Book of Acts Part 5

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Sunday school from December 1st, 2024

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Book of Acts Part 6

Book of Acts Part 6

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We're going to continue with our study of the Book of Acts, but we are in the middle of a bunny trail in the
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Gospel of John, looking at what Christ says that the work of the
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Holy Spirit would be in, what the Holy Spirit would do. It is not at all what the
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Pentecostals say, the best way I can put it. And so let's pray, and then we'll get into our study.
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Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your Word, we ask your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what is revealed there, so that we may properly believe, confess, and do according to your
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Holy Word, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, we have been working our way through a portion of the
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Gospel of John. Technically, we're almost finished with this section, but it's important for us to pick up what
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Christ says that the Holy Spirit will do, so that when we get back to Acts 2, and we see the
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Holy Spirit being sent, that what the work of the Holy Spirit is is exactly what
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Christ said it would be, and that the modern -day Pentecostals and Charismatics, they are way off base regarding what they claim the work of the
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Holy Spirit is. It's something very, very different. And as a result of it, they are reading the
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Book of Acts, especially Acts 2, through the lens of their false ideas, their false understanding, and they're missing exactly what it is that the
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Holy Spirit really does. And so, I will say it again, the
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Holy Spirit does not have us bark like dogs, cluck like chickens, or flop around on the deck like fish.
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So, did I pray already, by the way? Yes, I did. Okay, I'm having one of those days.
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So, let's take a look back in the Gospel of John, chapter 15. I'll start at verse 23 just for context, but it's verse 26 where we're really going to pick up.
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Christ says, Verse 26.
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But when the Helper comes, One of the points I've been making is that this is not a flattering thing.
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Christ describes the Holy Spirit as a helper, which means you need one. I need one.
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As a male, I have a hard time accepting help when I get myself into trouble because I've gotten it over my head.
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And when my wife says those fateful words, Do you need me to help you? Oftentimes, the word yes comes through gritted teeth.
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You get the idea. So, Christ is very clear. We need a helper. So, when the
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Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the
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Father, He will bear witness about me. Back in the day,
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I went to Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, when Chuck Smith was still alive. So, when that Jesus movie came out, that was interesting for me.
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So, my first year of college after I graduated, so this would have been in the fall of 86 and on into the spring of 87,
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I attended Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. And I thought it was like the bee's knees, man. And what was interesting about that place was several things.
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Number one, the art. I don't know if I can call it iconography, a church art or whatever.
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They didn't really have, they didn't follow the ancient liturgy. They had their own kind of liturgy that they followed. But when you walked into the sanctuary, there at the very, very, very front of this brick, kind of tan brick building, was a large cross with the symbol of the
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Holy Spirit, the dove, on the cross. And looking back on it, I think it's weird.
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Why would you put the Holy Spirit on the cross, but you wouldn't put Jesus on it? It just, it didn't make any sense.
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This is kind of the symbol of what's going on here. Of course, this was a charismatic church, but what was interesting about the place was that in the church service itself, there was no tongue speaking, there was no, you know, none of the stuff that kind of has been known for the
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Pentecostal movement. They saved that for afterwards. They had these things called afterglows. And so I would get invited to afterglows.
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You know, people would say, oh, well, there's a young college student here, and would you like to come to our afterglow after the service?
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Sure, okay. And that's where they pull out the tongue speaking and claim that you need to speak in tongues and all this kind of other stuff.
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So that was kind of off to the side. But you'll note that all their emphasis is on the work of the
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Holy Spirit, but Christ says the Holy Spirit's going to bear witness about me.
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Christ says the Holy Spirit's job is to be pointing people to him.
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When I was in seminary, one of my seminary profs put it this way, the Holy Spirit is the PR guy for Jesus.
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If you were to sit down with the Holy Spirit and start talking to the Holy Spirit about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit would stop you and say, let me tell you about Jesus.
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The Holy Spirit is working in the background, bearing witness about Christ, focusing people on Jesus and what he's done for us.
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And then he says to his apostles, you will also bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.
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So you'll note that we have a comparison point. The Holy Spirit will bear witness about Christ, and the apostles are going to bear witness as well.
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And when you read the epistles and you read the book of Acts, who are the apostles hyper -focused on, laser -focused on?
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Jesus, right? So you'll note then that the spirit of truth, again this is another time when the
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Holy Spirit is referred to as this, I would note that really stands in contradistinction to the
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Holy Spirit that is running around today, that isn't really a Holy Spirit. I may have mentioned this a few weeks ago, that a former
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Bethel student has gone on social media to explain to her what happened when she was a first -year student, a second -year student, a third -year student at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.
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And when she was a first -year student, she was told by Chris Vallotton, in a group class of like 900 other students, that they are required to give false prophecies.
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They are required to give at least two false prophecies in the course of every academic year because they want them to learn how to risk, take risks when it comes to hearing the voice of God.
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Which means that the prophecies that they're giving are not true.
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Why would the Holy Spirit want us to be giving words that are not true?
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The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. So he continues,
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I've said these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he's offering a service to God.
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I think the Apostle Paul, before he became the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, is a prime example of this.
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He legitimately thought he was doing a service for God in killing and persecuting and imprisoning
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Christians. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me, but I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
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I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you ask where are you going.
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But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
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It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.
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But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
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Concerning sin because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness because I go to the
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Father and you will see me no longer. Concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
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So we can see that one of the primary tasks of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world concerning sin.
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And when you listen to the preaching in many charismatic and Pentecostal churches, they will tell you that if somebody is giving you a word that is from God, if it resonates with your spirit, then it's true.
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And I've heard many a Pentecostal preacher say that when somebody's giving you a word from God, if it makes you feel bad about yourself, then that has to be from the devil because Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
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That's their logic. So that being the case, if you ever hear anybody claiming to be giving you a message from God and it makes you feel bad about yourself, well, that automatically means, well, that's not the
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God, that's not the Holy Spirit who's working. But Jesus says the
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Holy Spirit will do what? Convict the world concerning sin.
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And I would note that is not a fun experience, nor does it feel good.
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Far, far from it. He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe.
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So note, if we were to talk then, kind of boiling it down, what we know so far. The Holy Spirit's the spirit of truth.
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The Holy Spirit is going to bear witness about Christ, focus people on Jesus.
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The Holy Spirit is gonna convict the world concerning sin. And the
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Holy Spirit is obviously gonna work towards regenerating people in the faith. And then you'll note then, by way of comparing and contrasting, is that kind of done with this, well, let me just finish this and then
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I'll bring one more thing to bear. Jesus says, I still have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now. When the spirit of truth, this is now the third time he's said that, spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.
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So the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, guides you into all truth, convicts you of sin, bears witness about Christ.
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He will not speak on his own authority but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you the things that are to come.
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He will glorify me. He glorifies Christ. He will take what is mine and declare it to you.
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All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said to you, he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
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So you'll note, glorify Christ, bear witness about Christ. The spirit of truth will lead you into all truth.
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The Holy Spirit will convict you of sin and unbelief. All very important functions of the
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Holy Spirit. And then if you were to throw into the mix, maybe like the tail end of Galatians, let's see here, did
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I go too far? Yes I did, I gotta go to five. Hang on a second here. Paul says to Christians, walk by the
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Spirit. Now, understand what he's talking about here.
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Walk by the Spirit. That means to conduct your life with the Spirit's power. So there's another thing that the
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Holy Spirit does and that is that the Holy Spirit gives us the strength to not gratify our sinful desires.
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I say to you, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are against the
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Spirit. The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. And these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh, these are evident. Are you ready?
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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
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I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, I'm not trying to kick people in the charismatic movement while they're down.
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But I would note that within the charismatic movement, they have had scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal related to sexual immorality.
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And of a type that is legitimately unbelievable.
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We're talking about involving children and things like this. Major leaders within the movement have fallen within the last year as a result of these things coming to light.
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For all their talk of the Holy Spirit, the one thing I've noticed that it seems to be missing among Pentecostal preaching is the preaching of how the
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Holy Spirit strengthens us and makes us holy. So their big focus is on what?
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Signs and wonders, speaking in gibberish, and hearing bizarre prophecies that talk about breakthroughs and suddenness.
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But here, Paul is warning us that, number one, we have a sinful flesh and it has some pretty wicked appetites.
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And he says, I warn you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the what?
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The Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things.
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There is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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So you'll note that what's missing in today's focus on the Holy Spirit type of churches is any kind of talk about this.
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You would think that the Holy Spirit that they are preaching about cares nothing about holiness.
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He cares that they make sure to tithe off the gross every week when they get paid. He wants them to make sure that they speak in gibberish and that they learn how to give false prophecies and to take risks and stuff like this.
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But what's missing is convicting the world of sin, the Spirit of truth leading us into all truth, bearing witness about Christ, glorifying
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Christ, and giving us the strength to mortify our sinful flesh in the battle that we have daily with our sinful flesh.
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That's all missing. Yes. Yep. Yeah.
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Yeah, and if you've not gone through the archives of Daniel Long's channel on YouTube, Long for Truth, he's done a really good job of going back into the history of the
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Pentecostal and Charismatic Movement and looking at its leaders and looking at the scandals and the horrible things that these people did all in the name of the
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Holy Spirit. And you'll note that what seems to be missing within Pentecostal churches is holiness, like legitimate holiness.
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So for instance, Charles Fox Parham. Charles Fox Parham. He's the guy who was, when you talk about the modern
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Pentecostal Movement, there's two guys that come to mind, Parham and Seymour.
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Seymour was the guy who did the Azusa Street Revivals, and Parham actually came and did some work with Seymour at the
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Azusa Street Revivals, but Parham is the guy who kind of set the stage.
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It was his group in Topeka, Kansas, where they claimed that tongues had first been restored to the church, and then you think of Agnes Osmond thinking that she can speak in Chinese and all that kind of nonsense that goes along with it.
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Charles Fox Parham was eventually taken out of ministry when it was found out, he was charged in Waco, Texas, with sodomizing a boy.
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And he confessed to it. He admitted that it took place, but he claimed that he was not responsible for it because it happened while he was asleep.
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And so it was something that he did not cognitively choose to do, it was just something that happened while he was sleeping.
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That was his claim. Of course, that didn't sit right with people, and then it turns out that there was another charge brought against him in another town of a similar type, and so that eventually kind of washed him out of ministry.
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But his story is not isolated. You think of Amy Semple McPherson.
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This is a woman who is responsible, almost practically solely responsible for the creation of the four square churches.
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And this is a woman who was sexually immoral herself.
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And not only that, she was preaching when the scriptures clearly said that she's not allowed to be a pastor.
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She was, back in the 1920s, a religious celebrity in America.
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Absolutely a celebrity. And she even faked, she disappeared and faked her own abduction.
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It turns out she had gone to Mexico in order to be with some guy. Just crazy stuff, right?
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Don't even get me started on John G. Lake and other people like that. These folks are legitimately proven over and over again, the charismatic movement calls them
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God's generals, but these are like generals of Satan. Their lives are not marked by holiness.
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Their preaching is not marked by pointing us to Christ. Their preaching is not marked by preaching the truth.
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Their preaching is always about them. And in fact, Parham at one point called himself
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Elijah III. It's just crazy stuff, right?
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But we can see here that the Holy Spirit, according to Christ, again, he's gonna bear witness about him.
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He's the Spirit of truth, lead people into truth, all truth. He's going to glorify Christ.
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He's gonna convict the world of sin and unbelief. And we learn from the Apostle Paul that the
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Holy Spirit produces in us the fruit of the Spirit. Full stop.
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Does anything that I've said so far sound mystical or crazy or whatever? Okay, not at all.
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Now before we get into, back to the book of Acts then, we need to do a little excursus, one more little bunny trail on top of the bunny trail, and take a look at what 1
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Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14 teach regarding the gifts of the
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Spirit. And we're gonna note, we'll kind of put this on a timeline so that we can see how this all plays out. Then we're prepared for Acts chapter two with the arrival of the
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Holy Spirit. Now real quick, I could have sworn I saw that there were some questions that may have come.
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Oh, okay. I don't see Bruce putting questions up though. Okay, let's see here.
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Okay, let's see. Karen says, and those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.
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How is this possible? I don't see how this is true when I still struggle with them.
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Karen, this is a baptismal reality. So the idea then is our baptism, we're buried with Christ, we're raised with Christ, and our sinful flesh has been crucified.
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I would see Romans six for a further explanation. Paul is pointing to a baptismal reality that we apprehend by faith.
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And you'll note then, the idea then being baptized into Christ, into his death, into his resurrection, having crucified our sinful flesh, then the idea was, the thing that comes as a result of that is that we are not enslaved to sin.
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We're not slaves. We can actually say no. We can tell sin no, whereas a slave can't.
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So that's, but the thing is you have to believe what the scriptures say about that baptismal reality.
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That's kind of the idea so that you can defy the devil in that sense. Lena says,
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I think it's very scary how many people are following a spirit who is not the Holy Spirit while they think it is.
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Well, Satan describes himself as an angel of light. You'll note that Satan doesn't show up in a church wearing a red suit and a pitchfork.
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He shows up claiming to be one of the good guys. And the scary thing is is that you have to test, you have to test the preaching and teaching by the scriptures to be able to identify this.
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So 1 Corinthians 12, let's talk about this section first before we get back to the book of Acts and the day of Pentecost.
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This is the portion of scripture that talks about spiritual gifts. And here's where we have to put this on a timeline.
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1 Corinthians is the earliest epistle in the
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New Testament, written probably around 50 AD, no later than 52
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AD. So let's just kind of put this into a timeline. We're talking 20 -ish years, maybe a little less, since Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
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And if it's the earliest of the epistles, and it is, then that means what?
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We've got a long way before the New Testament's finished. So here's where we have to recognize that there is a function that needs to be filled before the completion of the
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New Testament. And that function is, is that in Christian churches, you have to have
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New Testament theology preached. And without a finished New Testament, how is that going to happen?
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Through the Spirit, okay? So these gifts are absolutely necessary without the finished
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New Testament. Absolutely necessary. Because otherwise, you're going to church every
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Sunday, and the only books you're hearing from are the Old Testament books. But now that Christ has come, you need the proper distinction between law and gospel.
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You need to have actual Christ being preached, and that's going to require a little bit of assistance by the
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Holy Spirit. But if the Holy Spirit, convict the world of sin, bear witness about Christ, lead people into all truth, glorify
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Jesus, so you can see then that as it says in Scripture, the testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy.
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That's what it says in the book of Revelation. The testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy. When we do prophecy bingo,
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I would note the spirit of Christ, the testimony of Christ is far, far away, and all we're hearing is gibberish.
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So note then that in the church at Corinth, this church was messed up, okay?
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I always feel like there's hope for Kongsvinger when I read 1 Corinthians, okay? And the reason being is this, okay?
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Let's kind of walk through some of the litany of some of the things that were going wrong there. You had a fellow who was sleeping with his father's wife, and the people there thought, well, we're saved by grace through faith.
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This is a good thing, right? No, okay, that's not a good thing. You had the rich in the congregation at Corinth keeping the poor from having the
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Lord's Supper by consuming the elements to the point where some of them were even getting drunk on the communion wine, which proves it wasn't grape juice, and so they were legitimately despising and embarrassing the poor in the congregation by doing this.
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So Paul has to correct that, okay? Along with that, you have people who had the gift of tongues, for real, the gift of tongues, and they were practicing the use of tongues speaking in church without an interpreter.
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It was just a crazy church to be in, completely messed up.
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So Paul, if you read 1 Corinthians, you can see he has to constantly kind of correct things.
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Now regarding this, regarding this, regarding this, it's a book of corrections. So concerning spiritual gifts, here we go.
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I don't want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols.
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However, you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the
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Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed. No one can say Jesus is
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Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm not gonna get into the finer details of this. Just suffice it to say, to say that Jesus is
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Lord is to say that Jesus is God, okay? And I would point you to like Romans 10 to kind of bear that out, okay?
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Now he says this. There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service but the same
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Lord. So note, right off the bat, we're gonna start with this concept, varieties of gifts.
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And the point that Paul is making is God, the Holy Spirit, gives gifts for the purpose of building the body of Christ.
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These are gifts, and the Holy Spirit chooses who gets which gifts, okay?
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So there are varieties of service but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it's the same
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God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit, watch this, for the common good.
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For one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom. To another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same
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Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one
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Spirit. To another, working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between Spirits.
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This is what we would call discernment. And to distinguish between Spirits is to be able to sit there and go, that's from God, that's from the devil, and that's from last night's pepperoni pizza with the anchovies, okay?
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That's a Spirit too, I'm just saying, okay? To another, various kinds of tongues, and here this is talking about languages.
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We'll see this in Acts 2 when we look at how the Holy Spirit uses a thesaurus.
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Okay, various kinds of languages. To another, the interpretation of tongues. All of these are empowered by one in the same
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Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
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Now if you've been in the Pentecostal churches, they have this argument. God wants you to have your
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Spirit prayer language, and the true proof that you have been baptized with the
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Holy Spirit is that it is manifested with you speaking in tongues. And so in their way of thinking, tongues is a universal gift that God the
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Holy Spirit wants to give to every single Christian. What I have read so far is this an argument for a uni gift or a variety of gifts?
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Variety, okay? And they will sit there and tell you, well, it's real simple. You ask
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God, you say, I want to have this gift, and then they misuse a text. They'll sit there and say, it's
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Jesus says that if a child asks his father for a sandwich, will he give him a scorpion, right?
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And so you know that if you ask God for the Holy Spirit, he'll give it to you, so he's a good father, yeah.
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Or I wish that you all spake in tongues. Out of context, yeah, right? And so they'll quote these verses, and then they'll say, it's really simple.
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All you have to do is start. Just turn your mind off and let your tongue go, okay?
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And so, and I've heard people say, say something like goo -goo, ga -ga, and that will get things, that will prime the pump and get things coming.
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And then what'll come out next is coulda bought a Honda, shoulda bought a Kia, right? Yes. No, it doesn't.
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I would know that tongue speakers never had to do that. Okay, and there's a function for tongues.
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We'll get to this as well. Boy, that's a great question.
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An oral Torah for gifts of the Spirit. I would, not an official one like you could write down in like the
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Talmuds or something. I would say that there's kind of mythology that rises around how tongues and the gifts of the
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Spirit are supposed to work, and there's kind of a common narrative that works its way through many of the
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Charismatic and Pentecostal churches, but every pastor kind of puts his own spin on it.
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Yeah, yeah, okay? So coming back. All of these are empowered by one in the same
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Spirit who apportions to each one as he wills. Now, I would note the
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Holy Spirit, his pronouns are he. So just saying. There's a group, there's a splinter group that's gone liberal and rogue that uses the name
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Reformed, and they refer to the Holy Spirit using feminine pronouns now. It's just absolutely crazy, okay?
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Here we go, next part. Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
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For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, all were made to drink of the one
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Spirit. Note the language here, the drinky, the water language here. It's a baptismal reference, okay?
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For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand,
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I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And I would note that there are other gifts spoken of in Scripture regarding the
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Holy Spirit, one of them being the gift of administration, okay? I think about the men that have served
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Kungsvinger in my time who legitimately have the gift of administration.
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I've jokingly said that Dwayne Clevin has the gift of Excel spreadsheets, okay?
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But let me tell you, that man's administrative abilities were practically supernatural, the best way
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I can describe it. And God used that man's gift of administration that the
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Holy Spirit gave him to carry this congregation through a very rough time, right?
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And now Stephen Elliot, he's our administrator, and he knows what he's doing as well.
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So that being the case, you'll note that everybody has different gifts, and it's for the purpose of building each other up, of serving the body of Christ.
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So just because you don't have one particular gift doesn't somehow mean that your gift that you have isn't important.
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Paul's argument is that we all work together as the body of Christ. We need these various gifts within the body in order to function as a congregation, in order to function as the body of Christ.
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So if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.
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And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
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That's a good question. If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? Starting to catch the point here?
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So the tongue speakers who are saying that tongues is the universal gift that everybody should have, it doesn't fit.
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If you have a body that consists of only tongues, that would be weird.
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That would be a monstrosity. But as it is,
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God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as, here we go again, He chose.
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If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
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Huh, interesting, right? The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again, the head to the feet,
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I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty.
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Every time I read this, I sit there and I go, I wonder who our unpresentable members are here at Kungsvinger. Right? Which our more presentable parts do not require, but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
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And here we go again. That they may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together.
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If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ, individually members of it.
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And now we're going to get into a small list of the gifts of the Spirit.
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God has appointed in the church first apostles. Second, prophets. Third, teachers.
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Then miracles. Then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of languages.
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And then, you've heard me say this a million times, but I'll put it on record again. Paul then asks a series of questions, and in the
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Greek, there is an untranslated particle with each of these questions. And the untranslated particle is the particle me.
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Which means every single one of these questions, where this particle appears, the question being asked must be answered in the negative.
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Okay? So Paul asks the question, me pontes apostoloi? Are all apostles?
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Well, because the word may is there, the answer is no. There is no other answer to this than that.
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Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles?
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No. Do all possess gifts of healing? No. Do all speak with tongues?
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And you'll note this sentence here, me pontes glosis la lucen?
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Do all speak with tongues? May is there. The answer is no. So every single church that says that tongues is a universal gift, and it's the sign that you've received the baptism of the
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Holy Spirit, they are a direct contradiction to the word of God. Not even a little bit.
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Right out, 100%. Contrary to it. Yeah, yeah,
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I've seen those videos. And it's just nonsense. It's just, it's absolute nonsense.
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And that's one of the ways that people like John Bevere and others try to get around it. They'll say, oh, well, there's different kinds of tongues. Okay, there's prayer tongues, there's tongues, you know, they come up like, he came up with four,
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I've seen other people come up with like six different kinds. And it's total nonsense. A 100 % fabrication.
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No. I like it, but no. Okay. Right. The answer is it doesn't exist anywhere.
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What they do is they eisegete this idea into the text. You can't actually eisegete it out.
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They eisegete it in. And the biblical text doesn't say that. So I remember when
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I worked at Focus on the Family, Barb and I had just had Josh. And we moved from Seattle to California because Walter Martin said so.
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Okay. So I went to Concordia University, Irvine, because Walter Martin said so. I was doing
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Greek class and taking apologetics with Dr. Rosenblatt because Walter Martin said so.
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And I was working part -time at Focus on the Family. And, oh man,
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I just think back to it. It was such a crazy place. So Focus on the
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Family basically was the ministry of Dr. James Dobson. And you had all these
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Christians working in these large cubicle mazes together. And we would have chapel every single day.
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And as far as who would speak or teach during chapel, anybody could volunteer.
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Anybody could volunteer. And so it was a mess, an absolute mess of a place.
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And I remember, I didn't know any better. I volunteered at the time. I was a Nazarene.
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I went to the same church that Dr. James Dobson went to. So I volunteered from time to time. And there was a lady in my department.
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I worked in listener services. And she came up to me afterwards and says, Chris, I really would like to meet with you and talk to you.
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And I kind of knew where this was going because I've heard her before talk about her charismatic Pentecostal stuff. And Barb and I were freshly out of all of that.
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And I said, well, tell you what, why don't we meet together on such and such a date just a couple days from now.
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We'll meet during our break time. She says, that's great. So I sat down with her a couple days later.
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And I brought my Greek New Testament with me. By this time, I was like 3 quarters of the way through first year
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Greek. And sure enough, she says, you know, Chris, you have such a teaching gift.
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And you have a heart for the scriptures and the Lord and stuff like that. I just feel terrible for you that you don't speak in tongues.
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And don't you know God, the Holy Spirit, wants you to have this gift? And I said, no, that's actually not true.
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And so I pulled out my Greek New Testament. And I showed her from my Greek grammar how may works.
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And I just went back and forth with her with these questions. I said, here's what the text says. And I asked her, are all apostles?
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And she said, no. And I said, are all prophets? And she said, no. Are all teachers?
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No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all possess gifts of healing? No. Do all speak with tongues? Yes. That was her answer.
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And I looked at her. And I said, that's not what the text says. The text says, may pontes glosis leilusin.
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Do all speak in tongues? The answer is no. And she goes, well, I don't believe that. And I said, and that's your problem.
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Because God, the Holy Spirit, is the one who had the apostle Paul write this sentence down, this question down.
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And so when your theology is directly contradicted by the scriptures, what do you do?
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So you're going to note, so far, this isn't an argument for the universal gift of tongues at all.
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This is completely obliterating that idea. But then he says, earnestly desire the higher gifts, which kind of begs the question, what's the higher gift?
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And so I will show you still a more excellent way. Now what follows is a passage we're all familiar with, because every couple getting married has this read at their wedding.
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And as I've been a pastor now for 10 years, I just think that's odd. Because love is patience, love is kind, and all that kind of stuff.
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For sure it is, but the context is in the misuse of the gifts of the Spirit. It's not about a wedding.
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But anyway, so Paul says, if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but I have not love,
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I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Now here's the important bit here. Tongues of men and what?
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Angels. So in the charismatic churches, they'll say things like this. God wants you to have a secret prayer language of speaking in tongues, because it's the tongues of angels.
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And when you're praying and speaking in tongues, Satan can't understand you. Okay. You sit there and go, what?
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Thank you for the clarification. Nobody can understand you. And their argument is, this is the reason why you have to have it.
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And I would sit there and go, you are aware that Satan is a fallen angel, right?
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He speaks angel. Whatever the language of the angels is, he speaks it fluently.
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Unless, of course, God changed the languages of the angels after Satan's fall, but no scripture says this.
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Right. So if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but I have not love,
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I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers, and I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I have not love,
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I am nothing. If I give away all that I have, if I deliver up my body to be burned, but I have not love,
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I gain nothing. So note here, Paul here is putting into context the importance of using the gifts that God has given you with love.
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That means you have to be using these gifts for somebody else, for their benefit.
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One of the things I've noticed among the Holy Spirit, the Holy Roller types, is that there sure is a big emphasis on them, and they're not serving other people with these gifts.
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They seem to be serving themselves, their reputation, their platform, their honor, their glory, their this, their that.
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But the idea then, if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, and I don't have love, love requires me to legitimately focus on other people.
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So as a pastor, I'm supposed to be able to teach. I think I do okay on that front.
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I think I can actually teach from time to time. But that being the case, when people say, oh,
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Pastor Roseberry, I've learned so much from you, I will say something to this effect. God the Holy Spirit is the one who gives the gift of teaching, and he did not give me that gift for myself.
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He gave me that gift for you, for your benefit, for your building up.
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And so I don't even get credit for any of the stuff I'm doing, because God the Holy Spirit is cheating, because he took a guy like me, who is as sinful as I am, gave me the ability to teach, and it's for y 'all, it's not for myself.
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So if you don't have love, then what's the point? The whole point of these gifts is that you love the people in the church, you build them up with these gifts.
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And then it goes on, love is patient, it is kind. Love does not envy or boast.
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It is not arrogant, it is not rude, it doesn't insist on its own way, it's not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, it rejoices with the truth.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Let me put this a different way. I remember hearing a Lutheran pastor decades ago do this, and that is that replace the word love with Christ, and you can see what's going on here.
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Christ is patient, he's kind. Christ doesn't envy or boast. He's not arrogant or rude.
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He does not insist on his own way. He's not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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Christ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Now you can see what is being talked about here. Love in this context is that self -sacrificial, not -focused -on -me kind of love.
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The same kind of love that Christ has for his church. And so when you have people in the name of the
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Holy Spirit talking about how important they are, Charles Parham claiming that he's Elijah III, he's
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Satan II when he does that, he's not loving. He's loving himself.
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He's serving himself. He's boasting. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.
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As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away.
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Now, important to note here, the Scriptures legitimately say prophecy is going to pass away.
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Tongues are going to cease. Knowledge itself will pass away. This is not talking about there being stupidity on planet
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Earth, although I would say there's a way you could argue that right now, but that's not the intent of this passage.
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This is talking about prophetic knowledge, right? So the question is, when?
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When will it pass away? And here's the issue. This next portion is heavily debated, and it's really not as clear as anybody would like it to be.
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It's not as clear as the cessationists would want it to be. It is not as clear as the continuations would want it to be.
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And as a result of it, you'll note that confessional Lutherans are not hard cessationists.
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We aren't. We absolutely believe that God the Holy Spirit can do whatever God the
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Holy Spirit wants to do when he wants to do it, but we cannot say that the church continued to operate in prophecy and tongues throughout its entire history, because that's just not true.
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It's absolutely patently false. Throughout the church's history, prophecy and tongues legitimately seems to have not been chosen by God the
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Holy Spirit to be given to many people past the time of the apostolic era.
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They seem to appear to be foundational gifts that were for the foundational time of the
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Scripture, and I think that may be what Paul's getting at here, is that he's preparing them for a time when these things come.
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And now here's where we're going to do a little bit of work in the Greek to kind of make sure we can sort this out.
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For now we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
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Now here's our issue. The Greek word that the ESV translates as perfect is the
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Greek word teleos, and it can also mean mature. And in this context, since Paul goes on to say, when
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I was a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, and things like this, teleos more than likely because of its immediate context should be translated when the mature comes.
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And the question is, what's the mature? When you say when the perfect comes, well then they sit there and go, well, that's when
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Jesus comes. But the text itself doesn't use the word perfect, it uses the word teleos, and that word can legitimately mean mature.
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Let me show you from BDAG. If I double, triple check on this and then if I, okay.
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So teleos, okay. Attaining an end or purpose complete, okay.
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That's its major meaning. Pertaining to meeting the highest standard of things that are perfect.
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That's one aspect. The acme of goodness, for instance, okay. The acme of badness, okay.
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Of persons who are fully up to standard in a certain respect and not satisfied with halfway measures.
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Pertaining to mature, full grown, mature, adult. So all of a sudden we recognize there's some nuance.
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Pertaining to being a cult initiate, the initiated. That's clearly not going to be in this context.
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But when we look at this context here, the question is, is Paul using teleos to talk about perfection, which is one of its meanings, or is he talking about maturity?
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Listen again, okay. We know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the teleos comes, the partial will pass away.
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When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child.
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When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. I would argue from that context,
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Paul is not talking about perfection. He's talking about maturity. That being the case, this isn't referenced then to the return of Christ, the perfect.
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This is referring to the time when the scriptures would be completed.
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The mature. And so here we go. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face -to -face.
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The charismatic says, see, that has to be talking about the return of Christ. Because that's when we see
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Jesus face -to -face. I would remind you all, when Moses ascended Mount Sinai, and when he began the project of writing down the
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Torah, he was described as one who saw God face -to -face.
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This language, now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face -to -face, invokes Moses. It's not as clear as the continuationists want to make it.
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And I would note that all of the earliest Pentecostals, William Seymour, Fox Parham, and the others who preceded them,
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Sanford and others, they all were cessationists. Nobody at that time could say that God continued giving the gift of tongues.
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Everybody at that time said that God had restored the gift of tongues. And when you read the newspaper accounts, again, go and see
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Dan Long's channel, Long for Truth, and the early Pentecostal movement.
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All the newspaper articles talk about Parham's cult. They call it the tongues cult because they were all about the restoration of the gift of tongues.
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So I would note exegetically, I believe that this is talking about the fact that certain gifts are foundational and necessary before the completion of the
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New Testament. And the face -to -face language invokes Moses, who was the author of the
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Torah, and his face -to -face meeting with God. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
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And I would note that everything we need now regarding life and doctrine is written in the
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Scriptures. In fact, let me throw in this last bit, and then we'll have to pick up from here next week.
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If I were to go to 2 Timothy 3, all
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Scripture, Paul writes, is breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.
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So the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.
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This, 2 Timothy, is the last letter that Paul wrote. 1 Corinthians is the first.
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And when Paul writes 2 Timothy, the New Testament's almost finished. When Peter writes 2
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Peter, which is his last epistle, he's going to his death. He points people to the
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Scriptures. And this is where we are made complete. We're going to end here, and then,