Cessationism and North Korea.

[Ploutos]

But that is not what we mean when we speak of a miracle in the biblical sense.

This is what I am asking for. Is a miracle, in the biblical sense, what you were defining when you spoke of a new cause introducing a new effect?

 

[MW]

This is what I am asking for. Is a miracle, in the biblical sense, what you were defining when you spoke of a new cause introducing a new effect?

That's my working definition. It probably isn't going to satisfy on a philosophical or theological level, but it practically works for the sake of a discussion like this.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I'm about as anti-charismatic as anyone can get, having seen horrible abuses firsthand. Back in the 1980s, I was open to and sympathetic to the charismatic movement early in my Christian life and certainly didn't come with any "a priori" objections to it. Seeing the way charismatics operate, playing fast and loose with the Scriptures and failing to follow the crystal-clear standards of Scripture for evaluating the veracity of a claimed "prophet," and not allowing tonguespeaking without interpretation, soured me on that movement. To cite just one example, I listened to an older woman who had been married for many years telling me she was going to divorce her "unspiritual" husband because God told her to do so via private revelation. Never mind the plain teaching of God's Word regarding believers married to unbelieving spouses -- her private revelation, not God's written revelation in His Word, was her source of authority.

However, we need to be very careful about saying God **NEVER** uses extraordinary means or miracles.

Most are false. I agree. When we have the written Word, we don't need them, or at best, they are confirmations of the veracity of the Word for weak believers and used to get the attention of unbelievers.

I don't want to deny God's sovereign ability to do what He wants, when and where He wants it, particularly in places where the written Word is not available.

But you just did so when you gave the example of the lady who was told to divorce her husband. You have concluded that God cannot do something the Word forbids. It is clearly not a question of "ability" but "will," and God has revealed His will to us in such a way that we can say certain things come from God and other things do not. The claim that miracles are taking place among persecuted churches is not sufficient for us to credit these as miracles. We need the Word to interpret what is happening. And when we turn to the Word we find that the purpose of miracles was never to confirm weak believers. The purpose was to confirm new revelation.

I guess I share the question of others on this thread, particularly Ploutos:

I have to confess that I don't understand the difficulty of getting a straightforward answer. If one is a cessationist, one has to explain what ceased. All you did was quote a Bible verse without providing any further explanation. I'm asking you to define your terms.

You believe signs and wonders and miracles have ceased. I'm asking you to define what are those signs and wonders and miracles that have ceased. It seems like that shouldn't be a hard question, so help me understand what I'm missing.

I am not a charismatic. I have seen enough garbage in the charismatic movement to believe much of it is deception and fraud. Some if it may be flat-out demonic, with people accepting private revelations attested by supernatural signs and wonders that are not backed up by the Bible and may contradict it.

What I don't want to do is rule all of that out, a priori, in every case and every situation. That puts us in an unnecessarily difficult position arguing with a charismatic.

If I say, "Tonguespeaking doesn't exist today and all who claim it are deceived or of the devil," I have a much bigger problem than saying, "Okay, if tongues exist, why are you not having interpretation rather than following the Apostle's specific command? And are you demanding 100 percent accuracy, with NO exceptions, from your prophets?"

To make matters more difficult, if I say "Miraculous healings never happen," or if I say, "That nagging feeling I should visit Mrs. _____ couldn't possibly be from God, just my random imagination," I think I've gone beyond Scripture.

Forcing charismatics to subject their claimed charismatic phenomena to the tests given in God's written Word will rule most of them out, and expose most charismatics as people who place their claimed private revelation above God's authoritative Word.

I don't think we need to go beyond that because it debunks the vast majority of claimed charismatic phenomena.

As for the tiny number of remaining cases which don't contradict God's Word -- I'm okay with saying that maybe Constantine did see a sign telling him that he would conquer by the cross. I'm okay with saying that John Calvin hearing "voices on the wind" of a faraway battle in which the Huguenots won a great victory may have been from God. I'm okay with saying that Capt. Henri Arnaud may have been right when he said the fervent prayer of the Waldensian soldiers who were about to be massacred in their fortress in the Italian Alps was answered by God sending a deep mist upon the mountains, and then guiding the Waldensians in the pitch-black darkness and mists through steep mountain trails that were little more than goat paths, causing them to be miles away in the morning when the forces of the Duke of Savoy smashed through the walls for their final attack, rather than having the Waldensians die as did the Jews at Masada.

Defending South Africa is not something I want to do, but if one of the key victories of the Afrikaners in the 1800s against overwhelming hordes was not an answer to prayer, I don't know what could qualify. I think it's patently obvious that God preserved the Dutch Reformed for a reason in the 1800s, and then they abused God's providential preservation by abusing the African tribes. Perhaps that's why He handed them over to the British. (Now I've managed to antagonize both the Afrikaners and the modern liberals.)

If Calvin and Constantine and Arnaud were wrong, no doctrine of the faith is affected, and they didn't do anything contradicting God's Word or claim an authority contrary to or superior to God's Word.

But there are enough examples of what appear to be divine intervention during the Waldensian Wars (and other examples during the military conflicts of the Reformation) that, if we're not going to call them "miracles," I think at the very minimum we need to call them "extraordinary providences." I don't care what we call them. I do care that we don't deny that God answers prayer.

For whatever it's worth, the Catholics were so convinced that some of the Protestant military victories were supernatural that they accused the Protestants of consorting with witches to obtain their victories. How else were the Catholics to explain, for example, a shocking victory of 800 Protestants attacking a well-defended bridge with thousands of prepared Catholic troops, who were slaughtered in huge numbers by a much smaller force, and then broke and ran, leading to many other Catholic soldiers refusing to even fight and just running away when the Protestants showed up?

If we read the military history of the Reformation, there are too many examples of victories against overwhelming odds for us to dismiss them all as exaggerations -- particularly when the "other side" considered them to be supernatural and otherwise unexplainable.

 

[MW]

What I don't want to do is rule all of that out, a priori, in every case and every situation. That puts us in an unnecessarily difficult position arguing with a charismatic.

What is difficult about it? The charismatic claims these things still happen. I say, No they don't. The difficulty comes in once you start making exceptions.

 

[darrellmaurina]

What is difficult about it? The charismatic claims these things still happen. I say, No they don't. The difficulty comes in once you start making exceptions.

Rev. Winzer, I do suspect we're dealing with definitions and agree on the core issues.

Let's move away from the charismatics. The pastor of the largest IFB (Independent Fundamental Baptist) church in our county, whose church runs the Christian school my niece attended and where a number of Reformed soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood have sent their children, is strongly anti-charismatic, as would be expected for an IFB pastor.

He also talks about a time when he had a strong impression that he should not touch a gun. (This is the American South, where shooting sports, hunting, and the "gun culture" are not just common but the norm, and I'm a rare exception of a conservative man who doesn't like hunting.) He didn't touch it. The next person who picked it up and tried to shoot suffered serious injuries from a malfunction.

Do I say with definite certainty that his impression was definitely not from God?

Or do I say (as he says), "I'll never know for sure, but I think God may have saved me that day."

 

[MW]

Do I say with definite certainty that his impression was definitely not from God?

Or do I say (as he says), "I'll never know for sure, but I think God may have saved me that day."

I know what you are talking about as I have had occasions like this. Having said that, I know I have had occasions when my impressions turned out to be unfounded. I guess that shows you cannot rely on them. Simply choosing the ones that worked out is not going to tell us anything concrete about them.

Yes, God saved him that day. However, another time he may have needed a gun to save himself, as others discover by their experience.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I know what you are talking about as I have had occasions like this. Having said that, I know I have had occasions when my impressions turned out to be unfounded. I guess that shows you cannot rely on them. Simply choosing the ones that worked out is not going to tell us anything concrete about them.

Yes, God saved him that day. However, another time he may have needed a gun to save himself, as others discover by their experience.

Okay, in that case we actually agree on the core issue and are disagreeing on definitions of what is and is not to be called miraculous.

I do want to clarify that while I don't choose to hunt, I most emphatically do believe that people may need a gun to save themselves. I live in the rural Ozarks. The Hazelgreen Chapel is 20 minutes from the sheriff's department, with a deputy driving top speed on I-44. We have daily dawn prayer meetings that are mostly Korean women in attendance who need to be defended, with an occasional American visitor. The same could be said for all three Korean churches in our community and a number of the American churches with Korean members. While I'm not a veteran, most churches in our community do have numerous military veterans in the membership who train for the nightmare scenario we all hope will never happen. Let's just say churches outside an Army installation are **NOT** soft targets.

As I like to joke,

"What's the difference between hillbillies and Italians?"
"We dress better and carry shorter guns that we can hide better."

While I don't happen to own one, I'm well aware that there are Italian haberdashers who will make custom-tailored suits and sport coats with inside pockets for pistols and ammunition and the necessary padding and plastic to avoid "printing," i.e., showing the outline of what's inside. I'm cheap and prefer concealed carry holsters, but maybe someday I'll get a custom-tailored black suit designed for concealed carry so I can say I own one.

 

[Dkshotwell]

If they only know a few verses how do they test these "miracles" against a proper understanding of the Word? How do they know they are not being duped? How do you know they are not being duped?

My guess is that most people would let it go out of some sense of sympathy with the persecuted church; but they wouldn't allow Christians to think so uncritically in their own country.

Well, I would first, out of the charity we are extend to those claiming to be brethren, listen to their testimony. A person was healed in a way nobody could attribute it to anything other than Divine intervention, and glory was given to God. In a place so dark where most of our family lack even a page from the bible let alone a verse, without the means to communicate to the outside world, and would you have us quiz them on their understanding of our confessions to justify what they have witnessed? Is God so weak that he cannot use those with incomplete understanding?

 

[Dkshotwell]

I just had a conversation with someone the other day who clearly did not understand cessationism and confused it with maybe something akin to believing God never does miracles anymore - common error.

Yes, I made this post because I wasn't as clear on cessationism as I'd thought, but in your passive aggressive way you've cleared it up for me. Forgive us commoners.

 

[CGS]

While I don't happen to own one, I'm well aware that there are Italian haberdashers who will make custom-tailored suits and sport coats with inside pockets for pistols and ammunition and the necessary padding and plastic to avoid "printing," i.e., showing the outline of what's inside. I'm cheap and prefer concealed carry holsters, but maybe someday I'll get a custom-tailored black suit designed for concealed carry so I can say I own one.

Your comments reminded me of this ...John Wick knows a good tailor when you're ready for that tactical Italian suit.

 

[MW]

would you have us quiz them on their understanding of our confessions to justify what they have witnessed?

No, I would quiz the person who uncritically accepts the testimony that miracles are happening without testing them by the written Word. Sympathy is good, but it should not override our judgments. The authority of the Word stands in every place whatever the circumstances.

 

[Ploutos]

No, I would quiz the person who uncritically accepts the testimony that miracles are happening without testing them by the written Word. Sympathy is good, but it should not override our judgments. The authority of the Word stands in every place whatever the circumstances.

I think I agree with this, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on something.

Let's hypothesize that someone in an Islamic country claims to have had some miraculous encounter with Jesus, and they convert to Christianity.

The way I see it, if that wasn't Jesus, it was Satan. I don't see how there's any room for something in between. Someone claiming to be a prophet, or an angel, or the reincarnation of Elijah - they might be a heretic, or they might be just a bit loony. But if you are claiming to be Jesus himself, you either are, or you're some heinous and blasphemous force for evil to make such a claim in untruthfulness. Likewise, if the new convert believes that it was Jesus, but it really wasn't - again, I don't see how there's room for a middle ground here.*

It's therefore difficult for me to imagine Satan or some comparably evil force being the active/catalyzing agent in someone's salvation.

*Not to mention that, in the specific case of Islam, we are dealing with an entire religion founded on the credibility of the claim that it was Gabriel who appeared to Mohammed. Clearly it wasn't Gabriel, but clearly it also wasn't some mischievous prankster angel or some clever Arab dressed in a really convincing costume.

 

[MW]

The way I see it, if that wasn't Jesus, it was Satan. I don't see how there's any room for something in between.

Perhaps they were mistaken in the way they understood their religious experience. Talk to someone who came from a charismatic to a reformed church and has been there for any length of time. They change how they look on their earlier experiences. It is not an antithetical true or false, but they can see Christ drawing them to Himself without validating the particular "interpretation" they once had. They say things like, He had His hand on me. Now broaden that out from a false doctrine like charismania to a false religion like Mohammedanism. The worldview changes as the person renews their mind and the transformation helps them to interpret experience according to the mind of Christ.

 

[Ploutos]

It seems kind of hard to re-interpret an actual encounter with someone claiming to be the risen Christ. How do you have a vision and then later realize it wasn't actually a vision? Oops, remembered it slightly wrong?

 

[MW]

It seems kind of hard to re-interpret an actual encounter with someone claiming to be the risen Christ. How do you have a vision and then later realize it wasn't actually a vision? Oops, remembered it slightly wrong?

It is not that they "remembered" it. This is how they thought at the time. If they cleave to this error, then yes, it is a delusion. But we should be ready to help people interpret their experiences in the light of Scripture.

Edwards has a good section on this in The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. "It is no sign that a work is not from the Spirit of God that many who seem to be the subjects of it are guilty of great imprudences and irregularities in their conduct." Again, "Nor are many Errors in Judgment, and some Delusions of Satan intermixed with the Work, any Argument that the Work in general is not the Work of the Spirit of God." That whole section is worth a read:

https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Distinguishing_Marks_of_a_Work_of_th/JncHnt3bjrUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="of+great+imprudences+and+irregularities+in+their+conduct"&pg=PA27&printsec=frontcover

 

[Ploutos]

I will look forward to reading that section, though I confess that I have a hard time seeing how one can interpret away a perceived vision of Christ. It seems to me like saying you saw a hippopotamus and then, after being guided toward "proper interpretation" of the experience, realizing that it was just a hedgehog.

But, as you say, I should read the section from Edwards, and I will do so.

 

[Afterthought]

Let's hypothesize that someone in an Islamic country claims to have had some miraculous encounter with Jesus, and they convert to Christianity.

A Christian friend told me about a vision of Christ she had that helped her understand that he loved her, when she was doubting. She saw his face, eyes, white robes, etc. Since the Lord's providence includes our wills and minds and makes use of even ill things for our good, I took it as her imagination working upon the Word in a visual manner, which since she has no convictions on the Second Commandment, took the form of (what she thinks he looks like) Christ himself. The Lord made use of it nonetheless to accomplish his purposes.

 

[MW]

I will look forward to reading that section, though I confess that I have a hard time seeing how one can interpret away a perceived vision of Christ. It seems to me like saying you saw a hippopotamus and then, after being guided toward "proper interpretation" of the experience, realizing that it was just a hedgehog.

But, as you say, I should read the section from Edwards, and I will do so.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

 

[Ploutos]

Ok, so my initial take away is that what Edwards wrote in the section you suggested - section 6, great imprudences and irregularities in conduct - doesn't really apply to the topic at hand.

Jonathan Edwards isn't talking about the Corinthians talking in tongues and then later, with proper interpretation of that, realizing that they were in fact doing no such thing. He is talking about people acting in immoral ways and engaging in factionalism, and raising the question of whether this would cause us to discount the possibility that God was working in them. The content of their "religious experience" (to anachronistically read revivalist categories onto the 1st-century church) is not what is under scrutiny - rather, it is their behavior and ethics in the wake of this religious experience. By this analogy, Jonathan Edwards would not be talking about whether the hypothetical Muslims really saw Jesus - he would be talking about their conduct afterwards and whether it negated the reality of their having had a religious experience.

If anything, the next point - section 7, about delusions of Satan - might initially seem to be more relevant. But even here, the issue at hand is when, in the midst of a time of revival, certain people come under the influence of delusions that are NOT of God and the begin to make that manifest by going astray in some way.

Neither of these points really provides a category for claiming to have had a vision of none other than the Messiah, only to later interpret it as having been no such thing. It's one thing to say "God appeared to me and told me to only listen to this pastor and that all the others are liars" or "God appeared to me and told me to leave my wife for a much younger woman" or "God explained some things to me and know I'm here to tell you the actual truth about the Trinity". It's a fundamentally different thing to say "I was an unbeliever, I saw and talked to Jesus, and now I'm practicing and living with every evidence of having been truly converted".

If anything, based on points 1 & 2 in this section of Edwards, I actually think he would defend the veracity of such a reported experience, even if they were sometimes or often followed by strange, deviant, or unorthodox belief or practice.

 

[MW]

If anything, based on points 1 & 2 in this section of Edwards, I actually think he would defend the veracity of such a reported experience, even if they were sometimes or often followed by strange, deviant, or unorthodox belief or practice.

It looks like I've directed you to the wrong section. The problem with multi-tasking. Sorry. See section 4. It is on point.

 

[Ploutos]

That is much more on-point, and helpful. Thank you; I will think this over.

As an aside, I find Edwards' grammar interesting, particularly his frequent use of "don't" where I would expect "doesn't".

 

[MW]

That is much more on-point, and helpful. Thank you; I will think this over.

As an aside, I find Edwards' grammar interesting, particularly his frequent use of "don't" where I would expect "doesn't".

That's the value of originals. They are not cleaned up for you.

 

[darrellmaurina]

Your comments reminded me of this ...John Wick knows a good tailor when you're ready for that tactical Italian suit.

LOL!

The reference to a "tactical" lining in the middle of haberdashery stylistic considerations was classic.

I'm guessing that form of "suiting up" is a bit bigger budget than I would prefer to spend. But as someone told me back in the 1980s, "If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 helmet."

On a more serious point, since we are the home of the US Army's military police school, we have retired military personnel in our community who work as part-time or reserve civilian law enforcement officers in small departments to keep their commissioned law enforcement status, but their primary job is to work in personal protective details for some pretty significant business and commercial figures. It's one of those "open secrets" that is widely known and as long as names and agencies aren't used, it's okay to discuss. It's not as if the people who don't like America don't know where the MP School is located, or don't know that a lot of prior service military personnel like to earn money doing that sort of work. A few years ago when some of our local criminals were making threats against me, one of those people gave me an actual catalog his clients use to order what in the civilian world is incorrectly called "bulletproof vests" that are thin enough to wear under suits, or are actually part of the suit. The last time I'd seen that sort of thing was back in the 1990s, and I was very impressed with how much better the technology has gotten, and how the costs are now well within reasonable levels for business owners who have reason to be concerned.

Apparently the driving factor in the civilian market for ballistic vests has been what's happening with the drug trade in Mexico and Latin America, with massively escalating violence causing ordinary businesspeople and small-city political figures to be in the market for ways to protect themselves. Technology has considerably improved, and as the market has expanded, costs have come down in response to greater production volume.

This is not an area on which I am any sort of an expert. I respect the expertise of those who **DO** know what they are talking about and am glad we're making it more difficult for criminals to do what they do. On this subject, I defer to the people whose job it is to know this stuff, and to know it very well.