Credit: Lampos Aritonang, unsplash.com
FOLLOW OUR PODCAST ON (search opentheword):
PODCAST NOTES:
Hi, my name is Dean Smith, in this podcast, I want to discuss the greatest hindrance to the moving of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts in people’s lives and in the Church today.
Many would probably agree that for the most part, the North American church is not moving in the same Holy Spirit power as we see demonstrated in the early Church through the Book of Acts.
While some wonder why this is happening, others argue that it is not only true but to be expected.
Over the last few months, we have seen a significant push against the spiritual gifts and the filling of the Holy Spirit by those in the church referred to as cessationists or those who believe that the spiritual gifts are not for today.
Now they still believe that God can perform miracles, but are convinced that since the end of the first century, the Holy Spirit is no longer releasing spiritual gifts to people.
On the other side of the spiritual spectrum are the continuationists, or those who believe the Holy Spirit’s miraculous gifts are as important and necessary today as they were in the early church.
Most cessationists believe that the revelatory and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the death of the last apostle, the Apostle John, who died around 100 AD, as this corresponds with the writing of the Bible’s last book, Revelation, and the completion of the canon.
However, I have even seen other cessationists date the end of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD.
They point to the Apostle Paul’s recommendation that Timothy takes some wine for his stomach’s sake in 1 Timothy 5:23, as evidence, that Paul no longer had a functioning gift of healing or at the very least it was starting to wind down. 1 Timothy was written between 62 Ad and 66 Ad.
However, it is obvious from 1 Timothy, that the Apostle Paul didn’t believe that because, in the previous chapter, he told Timothy, “Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was granted to you through words of prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders” (1 Timothy 4:14 NASV).
Why would Paul tell Timothy not to neglect his spiritual gift and later in 2 Timothy, written around 67 AD, tell Timothy to stir up his spiritual gift, if the gifts were all but done?
Whatever the case, cessationists don’t believe that the filling of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts such as healing, miracles, tongues, and prophecy are intended for the church today.
The bulk of cessationists are found within the confines of the Southern Baptist Convention or Southern Baptist Church and recently they have become quite aggressive in expressing their opposition to spiritual gifts.
In October 2023, they held a Cessationist conference at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. It featured prominent cessationists such as John MacArthur and Justin Peters.
This conference coincided with the release of a documentary also called Cessationists. It was part of a concerted effort to prove that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not for today.
Now it’s easy to dismiss this controversy as simply theological bickering between the brethren, but Tim Challies, a noted Christian author, suggests there is a bit more to it than that.
Challies is an elder at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Canada, and he is a convinced cessationist. In a recent article entitled, Cessationist: The Film, Challies acknowledged the seriousness of this debate when he said: “The things about the debate between cessationism and continuationism is that one side must be wrong — and quite seriously wrong.”
Challies admitted that one side in this debate is ‘seriously wrong.’ In other words, this is not a flippant discussion that we can blissfully sluff off.
If the continuationists are wrong, then what we refer to as manifestations of the Holy Spirit are emotional outbursts or even fraud or perhaps even worse.
If the cessationists are wrong, then they are missing a key element in building the church and the Kingdom of God — the power of the Holy Spirit.
When we watch the major pushback against the Spiritual gifts by Cessationists, it could be argued that their message is the greatest hindrance to the moving of the Holy Spirit today.
Certainly, they have had an impact, as the 13 million members of Southern Baptist church are trapped by an ideology that the filling of the Holy Spirit and His power gifts are not for today.
Many are missing out individually because of what they have been taught, because what you believe affects what you practice.
However, I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit is hindered by those who disagree or oppose the gifts because when the Holy Spirit fell on the Day of Pentecost, many mocked those speaking in tongues by saying, “They are filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13).
These early charismatic believers were actually accused of being drunk.
However, the Holy Spirit bulldozed through these mocking critics, and 3,000 people were saved by this powerful display of the gifts.
There will always be critics and because of this, I believe the biggest hindrance to the moving of the Holy Spirit today is found among those who believe the gifts are for today, but are apathetic about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and His powerful, energizing gifts.
They either don’t care or don’t think it is important.
In Ephesians 4:30, Paul warns, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
Thayer defines the Greek word for grieve this way, “to make sorrowful, to affect with sadness, cause grief, to throw into sorrow, to grieve and offend.”
While there are several ways to grieve the Holy Spirit, I believe one of the major ways we do this is by undervaluing the Holy Spirit’s ministry and all that He offers in terms of gifts.
In one word, APATHY!
As we read the Gospels, we see powerful examples of Christ’s ability to heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, and perform miracles.
But we often miss the most important detail. While on earth, Jesus had set aside His deity and was functioning fully as a man, and consequently, the Lord performed these miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit.
John writes that Jesus had the full measure of God’s Holy Spirit inside Him (John 3:34) and we see that on display in the healing of the woman with the issue of blood.
When she was healed after touching the hem of Christ’s garment, Jesus said quote “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me,” (Luke 8:46 ESV). This power that flowed out of Jesus was the Holy Spirit.
When the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of a higher-ranking Evil spirit, Beelzebub, Jesus replied that he cast out the demon by the Spirit of God in Matthew 12:28.
The Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to deal with the demonic.
Incredibly I have heard some cessationists argue that deliverance is also no longer for today. It reminds me of the criticisms of the Toronto Bless in the 1990s because demons were manifesting in the services.
But the same thing happened when Jesus showed up at a synagogue in Capernaum in Mark 1, and an evil spirit began to manifest in the service, as a man began to shout out.
The fact is when the power of God shows up evil spirits are forced to reveal themselves.
Jesus served as an example of what can happen when people are empowered with the Holy Spirit, so we should follow the example of the Apostle Paul who instead of warning the Corinthian Church that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were coming to an end within the next 20 or 30 years, exhorted them “to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Paul used the same Greek word, zēloō, a couple of chapters earlier when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:31 that we are to “desire earnestly the ‘higher gifts.’”
So in fact, he is repeating his exhortation to earnestly desire spiritual gifts.
So what does Paul mean by this?
The word zēloō means, “to have strong affection towards, be ardently devoted to, to burn with zeal, to be heated or boil with envy, to strive after.”
We need to zealously desire spiritual gifts. We need to be passionate about them, particularly for the gift of prophecy.
But in addition to seeking spiritual gifts, we need to pray for more of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ parable in Luke 11, where a man had a friend show up at his home unexpectedly. He went to a neighbour’s home late at night waking him up and requesting three loaves. When the neighbor told him not to bother him, the man refused to leave and kept persisting, and finally the neighbor relented and gave him the bread he needed.
Then Jesus said, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:10).
This parable is often cited as an example of why we need to be persistent in our prayers to receive an answer.
Now, I don’t want to disappoint you, because, persistence is an important key to successful prayer. However, when Jesus talked about asking, seeking, and knocking He was not talking about prayer.
Jesus finished this teaching with these words, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (verse 13).
When Jesus talked about asking, seeking, and knocking, the Lord was talking about receiving the Holy Spirit.
When was the last time, you asked or in other words prayed for more of the Holy Spirit in your life?
This even includes praying for spiritual gifts. Paul told the Corinthians that if they have the gift of tongues, they should pray for the gift of interpretation in 1 Corinthians 14:13. So praying for a spiritual gift is part of asking.
We should be praying not only for more of the Holy Spirit, but spiritual gifts.
Jesus then said we need to seek the Holy Spirit. Now, you only take time and effort to seek something when it is important to you.
How much do you value the Holy Spirit?
Then have you been knocking on the door, persistently and repeatedly asking for the Holy Spirit, as the man did in the parable when he asked for bread?
What is equally important about asking, seeking, and knocking is the tense of these verbs because it’s continual. It means we need to keep on asking for the Holy Spirit, keep on seeking the Holy Spirit, and keep on knocking.
Or how about when Jesus stood up on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and proclaimed, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (Luke 7:38).
And in case there was any doubt about what Jesus was referring to, John footnotes this by stating in the very next verse, that these living waters were referring to the Holy Spirit.
Jesus wants the Holy Spirit to be flowing out of you. This is the desire of God.
But we can’t discuss this passage without focussing on verse 37, where Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
To have the Holy Spirit flowing out of you in power, you must first thirst for the living water.
According to Thayers, the Greek word for thirst describes “those who are said to thirst who painfully feel their want of, and eagerly long for, those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, strengthened.”
It is real. This type of thirst is real. You can’t make this type of thirst up.
Now, like anything you can fake it. In other words, you can appear religious without being truly thirsty for the Holy Spirit. The outward appearance looks similar, but it lacks that sincere inner desire.
The biggest hindrance to the release of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the church is apathy or a lack of desire.
Only you know the true state of your heart and the most important thing in dealing with this is honesty.
If you lack a true desire for more of the Holy Spirit in your life, confess this to the Heavenly Father, and then ask the Holy Spirit to give you a greater desire for His presence.
Over the past few months, I have gone through a process of personal renewal. Look it is easy to fall into a state of complacency, especially in the West, where we lack nothing.
I have been asking repeatedly for more of the Holy Spirit to be released in my life. I don’t know how else to express this, but as I did this I started feeling this desire for more of God building inside me. I can actually feel it happening inside me.
Along with this has come a greater release of the Spiritual gifts and the Holy Spirit. We need more of the Holy Spirit and more of His power in our lives.
Thanks for joining me on this podcast, and I will catch you again.
Source:
- Cessationists: The Film, Challies.com
OpentheWord.org 
Excellent discussion!
We can know with certainty that miracles did NOT cease with the Apostles, because the Church Fathers (who took over the churches after the Apostles died) also recorded miracles.
Augustine of Hippo
“A miracle that happened at Milan while I was there, when a blind man had his sight restored…I have been concerned that such accounts should be published because I saw that signs of divine power like those of the older days were frequently occurring in modern times too…many miracles have occurred there (at Hippo) and to my certain knowledge many miracles have occurred there which are not recorded in the published documents and nearly 70 of these documents have been produced at the time of writing – City of God, 22.8
Tertullian
“The clerk of one of them who was liable to be thrown upon the ground by an evil spirit, was set free from his affliction; as was also the relative of another, and the little boy of a third. How many men of rank (to say nothing of common people) have been delivered from devils, and healed of diseases!” – Scapulam, 4
Irenaeus in “Against Heresies”
“Wherefore, also, those who are in truth His disciples, receiving grace from Him, do in His name perform [miracles], so as to promote the welfare of other men, according to the gift which each one has received from Him. For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ], and join themselves to the Church. Others have foreknowledge of things to come: they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole. Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years. And what shall I more say? It is not possible to name the number of the gifts which the Church, [scattered] throughout the whole world, has received from God, in the name of Jesus Christ” – 2.32.4-5
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment TH30PH1LUS. We have been told that the spiritual gifts came to an end after the Apostle John died and history has shown this is far from true.
LikeLike
Amen! Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever!
LikeLike