Cessation is a newly coined word for old-fashioned Unbelief. The LORD’S many names, revealed over time in the life experiences of His people Israel, are His unhanging attributes. These names were later revealed in the Person of His Son, Jesus the Messiah, and to deny them is to deny the character and attributes of the Father as seen in the Son.
“I am the LORD, I change not…” (Malachi 3:6) Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) The unchanging nature, character, and attributes of God makes the concept of Cessation just a form of unbelief.
Cessation is revisionism, and those who promote it set themselves up as self-appointed judges of those who manifest the spiritual gifts listed in the Epistles of Paul. Deniers believe only in healings and miracles that are attributable to God as sovereign acts which are beyond the influence of faith (other than as providential answers to prayer).
Miracles of healing that cannot be denied are identified by these unbelievers as satanic in origin, and performed by those who are either deceived or demonized. But “God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” In modern terms, not a spirit of timidity, inability, or irrationality.
The latest in this rush to judgement is a preacher who asks how church worship became singing, when it is really adoration to God. Does he not know that singing is as much adoration as prayer? Someone who knows this ought to tell him that it can be both. What of the noisy Psalm 150? And did all those great historic hymns lack Divine adoration?)
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so sublime,
Demands my life, my soul, my all!”
What do you think?