Excerpts from GTY blog (October 31,2013)
Quote:
John MacArthur was a guest speaker at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. During his visit, he was interviewed by Dr. Jason Allen.
Dr. Allen:
....You hosted—just a matter of days ago—the Strange Fire conference at Grace Community Church. I want to revisit that and talk through it some. I would love to follow up on different aspects of that conference. I will make a confession on the front end of the conversation: I was genuinely surprised—maybe even shocked—by the level of interest that it generated. I was shocked because I have followed your ministry for a number of years, and you have been speaking about this issue to a greater or lesser degree for more than forty years. So, I would love to know—now that we are a few days removed from the conference—were you surprised by the interest and even the intensity that the conference itself generated?
Dr. MacArthur:
I think to some degree we were surprised. The first day there were 127 nations live streaming that event, and there were twenty-five thousand separate connects. We do not know how many people were behind that. That was the first day, and it got greater the second day and greater the third day. I do not know that I really expected that, but I did expect a bigger response than books I have written in the past, or emphases I’ve made on this in the past simply because the Reformed noncessationists or the Reformed continuationists made space in the broad realm of evangelicalism for the elements of the charismatic movement.
If you say prophecy continues, miracles continue, tongues continue, signs and wonders are still valid, then you have opened up a world of possibility. So, what has happened is, when I wrote Charismatic Chaos or the book called The Charismatics or addressed this in the past, it was contained. It was contained originally within classical Pentecostalism. Then it spread a little bit into the Second Wave, which is when the charismatic experience infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church and the mainline denominations. It was still outside evangelicalism.
With the arrival of people like Wayne Grudem, who really did open the door when he did his dissertation on prophecy and talked about prophecy still existing as fallible prophecy. Then it was picked up by D.A. Carson, and it was picked up by John Piper and Sam Storms and other people like that. These are respected people that are really honored by all of us on some fronts. So, it has made space in evangelicalism for this particular view. Now when you confront this view, you are not just targeting heterodox groups. You are hitting orthodox groups.
Dr. Allen:
Right.
Dr. MacArthur:
So, it is simply the breadth of the tolerance of that which created the response. There was no negative response particularly coming from classic Pentecostals, like the Foursquare assemblies. Most of the heat coming at us was coming from evangelical continuationists.
End quote. (Emphasis, mine)
That last sentence pretty much says it all because it reveals a whole lot about those who give lip service to "Sola Scriptura" and yet claim charismatic gifts. They deny with the one hand what they claim with the other.
What's more is that these same Charismatic "Reformers" also have bought into the feminism that goes along with the movement. They can and must be open to women teaching men, simply because Scripture is not their sole authority for all things pertaining to life and godliness, much less the orderliness and structure of the local body of Christ. By definition, they go outside of Scripture which then removes all the boundary lines and all authority of Scripture and God's commands. It also as a result, removes any rebuke, rejection, and punishment for violating Scripture.
But not with God. HIS Word still holds true, fully authoritative, and will not come back to Him void. God works within the parameters of His Word because His Word is directly from Him. Scripture reveals the mind of God and He does not change.
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