Strange Fire?

Pastor John MacArthur is just being a faithful and staunch Southern Baptist. 

For all the truth the Baptists have received, they have been stubbornly resisting the Holy Spirit outpourings over the years since their inception. 

I remember J. Vernon McGee, the Voice of the Baptist Church, on the local Christian radio station preaching daily that signs, wonders and miracles ended when John died. He would boldly declare that all “Pentecostal” and “Charismatic” manifestations were of the devil. Etc. Pastor MacArthur is just taking up his mantra which is dogmatic cessationist theology. 

The Baptists are losing members and closing churches faster than ever, while those of the Pentecostal persuasion are growing and expanding the Kingdom of God all around the globe. No wonder that one of their own would take the old stand in hopes that some would not leave their persuasion. Many “Baptists” are becoming “Spirit-filled” and leaving their ranks. 

This is an old, old “battle” that the Baptists just don’t want to lay down. Unfortunately, we all can point fingers at the other denominations for the lack of integrity found everywhere. The devil must love it because, as Luke 11:17 says, “But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.” 

One day, Christians will have to come together in the Word and not in their dogmatic assertions. I pray that Reverend MacArthur would learn that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life and yield to the Holy Spirit which he now, very well, could be blaspheming.

 

I posted the following via the YouVersion online Bible earlier today:

 

http://bible.com/8/MRK7.13.AMP Thus you are nullifying and making void and of no effect [the authority of] the Word of God through your tradition, which you [in turn] hand on. And many things of this kind you are doing.
Bible.com/app

That there have been gross abuses within charismatic and pentecostal circles is no secret. That John MacArthur points to those excesses to rally cessationists is petty and childish at best. While purporting to defend scripture he ignores the simple truth that Jesus still saves, heals, and delivers, that signs wonders and miracles still happen every day, and that pentecostalism is responsible for the salvation of more souls than the Baptists ever thought of. The only “strange fire” I can see is that of the tradition of a shrinking denomination that refuses to embrace the true and complete  work of the Holy Spirit. John MacArthur is simply the Baptist Convention’s modern version of J. Vernon McGee.