(Spiritual Gifts): Gifts of the Spirit 1 — A.W. Tozer

In line with a series of Proof which I have been truth which I have been bringing I want today to speak on the gifts of the Spirit and Many of the things that I say will be repetition. It is I will have said them at some time in my life.

And maybe at some time in your hearing the hearing of some of you. But I will sum it up and bring it all together in one place this morning in First Corinthians 12 once more. Let me read. There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.

There are differences of administration, but the same Lord. Diversities of operations the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

For the one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge for the same spirit to another faith. By the same spirit to another gifts of healing but the same spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecy to another discerning of spirit to another diverse kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongue but all of these work of That one in the self-same spirit is providing to every man Severally as he will further on in that chapter verse 27 now.

You are the body of Christ and members in particular. And God has set some in the church first Apostle secondarily prophets thirdly teachers after that miracles and gifts of healing help governments diversities of tongues.

Are all apostles. Are all prophets. Are all teachers. Are all workers of miracles. Of all the gifts of healing do all speak with tongues. Do all interpret. Those questions are What's known as rhetorical questions.

The answer of course is no now in the book of Romans The twelfth chapter. We read this. After that famous I beseech you therefore brethren passages everybody quotes. Then we come we come to this passage for scarcely anybody quotes.

For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

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 Everyone members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.

For their prophets see let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry. Let us wait on our ministry. He the teachers on teaching. He that exalt his own exhortation. He that giveth let him do it with simplicity.

He that rules with diligence he that showeth mercy with carefulness. And in the book of Ephesians the fourth chapter verse 8 wherefore He said when he ascended up on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto man.

Now that he ascended what is it, but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same that ascended at his Christ far above all heavens that he might fill all things.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. For the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ. So we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man.

And to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Let's get something here that is known to us all but in order to arrive at where we're going. You're going into a new area. You always have to drive over familiar streets.

The ones you know best to get where you're going. If nothing else just to get away from your house so The doctrine of the body of Christ here. That the church is the body of Christ with Christ the head and the true Christians are parts of that body and.

That the Holy Spirit is to the body what our soul is to our body the life. The union that is what unites it and the consciousness. That the soul is the body and all the parts of the body cease to function.

The spirit in the body Gives to it life cohesion and consciousness. And each member recapitulates the local church that is every Christian. Every human body is an illustration. Paul uses it in three of his epistles and asserts it three different times.

In His epistles not simply as an illustration to pass by but something very carefully worked out and at great length and. Each local church recapitulates the entire church. Now always illustrations break down.

Parallel breakdown particularly when we come to the sacred and infinite things of God. For a man's body to function it all has to be in one place. If you separate him and scatter him around he's dead.

But the body of Christ doesn't all have to be in one place because it's unity is the unity of the spirit and therefore The church is never all in one place. Some are in heaven. I was wondering this morning.

What proportion of the members of the body of Christ are in heaven. I would suppose that 98 of them might be in heaven having to 2 ,000 years gone to die and go to heaven but whatever the percentage the largest number are in heaven and the remainder on earth and Not all are on earth at the same time nor in the same place and yet the body is not torn nor divided.

Because it is held together by the Holy Spirit who is the life of the body and each local group has all the functions of the whole group and recapitulate that is gathers up in itself and sums up all of the offices and gifts and workings of the entire Church of Christ.

The Body of Christ and the Functions of Its Members

Now the members according to Paul were still on our familiar streets. The members according to Paul are designed for a function. He says the eye is designed to see and we all know that that's what it's there for.

And the ear is designed to hear that's its function. The hand is designed for very very many purposes the foot for another purpose the lungs for another the heart for another and so all the parts of the body have their particular function and They're designed to cooperate and act in concert with each other and in the body of Christ.

The motto might be a good boy scout motto. I thought when I was thinking of it here that somebody might say well. This is a pep talk because actually it can be summed up like this all for each and each for all for that is what?

Paul says he says that the whole body exists for its members and the members exist for the whole body and that therefore God gives gifts that they might the body might profit with all and Remember one final thing and it is that all take direction from the head.

Cut a head off of a man's body, and there's no direction anymore. We've all seen the familiar Country scene of the chicken having its head cut off and still imagining that it was called upon to fly away.

So it fluttered all over the barnyard, but it wasn't going anyplace. It had no direction its direction was taking away from it, and it soon died. So the body has its direction from the head and The body of Christ the Church of Christ gets its direction from its head which of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Variety and Purpose of Spiritual Gifts

Now I've talked about the functions or Paul has and what are these various functions? Well, there are abilities which are called gifts in the Bible. Gifts according to the measure of faith and gifts according to grace their gifts their grace some variously called and It says having been gifts differing according to the grace that's in Romans 12 6 now concerning spiritual gifts read in 12 1 Covered earnestly the best gifts 12 31 and when he ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men 4 8.

And then in Romans It says let nobody think of himself more highly, but everybody judge himself according as God has given him gifts. Now I find that there are more than nine gifts in the scriptures. I find that there are about 19 and I've marked down 17 of them here, but in reading old refugees it comes to more evangelists and pastor.

But because in this Corinthian passage Paul develops it by saying that there are diversities of gifts and then names nine of them. We say those are the gifts but better than if you will read the rest of the scriptures and Read what Paul says in the passages.

I read today and then read what Peter says. You will find that there are more gifts than nine. And it could be that he's saying there are 19. That I haven't made too many because it's possible some of them are synonymous with each other.

So that if that's the case then of course if you were naming your family and you had one named Billy and you also called him Willie and You were counting him and you said Willie and Billy you get one too many because he's the same one you'll give him a synonymous name so that if you we are not counting the gifts of the Spirit as revealed in the New Testament.

If we should by accident Find or we should find that that the Spirit had designated one gift by two names. Then we'd have to cut it down that much and say well, that's I'm sorry. That's just using a synonym for the same thing.

The Gift of the Apostle

But now here are the gifts as are found in the passages. I read the gift of an apostle. Which means an ambassador or a messenger or one commissioned to go and it's generally believed I think by all sound Christians everywhere that the twelve apostles as we knew them had a Particular office which has not been perpetuated because it talks in Revelation of the twelve apostles of the land Judas by apostasy fell away and Paul was added to make up the number of the twelve and.

Yet the word apostle is only a name. It's a designation. It means an ambassador and here is sitting back in our congregation this morning. Our two who have gone as ambassadors for Christ there may be others Missionaries who have gone as ambassadors for Christ and as messengers for Christ as those commissioned to go.

So that I am not at all sure that while the twelve apostles Certainly were a group in themselves and their offices have not been perpetuated. Still I am not sure that it's not proper and permissible if we know how we mean it to call a missionary of an apostle.

Because we often hear people call the apostle to the Jews the apostles to this or that and maybe I might call one of our Missionaries that went into the Bowling Valley the apostle to the donning meaning simply an ambassador or a messenger as someone commissioned to go.

Prophecy, Teaching, and Exhortation

Second is the gift of the Prophet. Now the gift of the Prophet in the New Testament Was only secondarily a gift of foretelling events. In the Old Testament the gift of the Prophet was to foretell events mainly and to warn and to plead and to call back Amen to God.

But in the New Testament the gift of the Prophet is not so much to foretell events. In as much as the Bible has been written and the prophecy stands and all events have been foretold. That God wants to foretell but the gift of the Prophet in the New Testament is to tell forth and to see with an anointed eye and to give leave in due season and not simply to be a Mimicker, but to tell out what God has to say for a given time.

Then there's the gift of the teacher. Not everybody can teach when my address is well admitted and even of those that teach and not many can teach. There is a gift of the teacher. It is both the natural gift and it is a gift to the Spirit and then there's the gift of the exhorter.

Let him let him exhort says the Apostle. Well now an exhorter is not known in our day. But the old Methodist were wise enough that they had an office of an exhorter. They commissioned him called him a lay preacher.

He had a He had a license. He couldn't marry people and he couldn't give the Lord supper but he could get up and and burn up sin and tell how wonderful God was better than most preachers can do and it might be interesting to remember that Was a lay preacher an exhorter that one sir Spurgeon to the Lord.

Spurgeon came in out of a snowstorm into a Methodist church and got up in the balcony. And sat and listened young Spurgeon and an exhorter who wasn't much of a preacher at all. But he had the gift of exhorting and he was exhorting the people.

Spurgeon said he would have said I believed in Jesus Christ. Right there and I could have stood up with the best and the oldest Saints and sung. There's a fountain filled with blood. He was converted then there is the ruler.

Leadership, Wisdom, Knowledge, and Discernment

Now a ruler is used in the same sense as a ruler of the synagogue. He's not a legal ruler and he's simply somebody that takes some direction and and And Read the scripture and teaches and the I don't know whether he might be synonymous with a pastor or not.

Then there's the gift of wisdom also and the gift of knowledge and the gift of faith and the gift of healing which a few people have had and the gift of miracles and the gift of tongues and the gift of Interpretation of tongues the gift of discernment the gift of the helps whatever that is.

I do not know, but I sometimes think some people are gifted just to be helpers. Then there is the mercy shore, which I've called the one of a better name and this mercy shore Appears to be someone who's particularly gifted by the Holy Ghost to go about Helping people that are discouraged and Helping the poor and otherwise Going about doing good as it was said of Jesus.

Then there's the gift of government and that might be the same as the gift of ruling. Then there's the gift of giving. Somebody says aren't we not all to give. Yes, we're all to give just as We are all to have some wisdom, but there are such a thing as a gift of wisdom.

We're all to have some discernment, but there's such a thing as the gift of discernment we're all to show mercy and be helpful, but there's such a thing as a gift of helping and showing mercy and So we're all to give but there's such a thing as a gift of giving and I believe that God enabled some man If they will align by the Holy Spirit to so Control and run business that they'll be able to support the church and the cause of missions and the cause of Christ on earth and The help the poor in a way that we the average people can't possibly do.

Then there's the gift also of the evangelist and everybody knows that there is a gift of an evangelist. We admit that today then there's the gift of the pastor now. I've named 19 now my brethren these are Gifts given by the Holy Spirit to individual persons.

Just as the gift of sight is given to my eye. The gift of hearing is given to my ear the gift of smelling is given to my nose the gift of taste is given to my tongue and the gift of manipulation is given to my hand and Particular gifts are given to every member of the body.

So God gives to his church of which Christ is the head these gifts. Now the work of the church is to be done by the spirit working through these gifted members. Now you hear me the work of the church is to be done By the spirit working through these gifted members now.

Spiritual Gifts Versus Human Ability

I'll go further than that I will say this and in the judgment when we all receive for the deeds we've done the rewards for the deeds we've done and We know as we're known and that which is chapped and wheat and straw and stubble is separated from that which is gold and silver and diamonds and All that that is of the flesh Perishes and passes away and that which is of the spirit alone stands.

You will find That not only does God design to do all his work through gifted men. But he does do all his work through gifted men. Now he doesn't carry on all religious activity through gifted men. You don't have to have a gift of the Holy Ghost to be a preacher.

You don't have to be a gift of the Holy Ghost to be a Bible expositor we can be Bible expositors by reading commentaries and going to Bible school and Learning what men say is true of the scriptures. And a man can get up and preach.

The politician can get up and preach turn from politics if he's talking to a religious group and preach like a house on fire. You only have to be able to talk and know how to use religious phrases to be a preacher.

But if you're going to preach so that it'll stand in the day of the fire. Then you're going to have to speak by a gift of the Spirit and Any person that is not done by a gift of the Spirit is not the true preaching of God.

For it's written that Jesus Christ was anointed all by the Holy Ghost and went about doing good and he said That he was the Holy Spirit is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel. And you open the eyes of blind and so on even our Lord Jesus Christ worked by a gift of the Spirit on his human nature and so If you're giving and serving and working and it's not by a gift of the Spirit you may lose everything you've done and Everything that you put into it may go down the drain in that day.

Talent, Psychology, and Worldly Methods in the Church

And if we don't have the gifts of the Spirit. Then where these gifts are not present and the church is thrown back upon four or five things Which I want to name all of them should be talked about at length.

But of course, I can't talk for two hours here. You wouldn't stay and I wouldn't blame you but We fall now upon talent. We use the word talent. That is some fella Can whistle through his teeth or somebody else has a marvelous gift for impromptu composition of poetry.

Somebody else's is marvelously gifted in mathematics. You can give him a whole handful of numbers talk them up and by the time they've been lit He'll tell you this what the sum of them now those are found.

Some people are talented composers. Some are talented musicians and some are talented singers and some are talented talkers. We might as well admit it some of you dear honest good godly people haven't opened your mouths in public.

Because you just don't have any gift for it and it doesn't mean that you're dumb or ungifted. It just means that isn't your gift. But some of the hollowest most hopeless people in the world can run off at the mouth and talk like everything so Talent, that's the next thing talent and the talent runs the church not the gifts of the Spirit as God intended.

Talents run the church. Just as you can keep a body alive by a little while or keep it functioning by you know how? Colonel Lindbergh and his man did the man who wrote man the great book about man I Forgotten his name and doesn't matter, but they took a chicken's heart and kept it alive for a month but it was being done by by a Artificial Stimulus from the outside so the church can be run like that and then another method religion can carry on with is psychology and a great many people are skilled master psychologists.

They know how they know how to handle people really they they're amazing how they know how to handle people. So the church can be run a new man comes in and the crowds come and first thing. You know you have what looks like an amazingly successful church but that man is simply a shrewd psychologist who knows how to say Jesus in the right place and the say tender things then others your other religious work can be done by businessmen and a lot of it is being done by business methods today, and then some use political techniques and Some use plain sales methods and so the Christianity now the church this church any church can be carried on by the exercise of human talents without a touch of the Holy Ghost by sharp use of psychology without a touch of the Holy Ghost by business methods by Political techniques and by sales techniques that have not one place of the Holy Ghost in it.

But I'm telling you and warning you my dear friend that when this takes place We may not know it until the great and terrible day when our deeds are Burned with fire and only that which was rocked of the Holy Ghost stands Jesus said even now the act lies at the root of the tree and Whatever isn't of God and wasn't planted by my father and doesn't bring forth fruit shall be cast down.

And much of the religious activity during the centuries has been an activity brought by talent and psychology and business method political techniques and sales methods. All right, you say now mr. Pope let's be honest about this if you say that the gifts of the Spirit ought to be in the church and I am radically do and That the people of God could have these gifts of the church and put labor in these gifts.

Testing Pentecostal Claims by Scripture and Discernment

Then why don't we simply throw in our lot with the tongues people the Pentecostal people by various names? They are I guess 17 or 18 different splits and divisions of them. Why don't we throw our lot in with them?

Well, that's what I'm going to say now is going to hurt some of my friends and God Almighty made me do it. He made me do it and He makes me draw blood and hurt my friends. I don't want to do it. I'd rather love them and have them love me and go around telling what a nice boy I am.

But I must tell the truth. And so I have studied Those who are of what we call the tongues persuading since 1918 that's about 41 years and In all love and charity I Tell you my findings not 41 years. No, but whatever it is My mathematics always leads me in all love and charity and with complete Christian kindness.

I want to say this First that there are some good sweet Christians among our tongues friends. No question about that I've met some of them. I've prayed with some of them and some pretty nice songs and no great songs.

Say old sweet wonder for instance came out of the Pentecost to live and there have been a few Lovely songs never any great songs. But if you good little sweet songs have come out of it and some good people and I have friends among them and I'm not Condemning, but I'm going to tell you this Before I will become a part of a movement or a school of thought or a Theological school of thought or a church group or a denomination I'm going to have to test them and see what have been the characteristics and the Marks and ear marks of that group down the years now with the full understanding That there are many individual churches of which what I say is not true and with a full understanding that there are individual Christians that are excellent wonderful godly sweet people.

Then I say this that the marks that have characterized the various flips the divisions of Pentecostalism since the turn of the century have been a a magnification of one single gift above all others and that the one that Paul says was least of least value be the unscriptural Exhibition of that gift before the people like a boy with a toy on Christmas.

See a tendency to place personal feeling above the scriptures, which is always an insult to God. Be an almost total lack of discernment. Revealing itself in a predominance of women in their leadership and sometimes women of questionable character a credulity beyond belief.

Allowing them to be taught by little boy preachers little girl preachers religious racketeers people back from the bed. They say and allow them to adopt rock and roll music long before Elvis Presley and that led them to splits and divisions even free love.

Divorce and remarriage among their preachers to a shameful degree. Any year a year or whatever it is unbecoming public conduct not justified in the New Testament. Now brethren when a group of people say we have the gifts of the Spirit come and join us.

And I want to see what cloud hovers over them. Is it a cloud of purity. Is it a cloud of sanity? Is it a cloud of sharp discernment that knows the flesh from the spirit. Is it a cloud of moral living?

Is it a cloud of cohesion and unity or is it a cloud of knowledge of flesh and Sex extravagance and careless careless moral living. And If it is the latter and it is then I want nothing to do with it.

Realizing that there are among these brethren some good people and some sweet people and if they're mad at me I'll grieve about it because I don't want them to be. I'm only saying what can be proved and Would be agreed to by everybody that knows the facts.

Receiving the Gifts Without Leaving the Local Church

Well, so therefore we cannot help ourselves by going somewhere else. Now I say we ought to have the gifts of the Spirit in the church every church ought to have well. Then somebody says I believe what Tozer says.

I'm going to go somewhere else. No brethren I don't know of a group or denomination or fellowship or communion anywhere in the world that realizes the Pauline Apostolic doctrine of the body of Christ with each member.

Recapitulating the local church and the local church recapitulating the entire church and that work as a team and each one having a proper gift as God gave them to do and work that in the Holy Ghost. Now I know denominations in churches where there are a few like that among them but I don't know denominations or groups of churches where that is the regular and general and common thing.

So I'll tell you this you won't help yourself by going somewhere else and We're here now in this present moment this 1956 28th of October I think it is We were and now can receive this day before the sun sets tonight.

We can receive an endowment of the Holy Ghost if we will pay the price each one of us any one of us all of us can receive a downcoming and endowment of the Holy Spirit and when he comes he invariably brings these Functional graces which will enable able some to have a sharp discernment.

Now you say what gifts do you think? That we ought to expect and it says covered earnestly the best gifts. And we have a right to pray for these gifts and covet them before our God that we might use them to bless his church.

And glorify his name. You say then what are the gifts that you would say would be the most needed in the church today? I Believe the gift of discernment is one of them we have in fundamentalism. Ring the Holy Ghost out and because we've ruled him out we have gone blind.

Down this down these decades with the result that the church has traveled Way over into entertainment ism. Way over into rationalism. Way over in the world in this ism and the true church of Christ is scarcely to be found.

Anywhere on the face of the earth it's because not because men were bad. But because men had the fearfully ruled out the spirit and so the gift of discernment was not there. The mighty gift that can discern let me I don't think he's here now.

But let me point out a man that I believe has the gift of discernment. I don't think he knows he has but I think dear old praying brother Tom has a gift of discernment. It's amazing how he can look at you and see through you and tell you all about yourself.

And yet he doesn't make anything out of it at all except to pray and help you live and If this gift of discernment had been in our leadership, we wouldn't be where we are today. We wouldn't be locked up behind Dispensationalism over here and entertainment ism over there and something else over here, but we'd be in the middle of the way going along.

Prophecy, Faith, Mercy, and Giving in the Church

Pray that the leaders of the church might be in due to the gift of discernment. Second I believe the gift of prophecy that is the gift of the prophet that can see his generation know what's going on and Tell it abroad and make folks listen one way or another and Find the church in the middle of things and help the church through.

I believe we need that good. I believe we need to get to faith. Everybody has to have some faith or he wouldn't be saved. But there are those who have a peculiar gift of faith and They come around when this little when this church was being built we're trying to pay off the old one in the middle of things why.

There were some a few people I don't know who they were all but there were a few that had the gift of faith 28 years ago when this church and the old building in meeting the old building called me here as Pastor.

I wrote them back and said thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, but I'm not coming and They Reported it properly to the church of the board did not come but there was a little woman in this church still in very old now and She was a member of the prayer band.

And she got up and said in her broken Dutch English. She said the Lord had shown her and answered her prayer and I was coming. I said don't worry about it. That's it. He said this is all set, but he said here's the letter saying thank you, but I don't feel it's right.

I'm not I'm not not the will of God Said the Lord showed me I hadn't heard it yet, but God had shown her. She didn't write to me. That would have been a mistake for her to try to be a messenger boy to me.

He did he kept still talk to God then shortly after that I began to feel and think and That's what I mean that gives good discernment and faith. You can get through to God when everybody else is excited or everybody else is jumping up making speeches.

Let's do it this way. Let's do it this way when the Bible school gets into difficulty. Then the members of the board and here's one of them not this one. You wouldn't do it, you know that but members of school board and get another one back here chairman of the school board of Bible College and The members jump up and say well, let's call in a money-getting concern that for 29 of the proceeds.

They'll raise the money for us or let's let's make a film of our church work. Supposedly do that. Let's let's let's photograph by the Ruben Ecclestone in action and let's photograph of change in action and Wave your arms and hold your Bible high and we'll take that around among the churches and show that and that's we'll get the money.

Oh Brethren, that isn't the way it's done. Somebody sitting by will say God has told me he'll look at this and we don't have to assume to that. And usually he's voted down. But if he isn't voted down and can have his way God will honor that faith and bless that school.

Faith-Funded Ministry and Reliance on God

Somebody said recently that in all the Bible colleges and Bible schools a great number maybe not all in America, but that numbers of them were examined and they there were only six of them that were going anyplace and Increasing in numbers and making progress and they were the ones that don't use any business methods to get their money.

They just pray and have men on their boards that say to God now here God you either do this. Or else the whole thing will blow up in our faces and God doesn't. I think I mentioned this briefly that over in Highland Lake Last July I spoke for a week there.

And Anyway this young man Merrill Fuller is his name 40 years old just when I got there at his birthday and they sang happy birthday in the dining room. Well, this Merrill Fuller owns I don't know how many hundred thousand dollars worth of property right around there and over across the Pennsylvania state line.

He owns another vast holding which is going to make a Christian high school. He had no more idea how to run a Christian high school than I know how to run a B 47. But he said mr. Tozer a whole Faculty came to me without my ever soliciting anybody.

And said I want a job. I want to teach a whole body of Christian teachers a whole high school faculty came. He said we were just praying that's all they had me up at 5 o 'clock in the morning praying 5 o 'clock in the morning boy.

I never felt so old in my life, but I went up there and prayed. We had a great time 5 o 'clock in the morning. And then he said this every time you get up and say now friend. We have put this whole business on the platform where it's either God or total collapse.

If God doesn't hear our prayers and send in the money. We'll all finish and that's the end of it and the clothes this place up and right a cup out over it. He said I'm not going to pray and then do something in such a carnal manner that I won't know whether God answered or whether my carnal methods work.

So he said we're going to put it we're going to walk out and say now God here I go you either hold me up or I perish. Now I asked him you think he's going to fail. He'll never fail you can't. The man who trusts on God will never fail.

Well The man of faith you need some faith. And I think we could use some with some people with a gift of showing mercy. We're also starry-eyed in the long distance in our in our piety. And we tremble about the volume Valley, but there are people within the neighborhood that could use a little help.

You say why don't you go do it brother? I'm already Staggered to bed at night without what I have to do, and I'm not gifted anyhow. I'm not gifted to go to anybody and help them much. But certainly some of you could be and maybe I could be but we all ought to be gifted.

I think a mercy show would be a great help around here and then I Think that God should bless some businessmen and give them a gift so that Honestly and without cheating or without praying against a competitor.

They could have money enough that they could keep God's work humming along like a diesel engine. All right, brethren. We don't have to go somewhere else. God will not do anything for any church that he won't do for this church.