Hello, beloved, and welcome to our weekly Bible study. And as you know, we've been looking at the Holy Spirit for quite some time now, and we are still busy with the third person of the Trinity, God, the Holy Spirit. And in part three on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we're going to take a little bit of a look at the lists of gifts that we see in the Bible. We've already seen so far that when a person becomes a Christian, when a person becomes a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, which means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone unto salvation, God the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within that believer. And then we can say that it is God's plan that all believers should glorify God and worship God and serve God and and how should they do it one of the ways obviously by using the gift that God has given his people for the edification of the church and to glorify him okay We are to glorify God. We are to worship God. We are to serve God. I was listening to a sermon, just the first part of a sermon. Actually, I just read some things on the sermon. I actually want to go and still listen to the sermon itself. And the sermon is basically, why has our worship turned to singing music? Why has our worship turned into singing music? Because worship is much much more than singing worship songs or praise songs to the Almighty God. Worship is much deeper than that. Now before we continue, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we can come to you in Jesus' name. And thank you so much for your loving kindness. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for your revelation. Thank you that we can have your revelation, that we can have the word. And Father, thank you so much that we can study your word, and specifically with regards to the gifts of the Spirit, that there is such confusion. And I pray, Father, that as we work our way through these the gifts of the spirit and the the lists of gifts that we receive through your word i pray father that you will make it clear to us please so that we may understand enable us to take it to heart and to apply it to our lives so that you may be glorified in and through our lives this we pray in jesus name amen All right, now there are different gifts of the Spirit that we find in the Bible, in Scripture, obviously. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm not gonna take the lists and then start working through the lists one by one and open up the gifts one by one because there are even gifts in the Old Testament, like for example, the gift of craftsmanship. I don't know if you know that there is such a gift as the gift or there was such a gift as the gift of craftsmanship. When they built the tabernacle, the Spirit of God gave the artisan a special ability to make all the artifacts, everything in the tabernacle. And it was done at an extremely high quality. And why? Because it was a gift. It wasn't something that was acquainted by the person or what the person was born with because let's say his father or his grandfather or somebody in his family line was a good artisan, therefore that person was a good artisan and therefore they will be able to do good things in the temple. No, no, no, no, no, no. God through the Holy Spirit or God the Holy Spirit enabled that person to be a good artisan and to really, really be able to make things in the temple that were of superior quality because it was driven by the Holy Spirit. All right. Now, there's one thing that we can say to one another from the beginning, and I'm not shy about it. You know, there are different things that are said about the gifts of the Spirit, but there are gifts that I believe that was there for a purpose, it was there for a specific period of time, and then they were no longer needed in the church. Right and beloved. I want you to understand when I talk about the always. Yeah when I talk about the gifts of the spirit The gifts of the spirit is for the purpose of edification to edify the body of christ now to to build up the body of christ Now one thing that is very important is it is therefore Let's say church directed But obviously, God is served through the church. As we serve the church, God is being served. I serve God as I serve His church. But when it comes to the gifts, and that's what the purpose of the gifts is. Now, when I go to the scripture, to the Bible, And I take the Bible and I expound the Bible and I break it open to someone and let's say I talk to someone about something and I take the scriptures and I say, just listen to this passage of scripture or just listen to this verse where God is actually addressing the issue that we are talking about now. Beloved, then let me tell you God's revelation is the highest when it comes to the authority within the church. Everything is subject to the authority of scripture. Obviously, everything is subject to the authority of Christ. Jesus said, all authority, now in Matthew chapter 28, he says, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Right. So jesus has all authority. We know that uh, so has the word Because the word is god's revelation and we have to test everything that we do everything that we say everything that we Believe and everything that we feel we have to Basically take the word of god, which is god's revelation now remember 40 authors who wrote the bible over a period of 1500 years in three continents, people from diverse backgrounds, kings and fishermen and taxpayers, or tax collectors, sorry. It's just absolutely amazing. that God would use all the different writers of the Bible to basically write God's revelation and give it to us so that we can have it today. So we have God's revelation, which is the most amazing thing. We have the word of God. Now for God's revelation to come to us, God gave certain people certain gifts. And let's call them the temporary gifts. When the moment those gifts, when their purposes were fulfilled, they stopped, was no longer needed because we have the scriptures, we have God's word, we have God's perfect and final revelation and the scriptures obviously is all sufficient in all manners of faith and practice. We don't need anything else but the word of God. All right, so the temporary gifts basically stopped when its purpose was fulfilled. And here we can say, for example, let's call them the sign gifts, okay? That was while the church was established, and let's call them foundational gifts if you want. All right, for example, we have the gift of miracles. That's, how can I say, the gift of miracles, you can see that the apostles, had that gift and they could use it. So they went and they preached. Amazing things happened when the apostles went out and preached the gospel and God then working through them to do miracles. So he worked the gift of miracles through them to basically establish the authority of the church. To say that the church, as Jesus Christ, through the miracles and the things that he did, which was in accordance to the Old Testament, to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, so we have in the New Testament certain gifts which are, for example, the miracle gifts, and those gifts were specifically for the purpose of establishing the church and the authentication of the, let's say, the reality of the church, that the church is real, and that God is not only involved in the church, But that Christ Jesus, the Messiah, is actually the head of the church. And he guides and directs his church. And God, the Holy Spirit that dwells within each and every believer, works his power and his miracle working power in that sense. The gift of powers, it's also called. Now this gift of miracles was foundational in the church. And once the church was established, And for example, where the Apostle Paul says to Titus that he has to go to every city and he has to put things in order. And what did he have to do? He had to appoint elders in every church. And what was the function of all the elders in the churches? The function was to be able to teach. Obviously, they had qualifications that they had to, how can I say, they had to have those qualifications to be able to be elders. All right, but also when it came to ministry, they had specific things that they had to do. The Apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. And he told him a lot of things that he basically expected that the elders, as he was speaking on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul speaking on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaking to the elders, things that the Ephesian elders were supposed to embrace from the Apostle Paul and then apply it in the church. Now, obviously when the apostles passed away and the early church, let's call it the early church, when the early church was replaced by, there is no such thing as a second generation Christian by the way, always first generation. Why? Because we all have to be born again. All right, so if you are born of a woman, and you are flesh and blood, and God gives you the gift of the rebirth, the Holy Spirit regenerates you, that's a miracle, absolutely a miracle. And which means from that moment on, you're a first generation Christian. And let's say, for example, your child, now and receives the gift of regeneration is born again and receives the gift of saving faith then still Your child is then first-generation Christian, even though he might know or she might know more than you, because they've seen you, they've followed you, they've watched you and they've learned from you. But still, when it comes to salvation, it's always an individual thing and every single person has to be personally born again. all right you can't be how can i say you can't ride on somebody else's rebirth you have to be reborn yourself you have to i can say be regenerated by the spirit of god now this gift of miracle was extraordinary if you look look at the scriptures and you look at what the those who were involved in laying the foundation of the church what they were involved in the apostle paul for example Peter, sorry, Peter, they took, what shall we call it, like handkerchiefs, cloths, and put it on people and people would be healed. It's just absolutely amazing, the miracles, the things that took place during the time of the apostles. But once the authority was established, They were no longer needed, why? Because the scriptures were basically in place. The Old Testament scriptures and then the New Testament slowly but surely the letters and the books that was accepted by the early church started being distributed among the churches and they accepted it as authoritative. All right, so by the time that the Canaan was combined or compiled, the churches already, how can I say, affirmed that a certain amount of books were, how can I say, authoritative. So those books became part of the Canaan. All right. And then the gift of miracles were no longer needed. Why? Because the scriptures, God's perfect revelation is basically there. And if we share the word of God with people, the preaching of the gospel, the gospel, by the way, is the power of God unto salvation. But when somebody preaches the gospel, that's the means that God uses to save people. No longer was it necessary for miracles. You can do as many miracles as you want. It's not going to change the heart of a sinner. The gospel does. So when we preach the gospel and we share the let's say the bad of the gospel in the sense that we have to tell people about the bad in the sense that we are sinners on our way to hell. deserving of hell in the sight of a holy God, because how can we enter into the presence of the holy God and we are full of sin and we inherited that sin from our forefathers, Adam and Eve, but besides that, not only that, we also committed sin physically. All right, so that separates us from God, but praise God in Christ Jesus, he came and reconciled us to himself. Through the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God reconciled us to Himself and we became part of His family, became part of His children. The Holy Spirit comes and dwells within us and He makes us part of the church. He baptizes us into the church, into the body of Christ and we are part of the church of Jesus Christ. And He starts working the gift that He gives us through us. Just absolutely amazing. All right, so Beloved, at the end of the day, when you see the gift of miracles in the Bible, we know it was foundational. It was very important for laying the foundation of the church, to authenticate the church, to authenticate the headship of Christ over the church, and to authenticate the fact that believers are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. All right, and to authenticate the, how can I say, the authority of God's revelation, okay? Because it was confirmed that those who did those miracles were the ones who wrote down what God wanted them to write down so that we can have the Word of God today. Absolutely amazing, okay? And by the way, the purpose of the miracles was always to present some other spiritual truth. It was never just to do a miracle, you know, so that the disciples or the apostles could be seen by everyone and say, wow, just look at Paul, just look at Peter, just look at these people, whoa. That was not the purpose, not at all. The purpose was always to present the spiritual truth, okay? To tell the people seeing the miracle to tell them or show them something of who God is and His greatness and who and what, how can I say, Christ is, for example, when Peter and I think it's Peter and John when they prayed for that man at the temple, you know, the one that was blind and he could see again, it was clearly said to him that it was the name of Jesus Christ who raised him up and allowed him to see again. And that was to authenticate, once again, Jesus Christ. So the miracle, even though it was a miracle, a healing that took place, Yet it was there so that it could authenticate the authority and the reality of the church of which Jesus Christ is the head. And it showed the authority of Jesus Christ himself. Absolutely amazing. All right? Now, when we come to, get to tongues, for example. Tongues was a supernatural ability to speak in an unknown language, sorry, a known language, but unknown to yourself. So it's the ability to speak to a known language, but you didn't acquire that language naturally. We've already spoken about it a little bit, all right? Now, it means that that language is basically given by God. Okay? And what was the purpose? Was it intended to always be there? Or was the intention to basically be a sign of judgment to Israel? Remember, they have forsaken God. They didn't care about Jesus Christ. They basically said, crucify the Messiah. They didn't want anything to do with Jesus Christ. So what do we have here? We have Israel being in Jerusalem, many, many Jews on the day of Pentecost. And here is this group of people speaking in their dialectos, in their languages. about the great things of God, okay? And what they were saying basically was they were speaking to Israel with a foreign language. And God said, and I spoke about it already now, but God said already that he was gonna speak to the people of Israel. in unknown languages. So for Israel, when they heard that, they were supposed to repent immediately. Well, they waited for Peter to finish his sermon first, but they were supposed to repent immediately. But the remnant repented immediately. Why? I believe they knew what the Old Testament taught. with regards to the fact that God would speak to Israel in other languages, but as a judgment because they have forsaken the Messiah. They have basically said, we don't want the Messiah. We don't care about him, right? And then obviously, the gift of tongues was also very instrumental in helping to get the gospel out of Jerusalem. Persecution also helped because the people just wanted to be together and that kind of thing. So they were scattered all over the known world at that specific time. And obviously the gift of tongues would help the spread of the gospel to places and to people that Those who were scattered to those areas, they couldn't understand the language that they were speaking, but that language could be understood by those who were there. And once again, it would be languages, people with other languages coming to even the Jews and speaking to them as a way of saying, listen, God's judgment has come upon you. Then just one more that I would like to quickly share with you and that is the gift of healing. Alright, I believe that the gift of healing is also a temporary gift. It was to basically, what I said before, to authenticate the, how can I say, the reality of the church, the reality that God was working through these people with these gifts. And I mean, you can just see all the miracles and all the healings that the apostles did. Absolutely amazing. Those people, those kind of healings do not exist anymore today. I haven't seen any. These faith healers that go out and say, oh, be healed in Jesus' name. Then they say, but your faith must be strong. What I see in the scriptures, it was The apostles that went out, those with the gift of healing, and they just healed people as a means of just putting the foot down and saying, listen, the kingdom of God is among you, it's there. So what we do nowadays, do we believe that God can heal people? Of course we believe that. If we don't believe that, that's stupidity. In James, we clearly read about healing. If you are sick, then let the elders come, let them pray for you. And the prayer of faith will rise up that person. Okay, so when it comes to healing today, we pray in accordance to the will of God for someone. So I pray, Father, I pray, please, in Jesus' name, you are the great physician. It doesn't matter exactly what the words are, but you're the great physician. I pray that you please heal this person, or you heal such and such and such a person. It doesn't matter where they are, because God is everywhere. So we pray, but then we say, your will be done. Why do we do that? Because it's subject to God's will. It's not as if I've got the gift of healing and I can go around and just pray for people or just tell them, listen, be healed in Jesus' name and they will be healed. It doesn't work like that. We pray in accordance to the will of God. And by the way, if there's somebody that has a certain kind of demonic influence in their lives, in modern days they will say it's a psychological illness or whatever. Without fasting and prayer, that generation doesn't go out. So what needs to happen is we need to fast and pray. There are times that when it comes to healing, we need to fast and we need to pray. And when it comes to, I mean, casting out demons, what needs to happen is we need to pray in accordance to the will of God. God can heal anyone at any time. It's a fact, right? But God wants us to come to Him and pray in faith, which means I trust him that he is able to heal. So I trust him and I, how can I say, believe, I have faith in the fact that God is able to heal. And because God is able to heal, that's why I pray and I ask God for healing. But it's very clear that God is no longer authenticating certain things, showing that the apostles were true apostles, that those with the gift of healing were really people who had the gift of healing. Nowadays, when we pray for someone and that person is healed, we give glory to God because it was a direct healing from the Almighty God. Okay, so we don't just go around and accept all kinds of healings You know, especially through these faith healers because sometimes those healings doesn't even last long Sometimes people don't even get healed. I was watching a video the other day sad We Kenneth Copeland was praying for a man in a wheelchair and that man actually fell backwards that wheelchair Slipped out from underneath him the wheels turned and he he fell He never got up from the wheelchair. Where I believe if it was in the Old and the New Testament, New Testament time when the foundation was still laid within the church, that such a person would be raised from the dead. Especially if God would lead one of the apostles or the person with the gift of healing to such a person, that person would definitely be healed. But nowadays, it doesn't work like that. You see, healing is all about faith in God to heal. Not, how can I say, I've got the gift of healing, and therefore, if I pray for you, you will be healed. And I know that people have changed their tunes because they realize it doesn't work like that anymore. Because in the beginning, people would be very, how can I say, those with a so-called gift of healing, they would be very arrogant and say, I've got the gift of healing, so I'm gonna pray for you and you will be healed. And later they realized, whoa, wait, wait, wait, people are not getting healed. So they started saying and adding, it's connected to your faith. And then they will quote scriptures and whatever. Obviously, to be healed today when we pray to God is we must have faith in God. We must trust him. It's a fact. But you can't connect it to the gift of healing as it was in the early days of the church. All right. And if you look very carefully, you can see that the gift of healing was kind of limited to the office of the apostle and prophet. I'm talking about the office, no? Yeah, it was basically limited there. Now, beloved, this is where I'm going to stop. God willing, next time, I'm gonna end for the rest of the year. And God willing, in January, we'll continue, and then we will continue with the permanent gifts. Now the gifts that we still have today and those we still use today to edify the body of Christ. All right, that's the wonderful thing that we have, that we still have some exciting study to do. Okay, let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your love and kindness. Thank you for who you are and what you've done for us. Thank you for Your Word that teaches us, shows us what we need to understand and those things that we need to just throw out, because those things are no longer like that. I pray, Father, that Your hand will be upon us as we go into this festive season. I pray that You be with each and every person, God willing, until we meet again. If it be your will in January 2024 what an exciting Thing to look forward to and may your name be glorified and father as we use our gifts to your glory May your name be glorified in everything this we pray in Jesus name. Amen Beloved may the Lord bless you and keep you may his face shine upon you and give you his peace now and forevermore God bless. Bye. Bye