So teach us through these things, and help us to understand, and help these gifts to unify us. For that's our goal. In Jesus' name, Amen. Yeah, these gifts were given to unify, by the way. So let's just start with some general statements about spiritual gifts, and then I'll talk about the spirituals, because that's really, I think, the key. I think it's really the key. I never really caught it before, but in 1 Corinthians 12, 1, where he says, now concerning the spirituals, and he says it again in chapter 14, concerning the spirituals. He's not just talking about spiritual gifts. He's talking about something that's a plurality. And what he's talking about, the tone nomadicone here is, let's bring that up a little there. The tone nomadicone, the spirituals, is... And that's what we're accustomed to thinking of. The spiritual gifts. Do you have the gift of helps? Do you have the gift of administration? Do you have the gift of pastor? Do you have the gift of... That's what we're accustomed to thinking about. But the spirituals is broader than that. It includes not only gifts, but also ministries. that the Lord gives us and the effects which the Father brings about as a result of us functioning in our gift in a specific ministry. So it's really broader than that. What I would basically end up saying is that every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift and possibly more than one gift. And the purpose of these gifts is to find a ministry in your local assembly and to function in that ministry. And the effects of that ministry are brought about by God so you don't get down on yourself. It's up to Him. And basically then what I'm saying, fundamentally, is if there is a believer who's not functioning in one of the 18 areas, or what I'll ultimately conclude 9 areas, not functioning in one of these areas, using their gift in a specific ministry, however that may be, in your local church, you're completely out of it. That's basically what it's saying. And the reason is this. The reason is this, because it's likened to a body. I mean, how would you like it if you didn't have a left leg? How would you like it if you didn't have a right eye? How would you like it if you didn't have a brain? You cannot function if you do not have all the parts working together. And if one of those parts is defunct, guess what? That part is a problem. Because in the body of Christ, these parts are responsible to function. And if they're not, they're out of it. And that's just the way it is. So I'm going to flash this up there real quick. I think I've got a chart somewhere in here. Here are 18 things and I've got four divisions. Completed Foundation Gifts, Completed Signed Gifts, Completed Mission Critical Gifts, and then the fourth column, Continual Growth Gifts. So basically, if you don't have anything in the right column that you're functioning in, the continual growth gifts, some of those areas, okay, we've got pastor, pastor-teacher, evangelism, serving, faith, there should be another one, help, somehow I missed that, but anyway, exhortation, mercy, giving, and administration. There are opportunities for these things throughout the local church. You're supposed to be functioning in these areas. Oh, mercy. Mercy or helps. Those go together. Sorry. That's where helps is. It's not missing. And these are what you're supposed to be doing. And again, if you're not doing it, it's like you're cutting an eye out of a body or something like that. It just doesn't work. I never really realized, I think, the magnitude of the spiritual gifts. But if you think about it, if every person in the body of Christ has a spiritual gift, and you're not operating in one, guess what? It's not functioning correctly, is it? It just can't be. It doesn't make any sense. So we're going to go through these, and of course this is such an area of division, isn't it? And the body of Christ cannot get along over the spiritual gifts. Yet the spiritual gifts are given for what? to bring about unity. I mean, it's absolutely stunning that we're in the situation we are in, but obviously, you know, Satan wants to destroy this. So, here's a basic statement that summarizes everything about the spiritual gifts without getting into all the details of the gifts themselves. Spiritual gifts are a subset of the spirituals. They include the gifts, which are the charismatone, charismatone, ministries, which are the diakonone, effects, and their gamatone. from which we get energy. Diakonon from deacon. Charismaton, which we get charismatic or charisma. Now the root word for the first of these words, which is gifts, charismaton, the root word for that is charis. And that is the Greek word for grace. And everybody loves grace, right? Grace, by the way, doesn't mean that God overlooks sin or that he relaxes the standard. It means that God enables a response to him. It means that God enables us to have a good response to him in every situation. Okay, it's a word of enabling and it's a free gift, right? A free gift of enabling us to accomplish something by His, obviously, His grace. The purpose of these gifts is for us to fulfill ministries that are given to us by the Lord. So the Trinity's involved here because the Spirit is the one who dispenses the gifts. The Lord is the second person of the Trinity. He gives us specific ministry opportunities in our local church. And the effects of these ministries, the third thing, is dependent upon God the Father. Now Christ acquired these gifts as rewards for His perfect work on the cross and at His ascension. He ascended. He received these, Ephesians 4, 7-10. So that would mean that nobody prior to Christ's ascension ever had a spiritual gift. Right. Yes. But let's take for an example something that we will talk about. The gift of miracles. We will talk about the gift of miracles in some detail. The question then becomes, were there miracles before Christ ascended? And everybody will say, well, yes, you've got Moses and Joshua, you've got Elijah and Elisha, you've got Jesus, okay, they're all doing miracles. So how can you say that the gift of miracles was never given before the ascension of Christ? because that is not the gift of miracles. Those are specific servants chosen by God to do miracles, but they didn't have the gifts of the Spirit in the sense that we do. So there was a difference. So just because miracles have been done doesn't mean that was the gift of miracles. That's what I'm trying to communicate there. Now, these spiritual gifts or gifts that you have received are dispensed to you by the Spirit of God. They are done so at the moment that you were spiritually reborn. I think we sang, didn't we sing happy birthday to somebody a couple weeks ago from the pulpit? Yeah, yeah, this guy right over here on my left. He used to be on my right. He used to sit on the right side, you know, the political spectrum. Now he's sitting on the left side. And we used to sing this song. I'll tell you, I'll sing you a birthday song. You want to hear a birthday song? Happy birthday to you. Only one will not do. Take the gift of salvation and you will have two. Okay. So, see there's two births. You have physical birth through your mother, spiritual birth by God the Father. And the moment you have that spiritual birth, you receive certain spiritual gifts, right? These spiritual gifts are for the founding of the church, which began on the day of Pentecost, as we'll show in the other series of lessons on Sunday, framework. Equipping of the church. Certain gifts are given for the equipping of the body. Certain people are pastors, teachers, and things like that to equip people for their work of service. Building, because the church is being built up from the day of Pentecost. And the ultimate thing is the growth of the church to a state of maturity. And that maturity is defined as the fullness of Christ, who is the head of the body. So it's looked at like a body that has to grow into the full stature of its head, Jesus Christ. And that's why I say, you've got one or more of these gifts. I mean, that's just it. I'm sorry, I cannot make it any clearer. You have one or more. Here's the next thing. There's ministries in this church. I don't know what it is. I mean, I do. I know what they all are. I can name them for you. Opportunities that you're given. Guess what? You know? If you're not functioning in those things at any time, all the time, or whatever, well, you're malfunctioning. That's all I can say. You're just malfunctioning. That's all there is to it. Now, there are nine principles of spiritual gifts that I want to go through, sort out the outset, that have been a compilation of all the studies we've done here, mostly in 1 Corinthians 12-14. So the first principle, that just seems really small. Let's back up. I don't know if I can make that bigger. Is that even bigger? I don't even know. Every believer receives a spiritual gift or gifts. So one or more than one. I mean we see the Apostle Paul has a number of spiritual gifts. He has a gift to an apostle. He has a prophet. He has a gift to miracles, healing. He's got a lot of gifts, okay? He's also got word of knowledge. He's got word of knowledge. That's five. And perhaps others, okay? Like faith and things like that. But every believer receives a spiritual gift. You may just have one. Guess what? That's important. You don't have to have five to be important. You have to have one, and you're all important because you all have one. And you got this gift at the moment of your spiritual birth, and that occurred the moment you believed in Christ. If you were 5 years old, 2 years old, 10 years old, 15 years, 100 years, it doesn't matter. Whenever you believed in Christ, because you are a post-Pentecost believer, you received a gift, a spiritual gift or gifts at the moment of your spiritual birth. So, this is very similar to something else you receive, and this is also very important. You did receive natural talents at your physical birth. Everybody did. All of us. In fact, unbelievers also received natural gifts. I mean Michael Irvin wasn't Michael Irvin just because he was Michael Irvin. Michael Irvin received that as a natural gift given to him by means of his parental heritage by God the Father. And that's, and he used his natural talent as a wide receiver to become one of the greatest wide receivers of all time. Right? But he doesn't have, I don't know if he's spiritually reborn or not. I don't know if he has salvation or not. But you also receive natural talents at the moment you were born, physically born. They come from your parental descent. They equip you for certain things to be great at, right? And some of you are great at machining. Some of you are great at Sewing. I mean, I don't know whatever hobbies and talents you have. Some of you are great at mathematics. Some of you are great at language. Some of you are great at art. Some of you are great in certain areas, right? These are called your talents. You didn't get that as a spiritual gift. That's not a spiritual gift. That's a thing that needs to be clarified because I've had people say, well, I do music. That's my spiritual gift. No. Music is not a spiritual gift. OK? Music is a natural talent. But here's the thing, you're supposed to use all your natural talents and all your supernatural gifts for the glory of God. There are parables that discuss this. One of them is Luke 19, 11 through 27. Luke 19, 11 through 27. You will be rewarded for the use of your natural talents and your spiritual gifts. Luke 19, 11 through 27. This is given before the church age and forecast of it. In 1911, it says, while they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately, and of course it wasn't because they had rejected. So he's about to give a story about the postponement of the kingdom and what would happen in between his coming the first time to offer the kingdom, the rejection, and then the age that would intervene, which we know is the church age, which is our age, right? Then his return to see what we have done with what he has given us Including both talents and what we learn later to be spiritual gifts He says the nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return and he called so he's gone, right? He's gonna return though And he called ten of his slaves and gave them ten minas and he said to them do business with this until I come back Now you can't just limit that to spiritual gifts. This is everything that you've been given and It's the total package of what God has given you, and you, and you, and you, and every one of you in this room. And it's really no joke, because what does the Scripture say? What do you have that you did not receive? Anyone? Yeah. So if you received it, what are you supposed to do with it? Serve the one who gave it to you, right? He says, "...do business with what I gave you until I come." Verse 14, "...but his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We don't want this man to reign over us. When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that the slaves to whom he had given the money be called to him, so he might know what business they had done." See, everybody has been given things by God. And if they don't use those things for God, well, it's going to not be fun. So the first appeared, saying, Master, your mina's made ten mina's more. And he said, well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing. You're to be in authority over ten cities. Second came, your mina master's made five mina's. He said to him also, you're to be over five cities. See, reward. Another came, saying, Master, here's your mina, which I put away in a handkerchief. You know, I was afraid of you because you are an exacting man. You know, you take up what you did not lay down, you reap what you did not sow. And he said to him, well, by your own words, I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I'm an exacting man, taking up what I didn't lay down and reaping what I did not sow? So then why did you not put my money in the bank and at least have collected some interest? And then he said to the bystanders, take the mina away from this man and give it to one who has ten minas. And they said to him, Master, he already has ten minas. He says, I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given. But from the one who does not have even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence. Those are obviously unbelievers, right? The point is that God has given you certain assets. We call these natural talents and spiritual gifts. You've been given these for a specific purpose. To use them to serve Him. That is for His glory. So that is the very first principle of spiritual gifts. You have at least one spiritual gift or more. You also have talents. You should use these for the glory of God because you're going to be evaluated for how you use them. And that's serious. Number two, spiritual gifts are given by the Spirit as He decides. 1 Corinthians 12, 11, and 18 basically says that. So you can look it up or you can just take my word for it. But you don't have a say in it. I don't have a say in it. Let me ask you a question. Did you have a say in the talents that you received from your parents? No, you don't have a say in that. The same thing in your spiritual rebirth. You do not have a say in the spiritual gifts you receive at your spiritual birth. You just don't. The Spirit gives spiritual gifts sovereignly. So this means a couple things. You're not supposed to pray that God would give you a certain spiritual gift. Because, A, you've already got the spiritual gift or gifts that you're going to have. You already got them. You're not going to get any more now that you're a believer. And you should be, second, you should be content with what you have and just discover it. There are verses which exhort believers saying, desire the greater gifts, but that's not talking about you desiring to have them. These are passages that are saying, desire the greater gifts to be manifested among you in the assembly. That's what those verses mean. And there's a problem at Corinth, and the problem of course is that they were desiring tongues to be manifested more than prophecy, right? And yet this was an error because chapter 12 verse 28 gives a ranking of the gifts, and in verse 28 the ranking is this. In the church, first, apostles. That's the number one spiritual gift. Second, number two spiritual gift is prophets. Third greatest spiritual gift is teachers, fourth is miracles, fifth is gifts of healings, and then helps, administrations, and then he lists various kinds of tongues. It's not a total list from other passages, but at least you get a good idea of the ranking there, right? And what he's saying is that you should desire the greater gifts to be manifested among you. The Corinthians said, oh, we love tongues, we want tongues, we want tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues. And they were, you know, not wanting prophecy and seed, but prophecies ranked far higher. So that's what those passages are about, desire the greater gifts. Now, the reason prophecy was greater, of course, just briefly, is because when you speak, everybody can understand what you're saying, and it edifies everyone, but if you speak in a tongue, nobody knows what you're talking about. And that's why Paul said, hey, I'd rather speak five words of prophecy than I would 10,000 words in a tongue because nobody knows what I'm saying and it can't edify anybody. Now if somebody did interpret, Paul put them, he equated them. He says once you have an interpreter present, then prophecy and tongues equally edify because it's understood. It's in the basis of the content that could be communicated and understood. That's what makes something valuable. Alright, third point then. Every believer has one or more spiritual gifts, but no one has all the gifts. No one has all the gifts. You're not every part of the body, right? You're not the eye, the hand, the foot, the liver, the lungs, the heart, the femur. You're not all 226 or 206 bones of the body. You're not everything. But you are something. You have a spiritual gift or gifts. And this is one of the errors of charismatism. Spiritual birth, the moment you believe. Yes. Right. And the charismatic movement is that they say that to be, when you are baptized in the Spirit, which they distinguish that from being baptized by the Spirit, but they say the baptism in the Spirit is evidenced by tongues and that it proves that you are a believer. So if you do not have tongues, then you do not know if you are a believer. So all believers in Pentecostal theology must have the ability to speak in tongues, or else they are not really believers. This is an error because not everyone has all the gifts. To one is given this, to another given that, and so forth and so on. Verse 29, all are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All don't have gifts of healing. All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? Okay. No. Let's just call it the inspired answer is no. No. Not everybody has any of all the gifts, okay? So that's very important. We shouldn't all seek to have the same gift. There's a diversity. Fourth point all the spiritual gifts are necessary to the universal church, but some are more important than others That's the point of the ranking of the gifts there in verse 28, right? And the description before that you know there are certain parts of your body that are more important more important than others You know it's easier to get along with without a big toe than it is your eyes It just is I mean You can get along without your big toe, but without your eyes, it's a much bigger deal. Actually, I've been reading about blind mountain bikers. I don't know if you've heard about them. There are blind mountain bikers. They're using a form of echolocation, clicking of the tongue to discover the difference. They've gotten so good at it, some of these guys. They can tell the difference between a brick wall and like a chain link fence. And they're downhill mountain biking. They're blind people. No, I mean really blind. I don't mean like partially blind. I mean blind. But still, your eyes are kind of important. Your big toe, it's important for balance, but it's not going to be the end of the world. So notice, you know, apostles is more important than teachers. I hope, I mean the Apostle Paul is more important than me. I come and go, but the apostles who wrote the scripture, I mean, this is kind of necessary, you know, way more than me, just a teacher of what they wrote. Let's go to the next slide, maybe. Oh, I see what's happening. Every gifted believer needs every other gifted member because we are all part of the same body, right? I mean, we've used the analogy. I've gone through it. It's a body metaphor. Everybody gets that. Certain signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts were only given in the first generation of the church and had disappeared by the second generation. Look at Hebrews 2. I think this is one of the key passages. I'll show you a couple other, I think, key passages outside of 1 Corinthians. We've looked at 1 Corinthians quite a bit. But this is a synthesis study, so we'll go a few other places. I've shown you this before. But Hebrews 2, 3, and 4 teach exactly, I think, what this is saying. There are signs, wonders, miracles, and certain gifts were only given in the first generation. The church had disappeared by the second generation. The author says, Paul's protege says, "...how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed, not is being confirmed, it was confirmed to us Second generation Christians, because this is 66-67 AD, it was confirmed to us by those who heard. You know, first generation, people who heard themselves, they saw the Lord Jesus Christ, they heard His words. God also testifying with them, not us, with them, both by signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Spirit according to His own will. So there was a testimony that took place through certain signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Spirit for the first generation that was confirmed to the second generation by those of the first generation." But see, they'd passed by then, or otherwise the author would say, hey, we're still seeing all this, we still got the signs, we still got the wonders, we don't need it confirmed to us because we're seeing it right in front of our eyeballs. Yet he didn't say that, did he? He says, no, it was confirmed to us by those who did see and those who heard, and it was testified to them through the signs, gifts, wonders, and so forth. But it wasn't going on anymore. So the thing is that it's taught that these things had disappeared and we're only talking about, let's just say, about 67 AD. Somewhere in there. A spiritual gift that was given to one generation of the church benefits the whole church, including all later generations. This is very important to understand. You know, some people say, well, every spiritual gift has to be given in every generation or else we're not benefiting. We don't have everything they had. As we're going to find out, oh yes, we have everything they had. We have everything. We don't need anymore. 1st John chapter 4. 1st John chapter 1. 1 through 4. Now, can you have fellowship with God? What about you? How about you? Can you have fellowship with God? How do you have fellowship with God? Through this, right? The Word. I mean, if you don't have the Word, what do you know about fellowship? Let's say you don't have 1 John. Let's say you don't have any of the New Testament. How do you have fellowship with God? You don't know. You don't know nothing. You're as dumb as any of us would be without the New Testament, right? You have to have the Word of God. If you don't, you don't know anything about how to be in fellowship with God. So it's absolutely critical that we have the Word of God. Well, where do we get the Word of God? Who do we get that from? Well, obviously God, He's the primary author, but you also have human authors, what we call secondary authors, right? Under inspiration of the Spirit of God, who wrote these things down for us, so we could have fellowship with God. So 1 John 1, verses 1-4, What was from the beginning? What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life. Now, I mean, I wasn't there, were you? I wasn't there. I didn't get to touch him. I didn't get to hear him. I didn't get to see him. But there were people who did, and these are called the apostles, right? He says, verse 2, and the life was manifested, and we have seen, we testify, we proclaim to you the eternal life, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, that life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. You see, not to me. I wasn't there. I was born in 1974. In Charleston, South Carolina, I never saw Jesus Christ. Never. Never, ever, ever. Never touched Him, never heard Him, never saw Him. Never. But they did. He says, What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so you too may have fellowship with us. See, they were in the same boat as us. See, they hadn't seen Him, they hadn't heard Him, they hadn't touched Him. Okay? Just like you, just like me. But he says in verse 3, what we saw, what we heard, we are proclaiming this to you so that you may have fellowship with us. Now, here's another question. Can you have fellowship with the apostles? 100%. I mean, are those people dead? Or are they with the living Christ right now? Okay. Like, this isn't a problem, right? We can have fellowship with them. Okay? And it's through what they are proclaiming, it's through the Word of God that we have fellowship with them. He says, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. See, this is the big point, G here, right? Are we benefiting from the gift that was given to the apostles that was involved in the writing of Scripture? One million percent. They're all dead and gone from the earth, but they're with Him now. They're alive and well, and we're having fellowship with them and with God and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the word that they proclaim concerning Him in the New Testament Scriptures. So just because we end up saying, well, there are certain gifts that are no longer being exercised or given in the church age, doesn't mean that they don't benefit us. They 100% benefit us. H. The church, like the human body, which it is likened to, undergoes a process of growth. So it makes sense that certain gifts critical to early growth might cease in order for later stages of growth to take place when they're no longer needed. This is the same thing in biology. I happen to be in biology. It's interesting. But you have certain hormones that are released at certain stages in your life, particularly when you're younger, and then they're no longer given. It's really because it's not necessary anymore. They cause the development of certain things in your body, things like that, and now they're not needed anymore, so your body doesn't waste energy to keep producing those things, and so they cease to be given. Same thing in the church. It shouldn't be a surprise, right? If the church is parallel to the body, then certain gifts could be given early on in the church's infancy, and then no longer given later on. Because not necessary. Purpose been fulfilled. Okay. Alright, those are the nine principles of spiritual gifts. Oh, last one. Very important principle, right? Love is greater than all the spiritual gifts. Love is actually a fruit of the Spirit, right? So this is also going on. You've got your spiritual gift or gifts and that may differ, everybody's got different spiritual gifts. But we're all supposed to walk by the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit is love. So it's greater than all these. a decision to walk by the Spirit is the choice of every believer. It's greater than all the spiritual gifts then, and so as we exercise our gift or gifts we're supposed to do in love for our fellow believers, which is absolutely most important, right? 100%. Let's go for this. You can't mess up if you're in love, right? You just can't. And love doesn't mean, you know, understand how we interpret love. It doesn't mean compromise, it doesn't mean tolerance. It does mean patience, it does mean forbearance. There are things it means and there are things it doesn't mean. So biblical love, that's what we're talking about. Okay, great. Any questions on the basic principles about spiritual gifts or the spirituals? Okay. There are four classes of spiritual gifts. Actually, I had never classed them this way before this week. But I was like, you know, the old ways that I have organized them are not working. So let's just change it to the way it works best. I have found three completed foundation gifts. Foundation gifts. Three of these. I have found four completed sign gifts, two completed what I call mission-critical gifts. That's the word of wisdom and word of knowledge. Those two that are a little bit like amorphous, like what is this? I've got some examples of the use of these gifts from Acts. We may not get there tonight, but I consider these mission-critical gifts. In other words, the church was beginning. There's this new mission that is beginning, right, in the book of Acts. And there were some critical junctures in the early church when the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge needed to be given because otherwise the church would have collapsed. That's what I mean by mission critical. They were absolutely critical to the church not being toppled by Satan in its early days. Okay? That's what I mean by it. I could be wrong, but I'm just saying this is what it looks like to me. And then nine continuous growth gifts. Nine continuous growth gifts. All right, let's look at some of these, the first group, the three completed foundation gifts. Oh, here they all are. If you want a list, here's what they all look like. You've got your completed foundation gifts. I've got the apostle, apostle, gift of apostle, prophet, and distinguishing spirits. Now I'm linking prophet and distinguishing spirits because those are tandem gifts. Kind of like tongues and interpretation of tongues. Tandem. They go together, right? I mean, what good would it do to have the gift of tongues if you don't have someone who has the gift of interpretation? They go together, tandem. Same thing for prophecy. Someone stands up, they give a prophecy in your little local church at Ephesus in someone's home. And then, what, does everybody go, oh, it's the Word of God. That must be Jesus. Or is there someone there who has a gift to distinguish whether that revelation is sourced in God the Spirit, or a false spirit. See? So they had double testimony. The prophet himself, and then someone who had the gift of distinguishing spirits. So, three that are in the completed foundation gifts. Completed sign gifts are going to be miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. We'll go through all these. This is just an overview. the completed mission-critical gifts, that I mentioned wisdom and knowledge, and then your nine continual growth gifts, which were given in the early church, but they continue to be given throughout the whole church age, as far as I can tell. Okay? So this is the way I'm breaking it up, and all these things, the reasons will become apparent. Okay, three completed foundation gifts. Let's talk about apostles. Almost always, but not always, Paul will begin one of his letters saying, I, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. What's an apostle? Apostolos. One who is sent in the authority of another. In our modern day we call this a deputy or something like that. So one sent in the authority of Christ with his message, Christ's message, for the writing of Scripture. The apostles were authenticated by their gifts of signs, miracles, and wonders. In other words, how do you know if someone was an apostle? Well, they would need to be authenticated by something that was supernatural. That's the general way to state it. This is another one of the key passages. I showed you Hebrews 2, 3 through 4. Let's look at this one, 2 Corinthians 12, 12. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. We'll get to these books, right? We should get here next, actually. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. Now Paul never magnified himself, right? He always spoke of himself very lowly. He says in verse 11, That's how I feel too. I'm nobody. Who cares? I don't care. I'm nobody. Whatever. Verse 12, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you. Now here's the signs. With all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. So what authenticated that someone was a true apostle? Well, they did signs, wonders, and miracles. I mean, it's not that complicated, right? All right. Just as the apostles died in the first century, so these gifts also ceased in the first century. And we already discussed that. Hebrews 2, 3 through 4. Remember the first generation, these things were confirmed to them, to the second generation, by those who saw, by those who heard signs, miracles, wonders, and certain spiritual gifts that had already passed off the stage. About 67 AD. So the apostles were early on. And once you're confirmed, I mean, how many more times do you need to be confirmed? Anyway, it was done early on. When they died, as we'll see, these gifts also died. That's why I call them completed signs, miracles, and wonders. They're completed. Two groups, two groups of apostles in the New Testament. And these are very specific. And you'll always know these for all eternity because I'm not mistaken on this, at all. Not in the least. Are you ready? You will know these people forever. If you don't know them now, you'll get to know them later. The 12. Select group of men who are with Jesus from his baptism by John until his ascension. That's described specifically in Acts 121-22. When Judas turned aside from his office, there were no longer 12 apostles, right? But just 11. This fulfilled Psalm 69, 25. Let another man take his office, right? His position was filled by Matthias through the casting of lots, right? According to the book of Proverbs. That's described in Acts 1, 23-26. So now you have 12 in Acts 1. That's kind of critical because the foundation of the church had to be laid before the church could begin. I mean, how can you begin building the church when you haven't even finished the foundation? How many builders? Do we have any builders in here? How many of you have ever built the superstructure before the foundation was finished? That wouldn't be very smart, would it? No. This is one of the grandest arguments for the church beginning in Acts 2, and not later, like some say in Acts 9, or Acts 13, or Acts 28. Okay? That what's happening in Acts 1 is the ascension, he goes up, and he's going to send the Spirit, he said he would, to baptize them, and he said, wait here in Jerusalem. While they were waiting, they said, now wait a minute, now Judas has turned aside, there's only 11 of us, So there's got to be 12, because Jesus said that the 12 would sit on 12 thrones and rule over the 12 tribes in the kingdom to come. And of course they don't know the kingdom's not coming at that point, but they're like, we've got to fill this position. And they did so based on Psalm 69. which said one of them would turn aside from the office and now they'd fill it with another. So they did that and they filled it with Matthias. So at that point now you've got twelve. So these become known as the twelve and they are distinct because Matthew 19, 28 Jesus said they're going to sit on twelve thrones and rule over the twelve tribes of Israel and the Messianic kingdom. So that foundation has been laid for the church actually Acts chapter 1 and then of course Acts chapter 2 happens, and they don't entirely understand what's going on, but That's when the church begins Okay, and and that that's a really it's actually really important to understand. They didn't really understand what was going on Because some of these gifts relate directly to that They didn't know what was going on. I mean did they know about the body of Christ? No Jew and Gentile in one body, co-heirs, no. Rapture, no. They don't know any of that. They don't understand any of this. So they really don't even know what they are. I mean, think about it. You've been waiting all your life as a Jew for the kingdom to come, your Messiah comes, he's the king, he doesn't set up the kingdom, instead he disappears. You don't know what you're doing now. You have no idea what He's up to. All you know is He said, well, He's going to send the Spirit to baptize us, so we're going to stick around here in Jerusalem. Baptize us into what? I mean, you don't know anything. You have to totally forget all that you know if you're going to understand the spiritual gifts. Some of these gifts are given to solve these problems. Because they don't have Philippians, they don't have Colossians, they don't have Romans, they don't have 1st and 2nd Corinthians, they don't have Ephesians, they don't have any of these books that we have and hold dear and we go, oh yeah, don't they know about this? No, they don't know about this. They have no clue. So keep all that in mind for some historical perspective going into all this, why some of these gifts are so important. Distinct group. Like I said, you're going to know them all because they're going to sit there in the Millennial Kingdom. They're going to be reigning over the 12 tribes of Israel. You're going to be like, yep, I know who that is. The others. These are other apostles. These are people who saw Jesus after His resurrection either before or after His ascension. In other words, they didn't get to see him through his whole ministry. I'm not saying that. Those were people from the Twelve. They had to be with him through his whole ministry. But these people saw him in his resurrection body either before the ascension, so between his death and ascension, which is a period of like 40 days when he was on earth. or after the Ascension, like the Apostle Paul, right? So you've got Paul, I've got several verses there, Barnabas, and I've got verses, I just couldn't find them today, because they changed my Bible program and I can't do easy searches like I used to, so now I've got to call and complain. Andronicus is called an Apostle. Junius is called an Apostle in Romans 16, 7. And perhaps others were in this category, because they're people who saw the resurrected Christ. And they have the same authority as the twelve, but they're not going to sit on twelve thrones, right? And they're not going to rule in that capacity during the millennial kingdom, the messianic kingdom. So there are these two classes, but just keep in mind they do have the same authority. But in the kingdom, they will not serve the same roles. So that's the gift of apostles. These people were mainly given to write scripture, right? They were able to do signs, miracles, and wonders to authenticate the message being from God as the scriptures were being written. Great guys. We benefit from those guys. Thank the Lord. Praise the Lord. Prophet. A prophet, one who writes inspired statements that include, but are not limited to, foretelling the future for the meeting of immediate needs and the writing of scripture. So again, when I say for the meeting of immediate needs, sometimes one of the congregations needed revelation directly at that moment, and God would provide it through a prophet in the congregation. Why don't we get that today? Because we already have what meets our needs. The scripture. They didn't have that. So keep in mind, all these were active in the early church, right? All the spiritual gifts. They were all going. In fact, the church of Corinth, he says, in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 7, he's just amazed that all the spiritual gifts were active in Corinth. In other words, this was not the norm for every local church. It's kind of interesting. 1 Corinthians 1, 7 and following, he says, you are not lacking in any gift. I mean, Corinth, they had all the gifts. So, but that was not customary. That's not normally what Paul found. Remember these are small congregations. I mean, they're house churches. Couldn't be more than 20 people, you know, in a house church. So you might not expect to see all the gifts there. But at Corinth he did, see, and he thought this was very interesting. So sometimes there was an immediate need and God would speak through the prophet right there in the assembly to meet that need. Some understanding, some foretelling, whatever it was. Also for the writing of scripture, of course, what's the book of Revelation? It says, it calls it in Revelation 1-3, this book of prophecy. So John obviously had the gift of prophecy. Both men and women had this gift. So I've got, I think, four references there to men, Acts 11, 27, 13, 1, 15, 32, and 21, 9. And then I've got two passages that refer to women who had the gift, 1 Corinthians 11, 4, and Acts 21, 9. Remember there was one guy, he had four daughters who were prophetesses. Did he decide that? No. God the Holy Spirit decides who gets what gift and where. And he decided to give this family, the four girls in the family, the gift of prophecy. OK. You can do whatever you want, Lord. Great. These prophets were supposed to be tested for orthodoxy by those who had the gift of distinguishing spirits, which is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.10 and inadvertently in 14.29. In 1 John 4.1 they're told to test the spirits. Now, if you look at the tests that are given in the New Testament, most of them have to do with whether the Messiah came in bodily flesh. Most of them. And that's because proto-Gnosticism was on the rise, and proto-Gnosticism taught that God could not come in the flesh. Because they felt that flesh was inherently evil. So they said, no, he was just a phantom or a ghost. And later this developed in what's called docetism. But that doesn't mean that that's the only test, just because that's the one we mainly find in the New Testament. But in Colossians, you can see this because Paul's saying, in Colossians 2.9, he says, in him, the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. I mean, he's very specific. Why are you saying that? He's saying that because the Proto-Gnostic said, no, God can't come in the body, so he's addressing that error. But that doesn't mean that's the only thing that should be tested. Now that the Scriptures have been given, So, how do we know if someone is a true or false, let's say, teacher, or what their teaching is true or false? Well, we compare it to scripture, right? I mean, that's what we do. This gift ceased in the first century. It's stated in 1 Corinthians 13, 9, and 10 that it would be done away, and we discussed that passage. that passage seems to be comparing two things that are quantitative. For you know in part, but then we will know fully, right? When the partial is done away, it says when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. The perfect is really the complete. It's the idea of completion. So what was happening was they were getting a little bit here, a little part here, a little part there, and then it was all adding up to the complete canon, which is the result of the prophets, right? The apostles and prophets. And this helped form the New Testament canon, which is the foundation. That's why I call these first three gifts the completed foundation gifts. Because like I said, you build the foundation, you do that first, And these gifted people were involved in that, apostles and prophets and those who were distinguishing of spirits. So this gift would have ceased with the death of John the prophet, Revelation 22, 18, and 19. He who adds to these things, may the plagues in this book be added into him. He who takes away, you know, take away his part, right? So there's a warning right there at the end of Revelation. And nobody has seriously tried to add to this except the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 to 1564. Nobody's ever tried to add anything, and they have tried to add to this, and it's absolutely heretical. You cannot add into the 1500 years later, we're gonna add 14 books? What are you talking about? You've got to be in a state of delusion and deception to think that someone could come along 15 centuries later when the church has never recognized or even associated those books with being canonical scripture and say, yeah, they are. Yeah, with a wave of the hand, You know, 1.5 billion people on earth today follow that religion. And we're going to go after the Maccabees, the books that are in their canon, which say there were no living prophets? Well, if there's no living prophets, then how could the book of Maccabees be the Word of God? That's insanity. No more mercy from here on, guys. I'm tired of dealing with this childish stuff. This country is in trouble. People need to know what the truth is. Most of this is not open to investigation. We know. I mean, you can investigate it, but it's a closed case, is my point. They're closed cases. I'm being dogmatic, but hey, I love my country, I love people. And I'm gonna be this way. It's because I love them so much. These are not open avenues. Maybe we could go be Roman Catholic. That is not an open avenue. That's not even close to being on the radar. Four, okay, so those are the three foundational gifts. Oh, let's stop here. Okay, we're gonna go to these four completed sign gifts. Sign gifts. These are stated to be signs in the Bible. So again, they're not really up for dispute. What's a sign given for? To authenticate a message or an event as coming from or being sourced in God. A sign is something that is going to astonish people because it is supernatural, meaning it has no natural explanation. This is where the atheists come in and they love to pray on miracles. They love to do this and say, see they thought that was a miracle but now we can explain it by natural things. I know like Jesus was water skiing or something. Stuff like that. There was a big wind and it caused the waters of the Red Sea so they could walk through on That's just, all they're saying is, I don't believe. That's all they're saying. It doesn't mean anything, except I don't believe. That's all it means. It's not, it's not, it's not an explanation. Or those people were just, they were just, you know, mystical people, caught up in the moment, liked, fell in love with this guy, and they, they couldn't see that what really happened was just explainable as a natural phenomenon. Whatever. Now these are supernatural things. Now again, some of these had already happened in history. You know, like a rock floating on water. You know, stuff like that in the Old Testament. It wasn't like a sponge or something from the ocean. I mean, like, you can try to come up with all these ideas about what that might have been like to explain it some natural way, but that wasn't... These people weren't stupid. The whole world says that we're evolving, meaning we're becoming more intelligent, more complex. The Bible basically says we're devolving. We're becoming stupider. And if you can't see that, you're good evidence for this point of view. You're good evidence. So we're going to look at these signs. Here there are miracles, right? Healing. These are distinguished in the Bible. The quick way to understand the difference is healing deals with some physical malady. Miracles don't necessarily. Like casting out a demon. You know, Paul will do that in the book of Acts. Because he had the gift of miracles. Nobody got healed, just the demon was cast out. So miracles deal with things that are not touching physical maladies. But healings always touch on physical maladies. Just a quick quote and then I'll finish. This is from a doctor and surgeon named William A. Nolan. He researched this because he was so interested in the healings movement. that caught on in Pentecostalism and Assemblies of God, charismatic movement. Nolan, you know, was a doctor. He was like, he wants to know. He went all over the place searching this out. He said, when I started my search, I hoped to find some evidence that someone, somewhere had supernatural powers that he or she could employ to cure those patients that we doctors, with all of our knowledge and training, must still label as incurable. As I've said before, I've been unable to find any such miracle worker. Baxter, who analyzed his findings, explains that Nolan documents case after case of those supposedly healed at meetings and so forth, which you've probably seen or heard of, and concluded that they either returned to their crutches and wheelchairs or died from the very illness from which they were supposedly cured. It's just not real. These are shams. It's not happening. If it wasn't, it'd be very well known and very well accepted. It'd be documented. It'd be in all the literature. Instead, no, it's just talked about as if, oh, I saw this thing. I heard this or whatever. None of this ever happened. It didn't happen. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean God doesn't heal? No, it has nothing to do with that. Of course, God heals. God has healed all throughout history. But the gift of healings means that God uses a specific individual to bring about that healing. Like Paul, you know, like Peter, who would go and they'd take these aprons and they'd touch them on Paul and then they'd take them to the people. Or the shadow would be cast over them, right? Peter's shadow would fall on them and then they'd be healed. That's what we mean by the gift of healing. That God is using a specific person to go around and just by being in their presence or pronouncing something over them, they get healed. That's never happened since the first century. Ever. Not even once. Ever. To anybody. Ever. Now, has God healed people? Yes. Of course. A rejection of one does not mean a rejection of the other. They're totally different things. The reason is because these were given to authenticate the messenger as being from God and the message that they carried, which deals with the content of the gospel that had been updated with the death and resurrection of Christ. Which is kind of important. Right? The gospel content had been updated. People needed to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before the cross, you didn't need to believe in the death and resurrection of Christ, did you? Because it hadn't happened. How could you believe in something that didn't happen? That's like saying, I believe in the second coming. Well, I mean, I believe it's going to happen, but it hasn't happened. I can't believe it happened because it hasn't happened. But you see what's happening? God has given certain spiritual gifts to get a foundation for the church and to authenticate the messengers who contain the new information that's being given in the New Testament canon, right? And when that canon is complete, then guess what? This becomes the authority for all time. And this is what's really hated, even among Christians. They don't want to spend the time studying. They just want to see a sign. They just want a miracle. Oh, God, if you'll do this for me, I'll do whatever. You know, and they give these little ultimatums and throw out the fleece. Do this fleece. Throw out the fleece, you know, for me, God. It's all this stuff. This is playing games. God said, hey, look, I've given you this. This is all you need. You don't need anything else. He said, I want to see a sign. Well, you ain't going to get one. You might get a demonic sign, but you're not going to get a sign from Him. I mean, it's been given. This is it. This is what's important. Alright, let's, of course, you can always ask questions. I'm very nice right now, just having fun, okay? But let's pray, and we'll keep studying these next week. We'll get into miracles and so forth. Father, thank you for teaching us in your word. We thank you that it's complete. Hey, we can complain all day long that you haven't spoken to us in the 21st century, but all we need to realize is that yes, you have, and it's right here in this book, and it's all we need. I mean, once my dad got done telling me something, I didn't need to go ask him another question. And you've given us in the same way everything we need and we don't need to go asking more questions. The questions we have are already answered. You've given us all that we need. Pray that we would understand these spiritual gifts better. The people in this country would want to know the Word of God. The pastors, people who are enlisted as pastors, teaching people, training people in seminaries, whatever their vocation, would come back to the Word of God, not quit playing slippery games. Like, oh, it doesn't really mean what it says. And all this nonsense that's just leading people astray. Because this country is going down the tubes, Lord, and we need a revival. That's what we really need. We really need a revival. We need people to need the truth. And we know they need the truth. We know they're lost. We know they're dying in their transgressions and sin. We know that they have no hope apart from Jesus Christ for there's no other name under heaven by which men may be saved. And yet people are dragging on. And more and more corrupt. And so we ask that your word would pervade the society. Let's start right here in Spokane, Spokane Bible Church. And people would come and they would hear and they would find salvation in Christ. That they would be saved. That they would be delivered from the penalty of sin. And learn to live the Christian life and be saved from the power of sin. It's so, so important, Lord. And we know that you're watching right now. We know that you're here. And so we ask you for these things. By your grace and your mercy. And we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.