here we have today, we decide that there's something different. Nope, if a person believes they're speaking in languages and the languages are to bring about a testimony or to testify of Christ as Jesus tells his disciples in John 15, 26, and we see that him saying the same thing in Acts 1, 8, and then we see it actually being fulfilled in Acts 2, if you speak in tongues or languages and it doesn't look like what we see in the Bible, then simple, you're not speaking in tongues. The same thing happens when we talk about knowledge. Since knowledge is also tied with prophecy and tongues, then it would be difficult to say that those two gifts have been done away with, yet knowledge has not. Because it says knowledge will also be done away with, well, when? Now, they say when that which is perfect has come, what is the that which is perfect? Is it the close of the canon? It would be hard to say it's the close of the canon because there's something that is prophesied or something that's spoken of in the Bible. Matter of fact, prophesied that is going to, I think, eliminate that argument. In Revelation 11, John is speaking of these two prophets that are gonna show up. We don't know who these two prophets are, but they are called prophets and what does he say they're gonna do? They are going to prophesy at this time. Now, notice what John is given a prophecy about is, interestingly enough, is what's gonna happen after, long after the close of canon. This is gonna happen during this great revelation, but it's clearly years and years and years, thousands of years after the close of the canon. And so, prophecy could not have been done away with, nor could there have been prophets that are done away with. If we go to verse 10, we also see that they are actually called, these prophets are called prophets. They're not just witnesses, but they are prophets. And so, according to the scriptures, they're gonna be prophets and prophecy long after the close of canon. So, it'd be difficult for someone, matter of fact, it's impossible to say that prophecy is done away with, though they're gonna be these other prophets who will prophesy later on. It's just that when we hear prophecy, we test it. When we hear tongues, we test it. When we see or hear about someone being healed, we test it. Again, whenever the move of the spirit occurs, everyone knows that it was God. And let's just be clear. Being a cessation is preaching about it, teaching about it, does nothing to thwart the onset of hypercharismatic or people-abusing gifts. It won't do anything. As a matter of fact, we're told, and we need to understand this, there will be more false tongues. There will be more false prophecies. There will be more fake healings. There will be more people slaying the spirit. More and more of that is going to happen. We should be alert to it. But our job is to call it out and to make sure other people understand what sound doctrine is. What did Paul say? That people will not endure sound doctrine. The time is coming, but more to the point, it's here. They will have itching ears and they'll find someone to preach to them what they want here and to bring about science. These folks are gonna wanna look for a sign. And if they're gonna look for a sign, there's always gonna be somebody to sell them or to give them a sign. Those are gonna happen. So having discussions about whether the gifts of cease or not is not gonna stop that. Again, we don't have to worry about that. All we do is judge the scriptures or judge what we see by the scriptures. Not every spirit is of God, but we test them how by the word of God. So while it seems like I'm a sensationist and maybe in all practicality, maybe I function that way. Know what I really do is, when I see someone acting or behaving a certain way or saying certain things, well then all I'm left to do is not to necessarily trust it, but to try it with the scriptures. Nothing wrong with that. The Bereans did with Paul. We're talking about Paul. He wrote almost half of the New Testament. When he said something, some people might wanna take it and run with it, but not the Bereans. They went to search the scriptures to see if it was so. And so we would do the same thing when someone acts a certain way, behaves a certain way and say it's a move of the spirit. Well, we don't reject prophecy when we won't despise it. We don't forbid tongues. We just want to make sure that what we see, prophecies, tongues, healings would have you, that they are found in the scriptures. For that reason, I'm a biblical continuations, not a continuations to say that what we're seeing today is a continuation of what we saw in the Bible, because it's not. And not a cessation is because I have no real biblical basis to do so. But if I happen to see one, I'm gonna judge it by the scriptures. Amen.