The Gifts Aren’t For Today?
In this blog, I’ve refuted the “cessationist” position that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with His spiritual gifts are just not here today by going directly to the Greek. In Adrian Warnock’s blog, there is much chatter about the subject. Today I thought I’d add flesh to the Greek proof with one of my own experiences.
Some years ago, a friend, Nathan, and I attended a huge auditorium meeting. Somehow he was able to get some seats on the floor level about five rows back from the front. In the middle of the meeting, the preacher asked for those who were in need of healing to stand. A woman, about sixty-ish, sitting next to me stood to her feet. The preacher asked those around those who had stood to lay hands on them in accordance with Mark 16. Nathan moved over to the other side of the woman. When he did, we both closed our eyes and laid our hands on her. Immediately, I felt power shoot out of my hand into her. I could tell that Nathan somehow reacted, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was because my eyes were closed.
After a few moments with my eyes still closed, I noticed that the entire auditorium of about 20,000 was almost perfectly quiet except for the woman’s soft sighings while she cried. I opened my eyes and found that the three of us were the only ones still standing and we were the main event. You could hear a pin drop. Just as I began to take my hand off the woman, she began to sing a melody in tongues. It was beautiful, but I was worried about my own plight. Anonymity has its own rewards. Before I could think of what to do, she ended her song and sat down. Nathan and I were left standing and he looked as if he had seen a ghost. After a few moments, the preacher, who had been slowing pacing the stage during all of this, looked at us and said, “This woman just testified that she had received a healing that she had waited on for over ten years.” The woman burst out crying even more and began nodding her head yes. The crowd fell into an intense worship of the Lord.
After the meeting, Nathan told me that though he had been full gospel over over twenty years, he had never experienced any kind of “power” like that in his life. He described it as like electrical power going into him when he laid his hands on the woman.
In this case, we experienced a gift of healing not unlike the woman with the issue of blood and tongues with interpretation. All of this was in order and decency in the meeting and when the interpretation came, the whole congregation was edified. While there may be those who want to say that the operation of the spiritual gifts ended with the apostles, I am not one of them.