Interesting post Oscarr. I'm not sure, but I've noticed that many of the most vocal cessationists, for example Justin Peters who's video was posted on another thread. They're people who say they've had experience with the Charismatic movement and say they've been burned. People don't generally react against stuff they have no experience of. Justin Peters talks about an experience with a healing evangelist and what he considered to be a false word of knowledge.
So I think the first step in dealing with a cessationist is finding out why, gleaning information from their testimony. I believe it's possible someone may have reacted badly against Charismatic/ Pentecostal things because they have been treated badly. It is possible.
The antidote may be to be kind, respectful and gentle when discussing these things. Shooting the wounded generally doesn't win battles.
God Bless
I had my doubts about Justin Peters at first, but after taking the time to watch the majority of his videos, I have come to see that he is looking at the modern Charismatic movement honestly and realistically. He says that as a cessationist he is not denying miracles per se, but doesn't accept modern Charismatic claims of the manifestation of the "sign" gifts. I understand his position, although I don't agree with all of it. Where he says "the emperor has no clothes on" it is because he has had a good, long, hard look at the modern Charismatic movement and can see that the "emperor" definitely does not have any clothes on at all! I think that he is being more honest and realistic than many Charismatics and Pentecostals who cannot admit that the promised and claimed miracles are just not happening in most cases, and that in practice, most standard Pentecostal and Charismatic church services are no different from the cessationist ones. Let's be honest about that.
I became a Christian in a Pentecostal church in 1966, and continued in the movement until 1979, and have maintain association with Pentecostal friends ever since. I have to be honest that in all that time, after attending many "healing" meetings and conferences, I never witness one healing of anyone with a serious or terminal medical condition. I saw a lot of prayer for the sick, and saw people supposedly falling down under the "power" of the Holy Spirit, but the sick people walked away sick! You would think that if there was enough power to cause a person to fall to the floor, there would be enough power to heal them. So there is something wrong with that picture, isn't there?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a cessationist. I believe that all the gifts of the Spirit are available today. But what puzzles me is why there are no genuine manifestations of them in most churches that claim to have them. What I see is pointless public babbling called "tongues" without any reverence for God and any attempts at interpretation; prophecies that are forgotten by the next hymn, and never the type that exposes the hearts of people causing them to fall on their knees worshiping God and acknowledging that He is truly present in the meeting; I have seen words of knowledge that are just guess work and mostly irrelevant to the person they are given to; as well as prayer after prayer for healing with no results, followed by excuses like, "You didn't have enough faith", or "God will heal you gradually"; preachers who claim the working of miracles, but no miracles are taking place. Overall, it is all basically all talk and no power and demonstration of the Spirit. Also, I have been in evangelistic meeting after meeting, seeing people walk forward to say the sinners prayer, but never seeing those people in church again. Where did all these "converts" go? Probably right back into the world on Monday morning when they had to go back to the real world and trudge off to work.
We have "prophets" who are telling us that God is speaking to the all the time, that "the Holy Spirit told me this or that"; but somehow the Holy Spirit never told them that Biden was going to win the U.S. election, the Taliban taking over Afganistan, Covid 19, the Capitol Building riot, the racial riots caused by the BLM movement. No New Zealand prophet predicted the Christchurch earthquake. All these were significant world events, but none of the prophets to whom "God is speaking" heard Him say anything about events that have changed many lives. So, is God really speaking to these "prophets". Definitely not!
I had a friend tell me once, "I sense that in the Spirit realm [such and such] might start to happen", etc. My question is, if the Spirit really did tell him something, wouldn't it be direct and clear cut? Jesse Penn-Lewis in her book "War on the Saints" says that nine out of every ten impressions comes from the world, flesh, or the devil. I wonder which impression my friend received when he "sensed" something supposedly in "the Spirit"?
I think we need to admit that in the majority of situations, the Lord is not working with the preachers, and that nothing of the power and demonstration of the Spirit is happening no matter what they are saying. Next, we need to ask why, and then be prepared for the Holy Spirit to give us His honest answer, even though we might not like what He says to us. Justine Peters seems to me to be closer to the Bereans who "searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so". Justin searches the Scriptures concerning claims of the modern Charismatic movement and discovers that "these things are not so"!
