Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 12. We're continuing our study that I don't even know when it began. A couple months ago, I guess. The study on the walking by the Spirit. And in the middle of that, we're doing this study now on the gifts of the Spirit. And this is part four of that study. And it's taken us several weeks with me being gone a couple weeks and some other things that interrupted us. But we're finishing the Gifts of the Spirit this morning, Lord willing, and continuing on with the bigger series, Walking by the Spirit, in the weeks ahead. And we probably have about a month or so left of this one, and then not sure what's happening after that. I'm talking about maybe doing the Book of Ecclesiastes, so you can weigh in on that or some other one you'd like to hear, I guess. I hope that you will see that there is not a major disconnect between what we've been singing this morning and what we're going to look at now regarding the gifts of the Spirit. God's grace does not stop once we've been saved from our sins. God's grace continues. One of the evidences of His grace is in having given us the Spirit. The Spirit is a gift of grace and the Spirit Himself gives us gifts of grace so that we have what we need to help each other and to worship God and to build each other up in Christ. God's grace continues to flow to us because of what Jesus has done. It's the ground, it's the fountain of everything good in our lives. And so let the songs that we've sung, the ideas that have been going through your minds, let those kind of be in the background of what you're hearing this morning as we look into this final study on the gifts of the Spirit. I hope that you will allow me, and I'm sure you will, a very brief introduction today because of how much we need to get through. And so the shorter the introduction, the faster we get into the body of the message here. I only got through one of the three points of this study, not last week but two weeks ago, and I don't want that to happen again this week. And I want to communicate the whole thing together because I think we need to see the whole thing together rather than separate in pieces. And so I'm going to do a little review here in just a second to bring things back together. There's a lot of information in the study so far and in what we're looking at this morning because it's a much debated issue. The idea of the gifts of the Spirit and in particular what we call the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. I'm trying to be fair and biblically accurate. There are lots of points to consider, and that's why there's so much information here. And so, sorry if it feels a little bit like you're in school, but I want to be fair and accurate, so I'm trying to give all the information here. But I want you not only to know what I, as a lead pastor here, or we as a church, believe about these issues, But I want you to be able to determine what you believe from the scriptures and be able to communicate that to others from the Bible. Someone is to ask you, what do you believe about the miraculous gifts of the Spirit? Would you be able to take them to the scriptures and say, this is what I believe and this is why. I hope so, and I hope that this morning's message will help you in that. This is important not just to be right, to be correct about this, but because it deals with our service to God and each other. The gifts of the Spirit are very important. They're vital for the health and growth of the church, and so we need to know this stuff. It matters for our lives. I'm concerned that I don't leave any of you confused, too. And I'm really sorry if I did that with any of you two weeks ago, if you left thinking, I need the rest of the message. Well, I didn't have time. I guess if you'd have given me another 45 minutes or so, we might have had time, but I didn't feel like asking for that. I'm trying to fill in the blanks rather than just making assumptions, but I might have made some assumptions a couple of weeks ago that you were filling in the blanks, not in your outline, but in your thinking on some of the points I was making because, again, there's so much information. but I'm hoping that today is going to make it all make sense. But first, because I want us to see the whole issue together, a brief review of what we considered two weeks ago. So if you're looking at your outline, number one, perhaps you remember this from two weeks ago and you just already have it filled out, but number one is God gave miraculous gifts to Christians in the early church. There are four chapters in the New Testament that talk about, specifically, the spiritual gifts that God has given to us, and miraculous gifts are included in two of those four chapters. So in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. We also see these miraculous gifts being used in the Book of Acts. So the gifts of tongues, and prophecy, and healing, and miracles, we see all these being used in the Book of Acts. So, talking about miraculous gifts, and one of the things we considered is, you know, what makes a gift miraculous versus those that we would say are non-miraculous. So, letter A is the distinction between miraculous and non-miraculous. We want to recognize that God is sovereign, he's at work, in all things, and the Spirit is active in all the spiritual gifts. So all the spiritual gifts come from the Spirit and are to be used by the Spirit. So don't think that God's only active in the miraculous gifts and the other ones are just what we do. That's not the idea. But often, we see this in the Bible, we see this in life today, God's work is what we call providential. What I mean by that is that it's in keeping with the normal functioning of his natural creation. So you fall down and scrape your arm and your arm heals itself because God's made your body to work that way. That would be God providentially healing your arm. Understand what I'm saying? God often works within the natural processes of his creation. But with spiritual gifts when he's doing that, so just using the gift of teaching for example, he might take someone who's a good teacher and give them the gift of teaching to use in the church and he will take a natural gift and elevate it, empower it by the work of the spirit so that it ministers grace to God's people. That would be a providential gift but not a miraculous gift. But sometimes God's work is what we would say supernatural, above nature, outside of nature, or miraculous. Sometimes God's work is miraculous. It's not within the normal functioning of nature. So you fall down and, you're not gonna knock your arm off if you fall down. Say you're working on a piece of machinery and the machinery cuts your arm off. and then somehow it comes back into wholeness. That would be miraculous without the use of going to an ER or something like that. Distinction between miraculous and non-miraculous. God is active in both, but in different ways. Okay, letter B, identification of the miraculous gifts. So which are these? In these lists that we find in the Bible, which gifts are we talking about? Well, in 1 Corinthians 12, we have two lists. You can see this if you have 1 Corinthians 12 open in front of you. One list starts in verse eight and carries through verse 10. The other list starts in verse 28 and carries through verse 30. And so in these two lists, the first one is almost entirely miraculous gifts. Not entirely, I think, but almost entirely. The first gift that we talked about and I want to review is prophecy. So that's number one here, prophecy. And I'm talking about this one first because there's most debate probably on this spiritual gift and miraculous gift in our circles. Those who are fairly like-minded with us who understand the scriptures as we do, prophecy is perhaps the one that's argued about the most. Prophecy is, this is what prophecy is, communicating a message from God. God gives a person a message, that person then delivers that message to others. That's what prophecy is. We discussed the potential problem. of prophecy and the idea of a closed, what we call, biblical canon. Get that word in your mind. The canon is just the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word canon just means not like a, you know, Civil War, you know, cannonball thing, but it was an old word for a ruler, essentially. And so when you apply these writings to the ruler, this is what we came out with. These are the books that God breathed out, that God inspired, the ones that all Christians have received, these are the authoritative written word of God. And there are no more being added to it. That's an orthodox biblical Christian understanding of the Bible. So you can see how there is a potential problem if we have God having revealed himself in the written form of the Bible, but continuing to reveal himself through prophecy. because the Bible is the highest above all other authorities and it's the final authority. So in other words, what somebody says is always below what the Bible says. The Bible is our final authority on what to believe and how to live. And so we conclude that there's no more revelation from God that is without error on the level of biblical authority that continues today. There's nothing competing with the Bible to be the final and authoritative word of revelation from God. Does that make sense? Many conclude there's no more prophecy at all because of this. So if prophecy was to be continuing, that would be continuing revelation from God that would compete with the Bible. Because they see New Testament prophecy as the same as Old Testament prophecy, which was, without error, authoritative messages from God. And I'm making all these distinctions because, again, some people define prophecy different than others, and we need to know how we understand prophecy so that we can talk about whether it's active today. But some practice prophecy today and don't seem to deal with the problem of it being on the level of biblical revelation. They practically treat their words from God, you know, I have a word from God, as essentially on the same level as the Bible, and you can see how that's a problem. especially when what this particular person is saying is in contradiction to what the Bible is saying. The Bible needs to win, and so that's a problem. But many Christians today don't seem to acknowledge the problem, and they're always waiting for new words from God, new words from God on how I'm to live my life and what we're to do when God has spoken, he's given us all we need right here in the Bible. Understand the point? But others argue for the practice of prophecy today, but they say the New Testament prophecy was not the same as Old Testament prophecy. We talked about this a good bit, and this is why. They say the New Testament prophecy is not without error. and as authoritative as the Bible itself. And they have some arguments from the New Testament to make that point. They would define prophecy as God bringing something to mind that's shared with others, but not God giving an authoritative without error message. See the difference? They would say Old Testament prophecy is God giving a message that doesn't have errors in it and that's authoritative. Whereas in the New Testament they would say prophecy means God bringing something to mind that I would share with others. And so they're saying that's below the level of biblical authority. And that's how they would say the prophecy continues today without competing with the Bible itself. An example of that is a book I have up here. It's called The Gift of Prophecy by Wayne Grudem. I don't know if any of you, some of you I know are familiar with Wayne Grudem because we've read through a couple of his books. But Wayne Grudem has written this book to argue that prophecy continues today and is like what I was just describing. Not like Old Testament prophecy, but God bringing something to mind that I share with others. We went through some of these arguments a couple of weeks ago. I'm not convinced by them. I've read most of the book and was not convinced by the arguments, but I would say he has plausible arguments. You can see how he could be faithful to the Bible and come to the conclusion that he comes to. Again, I wanna be fair when I'm talking about this. That being the case, I'm not convinced by his arguments. I'm more convinced by the big emphasis in the Old Testament on the authority of prophecy and the similarity of New Testament prophecy to that. And so it seems to me New Testament prophecy is the same as Old Testament prophecy, and therefore, dot, dot, dot, we're coming to that. So I would say that the gift of prophecy that's referenced in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 was a miraculous gift by which God communicated his revelation to his people. It's my understanding of the gift of prophecy, but I've told you what other people think it is, too. Okay, I want you to believe what I believe. That's why I'm presenting the argument, but I'm also being fair, so come to your own conclusion. But consider the biblical points, and hopefully I've been persuasive. Number two. tongues. Listed this one second because it's probably the second most prominent gift in the debate today. It's the most prominent gift among many charismatic Christians. It's what kind of identifies them as charismatic Christians. They think it's what proves that the Holy Spirit has brought the second blessing. The Holy Spirit has come to live or he's come to live in power. When we go back to Acts 2 where we see the gift of tongues first in the New Testament, we conclude there that it was speaking in foreign languages unknown to the speaker. That's what we see happening. They're speaking in languages they don't know, but others who do know those languages understand what they're saying. So human, foreign languages. We can assume the other occurrences in Acts, they occur a couple of other times in the book, were the same. but with less representative audiences. So we see tongues when the first non-Jews, the Gentiles, come to faith in Jesus, but there would have been a much smaller representation of languages there than there was present the first time when tongues were spoken at the day of Pentecost when there were people from all over the Roman Empire who were Jews who had come to Jerusalem who spoke all these other languages. I point that out just because in later occurrences, the tongues that were being spoken might not have been understood by all who were present there. So they weren't necessarily communicative in the same way, but they were evidence of the presence of the spirit, which was a big point. that the Apostle Peter made in Acts 2. He said, this is the fulfillment of the prophecy that Joel made, that God would pour out his spirit on your sons and daughters and they would prophesy. And it was being evidenced by speaking in these tongues. So it was proof that the spirit had come. And so when the Gentiles believe on Jesus, they get the spirit just like the Jews did. And later on, there are these disciples of John the Baptist who come to faith in Jesus more fully, and they also receive the Spirit, that's proof that they've received the Spirit just like the others who have believed in Jesus. And it's also a demonstration that the gospel is spreading to people of all languages and all ethnicities. That's a big thing. Go back in the Bible to the Old Testament, the Tower of Babel, God causes the nations to break up rather than just all living in one place by confusing their languages. which obviously presents an obstacle to giving them God's message. But God is overcoming that as the gospel is spreading out to people all over the world, which I think is one of the points of the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is a central topic in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. The Apostle Paul is correcting the misuse of this gift and a misemphasis. Apparently the Corinthians were making a big deal about the gift of tongues and making a smaller deal out of the other gifts and not showing love to those who didn't have the gift of tongues, which is what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about. It seems in most cases, from what we read in 1 Corinthians 14 especially, that these tongues would not have been understood. I say that because Paul is saying, unless there's an interpreter in the church, don't use tongues because it won't be understood. But if there's an interpreter, then go ahead and use them for the benefit of the rest of the body by them being interpreted into the understood language. Because of this, some people claim today that tongues in 1 Corinthians 12-14 weren't known foreign languages. That they were languages that humans don't speak. Perhaps they were angelic languages. 1 Corinthians 13 starts out with, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, and so they would say that perhaps tongues today are angelic languages rather than human foreign languages. And that would match what's observed today. I told you a couple of weeks ago that there have been studies done where people went into churches where tongues were being spoken and recorded them and then submitted them to those who are linguistic experts and there are no known foreign languages and they don't even match up with the patterns of typical human language. In fact, even in different countries where these languages, where tongues would be spoken, you would see that they match the pattern of that original language. So like Mike could tell you about this, in Korea there are certain sounds that you don't make if you're a native Korean speaker. And you would not hear those sounds made if a Korean was speaking in tongues. Make sense? And so they kind of match up with your original language but don't, cannot be identified as any known human language. And so I think this is possible, that this is what's going on in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. It's not a known human language, but I think it's unlikely. There's no passage between Acts and 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 to explain this change. So why did it go from known human languages to unknown languages? It's also not understood without interpretation in 1 Corinthians 14, once again as I explained, because there's a less representative audience, not as many languages being spoken, and so the need for an interpreter, because it was a language that was a human language, but wasn't represented in that congregation. That's my understanding of the gift of tongues, but I've explained to you what others think the gift of tongues is. But I think the gift of tongues referenced in these chapters was a miraculous gift by which the Spirit enabled a believer to speak usually praises to God in a language unknown by that person. And the gift of interpretation was just the ability to interpret tongues spoken in a language that the interpreter hadn't studied and known either. Okay, number three then is the gift of healing. This one's pretty obvious. God-given miraculous ability to heal someone of a sickness, disease, deformity, disability, something like that. There's no real debate today on the meaning of this gift, so we're moving on to number four, which is others. Other miraculous gifts listed here in 1 Corinthians 12. One of them you see is the working of miracles in verse 10. These would be supernatural works that weren't related to healing because they're distinguished from healing. So miracles that brought about provision, miracles that brought about protection. Once again, no real debate over the meaning of this gift today. Another one that's listed here in these verses is faith. You see that in verse 9. This is probably special God-given faith related to miraculous healing or other miraculous works. I say that because it's closely connected in this list to these gifts, and all Christians have some kind of faith. So this is some kind of special faith that's related to these miraculous works, but perhaps exercised more passively. So perhaps this is a person who prays with a great amount of faith and you see answers to those prayers in a special way. That would be my understanding of this gift. Also, in 1 Corinthians 12, you see the gift of distinguishing spirits. I think this is a supernatural ability given by God to distinguish false prophets or false teachers from true ones. And so this person has something of a direct ability from God to notice when someone is saying or prophesying something that is not from God, that's false. All right, this is a little explanation of these various gifts. Letter C, under one, the use of the miraculous gifts by the apostles and prophets. From 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, the example enacts, it appears that these miraculous gifts were given to various Christians within various churches. But a lot of the examples of the use of these gifts in the New Testament are by the apostles and other prophets. And Peter and Paul are probably the leading examples. And what's interesting is that it seems like in the book of Acts, Luke is paralleling the ministries of Jesus from the gospel that he wrote, and Peter in the first half of Acts, and Paul in the second half of Acts. And one of the ways he's doing that is showing that Peter and Paul performed the same kind of miracles that Jesus did. So these are the two leading examples, along with Jesus, of miracle work being done in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. Paul references the signs of a true apostle that were done among the Corinthians, and then he lists signs and wonders and mighty works being those signs. It's one of the proofs that a person was an apostle, that he was able to perform these miraculous works. So, these miraculous gifts were particularly evident in the work of the apostles, and the most logical conclusion is that it helped them in their role as apostles. And what was their role? It was to be eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ for the purpose of spreading the gospel and establishing the church throughout the earth. That's what the apostles were specially called to do, and along with that, they were specially equipped with gifts from the spirit to do it. Okay? All that was review, but I'm almost halfway through my notes, so we're still all right. Number two. Here's the conclusion I'm coming to. The miraculous gifts have not continued without change up to today. I'll explain what I mean by that purposeful language in just a second. It's usually stated today that there are two positions on this issue. Continuationists, can you guess what continuationists believe? the miraculous gifts continue. And cessationists, can you guess what cessationists believe? The miraculous gifts have ceased. It's usually stated there are two positions on this issue. Continuationists would include Pentecostals, if you're familiar with this language, Pentecostals, Charismatics, and third wave proponents. I'm using those terms to help you get an understanding of What those are, Pentecostals, Charismatics, and Third Wave proponents are somewhat distinguished from each other, but related in the idea that they believe that miraculous gifts continue. And by the way, the Third Wave, can you understand why they're called Third Wave? First, the Pentecostals in the kind of early 1900s, then the Charismatics like in the 1970s and 80s, and then the Third Wave. So that's why this all kind of is expressed the way it is. Sometimes you hear someone say, I'm a cautious continuationist. Understand what that would mean? I think the miraculous gifts continue, but I'm not sure how far they go. Or an open cessationist. So I don't think the miraculous gifts continue, but I could be wrong, okay? I prefer a third position, and it's just simply a non-continuationist. What I mean by that is point number two. The miraculous gifts have not continued without change up to today. So it affirms this second point I've made, but it also recognizes this next point, which is letter A. It is not definitively taught in the Bible that these gifts would have ceased by now. Look with me, if you will, at 1 Corinthians 13, verses eight through 10. We read there, love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. This passage is often used by cessationists because it's the only passage in the New Testament that comes close to affirming their position that the miraculous gifts have necessarily ceased. They claim that the perfect is the completed New Testament scriptures. So going back to the idea I was talking about before, the New Testament is the finalization of God's authoritative word, and then once it's done, no more miraculous gifts. That's their conclusion. But hopefully you can see from the context that that is a bit of a leap. Continuationists have rightly pointed out the flaws in this interpretation. Nothing in the text suggests that this is the New Testament Scriptures. Though it's understandable why this would be claimed, because we want to protect the special, final authority of the Bible. That's where this idea comes from, but it doesn't really come from this text. The New Testament text is authoritative, and prophecy should not be thought of as on the same level as the Bible, but I want to remind you of the position of someone like Wayne Grudem, who says prophecy continues, it's just not on the same level as the New Testament. The context indicates that the perfect is being in the presence of God. Look at verse 12. For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. What's he talking about? He's talking about being in the presence of God, right? It's fairly clear. So that's probably what the perfect that Paul refers to is here. When we're in the presence of God, we will have perfect knowledge. We won't need any of these lesser forms of knowledge, which includes these miraculous gifts. Continuationists then take this passage and argue that it means the gifts will continue until we're in the presence of Jesus Christ. And when properly interpreted, they actually have a better argument on their side. Does this passage mean, does it demand that the miraculous gifts will continue until then? Or can it just be a contrast with love? That's the whole point of 1 Corinthians 13, which lasts into eternity, whereas these gifts won't. I think that's the main point. Love lasts forever, even miraculous gifts stop at some point. I think that's the point of this passage. So though it's not taught explicitly here or anywhere else, that miraculous gifts would cease at certain point in history, it is indicated the office of an apostle would cease. That's letter B. The office of apostle has not been continued. This is indicated by the definition of an apostle. In Greek, this word just means a sent one. So it can have a general reference to someone who was sent. He's an apostle. You might think lowercase a, apostle. but it also has a specific reference. First of all, it was applied to Jesus' 12 specially chosen disciples. In Mark 3, 14, it tells us that he chose them and called them apostles. So he gave this word kind of a technical sense. It's just these 12. You have to subtract Judas from this list, obviously, because he betrayed Jesus, but he's replaced by Matthias in Acts chapter one. So we're back to 12, 12 apostles. But then you have to add Paul to this list, and probably James, the brother of Jesus, too. Because in Galatians 1.19, Paul says, I didn't go to any of the other apostles except James. And so James must be an apostle. First Corinthians 15, seven through nine, Paul writes that Christ appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all is to one untimely born, he appeared to me also, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. So Paul is clearly claiming he's an apostle, so is James, and so are the other 12. So I'm concluding 14, capital A, apostles. It's also indicated by the purpose of the office of apostle. In Ephesians 2, 19 and 20, we read this. You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So in other words, it seems as though the apostles were uniquely chosen and uniquely gifted for the establishment of the church. Their use of miraculous gifts supported them in this foundational and very important work. It's worth noting in these verses the presence of prophets alongside apostles in this passage, and again, in Ephesians in chapter 3, verse 5. And the gift of the office of a prophet is also listed right after the gift of the office of an apostle in Ephesians 4 and in 1 Corinthians 12. You can notice that if you're still looking at 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 in verse 28. So I conclude that the prophets were also a foundational office. These two working together to lay the ground for the church. And that, according to Ephesians 4, Evangelists and pastors and teachers carry on what the apostles and prophets began, what they founded. Church leaders in early church history noted the passing of the office of apostle. You can read their writings in church history and they think that the office of apostle went away. And alongside this historical fact, we also see in church history that letter C Use of the miraculous gifts has decreased in frequency and intensity. Use of the miraculous gifts has decreased in frequency and intensity. It's never been completely absent, but definitely out of the mainstream. You see this down through church history. You see the use of miraculous gifts in fringe, oftentimes heretical groups, ones that didn't believe accurate doctrine about the Bible. It's not reported with the same kind of certainty and power as what we read in Acts, even when it is present in these fringe groups. This is evident in the records of church history. It's also evident today. And so what we often view today is that tongues isn't speaking in human languages unknown to the speaker, but in some kind of unknown language. That sounds different than what we read in the Book of Acts. Tongues is often used then in private prayer. So it's different than what we see originally in the Book of Acts. Prophecy today. isn't a certain authoritative message from God, but a subjective impression and a message that could be wrong. Sharing something with somebody that God laid on my heart. So it's different than what we read in the New Testament. Healings are often for things like back pain rather than paralysis or death. So it's different than what we see in the New Testament. And these points aren't absolute because there are indications of some things I'm gonna come to in just a moment where we do see things today that sometimes seem to be like what we read in the New Testament. But I think they're observable in general. Further, there are many churches with no evidence of the presence and practice of these gifts. So it could be that it's because Christians are disobedient or distrusting. That's why the miraculous gifts aren't present. But I'm not convinced that that adequately factors in the sovereignty of God in giving these gifts. The Spirit gives these gifts where he wants, and they kind of happen, even when they're not expected. And so I'm not sure that that's a good answer, that Christians are just disobedient and distrusting, and that's why we don't see the gifts in all the churches. So I don't want to say that the miraculous gifts have completely forever ceased, but I do conclude they haven't continued with the same frequency and intensity as what we read in the New Testament. This conclusion does not ignore the reality, however, that number three, God still performs miracles today. I want to end our study of the miraculous gifts with this final main point. And I think that points two and three are really complimentary and fit well with letter A, a historical perspective on miracles. And I mean the history that reaches back into the scriptures, beginning in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and carrying through Revelation, the last book of the Bible. When we consider the broad sweep of the history covered in the Bible, we see that, number one, miracles are present in all periods of history. This is obviously true of the New Testament, but it only covers the period of Jesus and the apostles. So that's not surprising. But it's true of the Old Testament as well. We find supernatural interventions. all across the 1500 plus years covered in the Old Testament, whether that's prophetic messages from God to Abraham early on, or to the later prophets, or it's the miracle of conception at such an advanced age for Abraham's wife, Sarah, early on in the Bible, in the Old Testament, or the immediate healing of King Hezekiah by God in response to prayer, which is rather late in the Old Testament history. So miracles are present in all periods of history covered in all the Bible. Though this is observable, it's also clear that number two, miracles increase in frequency and intensity at certain points in salvation history. Once again, it's not surprising to see miraculous work in the life and ministry of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament because they are establishing the gospel and establishing the church. But this also fits the pattern we see in the Old Testament. The first real cluster of frequent and intense miracles is when? Think back. In your Old Testament. Getting out of Egypt. The exodus, as we refer to it. Under Moses, and also, along with that, the conquest under Joshua. See a lot of supernatural intervention in the life and ministry of Moses and Joshua. The next real cluster of frequent and intense miracles that we see is in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. This is at a very critical moment in the history of Israel when the nation was in serious danger of being lost completely in idolatry and losing their identity as the people of God. See a lot of miracles under the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. But the rest of Old Testament history includes occasional miracles. but nothing matching the intensity of the miracles done during the ministries of Moses and Joshua and Elijah and Elisha. So you can see how the establishment of the church through the gospel of Christ fits this pattern. It's a really important moment in salvation history. Some would take that then and argue that the scriptures indicate that this miraculous activity we see in the gospels and we see in Acts would characterize the entire New Testament or New Covenant age. I'm not convinced this is necessary to conclude. You can see why it's really important for the foundation of it. It's also hard to square with what we see in history. And even what we see in the latter parts of the New Testament. You see less emphasis on the miraculous works in the later letters of the New Testament. There's not a huge emphasis on them. A lot of what we considered so far has been instructional to help you think biblically and accurately about this important issue. But now I want to turn to and conclude with letter B, present day application. This isn't just for the sake of taking a particular stance. It's for your life. It's for life in the church. First, it's important that we think biblically about all this because number one, we do not want to credit work to God that he is not doing. If we're claiming God is doing something and he's not, we're unreliable messengers. We want to be accurate in our beliefs and trustworthy in our message. Even worse, if we're making inaccurate claims, we're probably focused on the wrong things rather than focusing on what God is doing, where he is working. We want to have our attention on what he is doing. So if God is not working through the gifts of prophecy, tongues, healing, et cetera, as he was during the time of the apostles, we don't want to wrongly claim that he is, right? But even more importantly, number two, we do not wanna discredit work that God is doing. I'm gonna start by saying that I think there's a special warning For those who argue that claims of miraculous work today should be attributed to the work of other spiritual powers, evil ones in particular. I'm very sobered by Jesus' words regarding the unpardonable sin. It's a bad thing to attribute to Satan what the Holy Spirit is doing. So be warned about that. But even if we don't go this far, we don't want to say that God isn't doing something when he is. That's to take away from his glory. We don't want to miss being part of what God's doing either. That definitely includes any miraculous work he's doing. And we should expect miraculous work in our time, just as throughout all history. I'm gonna read a small section to you from The Gift of Prophecy at the end of the book on Charles Spurgeon. Are you familiar with Charles Spurgeon? Very well-known pastor in the late 1800s. This is written about Spurgeon. It may have been written by Spurgeon, in fact. There were many instances of remarkable conversions at the music hall. One especially was so singular that I have often related it as a proof that God sometimes guides his servants to say what they would themselves never have thought of uttering, in order that he may bless the hearer for whom the message is personally intended. While preaching in the hall on one occasion, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the crowd and said, there's a man sitting there who is a shoemaker. He keeps his shop open on Sundays. It was open last Sabbath morning. He took nine pence and there was four pence profit out of it. His soul is sold to Satan for four pence. I'm not going to get onto those issues right now. Just listen. A city missionary, when going his rounds, met with this man, and seeing that he was reading one of my sermons, he asked the question, Do you know Mr. Spurgeon? Yes, replied the man. I have every reason to know him. I have been to hear him, and under his preaching, by God's grace, I have become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Shall I tell you how it happened? I went to the music hall and took my seat in the middle of the place. Mr. Spurgeon looked at me as if he knew me, and in his sermon he pointed to me and told the congregation that I was a shoemaker. that I kept my shop open on Sundays, and I did, sir. I should not have minded that, but he also said that I took nine pence the Sunday before, that there was four pence profit out of it. I did take nine pence that day, and four pence was just the profit. But how he should know that, I could not tell. Then it struck me that it was God who had spoken to my soul through him, so I shut up my shop the next Sunday. At first I was afraid to go again to hear him, lest he should tell the people more about me. But afterwards I went, and the Lord met with me and saved my soul. I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed at someone in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it. What does that sound like? That kind of sounds like New Testament prophecy. I've shared this story with you from some of the missionaries we pray for, Jonathan and Sarah Farmer. About two years ago, only like three months after they had gotten to the country where they serve, Jonathan had passed out. looked almost as though he was dead. They later found out he was having a vasovagal response. If you know what that is, something in a nerve isn't operating properly and stress can make you faint. And Sarah wrote this update to what happened. Obviously very scary. She's in this other country, doesn't speak the language, and thinks her husband is either dead or dying. She said, as I ran to get help, I prayed. This is what she prayed. God, I've only been here three months. My language is limited, but please gift me with language tonight. I ran outside and started yelling. Talong, talong. Anybody know what that means? Yeah, please help. So maybe somebody has the gift of interpretation. Our neighbors started running towards our house to help. As they came into our house, I was able to explain everything to them in Indonesian. How great is our God, he supernaturally gave me language. What does that sound like? It kind of sounds like the gift of tongues that we read about in Acts. Kind of. You've heard Dan and Colleen Wright share the stories of what God has done in Little Eliana. Excuse me. Several times, almost 180 degree turn from what the doctors were saying about how she was doing. Even something recently that Dan shared where a specialist was concerned about her communication and then came back and said, well, all of a sudden she's communicating at a level that's consistent with her gestational age. What does that sound like? Could be providential healing and help, but sounds to me like some miraculous healing in response to our prayers. I wanna give God credit for all these things and be ready for Him to do them in my life and our church when He wants. I'm convinced that if we give ourselves to what we know He's doing, He'll do what He wants in and through us if we're yielded to the Spirit and trusting in the Spirit's powerful work. The matter of the miraculous gifts is a difficult one, but it's an important one. It's a divisive issue, in some ways unavoidably, because of differences in practice, differences in emphasis, But there are some who advocate the continuing work of the miraculous gifts as they were in the New Testament, with the same frequency, the same intensity, who are seeking to follow the scriptures. We need to appreciate that and be fair about that, even if many others are not following the scripture. But in some ways, it's divisive unnecessarily because there are those who adhere to the Bible. They make plausible arguments even if we're not convinced by them. We ought to appreciate their desire for the Holy Spirit to be at work in the church and in spreading the gospel. We should have that same desire. It's an important issue because we need and want all the work that the Holy Spirit is doing so that Christians grow and so that unbelievers are saved. We need to know what that work is then. So, this is how I think we respond. We give ourselves to the word of God. It is God's certain, objective, authoritative revelation. We know that God's word is powerful, that God's will is behind it. Remember, he spoke the world into existence. Remember, he speaks and gives life. He will come back and speak and destroy his enemies. His word is powerful. We know that the Holy Spirit uses the Word. It's called the sword of the Spirit. So if we want the Spirit's powerful work, we know He will work through the Word. So God's Word will accomplish His purposes, both in us and through us, to build us up in Christ and to make us effective witnesses of Christ. And then we also commit ourselves to prayer, expressing our reliance on God and specifically God the Holy Spirit in belief that God will sovereignly do his work in us and through us as we submit to him. Whether that's the typical work of grace through his word and by the spirit or the occasional miraculous works of grace for the furtherance of the gospel and the good and growth of his people. And perhaps even more than this if my or our conclusions about this aren't exact. and we serve God and serve each other with the gifts the Spirit has given. Out of love for Him, love for others. 1 Corinthians 13, that's the main thing. Not seeking to be impressive, but seeking to serve God and love others. So let's devote ourselves to what we know God will bless. We know He will bless His word and prayer and trust Him to work as He knows best according to His sovereign wisdom and grace. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for your word. It's enough for us. This is a bit of a difficult issue that takes a lot of study. It's unfortunately a divisive issue in the church, which keeps us separated from one another. We ask that you would cause those who are just disregarding your word in their practice of these gifts to regard your word and bring their practice into line with it, and perhaps even be convinced by it of a different position. So take away unbiblical practice of these gifts for the sake of unity in the church. Give us charity and fairness with others who disagree with us on how to interpret certain points of the Bible. But help us to be convinced from your word what is accurate, what's right. We don't want to be saying that you're working in things where you're not really working. We want our eyes focused on where you are working. We also don't want to miss what you are doing, so please help us not to. Please help us to devote ourselves to what we know you have and will bless. You will bless your word. You will bless the prayers of your people. So help us to be devoted to these things and trust that you will accomplish all your purposes by your power and by the Holy Spirit. And bring about supernatural miraculous work whenever it serves your purposes. Help us not to stand against you, but to submit to you by faith when you choose to work in that way, that you might be glorified, that your purposes might be accomplished. In all things, please help us to use the gifts that you have clearly given to us by the Spirit for your glory and the good of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray these things in his name, amen.