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- Good evening and welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley of Witton Baptist Church. This is part three of our series on the
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- Holy Spirit, and we've gone over how the Holy Spirit was prophesied in the
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- Old Testament. We've gone over how he is the sign of the new covenant of the indwelling.
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- And we've gone over that what he testifies about is Jesus. 1 Peter 1 -2 says we are sanctified by the
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- Spirit to obey Jesus. Jesus says the Holy Spirit hears the point people to Jesus and that the
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- Holy Spirit will teach all things and remind us of everything Jesus told us. The Holy Spirit's job is to proclaim the name of Jesus, to conform us to the image of Jesus, to point us back to Jesus.
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- That's the job of the Holy Spirit. Today we're going to talk about how the Holy Spirit is sovereign over the gifts.
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- Now as we said before God is triune, okay, and each person of the Godhead, remember one being three persons, has different roles, different jobs if you want to think of it that way.
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- And they intertwine and interact sometimes like in salvation. The Father elects us, chooses us.
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- The Son dies for us, redeems us, buys us back. The Holy Spirit seals us and sanctifies us to that image.
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- That's broad terms, but that's the the roles. Well, you cannot live the
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- Christian life without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one indwelling us, sanctifying us. Sometimes the
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- Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. One of the things he does is he gives us gifts, spiritual gifts, spirit.
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- See that? And the idea of these gifts is to help us be the church that Jesus established, okay?
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- So we've gone over this before. You know, if I take off my ear and I throw it on the ground, it can't do much hearing on its own, and it's useless on its own.
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- But if I take that ear and put it back in the body, it becomes very useful. So it is with the body of Christ.
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- Jesus goes over this. Paul goes over this. If you are part of the body of Christ, that means you have a purpose as part of a larger body, okay?
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- Christians on their own are not on their own, not plugged into a local church, are not fulfilling everything
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- God had intended for them as being part of a church. They're a body part with no body to work in.
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- Of course, God gave gifts as far as leaders in the church, first apostles, then prophets, then teachers, and pastors, and so on and so forth.
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- But also, God gave gifts to individual members to use as part of a larger body.
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- There's no one list of these gifts that has all of them in Scripture. You have to look at all the
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- New Testament to combine them, and I think the reason for that is God puts different type gifts in different local bodies to serve different purposes.
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- For example, here at Witten, we have a lot of first -generation believers. We also have a lot of people with the gift of teaching.
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- I don't think that's a mistake. I think God gave Witten a bunch of people with the spiritual gift of teaching because we have so many new
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- Christians. Well, one of those lists of gifts is in Romans 12, verse 3 through 8.
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- Let's read Romans 12, 3 through 8. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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- For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.
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- Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy and proportion in our faith, if service in our serving, if in teaching in teaching, the one who exhorts in his sorry, one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal or gives aid and zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.
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- So we see that list there in Romans 12, but check out, and this is what we'll spend the rest of our time, 1st Corinthians 12.
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- In 1st Corinthians 12, verse 4, it says this, for there are varieties of gifts with the same spirit, varieties of service with the same
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- Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
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- To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. For to one is, through the spirit, is an utterance of wisdom, to another an utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by one spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, the servant, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongue.
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- All these are empowered by one in the same spirit who appoints to each of them individually as he wills.
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- It's amazing that with a name like spiritual gifts that people could ever become conceited because it wasn't yours to begin with, it was given to you by God.
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- And he gives out these gifts to individuals as he wills. Guys, if, and I know there's a lot out there and this may offend somebody, but oh well, if someone is out there teaching you how to have this spiritual gift, now not developing it, but teaching you how to have it, read verse 11 again.
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- All these are empowered by one in the same spirit with apportions, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
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- The Holy Spirit is sovereign over the spiritual gifts. He distributes them as he wills. He gives the measure of faith for people to use them.
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- It's our job to work it out, just like a muscle. Okay? But that is put in you by the Spirit in order to serve the body, not to build yourself up.
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- In order to serve the body, not to build yourself up. If you know much about 1st
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- Corinthians, you know that the first six chapters are Paul generally speaking about the gospel, salvation, etc.
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- But starting in chapter 7, starting in chapter 7, you can see it says,
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- Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. So from chapter 7 to the end of 1st
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- Corinthians, Paul is responding to a letter Corinth wrote him about questions in the local church.
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- And it's really amazing guys. Hey, the New Testament early church was just as stupid as we are. They needed help.
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- They asked about marriage. They asked about sexual morality. They asked about divorce.
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- They asked about widows. They asked about idols and food offered to idols. They asked about Lord's Supper.
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- Okay, they asked about spiritual gifts. This is Paul responding to this local body with questions that many of us have today and Paul gives us the answer or God gives us the answer through Paul in Scripture.
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- Now, the Holy Spirit is sovereign in those gifts and those gifts are meant to build each other up, never to build yourself up.
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- If you got all these guys building themselves up with ministries named after themselves and they're millionaires because they can do
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- X, Y, and Z. Is that really building up the Church of God or is it building up themselves? If they make millions of dollars selling textbooks on how to be a prophet, what is the point of that if that's given by God, which it says here?
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- You're just making money scamming people. Guys, Holy Spirit is sovereign over the gifts and He gives them in order to build up the church.
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- I think the reason why you have a different list in 1 Corinthians as opposed to in Romans is because the different local body needed different gifts from God in order to minister to the community and the the church body there.
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- Not all local churches are dealing with the same issues in the same way. So God gives the gift skills and talents necessary to be the church in that area.
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- Not to go to church, to be the church in that area. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's doing.
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- Now, the question is, alright Josiah, some of these gifts I've heard before, but every time
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- I see them, it's some scam artist. So what do we make of some of these gifts that are abused a lot, like the gift of prophecy, the gift of maybe tongues, okay?
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- Are we to say, oh, well, those just don't ever happen anymore. Are we to say those are just signs of the apostles?
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- Are we to say, are we to say the tongues, for example, were they real languages or were they angelic utterances, not human languages?
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- Well, we're gonna answer those questions in the next week or two. But let's start with the gift of prophecy.
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- I'm gonna give you my definition of the gift of prophecy. This comes from me.
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- This is not a direct quote from the Bible, just so you know. The gift of prophecy is this, it is
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- God giving a specific message to a specific person to deliver to a specific people at a specific time.
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- It is God giving a specific message to a specific person to deliver to a specific people at a specific time.
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- So, when the writers of the Bible, author is
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- God, when the writers of the Bible wrote the Bible, Peter says, no prophecy of scripture ever came from one's own interpretation.
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- It's God giving a specific message to a specific person. And Peter goes on in 2nd
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- Peter 1 20, I'm sorry, that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
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- Holy Spirit. Jonah, specific person.
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- Go to Nineveh, specific place, specific people. Preach the message of repentance, specific message, and go now, specific time.
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- That is how the gift of prophecy works. It's not always futuristic, but sometimes it is. Isaiah, go tell them do this or X will happen.
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- John, go tell them. And sometimes the prophet himself may not understand the message fully, like with Daniel.
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- Daniel like, hey God, what does this prophecy mean that you're telling me to tell them? And God said, hey, that's not for you to understand.
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- That's for a later time. And when they read your words, they'll understand it. God is sovereign over the gifts.
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- A prophet is a prophet, not because God has, I'm sorry, not because he is a really good person or he's spiritual or because he has more faith than you.
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- It's because God has given him that gift to use. Now, the office of prophet,
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- I believe has ended, but I don't believe the gift of prophecy has ended. In other words, I believe
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- God can still give specific messages to specific people to deliver to specific people at a specific time.
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- And sometimes I believe he can do that with one person more than others.
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- But I don't think the office of prophet, like an Old Testament prophet, continues today.
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- And remember guys, according to Deuteronomy 18, if someone makes a prophecy and it does not come true, that's a false prophet, according to Deuteronomy 18.
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- Go read it for yourself. So, oh, also, since the
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- Holy Spirit's testifying about Jesus, the Holy Spirit will never say anything that goes against what Jesus said or his word, the
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- Bible. So if someone, if Jesus said, no man knows the hour, no man knows the day of a son of man's returning, and someone says, oh,
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- I got a prophecy from God that Jesus will be returning on this day, they're fooled. That didn't come from the
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- Holy Spirit. It may come from a spirit, but not the Holy Spirit, because the Bible says no man knows the hour of a day, which means if someone's telling you, oh, yeah,
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- Jesus coming back on March 31st, 2045, it's not true. Jesus said no man knows the hour of a day, and no man means no man.
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- No, ma 'am. No, ma 'am. Okay? The Bible is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will never tell you anything that goes against what the
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- Bible says. Guys, there are people that are very sincere, very sincere, and they'll tell you the
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- Holy Spirit said it's okay that I'm married to seven wives. The Holy Spirit said it's okay that I'm doing this and I'm still a pastor.
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- The Holy Spirit said it's okay that I, if it goes against God's Word, that did not come from the Spirit. The Spirit is the author of God's Word.
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- Okay? It's his Word. He'll never tell you anything that goes against what he's already said. Since he's just, since he is conforming us to the image of Christ, he'll never tell us anything that goes against what
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- Christ taught us to do, taught us to say. There is perfect unity in the
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- Godhead in that point. So, Holy Spirit is sovereign over the gifts.
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- The Holy Spirit has given these gifts for us to build up the body of Christ, never to build up ourselves.
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- And prophecy is God giving a specific message to a specific person to deliver to a specific people at a specific time.
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- Okay. Next week, it's time to talk about the gift of tongues.
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- Okay, and what I want you to do between now and next week is just read Acts chapter 2 in 1st
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- Corinthians 14. Acts chapter 2 in 1st Corinthians 14. That's where we're going to be next week.
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- Pentecost and 1st Corinthians 14. And some of the questions we got to ask is this, are the tongues mentioned at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 the same tongues mentioned in 1st
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- Corinthians 14? That's a question we have to answer because that will help us understand. Are these real languages or some angelic ecstasy?
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- We'll find out next week. Love you all. Thank you all. Hope this was of some benefit to you.
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- Continue to pray for the people of Witten or whatever local church you're at. That no matter what's going on in our world that God is doing mighty things and he is still controlling and sovereign.
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- If you ever forget that, Isaiah 46 is a great reminder.
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- Isaiah chapter 46 is a great reminder that God is still in control. Love you guys very much. Bye.
