David Livingston: I’m going to be the moderator in the sense that I’ll point to you to let you know that you can ask your question. Let’s just see how it works. Make sure that when you ask your question you indicate who you want to respond to the question so that person can reiterate it for the sake of the tape. All right?

Questioner: Tom Wells recently offered a book published by Banner of Truth called Christian: Take Heart!. One of the main points that Tom makes in that book is that the widespread lament about the independent state of Christians in our society today should be countered by clear teaching of Scripture that God is at work among his people. God is doing wonderful things among his people. He says this is an emphasis that has to be renewed in the church.

He has a chapter in there where he says that the charismatic movement is a two-stage design of the Christian life that has come about because of the lack of emphasis on this teaching that God is at work in his people, and so we should take heart. My question is, should we join Tom Wells in stressing that God is really now already at work in the church, and that the failure to stress that has brought about the emphasis on a two-stage Christianity?

John Piper: I have found it very helpful to stress to our people that the greatest miracle is the miracle of regeneration. Anybody that passes from darkness to light, from death to life, and from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of Christ has undergone an awesome power encounter even if it was utterly calm and unobtrusive. I think just to stimulate you exegetically, when Paul prays in Ephesians 1, that Christians might know what is “the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of the great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19–20), I’m inclined to think that Paul had in mind there the power demonstration that comes a few verses later that says when you were dead he made you alive, and that he’s not necessarily asking them to know some demonstration beyond that. I think he prays that in Ephesians 3.

But he wants them to wake up, probably like Tom Wells is asking, to the miracle that has happened to us. You really can’t get excited about that if you’re not a Calvinist, I don’t think. Calvinists of all people stand in awe of what happened at regeneration. Arminians think we had such a decisive final hand in it that it’s nothing really to praise God for as much as I think a consistent Calvinist would. If you really believe that God chose you, if you really believe that he effectually called you, that he regenerated you, that he drew you to himself, and that he revealed the Son to you, you should just stand in awe of what has already happened to you. So in that sense, I certainly agree. And where doctrines of regeneration and effectual calling are not taught, then people will not stand in awe of who they are.

Wayne Grudem: I certainly want to agree with what John has said there. I do think that this question of baptism and the Holy Spirit, and the two-stage Christianity that has come with Pentecostal doctrine, is something that we still need to deal with. I’ve spent 15 years of my life now fighting that two-stage Christianity view and saying that I don’t see it in the New Testament. I don’t see two categories of Christians, those who’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit and those who haven’t. I do think that’s the source of most of the divisiveness that has come in with the charismatic movement.

I’ve been doing it for years in quiet ways, since I taught at Bethel College, and now 10 years at Trinity. I’ve just been teaching on gifts of the Holy Spirit and saying to Christians, “Go ahead and start using these. Don’t wait for any special experience that puts you on a new level. Just go ahead and start ministering in these ways.” I guess that’s been the force of what I want to do at this time. I’m teaching on prophecy and teaching on healing, etc.

For that reason, I want to say that I think John and I have just 99 percent agreement on where we’re going on all these issues, and our desire is for a great work of the Holy Spirit to come to all of our churches, to come to evangelicalism. Our desire for all our people to be functioning in these kinds of gifts and believing that God will use them, and those are the main things. I have some questions about Martin Lloyd Jones’s view of using “baptism in the Holy Spirit” as the phrase to describe that. John and I spoke about that a little last night. Because I am really getting scared that we’re going to bring back this two-stage Christianity view of Pentecostalism that I and many have been fighting for 15 years, and it’s just about died off. And I don’t want to get it revivified. I’d plead for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a filling of the Holy Spirit.

John Piper: Which some would have and not others?

Wayne Grudem: It could be. But I don’t think it would put them in a different category than others. It would just say they’re farther along in their Christian lives than others. And others by gradual growth and no single dramatic experience may have come as far or farther through other means. But I think this is at the heart of what we’re asking God for. Do we just go ahead and do this work or do we wait for some great empowerment? I’m going to ask a question of John. I think it’s crucial here. I think John and I are probably saying the same thing.

John Piper: Well, that was a question I asked Don last night. Wimber, when we were together with him, you remember a year or two ago, basically said to me, “John, what you should do is just go home and care about your people. Just start ministering to them. If you care about them and you get out there and you begin to look at their hurts and look at their needs, and get involved, and then want them to be better, want them to change, want them to be delivered, and want them to be helped, and then start praying for that, God will give you what you need.” That is basically what he said. In other words, don’t tarry in Jerusalem, though he didn’t say that.

Wayne Grudem: I took it to mean that he was saying you can’t just get zapped when he prays for you and all of a sudden things are going to start happening. I remember this sentence, he said, “If I pray for you, all that’ll happen is that God will give you a broken heart of compassion.”

John Piper: I wasn’t saying that critically. I think that it’s both-and. It’s very enlightening that the apostles went up to the temple and worshiped and rejoiced in the 10 days between the ascension and Pentecost. They didn’t stay locked up in a room, according to Luke 24:52, or whatever it was. But they did restrain themselves evidently from any kind of mission effort until there was that clothing with power from on high. So I feel ambiguous, frankly. There may be a difference between the mission he was sending them on and the steady-state pastoral ministry that we’re to be about each day. And it may be that given some missions and ministries, there should be a tarrying and a seeking of a lengthy nature, but not before you make your bed, or eat breakfast, or write your sermon. I don’t live that way. I would be a hypocrite to say that I should tarry until I am manifestly baptized before I preach next Sunday.

Don Williams: I guess for myself, I think the normative New Testament experience was repentance, forgiveness, water baptism, and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think there was a doctrine of subsequent experience in the New Testament, because I think it all came at once. I think that the New Testament church, after Pentecost, was the church of the eschaton, of the end times. And the end times are signified as the times of the coming of the Holy Spirit, or the time in which the Spirit would be poured out. I think that most Christian experience sub-apostolic is less than normative. I think apostolic Christian experience is normative.

The problem is that not only do we have a lot of different theologies operating even of what conversion is, but we also have Christian experience that’s not reflective of what’s normative in the New Testament. And bluntly, many people have accepted Christ, made their decision for Christ, and even been able to identify that as the work of grace in their lives who don’t know anything about the presence or power of the Holy Spirit in their lives on an experiential level.

Tozer says that for most evangelicals it’s only by a formality that they can be called Trinitarian, because they do not know anything of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. So what we have is both tradition and experience, which seems to be in such conflict with what is normative to the New Testament in terms of Christian experience and conversion. I think ideally, a person should be regenerated, baptized in the Holy Spirit, experience the power of the Holy Spirit, and be baptized in water on the same day. That’s probably the Pentecostal experience.

I remember saying that at a class at Fuller Seminary that I taught years ago. A young student in the class came up to me after, and he said, “I’m from Argentina, and we’ve solved this problem a long time ago. In all of our evangelistic meetings we call people to Christ, we pray for them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and then we baptize them in water on the same day. We don’t have any problem with the New Testament. We just do what the New Testament says.”

Questioner: The prayers were answered every time?

Don Williams: Apparently. I don’t know. I didn’t probe his answer beyond what he told me. But in other words, that’s the worldview or the theological position out of their ministry. And I think that’s probably normative New Testament Christianity. I think that’s probably what turned the world upside down. What I’m shy of, without wanting to deny the providence of God or his continuing work in the church, and what have you, is using that as a theological position to then explain away revival, the need for repentance, the need for the church to be renewed, the need for the Holy Spirit to come in power, and what have you. So if we adopt a theological position to defend ourselves against all of that reality, then I think we’re really in danger of quenching the Spirit, and that could be very bad for the church.

Questioner: Sometimes our theological constructs are not always liberating.

Don Williams: They’re never liberating.

Questioner: I love John, and I appreciate your five-point Calvinism, but I have been experiencing a tension in this entire conference with virtually every part of it, even with the title, “Spiritual Gifts and the Sovereignty of God.” I still can’t figure out where some of you are in terms of how those two interplay. There seems to be a desire to say that God strictly reserves to himself when he will give spiritual gifts and when he will bring the renewal that’s in his mysterious plans, and so forth. I heard this in terms of Martin Lloyd Jones this morning, the bind that he was in because it was repulsive to him that he could help the Holy Spirit, therefore his practice of this theology did not come up to his preaching of it in terms of the power that he wanted to see.

It seems to me that the concept of the sovereignty of God can become such a philosophical abstraction that we’re trying to prop up all the time that we find ourselves in bind in terms of, “What do I do week by week in my office as I counsel people? I need certain spiritual gifts. What do I do week after week as I’m in the pulpit? Am I expecting this to be more than a cognitive exercise?” I want to know what it means to not come with eloquence or words of wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit and power. I still haven’t heard yet how that comes. It seems to me that the sovereignty of God is something that has no trouble validating itself. I’m not really interested in championing that cause all the time. I think that we need to understand if the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to whom he wills, when he wills, how has he willed to do that?

Has God, in his sovereignty, covenanted with his people to have this kind of dynamic relationship so that when we ask, he grants? When we call upon him, he gives — those kinds of dynamic things. This is a long question, I understand, but I’m trying to register the tension that I’m feeling between these concepts. Because I’ve heard that kind of thing coming up in almost every one of the presentations. How do we move the hand of God in answer to what we need in ministry in dealing with a sovereign God?

I had an experience in counseling some time ago with a young couple in their premarital counseling situation where it finally came to a point where I realized that there was something going on here. They were stuck and I was stuck. I had gone through all of the usual procedures that all of us had been trained in. Finally I just admitted it to them. I said, “I don’t know what to do. Come back in two weeks, I’ll pray about it, and think about it. We’ll see what opens up here.”

They came back in two weeks. I said, “I prayed about it, I thought about it, and I’m still stuck. I don’t know what to do, but I will contract with you right now, if you’re willing. I will simply listen to you. I’ll have you talk about some things, and I’ll listen for the Lord’s word. And whatever comes into my mind, I’m going to bounce it off you, no matter how off the wall or weird it seems to be.” And in the next hour and a half, the Lord gave me at least three or four specific insights into their situation that would never have occurred to me, that released stuff that the guy had suppressed for years. He was not ever able to talk about it to anybody, including himself. All kinds of things came out, and there was deliverance, there was restoration, and forgiveness of family.

I’ve wondered about that experience ever since. Shouldn’t that be normative? I’m simply saying that I don’t think I put the Lord to the test in front of those people, I simply registered my dependency on him and my expectation that we were in a dynamic relationship with him and he wanted to expose this.

Wayne Grudem: I just want to make a couple points here. The sovereignty of God does not deny the validity of means, nor of the importance of our obedience. God is sovereign, but his sovereignty works through my obedience. I don’t want to use a very strong word, but I think it was incorrect of Martin Lloyd Jones to downplay the use of music that stirs up our emotions. God uses music to stir up our emotions to love him, and to increase our faith. That’s the use of means. The fact that God is sovereign doesn’t mean we can’t use means. So I think, yes, God is sovereign, but we can sing, we should sing, we should pray, we should lay on hands, and we should witness. And then God brings the results that he will.

Questioner: We move God’s hand by taking initiative in a trustful, responsive way?

Wayne Grudem: Yes. God answers prayer. When we pray, he responds. The whole Bible is full of that. Moses cried out and God decided not to judge the people. Amos cried out, “Oh Lord God, forgive. How can Jacob stand to you so small?” And the Lord says, “It shall not be” (Amos 7:5–6), and he did not bring the judgment on the people. Jesus says, “Ask and you shall receive” (Matthew 7:7). Yes. Prayer is the means. God waits to act until we pray. And oftentimes it’s until we pray in an obedient way, and pray with faith. All we’re doing when talking about methods is talking about ways in which we can pray effectively.

Don Williams: Can I add something to that? In your illustration, you gave up, and you turned the whole situation over the Lord. And God gave you what you needed, and he might not have given you anything. He might’ve taught you a whole different lesson out of that, but you gave up, you waited, and God acted. You submitted yourself. You capitulated to his sovereignty. And you said, “Lord, I can’t solve the problem of this couple, and I need more than I have. So I’m going to sit here and just ask you to come in and take over.” That’s sheer grace, isn’t it?

Questioner: Well, it sounds more like a AAA service to me. I think this should be normal.

Don Williams: The question is, has that changed your whole style of counseling? Do you have people come in now and say, “We’re just going to sit and wait for the Lord to show us what to do, or do you jump right in with all of your counseling training and techniques and pastoral care and notes?”

Questioner: I think I need to have more trust in the fact that God is immediately present . . .

Don Williams: Yeah, but that’s your problem. And it’s our problem.

Questioner: What I’ve been hearing is that God is almost capricious in this thing . . .

Don Williams: No, he’s a loving Father. You can always count on him. He’s not capricious. He’s absolutely faithful. He keeps his covenant. I heard Bob Jones say, “God appreciates what he initiates.” And John Wimber teaches kind of out of both sides of his mouth, but this is the side I want to stress. And that is, see what the Father’s doing and go and bless that. Seriously, I believe yesterday, after the question and answer time that I was a part of and we prayed, if we had waited for an hour or two, 100 people might’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit here, totally empowered. But it would’ve caused a lot of stress. We weren’t ready for that. It would’ve been very difficult for us to wait. We’re very activistic. We want something to happen. Silence bothers us. Giving up bothers us. Giving up control bothers us.

Questioner: So God wanted to do something and we stopped him?

Don Williams: Yeah, we stopped him. I think that’s clearly true. I think he was beginning to minister to a few people here, in maybe the three or four minutes of silence that we had. If we had taken an hour of silence, I think we would’ve been much more receptive and open to the Holy Spirit. Because we have to shut down, we have to put our weapons down, we have to put our theology down, and we have to put our defenses down. We need to become receptive, and it’s hard to do that. And God got you to the point with this couple where you gave up and then he took over.

Wayne Grudem: I have just a little sentence correction when I said that prayer does move the hand of God. Don’t misunderstand me to say there’s something magic, or we can force God to do something of our own will. It’s always asking, and then we wait to see if God will answer. But often he does. It’s very similar to children asking their parents for something. I just didn’t want to be misunderstood. But asking is the normal way that God uses to bring blessing. He waits, we ask, and then he grants the request.

Questioner: I’m following what Don just said. We discussed it all the way back to the hotel last night. The question was, “What would have been helpful last night in encouraging people that God really does want to do this? Because we didn’t see a lot happen. And our feeling too was that there was a real sense of wanting to see something happen. Maybe instead of basing our belief on what we see in Scripture, even through falling back too much on whether we see it work now or didn’t, I think we have the sense that probably we ended what the Lord wanted to do. I guess I just want to ask that same question of Wayne and John and anyone else would like to answer that. Was that your sense of that ministry time too, that we need to learn a whole lot more about just waiting on God in silence and giving him time, as opposed to thinking, “God you’re on, now do something?”

Wayne Grudem: I went home laughing and rejoicing in the car, because Joe’s back got healed. First it was 53 percent better, and then a lot more than 53 percent better. That was just such a typical example of what we’re seeing in our church. But you multiply that a dozen, 30, or 50 times, and headaches are gone, congestion is gone, and back problems are gone. There’s real healing. Some might say, “Well, people weren’t falling in the aisles.” All right. My sense of that is, just keep doing this stuff, and more people will be doing it in your church. Eventually, God will just let it explode. But right now it’s just happening in quiet, non-dramatic, non-spectacular ways, and that’s great. Sure, sometimes people start weeping or they start trembling and things like that, but you wouldn’t know it unless you’re right there in the two or three people that it’s happening to. I’m content with that for right now.

I heard this illustration of a fire, and again, I don’t want to quote John Wimber all the time, but somebody asking him about revival recently said, “Well, when a fire gets going, if you talk to someone who knows about fires in a building, the heat builds up more and more, and then all of a sudden it reaches this threshold point where the whole thing bursts into flame.” He thinks that’s what’s happening in the church now. It’s building, it’s building, it’s building, and it’s building. People are being trained, they’re being equipped, people’s lives are being put back together, and they’re being purified. And it’s just going to take off all around when God is ready. We keep praying and keep asking him for it, but it’ll come. Let’s just be thankful for Joe’s back, and two or three other things, and every day that happens day after day after day. That’s a lot.

John Piper: I’m not sure I know what the question was.

Questioner: Do we need to learn a lot about waiting on the Lord in silence before him, learning just to enjoy him, maybe put first things first, to sit in his presence and enjoy him before we anticipate seeing him begin to do what he wants to do?

John Piper: Well, I feel like I do, because I can’t answer the question that’s been asked to me several times about the relationship between pressing on and steady-state ministry, and going off on a retreat for 40 days of prayer and fasting like Jesus did. I feel like I’ve got lots to learn before I discover the rhythm of the in-and-out of the Lord’s presence, and waiting and seeking. “Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). Is that like some people say, that you can develop a style of waiting while you’re running? Or is that really retreat? And you also asked if we would agree with Don’s comment. Did we stop the hand of God? And it relates to Bruce’s question about the sovereignty of God.

To me, the Bible simply forces me to consider that you can quench the Holy Spirit, and therefore, yes, you can stop the hand of God. And Paul says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you” (Philippians 2:12). So God stopped his hand through us stopping it. I just have no other choice. If I want to believe all of the Scripture, I have to say:

     I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
     and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
     and I will accomplish all my purpose,”

I have to say both. If it sounds to you like double-talk, or if it’s getting mixed messages, that’s just probably because the Bible gives mixed messages. But I believe there’s a substantial coherence behind it, and that if you ask which one is beneath the other, then the sovereignty of God is beneath our quenching. I do not want to put myself in the place of God so that I have the last say in moving his hand. So it’s both-and.

Questioner: What this other man spoke of, when he waited on the Lord and then some facts about the situation or insight were brought to his mind as he waited on the Lord, was that prophecy?

Wayne Grudem: Sure. I think that’s what’s going on, and I’d be thankful for it and encourage it.

Questioner: There’s a verse that for two years has been on my mind. It’s Exodus 33:15, where Moses says, “Lord, if your presence is not with us then do not lead us up from here.” When we talk about the customary assurance that one might have to carry on with the steady-state kind of ministry that we’re going through on a day-to-day basis, we’re also talking about an extraordinary assurance that God gives. I think Don, especially yesterday when we talked about coming down out of the hills, honey, I’m a missionary and at this point I’m going to be real honest with people. I don’t feel like I will go back unless I have this extraordinary assurance because I don’t feel like steady-state ministry is possible there. I just don’t feel that. Therefore I’m in a predicament. I’m asking you, are there guidelines? Are there practical things you can say? Or does this mean, maybe this is the point when I shouldn’t be in ministry anymore. I’m asking for guidelines. Are there any guidelines?

John Piper: I’ve thought about your situation a long time, David. No guidelines come to my mind right now, except to say you probably can’t go to a ministry that you don’t believe God wants you to go to. Wherever God calls you, the grace will be sufficient. So really the issue is going to be the call. He has been sufficient in your life. Through all the agony of these recent two terms, he’s come through. Therefore, I don’t want to lay down as a principle that you must have that upper-level assurance before you go. Now I’m open that may be God’s way for you right now. That’s going to be the criterion, and maybe that’s the direction we should pray in the next several months for you. But I don’t know for sure.

John E. Kyle: I just feel like the situation is too complicated to answer off the platform. I don’t know where you serve, I don’t know your situation, I don’t know your family, and I don’t know your colleagues. All these things are very complicated. I don’t know if you’re a first term missionary. Are you? You’re not? You’re in your third term. I think there are a lot of things that need to be talked about. I’d rather talk to you alone about that, because it is desperately important. As you know, there are no other people in this room that I know of that are going to take your place and what have you been doing. I don’t know what you’ve been doing. I’ve just wrestled this through with my own family, my son-in-law, making a decision to stay home for a year. It means that the mission is really suffering this year, but the family needed to make that decision. But it is too intricate I think to make a set of rules and this kind of thing to talk about.

Questioner: I’m asking Don, how did he exist in ministry before the experience in the hills when God met him?

Don Williams: I had just a good solid evangelical conversion, and I came to know Jesus and he came into my life, and I was born again. At 15 years of age it was great, it was wonderful. I didn’t grow up in the church, so it was dramatic and life-changing. And God called me into the ministry. At a time of real fruitlessness, I had to wrestle that through. This was when I was on the staff of Hollywood Presbyterian Church, and it was in a time when I just didn’t see anything happening. Anything. Finally I got down on my knees and felt very broken before the Lord for several hours, and prayed. And I heard the Lord say to me, “I called you here, and you can’t leave until I call you out.” So without any immediate change I just submitted myself to that. And I didn’t know at the time that we were literally within months of the Jesus movement breaking upon us, which radically transformed our whole ministry, and my ministry in my life.

The Lord had his purposes beyond what I could see or know at that time. In my experience of the Holy Spirit, of being filled with the Holy Spirit, it came years after that. I’ve looked back and said, “Lord, why didn’t you do that to me in 1968 or 1963 or 1954 or something?” Because in retrospect, in terms of what I know about ministry, in dealing with a demonic, for example, I was dealing with demons all over Hollywood. I didn’t even know they existed. I didn’t even believe it. I had an abstract belief in Satan, but I didn’t believe that people could be afflicted and affected by the demonic. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I’ve looked back on that, and all I can say is, I don’t know, but God knows. His ways are not my ways, and his thoughts are not my thoughts. And what I know now doesn’t invalidate what I did then, or what God did through me then.

I think this whole life is like a little spiritual bootcamp, and we think it’s really significant. We think being the pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis is really significant, or being the pastor of the Coast Vineyard in San Diego, California is really significant. I don’t know whether it is or not. It may not be particularly significant at all in terms of the whole cosmic purpose of God. I just figure the Lord is working with us in the ways that he wants to do, and it’s his ways and his thoughts, and his timing too. I submit myself to that. I think you’re responsible now for everything that you’ve heard in the last two days, do with what you will, or everything that God has taught you up until now.

So if you need to start seeking spiritual gifts, or waiting on the Lord because God’s spoken that to your heart, or if you need to not go back to the mission field until he’s finished doing what he wants to do with you to get you ready for the next phase of your life, you’re responsible for whatever God is saying to you in this context now. But if your heart is right with the Lord, God is going to honor that. He will. He’s going to come through for you. I was talking with a brother earlier today. He’s not in the meeting this afternoon. He went to the mission field because he was set up for it by his parents, and he was raised in his family to be a pastor. And he figured out early, out of a lot of insecurities in his life, that to be a pastor in the Baptist conference and to really succeed was to go to the mission field. That was the most spiritual thing that he could do. And he and his wife went to the mission field for a lot of crazy reasons.

At the same time, I asked him, “Did God bless your ministry there?” And the answer was yes. But he’s now back and he’s not returning, and he has to wrestle through a lot of motivational issues in his life. I think there’s a lot of healing going on and a lot of release from those family expectations and Christian cultural expectations. My sense is that he’s going to move into probably the most effective period of ministry in his life, but it’s only out of the context of what God has done over those years that now he can start dealing with these things. We can’t short-sheet God. Accept the process where you are, and then let God provoke the crisis. If you’re in crisis, then he’ll bring you through that and put you back into the process again. That’s all I can say in general.

Questioner: Don, here’s a question for you about the healing ministry. I’m wondering where you have not seen results praying for something specifically, cancer or whatever, do you have a growing sense now that disease is rooted in some demonic stronghold in that family, and there’s power behind that disease that cannot be touched through simply laying on hands until some other issues are dealt with? And then, with that knowledge now, how do you begin healing prayer differently than you may have before?

Don Williams: We had a prayer team that met for over a year with a man dying of cancer, and he died about three months ago. They prayed every week for him, and there was tremendous intimacy. Those of you who’ve ministered to people who are dying, you know what that’s like. He was a Jewish lawyer who lived in La Jolla, and his wife was a Christian. And we were called in. They were Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and as I say, he was atheistic. Their background wasn’t Vineyard. But when cancer comes and you look around for people who pray for the sick and the Vineyard begins to become interesting in that desperation. So we got involved. In the course of that he became a Christian and accepted Christ, and he began to grow significantly in his spiritual life. He also had a period of remission, which of course we really hoped was healing permanently. I don’t know how the prayer related to that period of remission, but let me just say his mother is a practicing witch.

She continually sought to intercept and interrupt the prayer and the faith that was going on in relationship to this person. At one period of his hospitalization I read out a bunch of little Bible verses and scotch taped them to the wall, and some were verses of comfort and promise and hope. But I had about four or five verses that had to do with spiritual warfare. I wrote things like, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,” and those kinds of verses. She visited him, and when I came back all those verses were gone. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind — and we encountered it very much in a spiritual way — that there was continual opposition to his healing. And it was very spiritual, it was very direct, it was very intrusive, and it was very aggressive. So that’s an incident, and I don’t know what to say, other than there was a definite demonic assault on the desire that we had for his healing and restoration.

Now, does that mean that God is weak, that he can’t overcome the power of the enemy? I do believe, and I’m sure John would agree, that the devil is God’s devil, as Luther said. Ultimately his kingdom does triumph. But what I will say is that there was clearly, in this case, a tremendous spiritual opposition that was designed really to disrupt the healing that God was bringing into his life. And it was a battle. It was a real battle. It was not theoretical.

I don’t have an opinion on all of cancer having a demonic dimension to it, as if there is some demon of cancer. But I think cancer is demonic. I don’t know anything that’s more symbolic of the demonic than cancer that gives the illusion of life and its death. It’s life growing in you that’s bringing death. Isn’t that the ultimate irony? That is so evil. It is so deceptively evil, even to the body in some ways, especially when the immune system breaks down. I hate cancer. My wife’s father died of cancer and my brother-in-law died of cancer. I hate cancer. These were loving, caring Christians who just were wiped away by cancer. I see the demonic in it. As even the secular world now admits, definitely there’s a cancer profile psychologically. I think there’s a spiritual profile as well. I think if we don’t pray in those dimensions, that we’re going to miss the point in terms of praying for healing. But I don’t have it figured out.

Questioner: How much power do you have previous to that being able to minister, and how do you do that? How do you receive the level of power that you need to minister, to preach, to heal?

John Piper: Well, the text that I just read from Ephesians 1:19–20, if I’m interpreting it correctly, says that you have universe-shaking power at work in you right now. It’s not designed at this point perhaps to manifest itself in some ways that are shocking. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). A power encounter happens every time someone is converted. You were the object of that, once upon a time, and therefore you have power within you. And then, after that, I just think if you go through and read Paul’s letters, you find the word “power” used regularly. In Colossians 1:18, he prays that you might have a power for “all endurance and patience with joy.” So if you’ve endured in the ministry and gone through some hard times and maintained faith, power has been at work in your life. Or Ephesians 3:18 says, “I pray that they might have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the love of Christ . . .”

If you now and then have deep and wonderful apprehensions of the love of Christ, that’s flesh-overcoming power at work in your life. If you’ve ever felt the hand of God on you while you’re preaching and people become silent, and the Spirit moves in some way, power is on you. I just think there are hundreds of ways that the Lord manifests power, and I doubt that it’s an either-or even between baptism and non-baptism. My guess is that it’s on a continuum. So I would guess that there have been times in my life I have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, half a dozen times or so, using Martin Lloyd Jones’s terms when it happens over and over again.

There was an exorcism one time with Tom Stellar in the middle of the night. I remember one time standing about right where you’re sitting with the chairs this way at a Wednesday night prayer meeting. I began the service in prayer and I just found myself caught up into about a two-minute prayer of praise. I was standing outside watching myself praise the Lord, saying, “Wow, you really do admire him, don’t you?” So there have been little touches like that along the way. I have not come to the point yet where I have felt like David, where I’m on the brink of needing something or I’ll have to quit.

It’s come close to that sometimes, but I basically fight in a pretty steady state. Wayne has a little outline here that he wrote down of categories: Christians who sense they have no power, some who have power and are growing, and others who have explosive power. My guess is you could stick in some other breakdowns and categories, and we’re all somewhere on that continuum. I ask the Lord every day to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to have all the power I need to do a maximally effective ministry. And then there are times when we go away on retreat and we fast and we pray, and we ask for a booster shot in our need for this antibiotic against weakness and ineffectiveness and sin. Does that help?

Questioner: I just want to clarify something. Baptism of the Spirit by Martin Lloyd Jones’s term is what some would classify as filling and an ongoing experience?

John Piper: Right. But it is extraordinary. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been baptized with the Holy Spirit the way Lloyd Jones describes. I doubt it, frankly, I don’t think I have.

Questioner: To what extent do you think our worldview affects the ministry of the church?

John E. Kyle: Dramatically.

Questioner: If it does, what can we do about that? For instance, I like Charles Kraft’s book when he talks about how people in the West don’t have a perception of the supernatural, or being open to it, even as Christians. So to what extent does that inhibit the ministry of the gift? And if that does, then what can the church do about that?

Wayne Grudem: One thing that might be helpful is if you know some person or persons in your church who just see things in spiritual terms all the time, and you get close to those people. There are three or four or five people in our church, and I get comments like this: “I saw two or three angels in church this morning.” Or they say, “I think there’s a demonic problem with such and such.” Or they say, “It isn’t just the sore shoulder, I think there’s a lot of hurt there.” And it’s often coupled with a strong faith. Well, I think back to when I was at Salem Baptist in New Brighton, Minnesota right up here. I’ve forgotten his last name, but there was a man named Kenny and he was one of the deacons. Whenever I was close to him I started to see things like he was. He had such strong faith. That would really help a lot. And the Lord puts people like that near us to encourage our faith. That’s one thing.

Questioner: For example, with Don and his experience of seeing things boxed in, and moving from that, what would you say in your experience administering in the Presbyterian church that you found helpful to help people begin to really be open to seeing that God can actually do what he says, like in the book of Acts? How have you helped them to think in terms of spiritual gifts within the church? What can be some things that you can teach that will just help people break through that box?

Don Williams: I think on an intellectual level or a theological level that we need to confront the secular mindset that we’ve all been impregnated with and expose that for what it is. Bring the truth of God and the truth of the word of God over against that. We need to be able to contrast that. But to do that you have to, like in Chuck’s book, be able to step out of your own assumptions, largely unarticulated. You need to be able to step out of that and take a look at it. I think there’s some intellectual work to be done. I’m in no way against that. I think that’s very helpful. I think Wayne has given us a really good model in the last two days of someone who is obviously operating from a different worldview than most evangelical Christians operate from.

He is. He lives in a high expectation that he’s going to be hearing from God in ways that are going to be meaningful for ministry on a regular basis. Current, prophetic, revelatory communication is going on in his life and through his life. I think that there’s a biblical, apologetic, intellectual job to be done, but that isn’t going to change your life. It just isn’t going to do it. I would say that probably most people that I know have moved from that, where they’ve begun to really see that there is a supernatural worldview that’s largely been undermined by a rationalistic worldview, or kind of a modern secular worldview. Most people that I know of who have been trapped in the secular worldview, even though they’ve been Christians, need more than the intellectual confrontation. Although that’s helpful, it only prepares the way like John the Baptist.

Secondly, they need to see something happening outside themselves that is a real manifestation of the direct power of God. In my former church at Mount Soledad Presbyterian Church, there was a physicist who was on the faculty of the University of California in San Diego. He had been at MIT, and he had come from MIT and brought 25 people with him to establish an optics lab for the university. And he was converted as he watched a girl’s arm grow as she was being prayed for. She had a withered, distorted arm. He went to a healing meeting with his wife dragging him there. And he sat in the front row, this physicist, and he watched this girl be prayed for. And as she was prayed for, her withered arm grew out and was restored. And he was converted on the spot. That might even get you.

Now, that’s extraordinary, but God has a sense of humor. He wanted that physicist in his kingdom and he knew how to get the guy. The value of a lot of the ministry that John Wimber had at Fuller Seminary in his notorious classes there, and the Vineyard and conferences and those kinds of things, is that people come very skeptical, but they begin to see God operating in a manifest way. And that’s the next step. I think the final step is really participation or experience, where you become not only convinced intellectually or theologically from the Scriptures, but you also begin to have some observable data. And then there’s some point at which you want to step into that, and I think it’s the urging of the Spirit of God in you. I think it is grace. It’s where you personally are willing to step into it.

I remember at one Vineyard conference some years ago when I was still in the Presbyterian church, a former student of mine from Fuller who is now a Presbyterian pastor, in the midst of this week long conference in Anaheim came up to me and he said, “If what is going on here is true, my whole ministry is invalid.” Now, that was an overreaction. But what was happening to this guy, in terms of both hearing the teaching and observing the ministry of the Holy Spirit, was that he was being thrown into crisis. And now he had a decision to make. It was like when I was sharing my experience yesterday, that I was sitting there and the Holy Spirit had come upon me and was definitely working in me, but I had a decision to make whether to go with it or not. I think there is an experiential verification. I really believe in that. And I think that probably, for me, really was the next step in terms of the worldview thing.

Now, I live in the conflict of two worldviews — in the flesh and in the Spirit. I’m constantly wrestling between those two worldviews for myself. And so my level of faith and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit, and what have you, rises and falls in relation to that. That’s good news for me, because before that I really wasn’t wrestling with it. Now I am. I trust that there is a growth in grace for me to be more and more conformed to Christ and more responsive to what I think is really going on, which is this warfare between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, rather than just a secular understanding of reality which I was trained in.

Questioner: Does the church gradually have other words of knowledge more and more? Because we all experience depression and fear, and how comforting it would be for someone to give a word of knowledge relating to something emotional that a person is going through, pronouncing some hope for that person.

Wayne Grudem: What do you think, Margaret? You don’t want to answer? She gets them a lot more than I do. Lots of times they’re emotional things, though you don’t have many examples of anything in the Bible. You have Agabus and the famine, you have Agabus with Paul, and you have disciples predicting Paul’s sufferings. But those are the whole church history of redemption things having to do with the whole church and the famine then with the progress of Paul’s ministry. Other than that, you just have doctrinal kinds of things. You have descriptions of what it is, like the secrets of a person’s heart being revealed and other things like that. But that’s fine, we don’t have too much narrative.

Questioner: How fearful should I be that my faith is genuinely prompted by God as opposed to maybe a name-it and claim-it kind of thing?

Don Williams: This is the tension built through this whole conference. What do you do? Do you wait for revival? Do you preach revival? Do you pray for revival? Do you go read Finney’s book and bring it into being? How do you do this stuff? I think we have to live in the tension. And as I say, John Wimber talks out of both sides of his mouth. You’re supposed to see what the Father’s doing and go and bless that and participate in what God’s already initiating in terms of praying for people who are sick, on the one hand. On the other hand, if somebody’s sick, go call the elders and anoint them with oil and pray for them. And if you step out, God will show up. It’s both-and. I think it really is.

But what it takes me back to is something I hear clearly from John and others. That is, my priority is not to pray for you, my priority is to be intimate with the Lord. Out of that intimacy, the abiding life — “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7) — I hope to be able to discern more and more, person by person, moment by moment, sermon by sermon, prayer opportunity by prayer opportunity, what God wants me to do. I think that’s what it means to walk in the Spirit.

I’ve done a lot of uncommanded ministry. I’ve lived a lot of my ministry in the flesh. I’ve ministered to people for all kinds of weird reasons. God hasn’t necessarily been absent or distant from all of that with great love and mercy and compassion far beyond my screwed up motives and all of my weirdness. But I’m at a point in my life now that I really desire and God is wooing me into that intimacy with himself, where my life comes out of that. I want my life to come out of that. I struggle with it. I struggle for time, priorities, and what have you.

My goal is to be able to minister to anybody that God brings to me or brings me to, to be able to be effective in that. And to minister out of his love and compassion and the leading of the Holy Spirit and his ministry for them. I know the priority on God’s heart for me is intimacy with him, not jumping out of the boat and walking on the water, but intimacy. And out of that, I think I’ll jump out of the boat.

Wayne Grudem: Could I just say something to that too, Greg? Now that I think about that, I’d just encourage you to be obedient and pray for people as needs come along. If God stirs up stronger faith within you from time to time as you’re praying, then great. Be thankful for it, and you can pray with more power and effectiveness. I find myself at least doing that. I’ll pray for people as needs cross my path. I know what it feels like, but it’s hard to tell you what it feels like. It feels like an excitement inside, sometimes a fullness, sometimes a tingling inside me, sometimes just a joy welling up inside me. It’s something like that, anyway. I’ll pray for people whether I feel anything or not, and God answers sometimes in one way and sometimes in another. I’m just praying out of obedience.

Last night at the end, when I asked the Holy Spirit to come, and then asked for empowerment for certain gifts, I had what I would think of as, for me anyway, a moderately strong sense of the Lord’s presence as I was praying. I had a sense that it was right, and that some things really were happening in the room in the spiritual realm. And although three or four people raised their hands for a quickening for healing, my hunch is there were several more, and also for prophecy and things. Now, I don’t know all that was happening, but all I did was say, “All right, Lord, here I am. Here we are. We wait on you. Do what you will.” I felt a sense that I should pray for that. I’d had it in mind before, but it seemed like the right thing at that time. And I just prayed. Then I’ll just let the Lord answer as he will.

I had an unusual experience once in Scotland where I spoke on prophecy using just about the same outline here for 1,100 people, and 200 came forward to pray for prophecy. As I started walking and praying for them, I put my hand on one fellow’s head and he crumpled over to the floor. The Holy Spirit was on him so strongly. I prayed for him for a few minutes, walked away, put my hand on another fellow’s head, and zap, he went down on the floor. That has never happened to me before, it’s never happened to me since.

And I thought that’s wonderful, but I don’t think that’s what God wanted to do here last night. Probably because of who you are, where you are in your own understanding, and the mixture of backgrounds that people have. I think what God wanted to do was give some growth and understanding and give some more excitement about saying, “Well, I could probably pray in this way, and I should start doing this in my church,” and just let that work out over time. Just leave it in his hands. He’ll do what he wants when he wants. It’s a tension of being content with what he does, rejoicing in that, and seeking more. And I suppose you could say, “Well, I could have prayed longer and harder before, and my faith could have been stronger.”

I do think that I would love a more explosive power in my ministry. But what I see is I see some power and some effectiveness. Well, I’m thankful for that. I ask the Lord for more, but I go with what’s there. And I’m saying that to say, why not all do that? Let’s just go with that. And then as the Lord wishes, he’ll give more blessing.

Don Williams: Wayne, if you got a more explosive power in your ministry right now do you think you’d be out of the seminary?

Wayne Grudem: I think I might. I’ll take it if God gives it.

John Piper: If our budget improves, you can come here.

Questioner: When I came to this conference I was telling people that the things that are happening in my church back in rinky-dink Nebraska have just been incredible. We’ve just been praising the Lord. And hearing this when you’re talking about explosive power, I just wonder if our churches in the Baptist General Conference are in the backwoods yet? Are we going to be left behind because we’re going at this too slowly? I know I hear what’s going on in the Vineyard and I want that. I want it with all my heart. But I’m just wondering, I believe God is going to send a tremendous revival in our country, and I think it’s already happening in certain parts of the world. We’re seeing these power encounters where people are being actually raised from the dead. And I’m wondering, is it going to happen here and we’re going to be left behind as far as our denomination is concerned?

Wayne Grudem: Well, somebody has to answer those horrible articles in The Standard. And I say horrible, because they are so distorted in the impression they give. That is not the Vineyard I know, and I’m within it. I know John Armstrong, but I’m just very dissatisfied with those articles. That’s one thing. I think there has to be a better picture. There’s misrepresentation by selective examples, by quoting out of context, by setting up a false dichotomy. I’m very troubled about those, and I thought I ought in this context to say something about those. I would say that to John Armstrong and I’d say to Don Anderson too. I am really unhappy about what is going on there because it’s scaring people off from what they need to be open to. And it prejudices the case by a very selective viewpoint.

I’ll tell you what it’s doing. Who was the winning quarterback for the Giants? Hostetler? He had 20 passes completed out of 32 right? It’s as if you took the sports cast in the evening and you showed all 12 of his misses, and that’s all you showed. Now you could say it’s true, but it’s certainly a distorted view. When there is an attack that has misrepresentation of the actual situation as it is, Scripture says, “With his mouth, that godless would destroy his neighbor” (Proverbs 11:9). I think that’s what this is. Scripture then says, “By knowledge the righteous are delivered” (Proverbs 11:9). That is, it seems to me that people need correct information before they make the right decisions. And if people are not given correct information, they will make wrong decisions. So I think there needs to be some response given, not just a letter to the editor, which people won’t read, but an article or two.

It seems to me that if there’s fair information given then people will make a fair evaluation. If people understand what the Vineyard is and what signs and wonders this thing is about and then they reject it, that’s fine. But I at least would like them to have fair information.

Questioner: Would someone define “Third Wave”? And what effect did that have on the missionary world, the seminary world, and the pastoral world, the local church world? We have representatives from each one.

John Piper: I believe “Third Wave” is Peter Wagner’s term. At least, I read it in his books. The best summary of the Third Wave is the epilogue to Power Encounters by Kevin Springer. If you want to read an eight-page summary of what it is, Wimber has an epilogue there. Basically, the first wave was classical Pentecostalism, the second wave was the charismatic renewal, and the Third Wave is the Vineyard-type church. The first wave was characterized by tongues, mainly. The second wave was characterized by worship renewal in mainline churches. And the Third Wave is characterized by a de-emphasis of tongues, a Reformed orientation (a la George Ladd), a presence in evangelical churches, and an emphasis probably more on healing and now on prophecy, but without much of the charismatic either/or baggage. What you’ve heard here is vintage Third Wave teaching, I believe, from Wayne and Don’s experience. Does that make sense?

The other characteristic that is emphasized in the Third Wave is evangelism. That’s where worship renewal was. In other words, the cutting edge of the Third Wave is world evangelization and getting the job done. Power Evangelism was the first book. That’s no accident.

Wayne Grudem: Regarding seminaries, I think it’s gradually having a very positive impact in seminaries, but it’s bit by bit. Trinity decided that it wanted to keep me, even though about a year ago the little church that I was affiliated with was Vineyard, and now I’m in a Vineyard church. So far so good on that. And Gordon Conwell has one or two professors in a Vineyard church, I guess. And Regent has had maybe one.

At the Evangelical Theological Society, the interest is phenomenal. Jack Deere, who lost his job at Dallas because of being in a Vineyard church, read a paper in New Orleans in November at the ETS meeting. And the paper was titled, “A Consideration of the Arguments for the Cessation of the Sign Gifts.” Everybody knew where he’d been. And now he’s working as Wimber’s assistant. There were 10 parallel sessions. You think you may get 20, 30, or 40 people at your session. There were 120 people who came. They were Dallas, Westminster, and Reformed seminary professors. There were some from Bethel too, I believe. So the interest is phenomenal. A lot of people, even the Grace Seminary type of people, are saying, “We maybe really ought to consider this over again.” I think the cessationist arguments are in retreat in the academic world.

John E. Kyle: I think it’s significant that a school like Fuller Theological Seminary and the World Missions Department are really being involved in this area. There are a number of people that they’re training not only in the United States, but overseas. A lot of their people in their advanced courses have to either have 10 years experience in the field, or you have to have 10 years of experience if you’re a national to work in their program. So they’re influencing a lot of people, and we’re going to see that it’s going to act itself out in the mission field. I agree with a lot of the things John said, but I believe that the Third Wave is really for evangelicals who are sitting on the fence trying to figure it out. And that’s who I am.

On the other hand, when you’re in a denomination like I’m in, that’s very tight-knit around the Reformed doctrines, a certain minority are always looking over your shoulder. Our missionaries have to be very careful what they’re doing out there because they can be tried in local courts of presbyteries. That’s happened to us by pastors already. So there’s a certain amount of uneasiness, but it’s coming because the seminaries are going that direction, especially one seminary where a lot of our people are being trained or have contact. I don’t see that at Columbia Bible College and Seminary yet, but I’m watching it to see what they’re going to do. I think when the seminaries start, especially Fuller — and I’ve read all this stuff by their president that’s leaving — they’re going to continue teaching power evangelism and whatever else.

Don Williams: I’m interested in this conference, because my hunch is that five years ago it didn’t happen. When did you start these pastors’ conferences, John?

John Piper: This is the fourth one.

Don Williams: Well, I don’t think the first conference would’ve been this one. But that’s probably some commentary on your own journey. I think that this is symptomatic of a lot that’s going on around the country. The fact that this many people would come to this conference on this theme with these people, in this weather, is surprising. And periodically I find myself involved. I was involved in a consultation a couple of years ago in Chicago with all of the leaders of the covenant. It was a closed door deal, and it was because John couldn’t go. I went in his place. And dealing with the impact of the Vineyard and the Third Wave on the covenant, it was a mixed discussion. But clearly it was being triggered by the pressure that the executives felt within the covenant in terms of dealing with what’s going on.

So I think at a lot of different levels across the country, within the denominations, there’s a lot of ferment, a lot of things are happening. That’s a sense that I have. Although, now being in the Vineyard, I’m in this little pool paddling around with a few other ducks and various waterfowl. I’m out of the mainstream. Somebody said to me the other day that John Wimber’s the single most important force in England, at least in the renewal part of the Anglican church in England. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. So a lot is going on.

Questioner: I have a comment. I think I hear some ethnocentric comments about the Third Wave. I have spent seven out of the last eight years in Ghana, West Africa, and I can’t speak for all of Africa. But in Africa they’re living the Third Wave, and we’re just debating it and trying to find out how we’re going to get to be a part of it. To me it’s strange, and we have a lot to learn from them.

Now, they have doctrinal weaknesses, but they’re not concerned about all these nitty-gritty little intricate details about doctrine. They’re on with the business because that’s where they’re at. And somebody made a comment about finding out who is saying things spiritually and getting next to them. Well, Ghanaians, automatically because they’re Ghanaians, see things spiritually. And that’s the kind of people they are from their birth. It’s just natural for them to live that lifestyle. They’re not struggling to be part of it like we are.