Book of 1 Corinthians - Ch. 12, Vs. 1-31 (02/04/2001)

As we begin today, 1 Corinthians 12 .1,

I would like for you to turn to 1 Timothy, the second chapter, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

Jesse, you asked me a question last week, and I answered it, but not fully.

Bill, read verses 11, 12, 13, and 14. 1

Timothy. I begin with the verse,

Let the women learn to be in silence with all subjugation. But I suffered not a woman to teach, nor to observe the authority of a man, but to be in silence.

For Adam was firstborn, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but a woman being deceived was in her transgression.

The woman is not to preach. It does not mean that she cannot testify.

She cannot talk. But it does mean that the woman cannot preach.

And thinking that was what you were referring to, I answered no. But I felt like it needed clarifying.

And so I have done. Now we come to 1

Corinthians 12. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren,

I would not have you to be ignorant. Does he mean that the people are ignorant?

What is the purpose of spiritual gifts? All right.

Do you realize that the conviction of your mind is not in your power?

It is the Holy Spirit. The strongest arguments will not convince a man unless the

Holy Spirit convinces him. Do you understand that? Bill?

Yes, sir. In fact, if a strong argument convinces you of something, then a stronger argument will convince you of it.

So we would never be in a position to argue so long as we are able to figure something out.

All right. Second verse. Know ye that ye were

Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led.

Dumb idols. Dumb submission to dumb idols is what it amounts to.

In this state you are ignorant. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by, and it should be in, the

Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the

Lord, but by, or in, the Holy Ghost. This shows where man lives, how he talks.

Mark 9 .39 But Jesus said,

Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me.

It follows that if he can speak well of God, then he should.

Matthew 16 .17 And Jesus answered and said unto him,

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed unto thee, but my

Father which is in heaven. So we see that all revelation comes from God.

Romans 12 .4 Now should be, but there are diversities of gifts, but the same

Spirit. This requires yet another gift that I don't know if you have thought about or not.

The gift or the power to interpret them. Romans 12 .4

,5 ,6 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given us.

The members he compares to a body.

We have a hand, a foot, eyes, nose, lots of internal organs that are never seen.

There are differences of administration, but the same Lord. This means manifestation of the gifts.

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Ephesians 4 .4 Therefore there is one body, one spirit, even as you are called in the hope of your calling.

Do you think everybody has a gift? Everyone?

Well, all believers. Do you think Greg has a gift? Do you think

Virg has a gift? Do you think

Clarence has a gift? He says all believers have a gift.

It's not just to hold down a pew. And there are diversities of operation, but it is the same

God which worketh all in all. The same God.

Ephesians 1 .23 Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

Romans 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love

God, them that are called according to his purpose. That scripture could not be true if everyone didn't have a gift.

Do you think that the youngest child that is a believer has a gift?

Or do you have to be an adult? It's a believer's gift. All right.

Now I'm not going to try to decipher the gifts. But the manifestation of the

Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. Now, profit withal means what?

Make good use of. All right, what does that mean? It's to benefit everyone.

All right, to benefit everyone. Clarence? I think it's to be used for the work of the

Savior. All right.

David? Yes, sir. That was short.

For to one is given the Spirit of the word of wisdom.

To another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit. What's the difference between wisdom and knowledge?

Greg? Wisdom is the application. Bill? That's what

I'm supposed to say. David? It's true.

However, these phrases, these sort of word formulas, words, wisdom, word of knowledge, actually give us different experiences.

The type of prophetic ability to stand in the congregation and say,

God said this, and it would actually be inspired in a sense, not inspired, but it would be

God speaking to the whole congregation. If I view those as part of the prophetic gifts, does it refer to certain things that have ceased or will cease?

Do you think they've all ceased? I think all of them have signed gifts. All right, in the second chapter of 1

Corinthians, how be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery which

God ordained before the world unto our glory. How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of the world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught.

To another, faith. I thought we all had faith. Diane, what about faith?

To another, faith by the same spirit. Clarence?

Clarence? If you join all our cathedrals, with our faith in the psalmations, faith in the

Bible, faith in the Holy Scriptures, let me faith in our other members, our other churches,

Christians, they will work, work. All right, that's getting close to it.

Say Bill had a problem, and he was about to give up on it, but for some reason a person comes to him and expresses that I know you can go through this.

I know how it's going to come out. I know this is faith of that person.

1 Corinthians 3, 2, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all the knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity,

I am nothing. Everything must be in love. The correction, rebuking, praise, everything.

To another, the working of miracles. Have they ceased?

David? No, this gift has ceased. God still does miracles, but this is referring to people in the body, beginning with the dead and so forth.

Most all of these gifts that are listed here were given by God at certain times in order to authenticate the message with which you have created the apostles.

Associates, those who have been with the testaments. God has had another kind of period in the past, such as proposes, he authenticated proposes.

He said this is my land, this is my voice, peace. He did it with Elijah. Elijah, as he authenticated the prophet, the prophet, and he comes here and does it with Jesus, the apostle, as he authenticates those who are going to give us success.

So the purpose of miracles, contrary to popular belief today, has never been humanistic.

Designed to help people, if that were true, God would just heal everyone. The design is to glorify

God and to enforce his word, glorify his word, and once the purpose of a miracle ceases, then the miracle ceases.

So I believe once the word of God was completed, then these gifts began to pass off the scene very quickly.

Back on the, not today, but next week, I'll be passing out a copy of the sermon

I preached a while back, and I provide these, I have all these studies here for you. The one you're going to get next week is full of historical information, as well as good information about this very question.

So if you're interested, take a look at that. All right. To another, the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another diverse kinds of tongues, what's that mean?

Greg? All right, that certainly has passed away.

And to another interpretation of tongues, discerning of spirits, that has passed away, except I think there are those that are able to determine the true from the false spirit.

By talking with you, looking at you, I think they can determine very quickly whether you're spiritual or not.

I think most of us have that to some degree. But all these work of that one and self -same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will.

So he controls it. If it's gone, he controls it. If it comes, he controls that.

Yes? I think that's a great design. The modern theology today teaches people to seek these very gifts.

And the fact is, the Bible says, these are divided severally as God will, which means they're sovereign gifts.

There was never a case where everyone had any of these gifts. In fact, sometimes no one has any of these gifts.

But if God desires the gift to be so, then he places it at his will.

So you cannot choose your gift. You can't teach through the people that if you don't speak in tongues, you're not striving for God, you don't have the deeper life yet.

So strive towards that. It has nothing to do with the will of man. It has all to do with God's bestowing of gifts in his own body where he wants them.

So like you said, I can put it very well. If they're gone, it's because he took them away.

It's not because they can't have them still. He chose not to bestow them. And if they come back, it's because he chose to do it.

It's all of God. You don't have to sit around and hope you had one of these or try to thank yourself and have them.

These gifts are a lot of these gifts are ones that have passed away.

I just try to keep the faith of whatever to validate, verify, and possibly to learn

Jesus is who he was. It's more of a discernment or a discernment of the spirits.

I used to play it again on the sermon. And if you go back to verse 7, it says, put all the men and women as the patients on the security team each one for the profit of all.

That'll all with the first verse talking about not being ignorant. That you don't want to be ignorant.

Tie them together. That is critically important that all members on the church body use their gifts to the fullest that God has bestowed upon them.

Whether it's the sermon, whether it's just the ministration, or just the witness to people, or for a pastor to finish the service.

But it's all, all members of the body, even the smallest one can say a word of scripture about it.

The ugliest organs, where they'll sometimes have the strongest or functions.

And so I think the ones that look more glamorous at least, but I think it's critical that it's gifts that everyone gives to themselves.

And even being anointed and it's a careful, I mentioned the slab, that all members of the church body use the gifts

God has bestowed upon them. That's right. Now these gifts that are listed, most of them have passed away, some have not.

But it does not limit the gifts just to these that are mentioned.

We all have gifts. We all are functioning in this body. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is

Christ. We are members of Christ. There are many members in a church, some of them we don't ever see.

Some of the most important members in a church are the ones quietly serving the

Lord. Those that never make a stir, never voice an opinion.

Those that just quietly go about steadily glorifying God. For the body is not one member, but many.

If a foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

Well, I don't have it. Read it. That got cut out somehow.

To be baptized into one body, that's not speaking about water. There's not water in that verse at all.

It's speaking about spiritual baptism. We all belong to the same body.

Does anyone have a problem with that? Denominations are man -made.

And if the ears shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not in the body, it is therefore not of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the smelling be?

The same gift is not given to everybody. But now hath

God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it pleased who?

Himself. As it pleased himself. As it pleased himself.

Then dare I find fault with someone? No. I best not.

And if they were all one member, where were the body?

And now are they many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand,

I have no need of thee. Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

Nay, much more these members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.

Is there any part of your body you could give up without suffering loss? And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor, and our uncommon parts have more abundant commonness.

For our common parts have no need, but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacks.

That there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another.

There should not be any schism. What's that word mean, Burge? No confusion,

Brother. I'm sure. But there should be an impartial body for it. They ought to go together.

All right. No confusion. No arguments.

No... No splits. Nothing. That would revolutionize the church, wouldn't it?

There just shouldn't be any arguments. We should know that the body, this body is functioning according to God.

Brother, I noticed you had that also, though. It would be something.

I don't think we could even comprehend it with no argument like that. This church has very little argument on it. I mean, there would be no need for all these denominations, you see, ever were either.

But we'd all be one body of Christ, not like the Baptist, Methodist, and all that. That's right.

Absolutely. We can't help but get denominations into it, and we shouldn't.

They're all there for one purpose.

And whether one member suffer, all members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

You don't know how good it feels to put on shoes that don't hurt your feet and walk on them.

Because when your feet hurt, you hurt all over. Now, you are the body of Christ and members in particular.

You are the body and members in particular. You occupy the space reserved for you.

You cannot occupy this space and work in some other. You cannot be something else.

You have to be what you are. There is no division.

There's no schism. There's no arguments about it.

One person out of place can disrupt the entire thing. And God has said some in the church, first apostles, accordingly, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps government diversity of tongues.

We've touched on diversity of tongues, speaking a language that you have not learned.

Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles?

The answer to that would be no. What if we had all preachers in our church?

Having all the gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show

I unto you a more excellent way. What's he talking about, a more excellent way?

Yes. How can you covet what's gone? How can you covet what's gone? You have to live in the past to do that, and that's wrong.

Well, if the things are gone, how can you covet? It's a big list of miracles to covet the best gifts.

In other words, he's saying don't desire. If you go into his book, you'll see that he's saying don't desire something like the gift of tongues.

Desire to be able to teach people. Desire to be able to help people be disciples and grow the Lord. That would be a better gift, instead of coveting that.

It's really more of a negative statement than a positive statement, because as you go into his book, you see that he's trying to tone down some of these gifts like tongues, where they had a problem in the church that everybody was wanting to show more of their gift in a private way.

He's saying that's not the best gift. So that's the point. We had already established the fact that everybody has a gift, but they're not all listed here.

So to covet earnestly the best gifts would be everybody promote or work in your own gift, whatever it is.

In the way that the Lord has made us. Yes, yes.

Another thought, too, about this whole passage, what we would consider to be the interior parts of the body already lifted up.

God's honored by God more than the others. So he's actually summing the whole passage up by saying rather than coveting the things that people would see, the outward showing things, like those people, those people.

Wow, everybody would ask, why are you speaking this language? You can't speak because God gave that to me, not you, so I'm special.

He said don't covet that kind, covet the, I think it implies covet the secret things that God allows you to do to help other people that they may never know about.

That's the greater gift. I think that's right. And to get back, well,

I've forgotten your question now. No, I, and I believe that faith, the kids' faith as a form of encouragement, to encourage them, that is not wrong.

And I believe all these religions, however, none of them will work unless you have a strong love of Christ.

Jesus didn't even want to give that for that person. And so if you say,

Lord, I want this faith for this person, but let me get through this illness, I believe it's painless.

And I will make you a covetous and then he will, he gives it to you. Not that you want it bad enough, but he loved us enough to help us to grow in Christ.

He doesn't want to give it. Now, I'm going to have to study this, show that that's not your thing, because I would have to have ignorance.

I believe he wants us to know. And what he doesn't want us to do, I've never believed in God, I've never cared about anyone that didn't want me to stay away, but I've never stayed away from people of faith, or people that had wisdom in the word of God, or knowledge in the word of God.

I've never stayed away from people that, like miracle people, I've stayed away, because he's never shown it.

If it glorified them, I'd stay away. If I saw Christ Jesus in them,

I'd cut with them. So I'm confused. Well, you needn't be confused, because you're agreeing with David 100%, that the original use of these was slightly different than today.

We have people in the audience that have an extra amount of faith.

We do have people that have, oh, what can we say?

Well, everybody has their own gift. Now, whether it was spelled out in here or not, it's still a gift that you have.

If it happens to be spelled out, then you work on it. You use it.

But... Can I ask you a question? Peter could always heal people, but there were times when

God's gift was there. And everybody knew it was Christ Jesus. Yes.

I mean, you walked away saying, our Lord did this. So in knowing that,

I believe these are there. The biggest problem is us. Well, they're not all there, though.

You're partially right, and not completely right. But you are right in saying that faith is there.

There is such a thing as knowledge and wisdom, but there's not such a thing as the word of knowledge.

That's all I said a long ago. So no one is saying that there aren't gifts. There are many gifts, but it's not all listed here.

That's right. Some gifts that are specifically listed are not offered to you right now for thoughts on reasons, and they could be at any moment when we decide to do that again.

But the ones that have to do with authenticating the word of God, such as the sign of speaking and the prophecy, which is to give the word of God, which you don't need that if you have a

Bible. If you want to use the word of God, you can say a prophet is a preacher or a teacher.

You want to get real technical with the terms, so there really aren't any prophets right now. I'd give it that way, because the word of God is the word.

So it is a very technical thing to study. I think next week when I pass the thing out, it would be real helpful.

Although it doesn't really join all these gifts, but it does speak about some of the ones that have ceased to exist.

And why they have, actually, is because the church, since long ago, is maybe 100 million people that broke that law until it's in these boxes.

Some of these are gone. They're not all gone. God will give the faith when they need it at a certain time for a specific purpose.

And I think discernment is not gone because even though we don't have, you can see how it would be needed more back then when anybody could just stand up and say,

God told me this is the scripture. Well, somebody else has to stand up and say, no, it's not. You're wrong.

Or else, yes, I identify with that, but it's not gone. But we still have a slight use for this, or it's really important use.

It's just to a lesser degree because we still have people who will twist scripture. They say the

Bible teaches this. Well, someone that God gives gives discernment. Well, no one has learned it.

That's not right. That's right. And what's interesting about the gifts is when it talks about gifts, it doesn't mean that other people don't have some of this.

For example, there's one called the gift of giving. It's not listed in this proof, but it's listed in the gift of giving.

That means that there are some people that the Holy Spirit places on them where it's like their thing, but all of us have to give and they all reflect what

God commands us. It's just not as easy for us to give as it is for those who give. That gives it.

So faith is a good example here to give for faith. All of us have faith. We have to have faith, but we're not even saying it.

We certainly have faith to believe the Word to whatever His purpose for us is. But some people have faith to come from the moon and mountains for a purpose.

So it can be confusing studying these because it might make you think that if you have them and you don't, it's not really that way.

All of us have a bit of faith. I think all of us have a bit of discernment. That's right.

Some may get a strong reporting. And there are. In fact, some of these you just don't get right and tell what you might.

As we go into the tribulation period and we approach that time, the prophet Joel says they're going to come back including the gift of promise.

And I think that's partially because the antichrist is going to destroy all of us. You don't have a need for someone to get up and say this is

God's Word. That's right. And he has a good start on it with all of the various translations.

Well, that's true. We're going to cover that today. We're going to start on that. What did you say?

No one may disagree with what you're saying. No. No. What was the last thing you said?

I am. I am. Okay. These people, that's what we're about today.

These people that say if you don't do this, if you don't do this, you don't have faith. If God gives you, it's basically going back to Paul's teaching.

And it's all right. But I know, we talked about it on Friday night.

This guy that worked in Paul's study. There's a poor old rocker that you know.

I was listening to him. And he studied the Scripture. And he said, today you can see the Word. Yes.

In verse 29, where it says, all apostles, all prophets, all teachers, can all speak the truth.

They're teaching against their very principles, saying we've got to give to this. We've got to speak the truth so we can understand it.

But they don't all believe that. Don't get that wrong either. They don't all believe that. Unless you're sure there's certainly some of their teachers who do teach that.

And I was saying that Friday night we talked about the guy that worked with David who was an apostle or a priest or a young kid in a situation.

But he believes, he thinks, whatever it is, that everybody has the gift of healing.

We don't have that. So if we did rock him, he would still be alive. But he's so poor.

He's so poor. He's so poor.

He's so poor. He's so poor. He's so poor.

that because it wasn't superficial, how did it occur? So we act as if we don't know anything.

Anytime anybody says I have such and such, you've got to be careful.

Because they don't need to repeat it. You shouldn't repeat it. And... I was in an apostle study.

Yes. You know, the problem, what was earlier, the problem of discussion of conflict and churches not, you know, not having arguments.

I'm not so sure today that churches are not known first in the sense that no one makes a stand.

No one states what is right and what is spiritual. Instead, they say we don't cause any emotions.

So there's no stance. Those tenets fade. You're right there. And it's a problem. It's one way or another way.

There was a preacher, I don't know if they went up to India or somewhere. Anyway, he was talking about in Canada, there's two, one, people that got married in the same sect.

And the church, many of the people in the church didn't know the scriptures to verify that they were wrong.

And no one would stand up and say, this is wrong. How can members of the church not make a stand on such an issue?

We don't understand that at all. Yes. In 2

Corinthians 8, 4, it says, pray with us, Russian tribute, that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of ministering to the saints.

And it moves on down to 7, it says, therefore, if we allow in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that we allow and we raise also.

I'm still struggling in the fact that all those things are available.

Well, that was Paul talking. Yeah, and he was wanting them. I guess he didn't want them.

That last scripture that you said, when it says, we all have that, I think he was trying to get us to get off of those.

They're there for you, the Lord will give them to you if you so desire. But what we should really desire is the love.

And then in loving the person, he gives you what's needed. That's right. So, I can't...

Well, I can see your problem. Yes? I think we need to go back and determine what it is.

They're given to edify the church and they're given by God and if we see that we're in Christ and he's given to give to some person that it's for edifying the church and we question does it edify the church.

If it controls, if it controls, or it tries to get the person to follow you, then that's not

God. No. If it has a controlling spirit, it's wrong. If it has a spirit to build up the body of freedom and to cause that person to glorify

God's name, meaning that they go back to the Lord, they go back to the Lord, they go back to church, they go back to repent, they go back to...

Then that is what he wants it for, to build up the body.

That's why he doesn't want his ignorance. But if he brings them to depend on you as a person, then you know right there it's wrong.

So that's why he said it was the person and I go back to the Lord. I try to give them Scripture and if the

Scripture from a person doesn't cause them to go to the Lord, then it's wrong. So it's the controlling spirit that...

What I want to say is... If you realize the theory that speaking to the church as a whole is not speaking to you as an individual, and it does in a sense, but it's not saying...

Each one of you individually can sit there and say I want to be a preacher. God let me preach.

I want to be a teacher. He's telling the whole group of us together that as a group we should covet or pray that the

Lord would place within our body the parts He wants there. It has nothing to do...

See, you're trying to make this to an individual. I understand. I think you divide this thing.

You say, you need to covet these gifts. You can't...

Since they are given sovereignly by God, you can't covet them. If you think covet means that I can pray for them together, that's not what it means.

He's talking to all of us corporately as a body. This local church and greater churches as well, but specifically, this is a local church passage.

If we as a local church could covet it, if we as a body could be given by God equal to who

He has given the right gifts to make this church be equal, then you have to bring it all together and solve it for Him.

And I don't know why I didn't think to say that a little while ago. It would be a contradiction if you thought it meant that you could pray and get people to do it.

Then it's not. It's all bestowed by God. It's all in man's hands. See, that's what's happening.

We have whole churches today that want to be a timespeaking church. So you go to that church, everybody can do what he's had for these people.

These gifts are legitimate. Why is it that God Why is it that God has given these things sovereignty that He put them all over here in this one

Pentecostal church and spread them around in some other city so that it proves to me that you can't covet in the sense of an individual saying,

God, let me speak in tongues, which is what they do. And that's inappropriate.