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Pastor David Mitchell
All right, so we are in chapter 12 of the book of Romans. Let's see if my clicker is working today. And the whole big idea of it is unity in the church, but there are a lot of little sub points throughout this beautiful chapter.
So we've been talking about it. We had sort of worked our way down to the sixth step of having unity in the church. And it has to do with understanding which gifts have ceased that are listed in the New Testament scriptures and which gifts are still operating in the church.
And then which gifts will be restored again or brought back again, the last three and a half years of the tribulation period. So if you don't understand that, you will have division in the church because you'll have some people who think we still have apostles and prophets, which is not true.
They died, and when they died, they were gone, especially with regard to the apostles. And a prophet is a person who does one of two things or both, and most people don't even know the first meaning of it, which is to speak forth God's word.
That is still operating in the church. That's a preacher. And secondly, to be able to tell the future or tell you something God told that prophet that he didn't tell you, that one has ceased. It no longer is operative in the church.
As a matter of fact, it's been gone for over 1 ,700 years. And the only thing that was left are counterfeits of that where demons mock or mimic the Holy Spirit and make people think that they're doing these things.
So if you don't understand this, and listen, you won't understand it unless you study because it takes a lot of study to understand everything about this. It's not something that's easy. A novice in the scripture would never see it.
But as you study the scripture in context with the Holy Spirit's help, and you study church history, and remember last time we talked about how when Paul was hanging on the dungeon wall, he asked for two things.
He didn't just ask Timothy to bring him a Bible. He asked to bring me the scriptures, but he also said, and my books. So we're supposed to study other books besides the Bible too. We're supposed to study what other, what our brothers and sisters in Christ have thought certain passages meant going all the way back 2000 years of church history.
And there's a lot of that. I don't like, I like to start at least 125 years ago though. I don't read much of the modern stuff because we're in the end times and many false prophets. But if you go back about 100, 125 years, start there and then read things that men and women of God have written about the Bible going back almost 2000 years, it's very beneficial.
And we ought to be doing that. So we will do that today. So let's talk about some of these gifts that no longer are operative. They're not operating. It doesn't mean God can't do these things, but what it means is men can't do them anymore because you have to understand there were things that God allowed the apostles and the early church prophets to do that were miraculous in order to authenticate their message because their message was entirely different than the Jewish mass message, entirely different.
It was built upon it, but it was so different. No Jew would have believed it. You remember the Jew requires a sign. The Gentile requires knowledge. Gentiles are not supposed to have to see a sign to believe.
Jews do though. So the early church was predominantly Jewish for at least 30 or 40 years. And then it became predominantly Gentile until this day didn't, did it not? But the early believers, many of them were Jewish.
They had to see a sign. So you can't have an apostle come up to you or a prophet and say to you, hey, listen, you no longer have to keep the laws of Moses and you're a Jew. Would you believe me if you were a Jew and I'm a Jew and I just tell you that?
And you've been living by that for 4 ,000 years or not quite that, but you know what I'm saying. Would you believe me? Probably not. But if your child got ill and was dying and I came and I laid my hand on that child and he raised up and he was completely well, then you may believe my message.
You see, it's an authentication sign or gift. And we call them the sign gifts. Every single dispensation of time throughout history, when the dispensation changed and God revealed new things to men, he would authenticate the messenger that gave the new message with signs like that.
But then they would pass away. You wouldn't see them again until the next event or the next dispensational change. So quite often that's the case. So people don't understand these things, but they didn't have a New Testament.
You have to think about that too. They didn't have the New Testament. The early church had no New Testament. All they had was Old Testament and that's why they needed to have prophets because a prophet or a person or a man could stand up in the church and say, roughly, for my grace, you're saved through faith in the night of yourselves, it's the gift of God, night of works, lest any man should boast.
That comes out of the epistle to the Ephesians, but the church at Colossae didn't have that scripture yet. So how would they know that truth without a prophet? You see the point? So they needed the gift.
And so those gifts lingered a little while longer even after the apostles died away, but not very much longer. And we can show that through church history and through scripture. So that's what we're doing and have been doing.
So this passage in 1 Corinthians 13, eight, love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. The scripture says they will go away, right? Whether there be tongues, they will cease. The Bible says tongue speaking in the church will stop.
And then whether they be words of knowledge where a person can stand up and say, hey, God told me to tell you this and you don't know it yet, that will stop. When will it stop? When, verse 10, when that which is perfect is come, that's when it will stop.
Now, when you wanna look into that, it's interesting how Greek is, it's not that different than Spanish in a certain way or Latin or French, but it's not so much like English. But in the previous languages that I mentioned, including Greek, you have where the noun has to match the verb with regard to whether it's a masculine, feminine, or neuter.
Neuter means it's neither masculine nor feminine. It's a thing, in other words. Now, sometimes things can be in the masculine or feminine, also, especially in Spanish, we know that, right? So, in Spanish, el means the, but it's masculine, and la means the, but it's feminine, right?
And that would have to match, the verb would also match that. Well, it's kind of similar in Greek. And so a lot of people have tried to say that that which is perfect, which will come, we call it the perfect, in quotes, the perfect, that that is the second coming or Jesus coming back or that's the Holy Spirit or whatever.
Well, the problem with that is that throughout Scripture, the Holy Spirit is masculine, not neuter. And throughout Scripture, where it talks about Jesus coming back at the second coming of the rapture, it's masculine, not neuter.
But when it talks about when that which is perfect has come, it's in the neuter, which means it's a thing. It's definitely a thing. And so you have to ask the question, can you name a thing in this earth that is perfect?
And last Sunday, you guys could only name one, and that was the Bible. And that is what it means. It's a reference to, this was written before it happened, of course, when that comes. So it was future tense when Paul wrote it, because this was, Corinthians was one of the first books written in the New Testament.
First, second Thessalonians were the oldest two, right, Charlotte, we learned that from Dr. Freeman. I checked it out, by the way, he was correct. First and second Thessalonians are the oldest two books in the New Testament.
It's not laid out in chronological order, the way we have it in our Bible, by the way. And then first and second Corinthians were written pretty much next. James was pretty much next that you taught from Sunday school.
And by the time you got to James, which is 60 AD, 30 some odd years after Christ went to heaven, from that point on, it's interesting to see what is mentioned in scripture and what isn't. We'll talk about that in a minute.
Don't want to get ahead of myself. But the point is, when first Corinthians was written, it was one of the earlier books. That church at Corinth did not have the book of Ephesians. They didn't have any of the New Testament books.
They probably didn't have Matthew, Mark and Luke and John or Acts either. So they needed prophets to be able to speak forth God's word without it having been written yet from their viewpoint, you see.
But there came a time when they had everything. I hid that Bible I had up here. They had everything in this one book. That's a little one. Let's get this one. I like this one better. You get to be my age, you need one this size.
That's a big one. So every, all of the entire books of God's word, that's an eternal book that was already in heaven. He gave it down through man over time and it will last in heaven forever. Genesis through revelation.
When all of that was canonized is how they word it. Then at that point we had the perfect. And that is the date by which beyond that, you never had, you didn't have tongue speaking. You didn't have words of knowledge and you didn't have the future telling prophetic role.
You only had the speaking forth of God's of this, this type of prophecy where I speak forth this to you and the preachers do this. And you do it when you witness. But so that's a little knowledge that really helps understand this.
So just in the Greek itself, in the language itself, in the grammar itself, it proves that's not a reference to the second coming. If it were, then those gifts could still be happening. But if you think about it, it wouldn't make sense because as you're gonna see later this morning, the second three and a half years of the book of the tribulation period, which is still in our future, these gifts come back.
So how could they come back if they didn't leave? That's a good logical question, isn't it? If you had them this whole time, then how did they come back? They already, they never went away. Secondly, why would God remove them at the rapture and say that they're gonna cease at all?
Because if they don't cease till the rapture, they never ceased during the church age. Does that make sense? I mean, it just didn't happen. If that means the second coming, then they don't cease. So why would he mention it?
But see, people don't think these things through. They just believe what their preacher tells them. And most preachers don't study enough. I can tell you that. And I don't believe I study enough, but I don't preach anything from here that I haven't studied probably for about 40 years, a lot of these topics.
A lot of the information I'm giving to you today, I wrote when I was in my twenties. And I went back and of course, make sure I still believe that because I do learn more, believe it or not. Don't you guys?
But I didn't find any flaws in this lesson. So I just glued it into PowerPoint, wrote it when I was 20 something. I've known this most of my Christian life. Okay, so last time in Ephesians chapter four, verse one through 13, we talked about that it lists these gifts and in the passage in Romans 12, it lists some gifts is the reason we're talking about this, because we're talking about Romans 12, but it lists those.
And if you see those apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, some of those were able to do sign gifts until the new Testament was authenticated. And until the perfect was in the earth, the Canon, the whole Bible was in the Canon.
And then at that point, those two were gone. Now the apostles were gone after John went to heaven because he wasn't martyred. John lived a natural life and then died. And when he died and went to heaven, there have not been any apostles since that time.
And that's easily proven. I don't have time in the context of this message to do it, but I've written paper, probably back in my twenties or thirties about what the Bible teaches and the apostle is and the things you have to check off to be one.
And no one has ever been able to check all those off since these men died. Once they died, there were no more apostles. Now there were still some new Testament prophets for a while, but once you get out here, did I have this over here on the left side?
Let me see. See that little part over here on the left. I know that's too little to read, but that's a quote from Josh McDowell, who said that by the end of the fourth century, the Canon, that means the whole Bible that we talked about, was definitely settled and accepted by the church.
And many of the churches had the whole Bible by that time, which was 397 AD. So certainly by that time, those sign gifts had ceased. I believe they ceased before that time and I have evidence of it, but anyway, they certainly are not in the world today, not unless they're counterfeit.
We don't want to have anything to do with counterfeit because when a church begins to believe that the Holy Spirit is doing things that actually the Holy Spirit himself has said, I will not do, then that's demons counterfeiting it.
So you have demonology going on in the church and you don't know it because you think it's God. And if you don't think demons can do that, go back and read your scripture, read book of Acts where this little girl is following Paul down the streets and listen to this man.
He's so great. He's telling you the truth. Paul turned around and rebuked the demon in her and cast the demon out of her. It was a demon saying just the right things. Listen to Paul. He's telling you the truth.
So yeah, demons can mimic the Holy Spirit. They always could and they always can. That's why Paul said there's other Jesus's, there are other spirits, there's other gospels. So you have to try the spirits.
Well, one great way to try the spirits is the Holy Spirit will never contradict himself. He won't lie. He won't say, Hey, I'm gonna remove these. These are gonna cease and then have them still going. He won't say, I no longer speak to you like I did in the old Testament in the time of four time by prophets through dreams and visions.
But now I speak to you through the son of God, which is the written word, the word of God. That's the Bible. And that's what the scripture said. That's what the Holy Spirit said. So in order for him to still be doing these things, he would have to have lied and contradict himself, which he won't do.
And so I can try the spirits that way. I can look at scripture and see what God wrote and see what man is saying he's doing. And if it contradicts that, I know the man is wrong and I know he's been duped.
He thinks he's spiritual and he is spiritual, but it's the wrong spirit. Does that make sense? This is exactly what's happening on and happening in so many of our churches today that are teaching that the sign gifts are still operating because they are operating in their church, but not by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of an unclean spirit who is deceiving people into doing things that God says in his word, you're not even supposed to be focusing on anymore.
And so therefore you're not doing the revealed will of God. That's very dangerous. And it can lead to other demonic activities. If they can cause you to think that that is God, they can cause you to think other stuff is God when it's not.
That's exactly what Satan did to Adam and Eve, especially to Eve. Oh, well, God didn't say you should not eat that fruit and you would die. What God says is if you eat it, you'll know good from evil like me and God do.
And surely he wouldn't want to withhold that from you. So he convinced her that God did not mean what he said. So when you look in Hebrews chapter one, one through three, where he says, he no longer speaks to us that way.
And you have millions of people in the American church today saying that he still does. Who are you going to believe? Because if you can believe the demon, when he makes you think he's the Holy spirit, then he can make you think other stuff is true.
That's not true. And he can infiltrate your life and bring all kinds of manifestations you don't want in your home or in your church. And this is why this is an important topic. So those two are no longer operative.
What we still have today in the church, we have evangelists, we have pastors. Remember that pastors can prophesy and using the predominant definition of that word in the Greek New Testament, which means speak forth God's word from the written word.
We can still do that, but we cannot speak outside the written word and say, Hey, God told me this to tell you, because if God wanted you to know that he would tell you, and he wouldn't do it with a voice.
He doesn't speak through audible voices anymore. He would do it through the scripture or through the Holy spirit, enlightening you about the scripture so that you understand or giving you a piece about which house you're supposed to buy.
You say, well, that's not the Bible. Well, actually the Bible does cover it because it says, if you pray about it and spend time with the Lord about it, the Holy spirit will let you know which one, but not with a voice.
He just gives you a piece about it or he'll use circumstances. He'll make it where you can't afford it or he'll make it where someone else bought it before you did or he'll close the door and open the door.
All those things are still operating. But you see, it takes more faith to live that way. Do you understand that it takes more faith to live that way than it does? If God just said, hey, buy that house.
And you heard him, that wouldn't take any faith. That's sight, that's sound. But we live in a dispensation of faith. And once the apostles were gone, and once these gifts ceased, at that point, it's not so much sight as it is faith.
I can't stand up here and have a child that's got a withered arm and me touch it and have that arm grow out like they do on, the evangelists do on TV still to this day. And in these tent meetings where they claim that they still have these gifts, they're lying.
They're doing magic tricks or something. I mean, if I could do that, there's no greater gift I would want them to be able to heal people. I can't do it. So I just have to pray. It takes more faith for me to believe that God will heal them than for me to be able to just touch them and have that arm healed.
Do you agree with that? So if I could do things by sight in this church, do you think we'd be sitting here with 20 people today? I could build this church to 25 ,000 easily, and I'd have almost the entire population, of course, Canada, because it's about 30 ,000.
I'd have 25 ,000 of them sitting in here this morning in a much bigger building if God still had these operating, because no one desires those gifts more than I do. I've had dreams where I was preaching to 500 people in this little building right here, just like this, but I had 500 people in here, and I was able to walk down here and touch the people that were ill and they were immediately healed.
I've never been so happy in my life, and then I woke up. We don't have that gift. We don't have, those have stopped operating where a person is given the power to do that. Now, let me be quick to say this.
I have prayed for a particular woman in this church, probably more than anybody else, and I remember a time when a cancer fell right off of her nose before the doctor could even see it, but I wasn't the only one praying for her.
This whole church body was praying for Sharon when that happened, and Raymond was praying for Sharon, and God just answered our prayers and healed her. That still happens. That's different than the New Testament prophetic gift of faith healing.
That does not still happen. If it did, you could have just come to me, and we wouldn't have to bother everybody else with praying for you, and you could have paid me 1 ,000 bucks, right? You'd have been happy to.
Bible says double honor those that preach, you know, but anyway, see, that gift is no longer operative, but we still have evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Now, if you don't understand that, and you have guys come and join this church, say, look, you guys, I'm an apostle.
You need to let me be an apostle in your church. The scripture says you're supposed to have apostles and prophets, but you don't understand why we don't have them now. Then we would have division in the church, wouldn't we?
Don't you agree? I mean, we could fight over that, and Satan would cause division, but if everybody understands how this works, somebody comes in and tries that here, you just say, you know what? You're probably not in the right local church.
There's plenty of them that don't understand this that would love for you to go over there and be an apostle and pretend that you're an apostle, and that's pretty much how I would say it, and pretend that you're an apostle, because that's what they're doing.
Here's the passage that says God doesn't do things that way anymore. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners used to speak in time past to the fathers by prophets has in these last days spoken unto us by his son.
So there is a difference in how God operates now, and now it's a faith-based system, not a site-based system. Even Jesus, when they came to him and they said, oh, well, if you'll just do a miracle in front of us, and he said, you're an adulterous and sinful generation, and he said, I'm not gonna give you a sign except my resurrection from the grave.
I'll raise up three days later to be the only sign you get. He wouldn't give them a sign because they were sinful in saying, if you don't give us a sign, we won't believe. Isn't that what the modern church is saying today?
If that preacher can't stand up and say, hey, we're still doing faith healing, we're still prophesying, we've got still words of knowledge, and all over this place, there's people who can tell you what God wants you to do.
If I don't say that, you won't believe. So I would then call you an adulterous and sinful generation is what I would call you, and I'd be right beside Jesus saying it, and he's the one that said it. He would just be saying it through me because I got that from Scripture.
And that's true preaching, that's true prophesying, is when you speak forth God's word. Who's doing it today? Very few people, and the ones that are are not popular. Even the great MacArthur, I'll promise you, his church probably doesn't have as many in attendance as it did when you first started going there.
It might, but I doubt it. It's probably starting to dwindle a little because he speaks too much truth. He does not allow this stuff in his church. So there it is. We got to stick with Scripture. So we've seen, number one, that Scripture teaches that certain sign gifts will stop.
And tells when it will stop. And we have the date is roughly 397, sometime prior to that. Now, it didn't happen in 397. It was already gone by then. Because some of the churches already had many of the New Testament books before that date.
So these gifts, what's interesting, if you look at the Greek on the ceasing and the passing away, we talked about that. I don't want to review it again because I just keep teaching the same stuff over and over.
But the part of it says it just kind of stops, like the tongues just sort of stopped in and of themselves. You know why? Because the church didn't need that anymore. We did not need to authenticate apostles anymore.
It just ceased and died on its own. So Scripture says it'll do that. Now, here's what I want to share with you for a little bit this morning. History says it has already happened. If we just study church history, it will hold up 1 Corinthians 13, eight through 10 perfectly and show that that Scripture is true and has happened and that the perfect has come, the canonization of Scripture has happened.
And so these gifts have ceased. Tongue speaking in particular, words of knowledge and the type of prophesying, the meaning where you can go outside the written word and tell people what God said, those have ceased.
And the Scripture says they would, Paul said they would, and so does church history. So let's go into that. We'll see how far into this we can get. So we've got to lay a little background in Scripture for this, because it also teaches that these gifts will come back and reappear again, three and a half years into the seven year tribulation period.
So we're going to look at that a little bit too, because that in itself is proof that they ceased. They can't come back if they didn't stop. Is that good logic? It's yes or no. I mean, to me it is. All right, so blow you the trumpet in Joel chapter two, verse one, blow you the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord comes for it is nigh at hand. Now, what is it all through Old Testament, New Testament, when the phrase the day of the Lord is at hand or the day of the Lord comes, what reference is that?
What day does it reference? The day of the Lord shall come. Come on. They're typing it in, Ben was back. I think he's with a baby though. If he's back there looking at that computer, you guys are typing in.
So tell me what it is. Second coming, correct. It's when the Messiah comes back to the earth again. When he left in the book of Acts, it records it that you men of Galilee, why do you stand there gazing?
This same Jesus shall come in light manner as you have seen him go. So he will return in the clouds like the lightning from the east to the west and every eye will see him. That is the day of the Lord.
It also includes Armageddon, by the way, the day of the Lord includes Armageddon and those things that happened in the second three and a half years of the tribulation period. So there it speaks of it in the book of Joel in the Old Testament, some 2 ,400 years ago.
A day of darkness and gloominess. So now let's talk about the tribulation period a little bit. This is a prophet prophesying what this will look like. Hasn't happened yet, still in our future. It'll be a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.
Anyone ever read much about nuclear winter? You might wanna read up on it because that's what this is a reference to, I think. That's my opinion. It is nuclear holocaust where several of the countries who have the nukes shoot them at each other and it's too much for the earth to handle and it creates a cloud of dust that surrounds the entire globe with nuclear material in the dust that's harmful.
And that will keep you from being able to see the sun very well at all. It'll be darkness in the daytime. The moon will appear red because you're looking at it through dust. Just like when it first comes up, it looks red.
That's how it'll look all the time. And all these things are prophesied. I believe that's what causes it, but it could be just something God does. I'm okay with that too. It may not be man that causes it, but I think the prophet is seeing the destruction that man has caused on the earth at the end of time.
Part of it here. A day of cloud. I just can't believe they made all the nukes to never be used. Do you realize how many trillions of dollars have been spent, multiplied trillions to build those? And they're sitting there ready, armed and ready to go.
Can you name any weapon man's ever made that he didn't use eventually to kill another human? Name one. So I believe that's what causes this, in my opinion. A day of clouds and a thick darkness as the morning spread upon the mountains.
A great people, you know, picture the fog coming in over the mountains early in the morning in San Francisco or something. That's what this looks like. A great people and strong. There has not been ever the like of it.
Neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations and we know from the book of Revelation that that's referring to 200 million foot soldiers armed from China, coming across the Euphrates river and marching towards Jerusalem.
Joel prophesied this and saw it. God let him see it and he wrote it for us. Who was it that sent me? One of my kids sent me an interesting clip last week or so. A news clip that said they're very concerned right now in the Middle East because the Euphrates river is drying up.
Did you send it? Emily, of course. She's my conservative daughter. All the rest of them are liberal compared to her. And if you know Katie, you know that's saying a lot. All right. So, wow, there it is.
Verse three, a fire devours before them. It's talking about this army. A fire devours before them. Do you think they're shooting a short range nuclear missiles out in front of them to lay out the groundwork so they don't have to lose as many soldiers?
A fire before them and behind them, a flame burneth. The land is as a garden of Eden in front of them. Listen to this. The middle, Jerusalem, Israel will look like, do you know how many thousands of trees have been being planted in Israel every year by Christians and other people paying for them?
When Rocky Freeman was alive, they already started this program. They've been doing it ever since, which is decades and decades and decades, planting trees all over Israel. So in front of this army, it looks like the garden of Eden, but behind them, a desolate wilderness.
Yea, and nothing will escape them. Anybody got goosebumps besides me? The appearance of them is the appearance of horses and as horsemen, so shall they run. Doesn't say they're riding horses. It says it appears like that.
So they're riding vehicles, perhaps about the size of a horse. You ever thought about that? The earth shall quake before them. The heavens will tremble. What can they do, these men, these 200 million foot soldiers, from the earth that would make the heavens tremble?
They can shoot hypersonic weapons, which they just now are tested. You know, just this week, we didn't see it coming. United States military did not see it coming. They weren't ready for it. China launched a hypersonic missile that went all the way around the earth before it was detected.
And that's different than the old missile systems with the nukes on them. They had to go up into space and come back to hit the target. These can just fly about the height of an airplane. They can't be seen by radar because they're moving so fast and they're so low.
So like, by the time you see it, instead of having, what would it be, Bill, for the old systems, 20 minutes, now you have two minutes or a minute. Or you may not have any time. Like this one, if they'd had something on it, we'd already be hit because we didn't see it coming.
This week, this happened from China. And Bill Clinton gave them the technology to do it. Who knows what Obama may have given them? I don't know. Man, I wouldn't say the Bush senior didn't give them some.
So we felt so sorry for how backwards they were, but why didn't we read the scripture and realize that we're arming them? America is arming them for this moment because our leaders don't have this information.
They don't have the wisdom that comes from this. Neither do our scientists. They could have made a whole lot better vaccine if they'd consulted scripture, but they didn't. Used to, they did. Now they don't.
Some of the greatest scientists that ever lived were Christians. And yet now they don't. Now they mock it. Now look what happens. The heavens tremble when this army comes. The sun and the moon shall become dark and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
You can't see the sky from anywhere. So don't think you're going to go out on your land and plant stuff and live off of it. You got to really think about this as you prepare because the things that we've been thinking we should do are not right.
You see my point? What do we think? We're going to get a couple of milk cows, right? And have a few cattle and some sheep and some chickens and we'll be all right. Well, did you know that you can't grow anything when there's nuclear winter?
Because nothing will grow. And when the rain comes, it's radioactive. Is that right for a while, Bill? Can't drink that water. The oceans and the rivers will be turned red and they're poisonous. You can't drink that water.
So what do you need to do? Well, you need to figure out a way to save water. Water doesn't get old, does it, Bill? Does it go bad? So you got to figure out a way. Maybe if they're in the wrong kind of containers, it might.
But you got to figure out a way to save a bunch of water and a bunch of food that you don't have to grow. So probably what you do is you go out and find these places, man, I'm going to make them have a shortage.
Now I should've got mine first and then told you this, but find those places where you can buy that food that lasts 25 years. I don't even know what you call it, but they sell it. Comes in a little thing and it tastes terrible probably.
But then you don't have to grow stuff and you need to then hide it and have enough weapons to keep other people from getting it from you. So these things, these are the things that are coming. Now we're not there yet.
Jesus said, you're going to hear wars, rumors of wars, rumors of wars and wars. And, you know, don't worry, he said, because the end is not yet. These things must come to pass first. So there's a lot of things that have to come to pass before we get to that place.
I'm just saying we need to be preparing while we can prepare. I'm not saying you need to stop work and go hide somewhere right now, or get on top of your house and watch for Jesus to come get, because you're not going to know when he comes anyway until he comes.
So don't get on the roof. Just be ready is all I'm saying. And so here's the big key I'm looking for this morning. The sun and the moon will be dark. Well, if we could figure out about when this happens in the seven-year period, we would know when the tongue speaking and the prophecy starts back up.
And I'm not sure they'll have tongues. You might, if it's needed, if there are people of other languages with you and you don't know the language, then it would be needed and it could happen. It could become operative again because the tongues never meant gibberish.
It always meant a foreign language you did not study in school and you could miraculously speak that and people from that language could hear you and understand it. That's what that meant. That may return, but we know prophesying will.
But when? The question is when? Well, let's keep reading. Therefore also now saith the Lord, turn you even to me with all your heart. So what does God say we need to be doing as these times approach us?
We need to be repenting. What was it in your lesson? You asked us if we needed to do something. Convert. You asked the Christians need to be converted. Well, the word convert means to change your mind, basically.
You need to like, if you've been not living right, yeah, you're saved, but you're just living for the world too much. We need to be converted back to not living that way. It doesn't mean you gotta get saved again.
You can't lose your salvation. It just means you need to walk with the Lord. And look what he says. You see these things approaching and how many in this room and out here would raise your hand and say, I see these things approaching.
You say, well, Joel thought it was gonna happen in his time. Because if, I don't know if you noticed a minute ago, he said, these things will come shortly. Did you see that? Or something like that. Paul thought it, my grandmother thought it, and I think it, but I think I have more evidence that it's closer than my grandmother did.
And I could put it on a sheet of paper and show it to you. Stuff that's happened that was prophesied that had to happen that had not happened when she was here. And you say, well, your brand kids will be doing that when you're dead.
Maybe, maybe not. Because the scripture also says the generation that sees these signs begin to happen, we'll see all of them happen. And I'm that generation. So I kind of think I'll be here. So if you're younger than me, you can probably think you'll be here.
So turn everyone to God with fasting and weeping and mourning. We're not quite there yet, but we will be because when stuff starts falling out of the sky and blowing up whole countries, and I'm not talking about something man did there.
I'm talking about something God did where these meteors come. There's one headed here in 2022. I think it is. It's going to come really close to the earth, but they may not even see it coming. It's going to take out a whole continent probably.
That can cause nuclear winter too, not necessarily nuclear, but dust problems where things don't grow. So at that point we will be fasting and weeping and praying and mourning and getting really close to the Lord.
And you know what the Bible said? The Bible said, by the time Jesus gets here, the church will have made herself ready. We'll be way more holy than we are now, but we need to get started on that project now, getting holy that is.
All right. Verse 28, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. That's future tense. They will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams.
Your young men will see visions. Hebrews chapter one, verse one clearly says that God in the times of old used to speak to our fathers and the prophets, but doesn't do that now. So that stopped during the New Testament church age, which is roughly 2000 years of time when you didn't have that gift, but it's coming back when you see the moon, look at verse 10, when you see the sun and the moon become dark and you see that happening, that's when it comes back.
Well, now you got to jump to the book of Revelation, find out when that happens. So your sons and daughters will prophesy again, but not yet. And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days while I pour out my spirit.
This is something in the future. Now, how could that happen? If it's been happening the whole 2000 years and it's just normal in church for God to pour his spirit out on us. And we jump up, down and run around like crazy and laugh until we can't stop laughing and then cry.
And then you go out the door, run around the building, come back in and get up in the preacher's face, preach, preach and do all this wild stuff. And then grow out some arms, two or three. And then all this stuff, if all of that has been happening all of these 2000 years, then tell me why it says your servants and handmaids in those days, then I'll pour my spirit out and there'll be prophesying again as if it hadn't been happening, but now it does.
You see my point? If you just study a little bit, you can discern the difference between truth and error between a counterfeit spirit and the Holy spirit because the Holy spirit won't lie. Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 shows what he's going to do during the church age.
And Joel shows what he's going to do after at the end, the last three and a half years of the church age. A lot of people disagree with me on that. They say all the church age ends at the front end of the seven years.
No, they're not right about that. The church is there throughout the book of revelation. It doesn't leave in chapter three. Like they say, all you have to do is study it and read. You'll see the church in there again and again.
You'll see him crying out from heaven saying they're killing our brothers and sisters on the earth. So you still had brothers and sisters on the earth, right? I don't know. I don't see why people don't get it.
But the point is you're going to have this startup. These gifts that have ceased, these gifts that are no longer operative, these signed gifts will be given again. And why do you think it'll be important to authenticate God's people at the last three and a half years?
Well, let me ask you this brother Bill, being a physics professor, among other things you do, math, physics, if you had nuclear explosions all over the earth at once, how much of our electronics would be working?
None. So your Bible on your phone is gone and everything you do on your phone is gone. Okay. So I like the idea of keeping a few of these around, but let me ask you this, will they be trying to burn these again?
Will they be somewhat effective in the big cities? So would you think you might need a person who could stand up and say, well, you may have forgotten Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says, for by grace you saved your faith, but you don't have this anymore.
This is why it comes back. And it's not hard to work your mind through these things about why God does it this way. It's the endless wisdom of God. He's just doing it the way it needs to be done. And I also, let's see, and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
Well, that hasn't happened yet, except on the Mount with Moses, but we know what this is a reference to because he said the day of the Lord. So this is the end times that's coming. And when that's here, the last three and a half years is technically, theologically the tribulation period.
It's not the whole seven years. It's actually the last three and a half years. Some people call that the great tribulation. That's picturing it. And during that time, your sons and daughters will be prophesying.
So what does prophecy begin anew? When does it begin anew? Could it begin again anew if it never ceased? Good question to ask your friends. And Joel 2 .31 says, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.
Now that is a very definitive thing that we can track back into the book of Revelation. While ago, I just said they turned dark during the daytime, but now it specifically says, the sun will be darkened and the moon into blood.
There's a lot of foolishness written on the internet and a lot of talk about the blood moon and how that shows we're in the end time. It has nothing to do with it. The blood moon is not what this is talking about.
This is simply talking about nuclear winter. When you look at the moon through a bunch of dust, it looks red. It doesn't need a blue moon, I mean, a red moon to do that. It'll always look red. And the sun will be dark.
You won't hardly be able to see it. And it will come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's what that word delivered means. I like the Old Testament word even better than the New Testament says shall be saved.
The Old Testament says shall be delivered. What if everyone who got saved got delivered? Isn't that what it's really supposed to be? Romans 10, 13 is merely a quotation from Joel. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And Romans 10, eight, nine, it's a quotation from Joel. It means delivered, saved, yes, you can go to heaven, but on the earth, a lot of your sin habits are gone. Not all of them leave at once, just like you taught in Sunday school.
Was that today or last time? When you're talking about Paul prayed three times, that was last time and today. Yeah, Paul, you know something I noticed? I never noticed. I learned so much when I'm sitting in your class.
Paul said, let me see if I can remember the word. I might have to look it up again. But Paul said, I've prayed three times that this thing would leave me, right? But if you read it carefully, it's not a thing, it's an angel, it's a messenger.
Did you catch that? It is a messenger from Satan, he said, and I prayed three times. You look it up, you know what the word is? Angelo, or I'm probably not saying the Greek word exactly right. It's angel, that's a demon.
So the apostle Paul had a demonic activity in his life that tempted him to do something that he did not want to do, because he's a Christian. And he asked God, just take that away where I never have that temptation.
God said, no, you get to keep that one. It'll keep you humble. So all of you out here, and I know, because I don't have this anymore, I'm the pastor, but you still have this problem, is sins of your youth.
The sins that you did when you were a teenager still tempt you, right? The Bible says so. Now, some of those God took away the day you got saved. Like, I really have not had an urge to drink beer. Well, maybe the urge, but I haven't done it since the day I was saved.
I really don't have the urge, really. Or smoke, or cuss much. That comes from getting saved late, unfortunately. But so some of them are gone, some of them you're working on it. But you know what it does?
Keeps you humble, and it makes you walk with the Lord. Because some of the sins you guys have that I no longer have, the only way you can stop them is by walking with them. Now, when this happens, and the Lord comes back, and you see the moon is red, and the sun is dark, all of a sudden, your sons and daughters can prophesy again.
Now, let's see if we see anything like this in Revelation at the end of the Bible in the New Testament. Chapter six, verse 12. "'And I beheld when I had opened the sixth seal, "'and lo, there was a great earthquake, "'and the sun," look at this, "'became black as sackcloth of hair, "'and the moon became," what?
"'Red.'". Same thing happened in Joel. At the point when your sons and daughters can prophesy again is the same point when that happens. Now, the end of the sixth seal corresponds with the beginning of the seventh seal, obviously, and that's where the seven trumpets begin.
And that can happen no sooner than three and a half years into the tribulation period. So, the prophesying gift doesn't come back until three years into the tribulation period. We can date it by these scriptures in the book of Revelation.
"'And when I had opened the seventh seal, "'there was a silence in heaven "'about the space of half an hour.'". And verse five says, we're in Revelation chapter eight, verse five says, "'And the angel took the censer "'and filled it with fire from the altar "'and cast it into the earth, "'and there were voices and thunders and lightnings "'and a great earthquake.
"'And the seven angels, which had the seven trumpets, "'prepared themselves to sound. "'At the seventh trump, the church is hidden, "'and prophesying and tongue speaking, "'and these prophetic gifts reappear.'".
Verse seven, "'And in the days of the voice "'of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, "'the mystery of God will be finished.'". The mystery of God, if you trace it, it is the church. It's the indwelling of the spirit within the church on the earth.
And it says that will be mature. Finished means it will be completed and finished. That means that our ministry as the light and salt of this earth ends at that point. This is at least three and a half years into the tribulation and the reason God takes that responsibility away from us and gives it to others, such as the 144 ,000 Jewish evangelists and the angel that's rotating around the earth, orbiting the earth, shouting out the gospel, and the two witnesses in Jerusalem in the last three and a half years, those are the ones who now have that responsibility.
And the reason God takes it away from us is we're supposed to go hide ourselves because they're gonna start killing every Christian, cutting their heads off. So if you don't hide, you will be martyred.
So this is when the prophesying... So the thing about it, you leave everything you've ever owned and you go find a cave somewhere. Do you think you might have a Bible with you, but a lot of us might not, right?
So we will need prophesying. We will need people to say, well, the Lord has this message for us today if you don't have that Bible with you. Some of us will be wise enough to have some way that we have one somewhere with us when this happens, but others won't.
So we will need these gifts again. And he said unto me, thou must prophesy again before many people's nations and tongues and kings. So we can see prophesying is happening at this point. It should be remembered that the gifts are administered by the sovereign will of God, not by the choice of man.
Now, even if you go back to a time, which I believe the book of James is one of the older books, it was written right around 60. All the New Testament written after that is lacking in certain information that I'm gonna show you in a minute, blow your mind.
But the ones from 60 on back have information about some of these signed gifts because it was still happening. Even in the times of the writing of the New Testament, it stopped happening. Because can you imagine people being healed all the time with faith healing gifts and it not being mentioned in Ephesians or Galatians or Colossians or 1st and 2nd Timothy or anywhere else.
They're just not talking about it anymore. It's no longer seen in those parts of the Bible after 60 AD. That's interesting in and of itself. But even when they were happening, all of the gifts of God, the ones that still happen, the ones that don't, but back you go to a time in the church when they were still happening, they were only given to certain individuals by God's sovereign will.
Not everybody had any of them. Let's put it this way. Let's just pick one, tongue speaking. If that still existed in the church today, maybe in a church this size, there might not be anyone that would have that gift, but there might be one person, but not everyone would have it.
So that's one way we know it's counterfeit because you go into these charismatic and Pentecostal churches, the first thing they let you know, if you're a visitor as well, do you have the second blessing yet?
They want you to go to class and learn to do it. By the way, you cannot teach a spiritual gift. So that's a lie, but they want you doing it. Is that right? Ron, is that accurate? Because Ron grew up that way.
You grew up that way too. Isn't that pretty accurate? They want you doing it. Well, it didn't happen that way in the scripture. I'll prove that. Remember, this is the early church prior to the completion of the perfect.
So if you go back to the New Testament church before they had the whole Bible where they could still do these gifts, then look what Paul says, because 1 Corinthians is one of the earlier books written.
They were still operative when this was written. 1 Corinthians 12, five, and there will be differences of administration. Remember, that's the spiritual gift, administration, but the same God. So you're gonna have people that have different amounts of faith and abilities to administrate or run the church.
And even though it's different, some people don't have that at all. They still have the same God. That's what that's saying. All right, and there are diversities of operations, but it's the same God, which works in everybody.
Everybody does different duties in the church and has different strengths and weaknesses to do what they're supposed to do, but it's still, they're serving the same Lord. And this is talking about having unity in the church.
Don't pick on someone because they can't do what you can do, because they're not supposed to do what you can do. They're supposed to do what they can do, right? But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with also, everybody has some gift.
That's very important to remember that little phrase right there. Everybody has a contribution in the church. You have a strength that no one else can do as well as you can do. And it's given to you by the Lord.
For the one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom. Now that's one that has ceased. They used to, people could stand up, church says, pastor, I have a word of wisdom from God. He spoke to me last night.
May I share it? Pastor say, yes, but I need you over here, Sharon, to authenticate it. You listen, you have the gift of discernment. I need you to tell me if this is from God. And Ron would speak and you'd say, no, he made that up.
Or you'd say he ate too many onions last night. Or you would say, yes, that is from the Lord. And that's how that worked. But you didn't have everybody stand up and do it because only Ron could do that in that church.
And only you had the gift of discernment. Everybody else had other gifts, but same God, that's what it's teaching. For one is given the word of wisdom to it. Now there are churches today that still preach that you can, you should have the word of wisdom.
They want everybody to have it. Now they they'll tell you, well, they'll tell you not everybody have it, but it's the reason they think they don't because they don't have enough faith. If you had enough faith, you'd have that one too.
So get the second, third and fifth blessing. If you can do them all, then you're really, you're really big in the church. You were reading something in Sunday school caught my mind talking about that, how not to use gifts to get, you know, points in the church because all I can prophesy.
Well, I get more points than you get. This is just saying, don't do that. To another person faith by the same spirit is given. And so they have more faith than you do, which means their prayer life will be better than yours.
And then to another gifts of healing. Now you don't have gifts of healing anymore. That's inoperative now, but back then it was still going on, but not everybody had that gift. To another working of miracles.
That's not no longer operative. That is a sign gift that authenticates the messenger. Now we have the whole Bible and they've been authenticated. So God took that one away and to another prophesying. In other words, telling the future stuff that's been taken away.
Although the speaking forth of God's word, part of that is still in effect. To another discerning of spirits, we still have that to a certain extent. And some of us more than others though. And to another diverse kinds of tongues, that one has ceased.
And to another interpretation of tongues in those days, when one person had the gift to speak a foreign language, there had to be someone else stand up and say, yeah, here's what they said. So we would all know what they said or else you're not allowed to do it in the church.
That's not operated that way in most churches. But all these work that one and self same spirit dividing unto every man as he will. So these gifts were distributed to the church according to God's sovereign will, who God wanted to have it.
And the ones he didn't, didn't have it. Do you see that? For as one body is one and has many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. Now look at this, 1 Corinthians 12, 28.
And God has set some in the church, not all, but some. Apostles, then prophets, then teachers, then miracles. So miracles was not one of the higher gifts, even back then. It's down the road from it. And then gifts of healings, helps, governments and diversities of languages.
In the Greek, it means languages. Some had those, not all, right? Are all people apostles? No. Can everybody prophesy? No. Can everyone teach? No. There's a good one for the modern church to learn. Don't build a bunch of rooms and put people in there to teach.
Make sure you only use people that have the gift of teaching, which is still operative, by the way. Are all workers of miracles? No. So there was never a time in the church, even in the early church, when these things were all operative, there was never a time when everyone did them all.
Never. They were always distributed by God, who is sovereign to the person. He wanted to have that gift to help the church, to build the church and make it be able to be, to function. Did all, did everyone have the gift of healing?
The implied answer is no. Do all speak with tongues? The implied answer is no. So apparently not everybody got the second blessing back in those days. Do all interpret? No. But desire earnestly, the best gifts, the ones listed up near the top, which is teachers and prophets, prophesying, speaking forth the word of God, desire to be a person who can teach people the word of God.
That's the strongest gifts. And yet, show I unto you a more excellent way. That is the more excellent way, that you desire those gifts, not the other ones. And yet the church today is upside down because it desires those other lesser gifts, like tongue speaking and laying on hands and faith healing.
That's what the church desires today. It's an evil and adulterous generation that we live in. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and I don't have love, I'm like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, I'm worthless.
So the whole thing in the next chapter 13 talks about how love is what's important. Not being able to show off with these gifts that you may or may not have. And certainly not if we're counterfeiting them.
All right. It says, despise not prophesying. That was written in the year 54 AD. So these gifts have not ceased yet. So at that time, don't despise someone who... Now, why would Paul even need to say that?
Why would a church, let's picture a large church, despise someone that said that they could prophesy when the gift was still operative? Can anybody give me a theory on that? Because it's so subjective that you can't really prove it's real unless you have a gifted discerner in the church.
And by then they were starting to have some of the other scriptures, they didn't have them all. But I mean, even then when people would stand up and say, well, God told me to tell all you guys this, people didn't like that much because it was hard to discern whether it was really God's word or not.
You see it? Fortunately for us, that has ceased. We don't have to have that problem, but in so many churches across America, they're faking this and it's even a bigger problem because even when they do it at all, it's counterfeit.
It is not man who chooses whether a particular local church has a person who can speak in tongues or not. It's God that would have made that choice. It's always been strange to me. I'm just about through, but I'd like to finish this thought today.
It's always been strange to me that since God is sovereign, which means that he is in control of these gifts, and he moves people and events according to his perfect will and by his power, and in that sense, cannot be limited by man.
Since we understand that, why is it that he has not chosen to give some of these gifts to the greatest men and women of God in church history that never had these signed gifts of healing tongues or prophesying?
Why would he not give your pastor this when I desire it with all my heart? Why don't any of you have it? Not one person in this local church has it, but there's a church across the street where everybody can do it.
If God sovereignly distributed that, why didn't he give us that and give them less of it? Did you see my point? Because that's how it was done in the early church. So you take it beyond that example. Apparently it is God who has removed these gifts, and if so, he can certainly bring them back again when he chooses according to his word, Joel 2 in book of Revelation, three and a half years into the tribulation periods when he does it.
Why did men and women like Mark, now listen, just listen, don't even try to read it. Just listen to me. I'll have to read it. I'll have it memorized. Well, most of those I pulled out of memory when I wrote this, but I can't do it in front of you.
Why did men and women like Martin Luther, tell me if you've ever heard of these people in the history of the church. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Susanna Wesley, his mother. How many kids did she raise?
21, 20, 19? George Whitefield, who, when he preached, people had to hold onto the pillars because they thought they're going to slide into hell when he preached about hell. He never could speak in tongues or faith heal or do any of these things.
John Knox, Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers couldn't speak in tongues. He didn't have the second blessing. He couldn't faith heal. He couldn't prophesy. Why not? If God disperses these gifts, surely one of these would have gotten it.
What about Jonathan Edwards? Created the biggest revival the East coast in this country has ever had. DL Moody, who changed two whole continents, England and America with his preaching. Billy Sunday, Gypsy Smith.
Billy Sunday, walk into your town when he left. There's no, there's no prostitutes in operation. There's no bars in operation, but he couldn't speak in tongues. He didn't have a second blessing. He couldn't heal.
He couldn't prophesy. He didn't have words of knowledge. How do I know? Because I've read the biographies of these people since my twenties. What about Gypsy Smith who preached right here in Corsicana and he prayed down God's wrath because the pastors in this town wouldn't support his tent meeting.
And interesting things happened to some of those churches after he left, but it was a very successful tent meeting, but he couldn't speak in tongues. He couldn't prophesy. He didn't faith heal. And he didn't have words of knowledge.
Neither did Lester Roloff, who healed hundreds of young people from drug abuse, but he healed them by inundating their minds with the word of God. And by praying for him, he did not have the gift of faith.
And don't you think he would have loved to have had that gift? They could have stayed one day and left, but in his home, they had to stay six months to a year because he couldn't just touch them and heal them.
Why didn't God disperse that in his sovereign will? What about W .A. Criswell, the great pastor of first Baptist church, Dallas? He couldn't do any of these things. And yet he wrote a commentary on the whole Bible.
Every book of the Bible, he wrote what he thought about it. Brilliant man, but he couldn't do those things. George Truitt who came before him couldn't do it. John Owen couldn't do it. John Bunyan couldn't do it.
Andrew Fuller, John Gill, B .B. Warfield, B .H. Carroll, who's instrumental in Baylor University back when it was a conservative school. Francis Schaeffer, the great Christian philosopher couldn't speak in tongues and do all these things.
John Mueller couldn't, Isaac Watts, John Fox, John Newton, Matthew Henry, Zwingli, Rutherford, Arthur Pink. None of them had the faith to speak in tongues. Why, if God sovereignly disperses this, why did he leave that whole group of conservative Protestants out and then have whole churches where almost everybody in a certain local church can do it if it's real?
Maybe that local church is counterfeiting, perhaps. Why, why is it true they didn't have it? Because they existed after the perfect had come. And when the perfect came in 397 A .D., tongues had already ceased.
None of these great men and women of history, church history could do these things. Why did great missionaries like Adoniram Judson and Hudson Taylor not speak with tongue? Don't you think if William Carey, the great father of modern missions there in China, who spent his whole life translating into several dialects of the Chinese languages and his wife literally went crazy because their kids died of diseases in the room next door screaming, just making no sense while he's sitting there translating these.
Why didn't he just speak in their language and win them to Christ in their own language with the gift of tongues? Because they asked him once, do you speak with tongues? And he said, my tongue is my ability to translate.
My gift is my ability to translate. The gift of tongues had ceased by the time William Carey, the father of modern missions lived. By the way, he was the Calvinist. In fact, almost everybody on there, except Moody and Wesley, almost everybody on there except Moody and Wesley were Calvinists.
That's interesting to know too, isn't it? That's a rabbit trail. I like to throw that in. All right, so wouldn't it have been nice if these missionaries had had the gift of tongues, but they couldn't do it.
If he could have prophesied or spoke with tongues with an interpreter, he could have accomplished way more in a moment of time than through his years and years of labor on the mission field. Why is it that all the tongue speakers are segregated into Pentecostal and charismatic churches and not found in fundamental Bible-believing churches among the Baptists, the Bible churches, the conservative Presbyterians, or any other group that I can identify?
Did God just leave us out? And they would say, because we don't have the faith, but my Bible says it's God that gives us the faith. But they don't know that because they don't study the sovereignty of God.
So if I'm right, why didn't God give us the faith? And so none of it fits. Does God not give out his gifts as needed in each local church? In short, why did Oral Roberts build a hospital? Could he not have raised the dead and healed the sick, but he couldn't make as much money doing that as he did when he built the hospital.
Maybe that wasn't his motive. I shouldn't try to judge him. But my point is, is there a logical inconsistency in teaching the whole world that faith healing is still operative, and yet you have to build a hospital.
Maybe it was for those who didn't have enough faith. The huge majority of conservative godly Bible scholars, missionaries, evangelists, and pastors from every century since 397 AD, including the 20th century, agree that the sign gifts ceased to be operative in the early church, just after the early church years.
All you have to do is study church history, read church history books. You'll see that that's a true statement, because I don't put anything up there I haven't done already. I have read, and it's a fact.
And we're out of time this morning, but I'll end with this. But I'm gonna give you some of these quotes next Sunday, Lord willing, but for now, let me just end with this. Look at the dates these books of the New Testament are written.
First and second Corinthians, 59 AD. All these prior, note the ones that are prior to 60, okay? First Thessalonians, 54 AD. No New Testament book written after 60 AD mentions tongue speaking, prophesying, words of knowledge, or any of that.
No book written in the Bible after 60 AD mentions it happening anymore in the church after that. It's totally silent on these issues. And that would include second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, second Thessalonians, first Timothy mentioned something that happened prior to when it was written, but not what was happening when it was written.
Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, first, second Peter, first, second, third John, Jude, Revelation. All the way chapter one through nine in Revelation doesn't mention it until you get three and a half years into the tribulation, then it mentions it because it comes back.
So that's almost the whole New Testament speaks nothing of those gifts because they were written after 60 AD and they were already stopping. They were already ceasing in the churches. So next time we'll pick up right here and we'll talk about church history, things written by church historians, facts that they have found through studying the history of the church, and you'll see it fits this to a T.
So let's stand and pray together. We're out of time, not out of material. Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the church history you've provided to us by our brothers and sisters that came before us, many of whom died before us for the faith.
And they speak loudly to us, to guide us into the truth and away from heresy and away from false doctrine. So Lord, we thank you that you give us the Bible like an anchor of truth. Lord, thank you for giving us each other.
May we lift one another up. May you be with us through our time of fellowship here and bless the meal we're about to have in Jesus name. Amen. You are dismissed.