church in the pages of the New Testament, but that's our goal to kind of try to unearth what it might have looked like to attend a local church in the first century. And of course we know more what it looks like today, but it doesn't mean that the local churches are functioning correctly. They may well be malfunctioning. because certain members in the body aren't functioning in their gifts. So we ask to have a better understanding of how this really works, and we ask your Spirit to teach us, because He's the Master Teacher. In Jesus' name, Amen. Everyone here, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the moment you believed in Christ, you were spiritually reborn, and the moment you were reborn, you received spiritual gift or gifts. As we'll see, these are what I call the continual growth gifts, because I've categorized the gifts into four different areas. I need the screen to steal the screen or whatever you guys want. But I basically got four categories. I've divided these differently before. But this time through the gifts, it actually does help to study the Bible and subjects many, many times. You can think, well, I studied spiritual gifts in 1994, I know what they are. No, you don't. You don't know anything. I mean, I'm telling you right now, you don't. You don't know because you haven't studied again, and again, and again, and again. And every time you study it again, something happens. And you go, oh, and more light bulbs go off, and you see a lot of things you didn't see before. And that's kind of what's been happening again, and guess what? For me, it's going to happen again if the Lord tarries. In 20 more years or 10 more years, I'm gonna see more, I'm gonna understand more about this. This is a part of spiritual growth. Nobody here in this room and nobody on the planet knows it all, at all. And not even close. So the important thing is to just keep going back to the Bible. And a lot of it requires, because there's actually a Hebrew word for this, I can never remember this word and I ran across it like 10 years ago, but there's a Hebrew word for such a vast number of issues involved in something that it's so complex that your mind cannot hold it all together at one time. So you can only think about a part of it. It's like a giant pie, and every piece is different. And you can only think about one piece at a time. And it's amazing that God has set it up this way, and I think that he wants us to just keep thinking about it and keep mulling it over, and he says, okay, now I'll show you a little bit more, now I'll show you a little bit more, now I'll show you a little bit more. And that's just the way it is. So what I'm trying to do is understand how the gifts were functioning in the first century, in the early church. In other words, I want to be like a fly on the wall in a local church. Now, by the way, stop, because we don't even know, many of us don't even know what a local church would have looked like. It definitely wasn't a building. There's a dissertation, I think it's by Bradley Blue, on the development of the architecture of the church through early church history. And of course what he found in his studies was that the early church met in personal homes. And then a little bit later A lot of these homes would segregate a portion off or build an add-on, an addition, so that they could have their personal private living space and the church would be separate because early on it was just in their living room, you know. And then it wasn't until Constantine, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and there were benefits and perks for saying you were a Christian and signing off in the Roman Empire, taxes and so forth, certain benefits, that it was only at that time that they began to build separate buildings, separate from homes. So the early church, just like Paul says in Acts 20, he's talking to the Ephesian elders and he says, when I was with you I went house to house, and I ministered with tears. The point was that there was a whole bunch of little local churches in Ephesus. They were all held in individual homes. So, I mean, you can only imagine. I mean, these people didn't live in homes that have 3,000 square feet or 2,500 square feet. They lived in little bitty homes. So we're talking congregations that, and this is a speculation, but probably no more than 16 to 20 people. So one of the interesting things about Corinth is they did have, of course, and you see this at Corinth, right? Because you see the people who are saying, I'm of Paul. Another, I'm of Apollos. And I'm of Cephas. Another, we are of Jesus Christ. So here what you actually had was at least four different house churches. And they were rival house churches. And that wasn't a good thing, as we learned early in the first four chapters. But Corinth was a bustling, cosmopolitan city. city and they had a member named Gaius who owned a very large home so he was very wealthy individual and on occasion all the house churches would join together and so they could meet on a larger scale but in general let's just say Sunday to Sunday they were meeting in small house churches and so you're talking about these gifts being used in that type of a context And so when Paul says something like, to the church at Corinth, he's talking about a letter that would be passed around from house church to house church, this letter that we have. So definitely don't be thinking of 200 member churches in a building somewhere. That's definitely not what we're talking about. These were much more intimate gatherings. And the meetings, as I read 1 Corinthians 12-14, the most extensive passage on spiritual gifts, were much more, much freer. You know, it wasn't so structured like we have now. And that's not to say that we need to be less structured. It's not to say that. That was a practice, okay? And practice, or what we call a description, a description of what happened. Not a prescription. A prescription means you have to follow it. It's been prescribed, it's a command, you have to do it a certain way. But a description is just describing what they did. And so the meetings are described as much freer. And if a prophet was going to make a revelation, then he would begin to speak. And then in the midst of that, another prophet had a revelation and he would start speaking at that point the first prophet was supposed to sit down and the floor was given to this other individual because what God was doing was he was intervening in that moment to meet an immediate need in the assembly now this is very different from what we experience today But a part of the reason it's so different is you can look at this list, you've got three of these categories, completed foundational gifts, completed signed gifts, and completed mission-critical gifts. They're all completed, meaning they've already been fulfilled. These gifts are no longer functioning. And that's what makes it so hard for us to, in our own mind's eye, envision what it was like. Because nobody has first-hand observation of a first century church assembly meeting, right? And so what I'm trying to do is dig up from the text what it must have been like. Now these are technically, the gifts are technically part of what is known as the spirituals, as we've mentioned, the spirituals meaning not just spiritual gifts, but spiritual gifts, which every believer has one or more, ministries, And ministries are the spheres in which you exercise the gift and then affects. And that's the results. That's like what happens as a result of a person who has a spiritual gift functioning inside a ministry. What's the result? How does that work its way out? And that's brought about by the Father. So we have no control over this. In fact, we have no control over the gifts that we have. or gift. You can't choose, you can't pick. He picked you to have a certain gift, or he picked gifts for you, right? And that's the way it is. Now we went through a lot of principles of spiritual gifts, just general principles, and we also went through these four classes of gifts, and we started working on the three completed foundation gifts, and we went through those. Apostle, two categories, the twelve which will rule in the Millennial Kingdom, the others which had the same authority but will not rule over the twelve tribes of Israel in the Kingdom. prophet who is receiving direct revelation, and both of these are instrumental in writing scripture, right? They're revelatory gifts. Once scripture is complete, obviously their purpose is complete, and so they no longer continue. Distinguishing spirits, these guys were necessary because what if, doesn't Paul in the New Testament, and Luke even in the book of Acts, warn about false prophets? Well, I mean, if somebody comes into your local church, your little house church, 20 people, and claims they're a prophet, they hang out for a while and they claim they're a prophet and they've got a word from God, who is going to check that? Because you do not have the entirety of the New Testament. The New Testament is in formation. So how are you going to have a check on that? You've got to have somebody who has this gift of distinguishing spirits to tell if it's the Spirit of God or demonic spirit, right? When we went through 1 Thessalonians 5, I want to show you this because this is fascinating. This is one of the things that, you know, you can study spiritual gifts, but you don't catch this, okay, until you maybe study it again and again and again. In 1 Thessalonians, which we've already studied in this series, which is Acts and Paul's epistles, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, there's a little note where Paul's giving a bunch of commands in chapter 512 through, whatever it is, 22, and it's the note in verse 19. Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophetic utterances. Isn't that interesting? Now, I've just given you historical background, contextual background to actually understand that statement, haven't I? Because you had certain individuals I mean, Paul warned, hey, they're false prophets. So what did the Thessalonians do? They said, we gotta shut down prophecy because some of these guys could be false prophets. And so they had a heavy hand against people who claimed to be prophets. And so Paul wrote to them, do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Because if you, you need to let these people say their peace, in other words, But, guess what? In the early church, there were people who had the gift of distinguishing spirits. So, let the proclaimed prophet state what he's going to say, and then someone who has the gift of distinguishing spirits can say yea or nay, so to speak. Right? That's how that should function. Instead, what they did is somebody said, well, I have a prophetic revelation. Nope! And they cut it down. Chopped it off. That's quenching the spirit. That's despising prophetic utterances. That's the historical background for that statement. Now, the irony of the whole situation is when you come to 2 Thessalonians 2, it's kind of like they opened the door like the floodgates wide. And they said, well, anybody who claims to be a prophet, we're going to let it just come through and just kind of let it fly. Because what do you see in chapter 2, verse 2? He says don't be quickly shaken, don't be shaken from your composure or disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if it was from us to the effect the day of the Lord has come because the day of the Lord had not come. That's his whole point. Let no one in any way deceive you. So someone had come in as a false prophet and they had not caught it, and now they had false doctrine in their midst. So the point is just this gives some light to the use of some of these completed foundation gifts in the first century and how churches struggled with finding the proper use of them. We also went through, actually we started the completed sign gifts, so let's start there. I just started mentioning the miracles. A sign gift, let's talk a little bit about a sign gift. A sign gift was given to authenticate a message or an event as being something that is from God. The sign, which is a Greek word semion, is something that always will astonish the crowd because it's supernatural. It can't be explained by any natural phenomena. So it's supernatural. And the sign gifts ceased when their purpose ceased. Their purpose, of course, being to authenticate a message or an event as from God. Most of this has to do with scripture. So the people who are writing scriptures, like the apostles and the prophets, they're the ones who did the signs and so forth. We have 2 Corinthians 12.12, which I think I mentioned last time, but let's look at it. It's very important to look at. Nobody, you know, as we're going to see, if you're doing these signs, I mean, you're an apostle. 2 Corinthians 12, 12, Paul says, I was in no way inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I'm a nobody. He says, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you. There's the word signs. with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles." Okay, so Paul was doing signs and miracles and wonders among the Corinthians and these were a sign that he was in fact an apostle and therefore his message was being authenticated as from God. These ceased when their purpose ceased. Remember I took you to Hebrews 2, 3-4. Do you have that passage memorized? This is a passage to memorize. It's a passage to memorize the point of these things have ceased. Anytime you have this discussion with anybody about cessation or non-cessation, this is an absolute 100% key passage. This one, and it's probably more important than 1 Corinthians 13, 8-10, the passage about the perfect. It talks about knowledge being done away, and prophecy being done away, and tongues ceasing. It says when the partial will come to perfection, then the partial will be done away. The one in Hebrews 2, 3-4 is probably more important than that. Because it has less controversy around it, and less people are even aware of it. Less people are aware of it, so they don't really know how to defend against it. Whereas if you bring up the partial and the perfect, they may be prepared with some kind of response, so you really have to be sharp. And you should be sharp. We all should be sharp. But Hebrews 2, 3 through 4 are absolutely important to this whole debate about cessation, non-cessation. So let's look at some of the gifts that are signed gifts, particularly given to apostles and prophets and so forth. Miracles. Miracles. Gift of miracles. Different from healing. Okay, keep that in mind because as we're going to see, While healings are miraculous, miracles are things that happen that were not necessarily healings. So, for example, we have, like, casting out a demon. That didn't make a person, like, they weren't sick, you know, with pneumonia or something. They just had a demon. The demon got Now some people, of course, say all sickness is due to demons and stuff like that. Yeah, we know about all that. That's definitely not true. It's very clear that it's not when you look at the pages of the New Testament, but anyway. I'm just mentioning that as an aside. So miracles are distinct from healings. They're mentioned separately in 1 Corinthians 12, 10 as separate from healings, and that's because they don't necessarily deal with any kind of physical malady. Apostles were given this gift which enabled them to do supernatural works of power that served as a sign that their message indeed was from God. Distinct from the gift of healing, because miracles is a supernatural work that doesn't involve physical sickness. One example I've given here is casting demons, and an example from Acts 16, 16 through 18. You remember that story? Paul is... where is that? Is that Thessalonica? I'm going blank at where he was. But he was going around through this, no it was Philippi. I know exactly where it was. Philippi. Because he ended up getting thrown in prison from this and the whole story of the Philippian jailer asking what must I do to be saved. That's in this passage, Acts 16, right? This is a story he's going about, and there was this demon-possessed woman, and she kept bothering him all the time, and she had some owners who were making a lot of money off her, and Paul got sick and tired of it. It's really actually very funny. And he turns, and he's like, you know, he casts the demon out. He was sick and tired of it. Just read the context, because the way he does it is just absolutely hilarious. It's like he just can't put up with this anymore. It's been going on for like three or four days, and it's like, that's it. And he casts the demon out. And these owners of this girl, they became very angry, because Paul was getting in their pocketbooks and interfering with all their cash flow. So they took him before the authorities. He ultimately was thrown in prison. But see, the girl wasn't sick, but he did do a miracle. See, that's different from healing. And so just to show an example. This gift gradually ceased when the apostles ceased, since it became unnecessary to authenticate them and their message as being from God. I mean, the Bible's complete. You don't need any more. However, this does not mean that miracles no longer occur. That's very important. See, some people say, well, if you're a cessationist, then you don't believe in miracle. That's a straw man. That's a straw man argument. Because our argument is not that just because the gift of miracles has ceased, miracles have ceased altogether. The gift of miracles is that God would do a miracle through an individual to authenticate that individual as being an apostle. But it doesn't mean that God can't and doesn't just do miracles directly independent of using human means. So God is no longer authenticating individuals doing miracles through them, but yes, he himself still does miracles, even though they are quite rare. If they weren't rare, guess what? How would you detect a miracle? If they were common, then it wouldn't be a miracle anymore. The very nature of a miracle is something very rare. That's just the nature of miracles, because they're supernatural things. And most of the time, things operate according to God's natural means, which he employed after the flood. And most of the time, if you get cancer, guess what? You're gonna die with cancer, most of the time. Let's just say, if you get cancer or something. That's just the way it is. If it wasn't like that, and Christians had some kind of special line to God, where God heals Christians, but he doesn't heal non-Christians, I mean, it would be very obvious this would totally be in all the literature. Everybody would say, hey look, Christians who get cancer only die 10% of the time, whereas non-Christians who get cancer die 90% of the time. I mean, this would be so obvious and everybody in the world would know. So generally speaking, guess what? When we get cancer, we're going to have cancer. And you can pray about it till the cows come home and you can totally believe that God could totally heal you, but generally he's not going to. Okay, then what does God want us to do with the cancer? Suffer well. I mean, this is the testimony. The testimony isn't, look, God healed me, therefore you need to believe in him. The testimony is, suffer well and show that God is true and real and how he gives us psychological and emotional support in the midst of our suffering so that we're able to suffer well and be a testimony for him. Remember Paul? Did he not have a thorn in the flesh? Did he not pray three times for God to take it away and God said, no, but my grace is sufficient for you? Isn't that exactly what the basic approach to suffering is supposed to be? His grace is sufficient. His grace is sufficient. Not, you know, I mean, if he doesn't heal me, I'm just not going to believe in him. Well, I mean, that was never the norm. Not even for the Apostle Paul. So miracles can occur because God can do them, but he's no longer using them to authenticate individuals as carrying his message. In fact, there are four distinct periods in history, well, three are historical, one is still future, when miracles are done through men. Okay, through men is the key words in that statement. There are four periods of history, if you study the Bible, that God does miracles through men. Those periods usually include two individuals or two groups of people that span a period of about 70 years, usually. So, for example, the first couplet or pair is Moses and Joshua. Remember how God used Moses in the Exodus plague? to turn the Nile to blood, and make the frogs multiply, and the gnats, and all those. Now God could have done that without Moses, but he didn't. He used Moses, right? He was authenticating Moses as his messenger. And then there was a second generation that followed, and that was Joshua, the one who followed on Moses' heels, right? And as you see the battles in the book of Joshua, you know, God is using Joshua to bring about these miracles. So there's the first period, right? Now after Joshua, I mean, anyone here want to tell me who God was using to do miracles? I mean, they basically stopped, at least through people. No people were doing miracles. God may have done some miracles, but he didn't use people. Then you see another couplet. You see Elijah and Elisha. These two guys, right? Elijah came first, and again, I mean, they go to Mount Carmel, you know, who is God? And the people can't decide, is Yahweh God or is Baal God? We don't know, we're stupid, spiritual idiots. And so, okay, let's do a test, says Elijah, you know, let's build this altar, we'll throw all this water on it, the one that sends fire from heaven. I mean, Baal's the storm god, certainly controls the lightning, right? Certainly you can make fire come down here This is no problem for Baal, right? Well, obviously Baal doesn't exist. So they do the test, and through Elijah, God authenticated Elijah as his messenger. And the people said, after all this, hours and hours of watching the Baal prophets dance around and cut their wrists and act like morons, finally the people are like, whoa, Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh is God. God authenticated Elijah. And then you have another generation immediately following, that's Elisha. Again, same thing, God uses Elisha to do miracles. Then you don't see that again. I mean, do you see Daniel's not doing miracles, but did God do miracles for Daniel? Sure, He shut the lion's mouth, but He didn't use an individual to do that, to authenticate some other individual. He just did it directly, see? So there are other miracles, but no humans that He used to do miracles, see? And then you have Christ and the Apostles, another two generations. So the Gospels and the early portions of the Book of Acts. As you work your way through the Acts, these miracles tend to trail off. By the end of Paul's ministry, I mean, Paul raised the dead. Did Peter raise the dead? Yeah, they did. They did this stuff. But by the end of Paul's ministry, which is after the Book of Acts is finished, You've got people like Timothy who's got stomach problems. And does Paul heal him? No. He says, take a little wine for your stomach. Philippians chapter 2, Trophimus. He says, Trophimus, I left sick at Miletus. Well, why didn't you just heal him? Something was happening. The authenticating powers of signs through miracles was passing away. And so you only saw it, these are the three historical periods that we see miracles in. There's going to be another future period in which we see miracles again. And it starts with the two witnesses. Those two guys. And then the Messiah again in the Messianic Kingdom. Because in the Messianic Kingdom nobody's going to be blind, nobody's going to be deaf, Nobody's gonna have impairments or problems with their limbs or anything. It says the lame will leap like a deer in Isaiah 35. The blind will see like an eagle, or beagle in our household, but anyway, that's a joke. It's a household joke, but anyway. So those are your four basic periods of miracles, okay? So God is not always doing these through individuals, but he can do them anytime he wants to, and so that's miracles. Okay, how about healing? Obviously, this has to do with physical ailments. This was a gift that was given to certain individuals to authenticate them, again, as apostles, so people would believe the gospel. I've listed some verses there like Mark 16, 17 to 18. That's the controversial section of Mark. Remember everybody argues about the ending of Mark, right? Is this really the Bible? Okay, whatever. I mean, I read John Bergin's defense of this section. It's, I don't even know, 300 pages. It's been a long time since I read this, but you'll usually see this section, verses 9 through 20, in parentheses, and there'll be a note about whether it's original or not. Whether it's original or not, guess what? It fundamentally doesn't matter. There's nothing in there that contradicts any other doctrine. There's no doctrine in there that's added to any other doctrine. So everything in here is taught elsewhere and there's not a problem. So ultimately it doesn't matter. You can argue until the cows come home on this one too, but ultimately there's no fundamental issue. that is breached or problem. But you see it there in, what's my verses for the gift of healing? Mark 16, 17 through 18. These signs will accompany, so we're talking about signs. These signs will accompany those who have belief in my name. They will cast out demons. Okay, so that would be a gift of miracles. They will speak with two tongues. There's a gift of tongues. They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Now, these things were already fulfilled. These things were fulfilled basically in the book of Acts. Remember Paul? He's on the island. He's been in the shipwreck, and he's out there with all the natives, and this python comes out of the fire and bites him, and then they were all like, and he didn't die, and they were like, whoa. How did that happen? Well, I mean, Mark 16 said this would happen. It was a sign. A sign what? Well, to authenticate Paul as a messenger from God, they need to listen to his message. Speaking with tongues, same thing. It's a sign. See, it's listed as a sign gift. Casting out demons, it's a sign gift. But these things don't go on in the church age. Also, laying on of hands for the sick, so that's the gift of healing, which we're looking at here. Okay, all these are signs. That's why I've listed them as sign gifts. But this gift gradually ceased, as is evident from Paul's own weaknesses and his inability to heal people as his ministry came to a close. I've listed some of these people already. Not incidentally, his gradual inability to heal follows closely the enlargement of the canon of Scripture, the New Testament canon. In other words, as his ability to do healings and miracles gradually decreases, At the same time, as it's decreasing, the New Testament canon is increasing in its closeness to completion. So that makes sense, right? I mean, that's a lovely observation. This gift ceased when the apostles ceased. that William A. Nolan, who was a medical doctor and a surgeon, investigated claims of healing. Of course, he's a medical doctor, right? I mean, like, who as a medical doctor wouldn't be interested in somebody claiming, well, I have the gift of healing? They'd be like, oh, really? I would love to know how you do that so that I could employ that, because people who become doctors and surgeons, they tend to want to help people. I mean, if they stick with it. The people who just want to make money, they're never going to make it. But the people who really want to help people, they're usually trying to stick with this profession. They like to see people get well. So he was curious about this, so he did all these investigations for several years. He concluded that, 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. We doctors, with all our knowledge and training, must still label incurable. You know, the great frustration of medical doctors, we don't know. I'm sorry, we just don't know. We don't have an answer. He said, as I've said before, I've been unable to find such a miracle worker. Baxter, who was investigating the writings of Nolan, described his findings this way, saying, quote, he documents case after case of those supposedly healed who either returned to their crutches and wheelchairs or died from the very illness from which they were supposedly cured. You've all seen it. The guy's on TV, oh yeah, they bring something down, he's in a wheelchair, whatever, he walks away, whatever. Three months later, he's back in a wheelchair. What happened? Definitely not healed. There's a lot more about all this, and if you want to study, you can get Nolan's books and research, and you can see how he explains. you know, these events that happened and, you know, what type of, the differences between psychosomatic and other types of illnesses and what was really going on. But I'm not here to go into all that. But this information's available. Let's go on. Suffice it to say that this was a special gift given to authenticate the apostles as conveying the gospel content people needed to believe. And this gradually ceased as the New Testament scriptures came to a completion and the new gospel content was updated. What do I mean by that? The new gospel content was updated. Or the gospel content was updated. What do I mean by that? Do you remember before the cross, Jesus said to his disciples, who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. Now, did Simon Peter say, You are the Messiah who died for our sins and rose again? Did he say that? No. Why didn't he say, You are the Messiah who died for our sins and rose again? because he hadn't died yet. In fact, three verses later, Jesus says, and I have to suffer and go to Jerusalem and suffer all these things and be crucified and I'll rise again. And Peter said, no, may it never be. So question, did Peter believe before the cross, did he believe that Jesus as the Messiah would die for his sins and rose again? No, we have to say no. In fact, we have to say no all the way up to the point where they come to arrest him in the garden and Jesus and his entourage go out to meet them because they couldn't, you know, they're like sleeping. He's like, come on, guys, for the third time, let's get out of here. Let's go meet this. And he goes directly at him, and Judas is there with the high priest and the Roman soldiers and all the, you know, 600 of them, a whole cohort, because Jesus is a dangerous criminal. And they knew that, well, we have to have about 600 guys to stop this one guy. Funny, right? Because Jesus, you know, they say, who is Jesus of Nazareth? He says, I am, and they all just fall down. They all just are blasted. It's a reminiscence of Exodus 3 when the burning bush and God said, I am. And Jesus says, I am. And they just fall flat back because he's the rule of the universe. He's the creator of the cosmos. And if there's 600 soldiers who are of the Roman, of the most highest training, who are going to arrest him, guess what? He's letting them know the only reason you're arresting me is because I'm going to let you. Because he had already said in John 10, no one can take my life from me, but I'll lay it down in my own accord. I'm gonna let you all know right here, before any of this transpires, who's in control of every moment? I am. Yeah, when he got on the cross, if he wanted to take himself off, he could have taken himself off, it's no problem for him. But he chose to keep himself there because he was dying for our sins, because he wanted to give his life for us, because great is his love, right? So all this is going on, Where was I going with this? They're gonna arrest him, right? And the high priest is there and so forth. And when they start to move to take Jesus, what does Peter do? He takes his sword out and he chops off the right ear of the high priest. He wasn't aiming for the right ear any more than that assassin was aiming for Trump's right ear. Okay? He was aiming to kill him. Okay? That's what Peter wanted to do. So Peter was not believing that content. But guess what? Peter was saved. He was justified. But what had to happen when you have the cross and the resurrection is the new gospel content that a person has to believe then gets updated. See, it's not enough just to believe Jesus is the Messiah today. You could believe that, but you'd also have to believe what he did for you, that he died and rose again. So as the New Testament content is coming about the New Gospel content, not New Gospel, but New Gospel content, There was authenticating signs like healings that demonstrated that this is indeed true. Again, this doesn't mean that healing doesn't occur today. God can heal anyone anytime he wants to. There's nothing too hard for God. But the gift of doing miracles as an authenticating sign from God has ceased. Tongues. Here we go, right? Controversial one since the Azusa Street Revival over a hundred years ago. What is it? The ability to speak a real language. First of all, real languages are involved here, not gibberish. Real languages that have never been studied by the person who's using it as a sign that Jewish unbelievers were under God's judgment. Okay, Acts 2, Acts 10, Acts 19, we have those three cases of legitimate tongues usage in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 and 14 talk about tongues and quote Isaiah 28 as a basis for the purpose of tongues being to warn unbelieving Jews. See, that generation of Israel was under judgment, right? I mean, he keeps saying this generation. Jesus keeps saying that. This wicked generation, this adulterous generation. You've heard it over and over and over. That's not talking about the Jews in 2024. That's talking about the Jews of the generation that their king, the Messiah, the creator of the world, came in their midst and dwelt among them and did miracles demonstrating he's the king. In other words, like the book of Hebrews says in verses 1, 1-4, God in past times revealed himself in many ways and portions, but in these last days has revealed himself in his Son. The very essence of his own nature. In other words, who were they seeing? I mean, if you saw Jesus Christ, who were you seeing in the first century? You're looking at God. That's why they say, he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Because the Father is in me. You know, like it was the highest revelation of God that the world has ever seen. And so when they rejected him, I mean, that's, they're very highly culpable. Jesus even said, right, that the Queen of Sheba would stand up at the judgment. to condemn that generation. He said the people of Nineveh, I mean of all people, the Ninevites who skinned people alive and took their flesh and piled them up at the gates of the city, of whatever city they destroyed, and just left this nasty mess of human remains. Unbelievable treatment of the human body. And the Ninevites will stand up in judgment against that generation because they believed in the preaching of Jonah. And what did Jesus say? Something greater than Jonah is here. See? So, they're in big trouble. And the tongues are giving us a warning. And they knew this from Isaiah, from the days of the Assyrians. They knew this. That when the Assyrians come into the land and they start speaking their foreign language and you're standing there saying, huh? Huh? What are you saying? That that meant, you're done for. And so God was doing that again by the speaking of the truths about the Messiah in the book of Acts and so forth. that it's a sign of judgment to unbelieving Jews that they need to get right with God by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, because if they didn't, judgment was coming, and it came in AD 70. And one million Jews were killed because they didn't pay attention to their Messiah when he came to them. What is it? It's Luke 24... Is it 41? I mean, one of my favorite verses... Is it 24-41? or 2444. It's the one that says the day of your visitation, you know, you didn't know, whatever that verse is. You know the one I'm talking about? You know, it's not there, it's not the right verse, but it's somewhere around here. You failed to know the day of your visitation, wherever that is. So that generation was in big trouble, but they were given warnings through tongues. And so what passes for tongues today in charismatic circles is what we call pagan tongues. It's heteroglossia. Heteroglossia means other tongues, but they're not other languages, just other tongues, like just babbling. This can be learned. It's taught. I described this. 25% of people who are taught to speak in tongues can speak it the very first time. If they're given a little bit more training, 75% of people can learn to speak in tongues, meaning they can learn to do this babbling, ecstatic utterances that have nothing to do with the real language. It's just gibberish because these have been studied very carefully by linguists around the world, and they know that what they're doing is exactly the same thing that's going on in pagan religions. It's absolutely no different, and there's nothing to it. Whatever is going on in these churches is not of God. It's definitely not. There's nothing there. There's nothing at all. So you shouldn't get excited about it. In fact, we should be really upset that people are being led astray into these types of practices which are not of God. And they're doing this in local church. Paul says, I'd rather speak five words that people could understand than 10,000 words in a tongue. And these people would rather speak 10,000 words in a tongue than speak one word that makes any sense in the Bible. It's completely the opposite, completely turned around, and they're completely apostate. And you should have nothing to do with these people, other than just say, hey look, it's wrong, you're using heteroglossia, biblical is xenoglossia, it's real languages, and what you're doing is just completely apostate. And they do that in Africa, they do that in all the pagan religions and cults around the world, so if you want to go do that, just go do that, but don't say you're a church, because you are a bad testimony for Jesus Christ. over and out and just walk off. There's nothing more to say. Next, interpretation. Obviously in tandem with tongues, right? It's the ability to translate a tongue that you've never learned, a real language that you've never learned into whatever the right translation was. Not needed on the day of Pentecost, interestingly, right? The first use of tongues we see in the New Testament is Acts chapter 2. And the day of Pentecost, over a million Jews, a lot of Jews were in Jerusalem at the time, right? For this feast. And the twelve, Peter and John and Matthias and others, begin to speak in tongues. that they didn't know, even using the same dialect as these foreign languages they never studied. And Jews from all over the Roman Empire who had various different native tongues were hearing them in their own language. So they didn't need a translator. I mean, they knew what they were saying. I mean, it was their language. But it was a tandem gift that was given with tongues, and so they're gonna cease at the same time. So why were they needed, though? Needed because if a Gentile was present in the assembly when tongues was being spoken, the Gentile would immediately start to think of the pagan tongues and all the mystery religions of the Roman Empire. Oh, this is what goes on in pagan religions. That's immediately what they would think because this is their cultural background. To offset what was happening with biblical tongues, you had an interpreter. And the interpreter would actually give the meaning of the language. And then the Gentile would say, oh, well this is not the same as the pagan mystery religions. This is something else. This is of God. Because pagan mystery religions, again, it's the same thing. It's just babbling. It's like a shaman. Have you seen these guys? Like a medicine man, they utter all sorts of incantations. Nobody knows what they're talking about because they're not talking about anything. It's just a sham. I mean, maybe they're talking to demons or something like that, but there's nothing there. So you needed to have the gift of interpretation to explain to Gentiles what was going on as Jews who may be present were being warned of judgment on their nation and that they, of course, need to believe. Otherwise, if they didn't have this, and somebody's just speaking in the air wildly, then the Gentiles are going to think they're crazy, just like pagans. And that wouldn't be good. So, that's kind of what's going on with interpretation. This is a story that's recounted, I think it was W.A. Criswell, some of you know the Baptist guy down in Texas, Criswell's seminary down there. He tells the story of a seminary graduate who had majored in Hebrew attending a tongues meeting in California. In the midst of the meeting, he stood up and quoted by memory the first psalm in the original language. After he had finished, the interpreter arose and solemnly, piously made known in plain English what the brother had spoken in an unknown tongue. The interpreter made it an utterance, spirit-inspired, about women prophesying in the church. When the seminarian, should say seminarian, made known what he had done and what he had said, pandemonium broke loose. Well, yeah. I mean, the guy was just making up, you know. I mean, here the guy is, quoting in Hebrew, you know, Psalm 1, blessed is the man, you know, that wonderful psalm. And he says, oh, he's talking about women prophesying of the church. Just malarkey. Total malarkey. The purpose of this gift, which again was to authenticate, has ceased along with tongues, whose purpose was also ceased in A.D. 70. In other words, when Israel underwent their judgment, and it was assigned to unbelieving Israel, then why do you need it after that? Israel's already been judged. What would be the purpose of tongues now? No purpose. So it's over. And I just say, get over it. Just get over it. There are two completed mission-critical gifts. Two completed mission-critical gifts. This is kind of a new category. I put the gift of wisdom and the gift of knowledge in this category. Mission-critical, meaning the church. What I mean by that is the church It had just started in Acts 2, so it was in its infancy. When the church is in its infancy, it's at its most vulnerable point. I mean, Satan wants to stomp it out and stomp it out early, because that's the best time to stomp it out. It's the easiest time. It was just in Jerusalem, right? Once it begins to spread out to Judea and Samaria, and then to the remotest parts of the earth in the Book of Acts, it gets much more difficult to stop it, right? But as long as it's in its infancy, like in early in Jerusalem, and it's just starting to move out, this is a critical time that the church needs to actually be fortified and protected. and because they're very vulnerable. And so these two gifts were given particularly early on to protect the church during its most vulnerable time. So I call these mission critical because the church was God's mission at this time. So these gifts were critical to the early church. Once this mission was complete and the church was on its own two feet, so to speak, then the gifts would cease. Here they are, wisdom. There's actually a lot about wisdom in the book of Acts and in some of the epistles, but it's the ability to gain deep understanding of the plan and purpose of God and articulate it before the New Testament canon was complete. In other words, What in the world was God doing? What in the world is going on? I mean, the Messiah came, he offered the kingdom, his people rejected him, and then he died and was resurrected and he left. So what now? What's happening? Well, nobody really knew. That's why Peter's like, Is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom? What? Can you just lay it out for us? And he says, it's not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has determined by his own plan, but stay here and wait for the Spirit. You will be baptized by the Spirit and you will be my witnesses. That's all they know on the day of Pentecost. Okay, here we are. Here's a pouring out of the Spirit. We're speaking in tongues. We're gonna be testimony. Okay, I mean that's all they know. Testimony of what? The death and resurrection of Christ. But they don't know anything about the body of Christ. They don't know about the church. They don't know about spiritual gifts. They don't know about the rapture. They don't know any of that. Okay, it's all new. So if you had the gift of wisdom, then you would in those early days of the church before you get all this revelation about the plan of God for the church and all that. you have individuals who are able to explain, in part at least, what is going on. The idea is that, first of all, it was necessary in God's plan to postpone the kingdom. It's not going to be here on earth now. It's going to be later. And form the Mystery Church within this time period. And so, this is the way that the believers in the early church, before the New Testament was given, could understand. Once the scriptures were written, this gift was no longer needed because now we have been taught in the epistles about the mystery church. We know about the body, Jew and Gentile one body. We know about the rapture. We know about spiritual gifts. We know about life by the Spirit. We know all these new truths. But none of that was known in the Old Testament. None of it. Before the cross. I mean, there are hints in the Gospels. Jesus is saying, you know, the Spirit won't be with you, He'll be in you. And they were like, huh? They don't know what he's talking about, okay? But then they figured it out gradually, just like the rest of us. I mean, you don't know. It takes time to figure things out. They had to figure these things out. So once the scriptures were written, this gift was no longer needed. And it ceased. Now this is different from just wisdom in general. James 1 tells us, right, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. who gives wisdom, but let him not ask with any double-souledness, any doubt, it's saying. Because God will not give to the one who does doubt. So you should have confidence when you ask God for wisdom. But that's not asking for the gift of wisdom. That's speaking about wisdom in general in the book of James, wisdom for navigating trials. Navigating trials. And so all believers should ask God for wisdom, right, in that sense. We need wisdom, how to live this life. But the wisdom, the gift of wisdom was given for was for understanding the plan of God, okay, which nobody knew about because it had never been written about. So that's a little bit different. So that gift has ceased. And then knowledge, the gift of knowledge. This is the ability to know something that was just impossible to know naturally but necessary because there was some danger to the church and so it was mission critical. A good example is the case with Peter in Acts chapter 5 when Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and then they came and they said, Here's all the proceeds from the sale." And Peter said, why have you decided to lie to the Holy Spirit? How do you know that? How do you know that all the money they gave was not all the money that had been involved in the transaction. Did he have, was he the one that, did he look in the books at the transaction? No. It was the gift of knowledge. This was a mission critical juncture in the church because if Ananias and Sapphira had got away with this, okay, more people would have done the same thing. They would have started doing the same thing, because then everybody would be like, oh, look at Ananas and Sapphira. And other people would say, hey, we could do the same thing. We could get our name in lights. And everybody would look at us and look at us. Look, we're so great. And that couldn't happen. And so, well, Ananas and Sapphira, they died. One, the wife within a few hours of the husband. And then it says, great fear came on the whole church. Well, that was kind of important, right? Fear of God. We shouldn't go in and try to pull these shenanigans. This was critical early on in the church. things could have been drastically distorted early on and the church could have began to split. So that happened. So this is a mission-critical gift, wisdom and knowledge. Now, okay, that brings us to the 10 continuous growth gifts. Again, this is the only list that contains gifts that we would think are still active today. But again, any gift given to the church once is a gift given to the whole church because we benefit from them. I mean, what if the mission-critical gifts weren't there and the church divided early on? Well, then maybe we wouldn't be here as believers today. See, what if you didn't have apostles? Well, then we wouldn't have a Bible. And then we'd be saying, hey, can we have the gift of wisdom so we can know what in the world is going on here? Because we have no idea what a church is. We have no idea what spiritual gifts are. We have no idea what life by the Spirit looks like. You can't know these things. So, you know, these things all work together to get us to where we are. And so once the foundation is laid, and you've got the scriptures there and the New Testament canon, then the gifts that continue are the growth of the church. Right? It's starting off as like an infant and it's going to grow to the full stature of Jesus Christ. And when we meet the full stature of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the body, then the church is complete. And that's when the rapture can happen. But until then, it can't happen. So you've got gifts like evangelists. Now that's obviously given to help the church grow, right? Because you have to have more people come into the church in order for the number of people in the church to grow. So there's a type of growth that's important. And it's called numerical growth. In fact, in the Book of Acts, there's three types of growth. Everybody in Bible church circles that I've ever been around always says, oh, the only thing that's important is spiritual growth. That's absolutely not true. That is 100% not true. The Book of Acts illustrates three types of growth. The first type of growth that it illustrates is numerical growth. On the Day of Pentecost, it says 5,000 were added to their number. That's numerical growth. That's talking about a specific type of growth. When the Gospel goes to Judea and Samaria, it's describing geographical growth. you know, the growth out away from Jerusalem. I mean, what if it never grew outside Jerusalem? Would you and I be believers? Nope. So is geographical growth important? Yes. 100%. And the last type of growth it talks about is discipleship growth, which we call spiritual growth. All three types of growth are very important. All of them. Everybody here, we ought to be growing spiritually, right? But guess what? We should also be growing numerically. Meaning, people as a product of our own ministries, evangelizing people, should be coming into the church to get more numbers. I mean, do you think Jesus would be upset about that? You know, sometimes I think people are like, I'm going to have the smallest church I can possibly have, the only thing that matters is spiritual growth. I just think that, honestly, I'm just like, are you even thinking? Like, a lot of these people know the original languages, and I'm like, Maybe you're so buried in the trees that you can't see the forest. I don't know. I don't know what the problem is. But this is definitely taught in the Bible. Why did Jesus send them out two by two? To get less people? No, to get more people. It's called numerical growth. And he had a numerical mission. A numerical mission. And then geographical. I mean, is not the book of Acts totally described in geographical terms? in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and then to the remotest parts of the earth. Why do we have missionaries? Why do we have people translating the Bible into languages and tribal tongues that nobody has ever translated the Bible into? Well, because we're interested in geographical growth. So we're really interested in all these types of growth. And if we ever got the opportunity at Spokane Bible Church to plant another church somewhere, I'd say, Amen, let's go. Let's do it. Why not? Right? And you don't say, I don't know, where's the money going to come from? Or somebody would say that. Get over it. It's fine. He's going to supply. It's not a big deal. I mean, money is nothing to God. He can find that. It's easy. So evangelists, these people preach the good news in a way that results in people being saved. They're mentioned in Ephesians 4.11, right? Evangelists, apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers, which we'll talk about. Notice how I put that. People who preach the good news in a way that results in people being saved. Those people who preach the good news accurately, which I hope I'm one, 1 Corinthians 15, 1-4, you preach the gospel accurately, and yet do not see a lot of results, simply the reason is they don't have the gift that's why I mean I'll be the first one to say I don't have the gift of evangelism and there's nothing I can do about it I can preach the gospel you know Christ died for us and he rose again he loves you so much I mean believe in him and you'll be saved I mean there's nothing stopping you from right now from having eternal life I mean I can preach that all day long and you should be able to preach that all day long too it's not it's not difficult but There have only been, you know, a handful of people, you know, over the course of my life that have believed through me giving the gospel to people. What does that mean? Does it mean it's my fault? No! Remember, the effects are the result of God the Father. So some people, they preach the gospel, they say exact same words I say, and guess what? Hundreds of people believe. What's the difference? They have the gift and I don't. That's the difference. What's the difference between, you know, I teach the Word of God, and people really respond, and somebody else teaches the Word of God, and almost nobody responds? And that we're both accurate, good teachers. The difference doesn't have anything to do with me and them. It has to do with the effects that are brought about by God. And that's it. You know, when you realize that, you're like, oh, okay. Well, I'm just going to function in my gift, and whatever happens, happens, and I don't have to worry about it. That's right. You don't. You don't have to worry about it. This is great. It's totally free. Just function in your gift. Who cares what people think? Who cares what the results are? It's all in his hands. He's got it. We can just do our thing. The difference, of course, is one has the gift, the other does not. It's no fault of the preacher for the effects belong to God. Preaching, this is important, preaching is different than teaching. Preaching is exhortation to believe the gospel. Teaching focuses on explaining what we believe. I'm a teacher, I'm not a preacher. I can preach, but sometimes people say I get preachy. But it's exhortation, and particularly exhortation related to the gospel, is being preachy. But teaching is explaining what we believe. It's going into the details of what we believe. Philip is a good example of an evangelist, right? He went to Samaria and other places. Paul is another example. He went from city to city. And what was the first thing he'd do? He'd preach in the synagogues, typically. And these people? are interesting. They are able to become all things to all people so they might save some. Remember Paul said that in 1 Corinthians 9? To the Jew I became a Jew so I'd win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law so I might win those under the law. To those without the law I became as one without the law so that I might win those that are without law. I become all things to all men yet so I might save some. Right? That's what he said. And you know what? This confuses people. They say, how can you take a vow, Paul? Why did you take that vow at Century and you cut your hair, you legalist? No. No. They're the ones that don't understand spiritual gifts. And that he had to get to evangelism, and that he was able to do that without compromising the gospel, and without becoming a legalist, but they can't see it. Why? I think because they're not evangelists. The evangelist wants to reach people with the gospel so bad that other people will be critical of them. I see people all the time. Billy Graham. They will attack him because on many occasions he didn't preach the gospel clearly. He might teach repentance or turning from sin or something like that. And they're very hypercritical of Billy Graham because they heard him give a false gospel presentation. Here's the thing. I agree with him. I am not saying that he did not on occasion add things to the human requirement that should not be added. But because he had the gift of evangelism, God worked through that man to bring people to salvation, you know, in remarkable ways. Now, I had, I'll finish with this, I had Paige, Paige Patterson. I had Paige Patterson in the seminary. This is a little bit humorous. He was Baptist. He was over the Southwestern Baptist Convention in the late 70s and early 80s. In Baptist circles, everybody reports how many people came to salvation that year in their churches, and they add it all up. It's a big number. And he says, you know, the number comes into the convention, it's like 750,000 people had believed in Christ that year or whatever. And somebody said, yeah, but we're pretty sure not that many people really believed. Page is like, yeah, maybe not. But guess what? Even if 500,000 of them did, that's 500,000 more than zero. So get over it, okay? In other words, no, we may not have exact numbers, and maybe some people didn't really believe and they were pressured to walk an aisle because their best friend did, or their girlfriend did, and they liked their girlfriend. But the point is not that we should stop preaching the gospel just because we're worried about exact numbers. And here's another thing, I've talked to Todd about this, sometimes when somebody preaches, this is illustrated in the Bible actually, it's illustrated in Matthew 16, where Jesus says something and the people only hear something of what he said. They don't hear it all. So even if somebody preaches the gospel and they say, hey, you've got to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then they say some other stuff, let's just say, that they shouldn't say. But if the person only heard that part, and the Holy Spirit's at work, That's it. If they believe in Jesus Christ, they're saved 100%. Regardless of what the other person said, what they kept saying. Because that's not what they heard. And what God impressed upon them by His Spirit was, hey, I've got to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for my sins. He rose again. And that's all that has to happen. So no, I'm not happy that, you know, Billy Graham or Franklin Graham maybe, you know, add things to the gospel when they make the presentation, but also do believe at the same time that God has saved many, many people through those men and that they'll have eternal life and they're going to be in heaven. And so, you know, if people think I'm a heretic for that, whatever. I don't really care. I'm not here to please you. I'm here to explain. In the Bible, it gives explicit descriptions in Matthew 16 of Jesus saying one thing and people not hearing everything he said. And this happens all the time in normal life. So, you know, think about that. Evangelists, okay? Okay, we'll stop here. Next week, pastor, and then teacher, and go on. You know, I wanted to go through all this, but I think, I hope it's helpful, because in the end, you know, you have a gift, or gifts, and I want to be able to respect these people. You know, people have a certain giftedness, like, you know, like one of them that really shocked me was Mercy. People that are willing, they see someone and they have a deep compassion for them, and they enter into this person's life and really identify with them in whatever they're suffering with. And some of us are like, well, they made their own bed. I mean, my goodness. We don't have a lot of mercy toward them. We don't have a lot of compassion, right? But hey, that just means you don't have the gift of mercy. That's all it means. But don't be upset with the person who does, see, because we're never going to understand one another in our giftedness, okay? And the reason we're not totally going to understand it is because that's not our gift. Like, you're probably never going to understand why I want to spend so much time in the Bible figuring out all sorts of details that I never even talk about from here. You're probably like, yeah, I don't need to know, that's good enough. Just stop. Even my kids do that. They come ask me a Bible question, and they're like, oh, great, here we go for a lifelong discussion. I didn't really want all that, so it's kind of like, eh. But see, that's my gift. So get over it. That's all I have to say. Just like I have to get over your gift and not be frustrated with it. I just say, oh, they're functioning well. They're the kidney in the body, and they're doing a great job. And I'm the heart, and you're the lungs. And just accept it, see? And guess what? It will be fine. It'll be fine. God's at work. So this is the part that's fun about this. Next week we'll finish up these continuous growth gifts and hopefully you'll be just continuing to function in yours. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for these great gifts. We know that they're reflections of you. You are a teacher. You are a preacher. You are an evangelist. You are all these things. So by giving us these gifts, you're just giving us a taste of what it's like to be you and to thrive in that and do so in love because, again, that's who you are, your love. And so all these are you bringing us into aspects of your nature as you pour out part of your nature through us by means of your spirit. And it's really a remarkable thing. And so help us to function in our gifts so that you can be manifest among us. That's the ultimate goal. We ask this in Jesus' precious name. Amen.