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Pastor David Mitchell
We've been talking about five steps of unity in the church out of Romans chapter 12. It doesn't mean there are only five. There are going to be some others we get to, but we talked about being a people of prayer, walking God's will, contemplate God's awesome nature, and we spent quite a bit of time on that one.
Get unconformed to the world by being transformed and understanding your place, your calling, your measure of faith in the church, and that's the one we're on now, that fifth step. So as far as having unity in the church, it really helps to understand that we're part of one body, which comes from this passage we've been in chapter 12 verses 5 through 8 last time, that we're one body.
We have many different gifts. We don't all have the same gift. We're not supposed to all have the same, and that each is just as important to the body of Christ as any of the others, and that really helps a church, a local church, to have unity when it understands that, that each part is equally important.
Gifts differing according to the grace that's given to us. We need to understand God does not give us all the same exact amount of grace or faith. He gives us the amount of grace and or faith that we need to do what he put us on this planet to do, and Jesus is the only one that had faith without measure and grace without measure, and so then it starts mentioning some of the gifts.
The first one in the middle of verse 6 up there you can see is prophecy. The second one is ministry, and we've talked about those two already, and then it mentions teaching there at the bottom of verse 7, and then verse 8, it mentions exhorting others, and then the next one there in verse 8 is a person has the gift of giving.
Did you know that was a spiritual gift? Not everyone has the same measure of that gift, of course, but we're all supposed to give, but for some people it's easier because they have a gift of giving, and then ruling, like managing, do that with diligence, and then he that shows mercy do it with cheerfulness.
Don't you think showing mercy, it's interesting that that's a gift to show mercy, so we've talked about those. So it mentions seven. Speaking, now prophecy, if you remember, has two meanings. Speaking forth God's word is the primary meaning of the Greek word, the actual Greek word throughout all usages in Greek, including profane works, writings like Plato, Socrates, but also in the New Testament, that Greek word predominantly means to speak forth something.
In the New Testament sense, it means to speak forth God's word. It basically means someone who is proclaiming the word of God, and specifically a preacher. The second meaning is a person that can tell the future, and that is used early in the church up until around 60 AD, and you're going to see some information about that as we go, but then there's the gift of ministering to others, teaching, exhorting, giving with simplicity, and ruling with diligence, and showing mercy with cheerfulness.
Those are the seven gifts that are mentioned here, and it's not the only place in the Bible where it talks about gifts. So we've kind of covered each of those in detail, except the first three. We didn't really talk about the four through seven in detail, but I'm not going to talk a lot about them.
I'm just going to give you the Greek definitions. It's interesting to me that one who exhorts, and I think this is really important to understand this, because the Bible says, rebuke not an elder, but exhort him as a brother, and it actually says admonish, but what's interesting in that particular verse, the Greek word is parakleo, which is the same word here for exhort, so it could have been translated exhort or admonish.
So you admonish, you don't rebuke an elder, you admonish or exhort him as a brother, and it doesn't stop there. It says, and the younger men, you don't rebuke them, you exhort them as a younger brother, and the young women, you exhort them or admonish them as a younger sister.
So what does it mean? Well, it's interesting that the Greek actually means to call near or to invite alongside oneself. How many of you saw The Gladiator, that movie? Yeah, it's a pretty great movie. My favorite line is, but not yet, but anyway, you'll have to watch the movie to get that one, but it's my favorite line, and I say it all the time, but not yet.
But what was I going to say about the movie? All right, you know that the king, the old king in the first part of the movie, such an awesome, you know, example of a king, of an earthly king, and he brings his daughter in and wants to have a talk, and he says, and he gets real quiet, and he says, come and sit by me, and let's pretend that I am a loving father, and that you're an honoring and loving daughter, and she said, well, that's quite a fiction, father, remember that?
It's kind of sad, but they were getting along at that point in their lives, but he calls her alongside of the king, and he speaks softly, like it's a secret between the father and the daughter, and then he calls the gladiator guy, I don't even know what his name was in the movie, but he calls him in and says, come, and he lays, the king lays down and has him come up beside him and says, come, whisper to me as a son.
Well, that is a perfect picture of what this word means. It's to call someone alongside and have a private talk that's very calm and quiet and meek and, you know, with the minds open to what's being said and so forth.
So, it's the furthest thing from a rebuke. Do you get that? So, this is how the Lord says we treat one another in our communication. Isn't that interesting? Not just the church with the elder or elders, but also with each other, the younger men towards the younger men and the older men, the younger women and the older men and the younger men, all speaking to each other in this manner.
So, I think that is a great word in the New Testament. Now, parakaleo, if you look at that root word, it's very similar to the word for the Holy Spirit, which is the paraclete. Remember that? It's the same word, root word there.
So, I found it interesting and I was looking at some scripture in Bill's Sunday school lesson and I found it interesting in there where it was talking about to, you know, good communications and speaking words that bring grace to the hearer.
Remember that part of your lesson this morning? If you look right at the very next verse after that, it says, and grieve not the Holy Spirit right in the context. So, a surefire way to grieve the Holy Spirit is to speak unkindly to one another or about one another.
So, it's interesting what you said, Ron. I've never heard Charlotte say anything unkind about anyone. So, you know, it comes back to not grieving the Holy Spirit. In other words, remaining in unity with the Holy Spirit, we have to be in unity with one another or we're not.
Isn't that interesting? That's in the Sunday school lesson. So, to beseech, comfort, or entreat, and you find that there in Timothy, 1 Timothy 5 1 is the very verse I was talking about. So, that word entreats the same Greek word as the word for exhort up there in the other verse.
All right. So, now let's look at the fifth gift was giving, but to give with simplicity. And simplicity in the Greek is kind of an old English word calling this simplicity. We wouldn't use that English word in modern English.
We would use the word sincerity. Okay. So, that's what the Greek word means. Sincerity, singleness of mind, no hypocrisy, but when we give, we give it in sincerity. We're not giving in order for someone to see us give.
We're not doing a good work so others can know we do good stuff. It's not like that. It's sincere. It's real. It's a gift from the heart. It's a gift from love. So, that's what that Greek word means. And then ruling with diligence.
The word rule means to stand before the people, and that's how I know that it's talking about a preacher. It's not talking about there are many places in the testament where it says to go and preach, where it's not talking about a preacher.
In the Greek, it means to go and proclaim, which is every one of us. All of us do that, but we don't all stand up here in front of everybody. I mean, brother Ron does from time to time, and he can get us fired up.
You know, he's like the exhorter. He's like the prophet type speaker, and brother Bill does, and I do, and Dave Huber does, and sometimes Ben does, and so there are various people. Paul over here, you know, various people in the church who stand before the church and either teach or preach or bring us together or get the business of the church done.
That's what that word rule means, and to stand before is. So, it's kind of talking about the called elders of the church, and it says if you are called a rule to do it with diligence, and it's interesting because the actual primary meaning of it, this reminds me of brother Paul a whole lot.
You're going to laugh when you read it, to do it with speed. Like if we're going to do it, let's do it yesterday. Let's don't wait. All right, so there's that one with dispatch, with eagerness, with earnestness, right?
And so, you want to look at what it means to rule of diligence. Just think of brother Paul over there, the good definition. In 1 Timothy 5 17, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those that labor in the word and in doctrine.
So, do that with diligence, right? And then showing mercy with cheerfulness. Showing mercy is one in English. That's two words. In Greek, it's one word, and it means to compassionate. Isn't that an interesting word?
To compassionate someone. Be kind to them. Show them mercy. Show compassion. When they mess up, generally is what this is talking about. Someone in your circle of life, especially a brother or sister in Christ, when they mess up, you don't get all legalistic.
That's not what Jesus did. Now, he would do that with the Pharisees who were the legalists, but he never did that with his sheep, did he? Never did that with his sheep, and he didn't even do it with the lost sheep that were going to get saved later.
Like the woman caught in adultery, he said, let the man who's not sin throw the first stone. That's what he said. He didn't start naming off the different rules she broke. He had compassion on this woman, and none of the men had compassion on her at all.
They all had to leave one after another, from the eldest to the youngest. What do you think that means? Think about that. The older men had had way more time to sin. They had more in their life, and boy, Jesus just ran them off with words, just very simply by having compassion on the woman.
So, this is how we're supposed to be to one another. We're supposed to show mercy to one another, and it's a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural to be that way, is it? And it says when we do it, we should do it with cheerfulness, and that Greek word means cheerfulness.
You got that? Aren't you glad I went to the Greek on that one? All right. Now, let's talk about this. I now have a sixth step that will help a local church have more unity, and it would help the church at large have more unity if this could happen.
I don't see this happening until Jesus comes back and straightens everything out in the world, because one of the first things he'll straighten out, I'm sure, is the church. My personal belief is that the large...
I understand in all the books that have been written about the seven-year tribulation period that it's the missing week of Daniel, and it's all about Jewish material, it's all about Israel. It's not.
All you have to do is read the Bible, and you'll see it has two purposes. It's about Israel, but it's also about the church. It's also about taking the church through seven years of cleansing, so that during that seven years, she will prepare herself and make herself clean, which in the Greek is very clear that in the Greek that it's not talking about positional righteousness.
It's talking about her making herself clean, and that only happens to us, unfortunately, through persecution in hard times. That's when we're closer to the Lord than ever, and that's, I believe, a huge purpose of the tribulation period.
Well, so my point there is Jesus is going to deal with the church at the end of this age in a way that it's never been dealt with before. In fact, he said if it weren't for the elect's sake, all life would be destroyed on this earth during the tribulation, but for the elect's sake, that's his people, Jew and Gentile.
For his elect's sake, he stops it short of that, and that's something. Well, one way that the church alive on the face of the earth today could have unity is if it understood this one thing, is that some gifts have ceased and some haven't.
All right, some gifts have ceased during the church age, and some have not. Some are still operative, and which are which, and there's huge division over that topic, and I see so much compromise among Bible-believing preachers in this country who will compromise on this issue, and really the Holy Spirit is telling them in the deepest part of their heart that they're wrong when they do that.
They should not be compromising on this issue, because it does not help anyone to make them feel better about doing something that's false, like Bill talked about Sunday school. You're not helping brothers and sisters by making them feel okay living a lie.
It doesn't help anything. It creates a mockery of the church. The world at large mocks the church when it sees these things. Jeannie, wasn't it you telling me about a group of people, I think it was you last Sunday, tell me about a group of people that there was a female preacher somewhere in this country, I'm assuming, probably had to be America, right, that she was called to be a female preacher, preacher slash comedian, so when she walks into these types of churches before she can even speak, I mean this sometimes happens here when I'm speaking, I'm sure people just start laughing, and they can't stop laughing, so like she comes up to speak, they look at her, they just die laughing, and they can't, she can't speak because they're laughing, because that's what God has called her to do, all right, so what was the other interesting thing about that?
Oh, I remember, so she finally was able to get some words out, and so I guess she was telling a testimony, she and a friend, you know, a little testimony story of she and a friend were, I don't know, at a mall or something, you told me exactly where they were, but I like the way I preach it better, had a little spice to it, no, where was it, a mall or coffee shop or something, so she and her friend just during the week walk into this coffee shop, oh, it's happening to me, the words are not coming out right for the day, if you're the interpreter for today, all right, so they walk in, and her friend was frozen in the spirit, now, do you know what that, can you find chapter and verse on that, tell me what that is, but she was frozen, so I pictured like they're walking in, and she just goes, and her friend says, Susie, what are you doing, and Susie goes, and she's frozen in the spirit, and obviously, it was the Holy Spirit that did this, we know that for a fact, and so she's telling this story to the congregation in between their laughter, and she gets her bottle of water, oh, I actually have water, Jeannie, should we experiment, Dave, you're the interpreter, I'm sprinkling you, okay, and she starts taking that bottle of water and going like this to the people on the front row, and one by one, they freeze, they fall on the floor, and that's obviously the Holy Spirit doing that, isn't it, is this amazing or what, I mean, I thought I'd heard everything, I remember back, I believe it was in the 80s, Charlotte, when we discovered this, used to, I would preach about this back in the 80s, and I'm so glad Katie could be here today, because I thought I was gonna preach on this last week, and she knows this is dad's favorite topic, right, she and Jenny have always said, dad, your favorite topic is talking in tongues and preaching why it's wrong, so maybe not my favorite, but top 10, definitely top 10, but you know, there was a time, Charlotte, you'll remember this, where there was a thing going around the country, where these groups, Pentecostal charismatic groups, would have these big speakers, the first one came from Canada, and he had, they would roar like lions, so it was the gift of roaring as a lion, and so the entire congregation would begin to roar like lions, and then they had the thing, similar gift here, not the freezing part, but the laughter part, they would start laughing, and then they would start crying, and then they would start laughing and crying, then they would roar like lions again, went all the way around the circuit, as this man began to speak at the different large Pentecostal charismatic places, all of a sudden they had this gift, so you call it what it is, you can call it power of suggestion, hypnotism, I call it demonic, and I know that the apostle Paul said that there are other spirits, and the implication in the context of that passage is that they mimic the Holy Spirit, try to make people think that's the Holy Spirit doing things, that the Holy Spirit in Hebrews chapter one, verses one through three, said he's not going to do anymore until the tribulation period, which hasn't halfway through it actually, and we're not there yet, so he would have to lie, there you talked about doing oaths, and do you think God can ever lie, brother Bill?
God cannot ever lie, and read Hebrews one, one through three, he says he no longer speaks to us in these manners like he did through the prophets in the Old Testament, but now he speaks through his son, that's the written word, so God says he doesn't do it, but thousands and tens of thousands of people say oh no, but he's still doing it, so those are different spirits that are mimicking the Holy Spirit, and I never tell a person it's not real, when they tell me they speak in tongues, foreign language they've never learned, of course they don't even, see that's the Bible, in the Bible tongues were not gibberish, they were foreign languages, and that's beyond the scope of this message, but easily proven in scripture, foreign languages wasn't gibberish like it is now when they do it, and so they'll say well you know I'm speaking in tongues, and actually it's another spirit mimicking the true gift, and it's a counterfeit, and I never say all that didn't happen, because it does happen, it is happening, it's just not coming, what I do tell them to their face as meekly as I can, but it's not the Holy Spirit doing it, and then if they ask me how I know, I'll read them Hebrews one, one through three, and other places, and doesn't usually go well for me or them, and but you know what, unless the Lord opens a human mind, no one will change their mind, and I know that, and so I can deal with it, but so some gifts have ceased, and you might guess that the gift of tongues is one of those, and we'll we'll look at scripture, now look here in first Corinthians 13 8, love, now you have to understand charity, this is an old English word in the Greek, it's talking about agape love, so just put the word love, when you see the word charity in this passage, say love, it's love, okay, so love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, now there's one of the gifts we've already been talking about for a couple of weeks, right, whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, okay, now why is this verse ignored, why doesn't this verse count as 316 scripture, John 3 16, just as true as any other verse, are the many hundreds of verses in the Bible about election, and predestination, and foreknowledge, and all of those, people want to ignore those, people want to ignore this, but it clearly says that prophecies will fail, we're going to look what that word fail means in a minute, and then whether there be tongues, they will cease, and in the context of this, it is referring to the Holy Spirit gift of tongues, tongue speaking, which is speaking a foreign language that you did not study in school, and it's miraculous that you're able to do it, that's what that's a reference to, it's not gibberish, I'll show you what gibberish is if we get to it today, but it's not that, it's not a biblical gift, so prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, whether there be knowledge, and that's not just talking about knowing something in the context of it, it's what they call in the modern charismatic churches, a word of knowledge, how many of you ever heard that phrase used?
I'm going to stand up and give a word of knowledge, that means I'm going to tell you something that God told me to tell you that's not in the Bible, so I'm going to add scripture to the amount of scripture you have now, so now you got Genesis through Revelation plus David's words that God told me to tell you, that's what that is, and you say well that's not what that, yeah that is what that is, because if you are speaking a word of knowledge that came from God, you could write that down, and you know if it came from God, it's the word of God, is it not?
Now I understand that doesn't mean it's part of scripture, part of the canon, I understand it doesn't mean that, but it is from God if it really came from God, right, so but if that gift ever existed, and the question is did it, the answer is yes it did, it will vanish away, Paul said.
Now wouldn't it be nice if Paul had told us when, well he did, he told us exactly when it would pass away, and people want to ask like it's vague, it's confusing, it's not clear, we don't understand, it could mean this, this, this, or this, and if you study it, as long as Katie can testify that her father has studied this from the day she was born until now, it is not vague, it can only mean one thing, I mean there's only one possibility of what it can mean.
So but first let's look at this, what does it mean when it says prophecies will fail? Fail here is the Greek word ekpipto, which means to drop away, to be driven out of one's course, or to become inefficient.
It's interesting because it's in the future, which means this, this, whatever this means about prophecies failing is something would happen in Paul's future. Now 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians are two of the oldest or most ancient New Testament books.
They're written prior to 60 AD, so they're more like 50 AD, somewhere in there, 55 something AD, somewhere in there, they're some of the most ancient. Let's put it this way, some of the first New Testament books that were written were 1 and 2 Corinthians, not the first, but some of some of the earlier books.
So this in Paul's is the Holy Spirit inspires Paul to write this, it's out in the future when prophecies will fail. Do you see that? Because it's in the future tense, but it's also passive, which is interesting, because what that means is, is that prophecies will be stopped by someone greater and bigger than the prophets, and that would be God.
So what it means is that God Himself at a certain point, which Paul is going to tell us when, God Himself will stop that gift from happening anymore. God says, I will start it up anew, which you can't start something new if it didn't stop.
Good logic. So He will stop it for a season throughout the majority of the church age, and He will start it up again three and a half years into the seven-year tribulation period. In between those two times, the time when He stops it, when God Himself causes it to fail, or the better word for modern English would be when He drives it out of the course, takes it away, He makes it inefficient where it's not working anymore, and He removes it.
From that time until three and a half years into the tribulation period, it will not exist in the church. The true gift of this will not exist. The Holy Spirit gift of this type of prophecy will not exist anymore for approximately 2 ,000 some odd years.
God said that, yet man says it still exists today. So who are you going to believe? Your friend says, oh, well, I've seen this happen. I mean, we have prophets in our church. Who are you going to believe?
Well, you should come back and say, well, we got a few prophets in our church, too, because the word can mean two things. It means telling forth the word of God. We have men that do that in our church.
But as far as, like, do you mean you have people that tell the future or tell you stuff God said that no one else knew about? Yeah, we got that. Well, the Bible says that failed, that God removed it. So how do you still have it?
Would be a great question to ask. So as you look at the history of the church, now you say, well, why, you know, I've had people tell me, well, we don't allow that. We only look at the Bible only. We're not going to allow you to bring in history into this argument.
And I say, well, let me ask you, what is this? When Paul was hanging on the dungeon wall, imprisoned, and he asked for them to bring him the books and the parchments, what are those? And the answer is they were the scriptures, but they were also other books that Paul studied.
So if the apostle Paul studied other books, then we're supposed to, when he says study to show yourself approved unto God, it doesn't mean just the Bible. We're supposed to study many things. God wrote two books at least.
He wrote the Bible and he wrote nature, science. So we're supposed to study a lot of things to be able to be witnesses in the world that we live in. But what's interesting is, as we look at church history, the speaking forth of God's word did not ever be eliminated from the church.
In fact, it became the highest gift. I'll show that to you in a minute. That meaning of the word prophet, and remember in Greek, there aren't two words. There's one word to mean both things. It's the speaking forth of God's word or telling the future and doing those kinds of things that Old Testament prophets and the early New Testament prophets could do.
Even at the time this was written, they still had prophets in the New Testament church that could tell the future. They could have people stand up and the Holy Spirit would give them words of knowledge where they could give you the meaning of Ephesians 2, 8, 9 before they even had that book of the Bible.
They didn't have it yet because maybe they were in Corinth. The book at Ephesus had the letter, but the people in Corinth didn't have the Ephesian letter yet. So if any of the beautiful truths, imagine if you did not have the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10, the most famous verses maybe in the whole New Testament other than John 3, 16. They didn't have that at this church. So they had to have someone stand up and the Holy Spirit would enable them to speak those truths to that body.
Does that make sense? So it was a needed gift. Well, this gift of prophecy would be stopped by God in the passive tense, be driven out or taken away by God at some point in the future. But then when it talks about the gift of tongue speaking, oh I didn't finish my thought on the prophecy.
When you look at the telling the future part, that has to be the part of the meaning of the word that ceased because the speaking forth of God's word was elevated to the highest gift. It was not removed.
And even though there's just one word for it, you can tell the meaning by the context easily in the Bible. And so part of what prophecy used to mean has gone now and part of it is still here, but we don't call it prophecy.
We call it preaching, at least in Baptist churches or churches that had roots in among the Baptist like we do or Bible churches. We would call it preaching, but the truth is there is a meaning for the word prophet.
That's a man who just stands up and speaks God's word. That's a prophet. So a man of God who is called is a prophet in that sense. It doesn't mean he can tell the future because part of that gift is gone.
So it's like you have part of the gift stayed there. Part of the gift is gone. That can be confusing, but in scripture, it's not confusing. It's very clear. It's only confusing because preachers don't teach it anymore.
They don't teach it right. They don't teach the sheep to, Hey, you may not be studying the Greek all week, but here's what this means. You may not be looking at the context when these other preachers pull out and say, Oh, we can give a word of knowledge.
And they pull that one little verse out, but you hadn't read three chapters, either side of it, like I have. So here's what it really means. You don't have men standing up and doing that anymore. And because of that, there's confusion, but it's not confusing in the scripture.
So here we have part of the idea of what a prophet is, has ceased. The other part is elevated to the top gift. And then when it speaks of speaking a language, you've not learned in school miraculously that he says will cease and words of knowledge in the congregation that will see that will vanish away from the church.
Now, cease is a little bit different word. Um, it comes from palo palo, which means to stop or desist or to come to an end. All right. So the part of prophesying where you're telling the future, telling people stuff, God told you that he didn't tell them or that's not in the Bible.
That part failed. In other words, it dropped away from the church and God caused it to just fall away and just stop being operative. It's no longer operating in the church. The tongues and the words of knowledge ceased, or at least the ceased, which means they stopped.
They came to an end in the church. Now that's interesting because it's not future passive. If you'll notice, it's future middle voice. And in English and in Greek, uh, middle voice means it like, it's like if David is driving a little too fast, which sometimes happens, Charlotte, Charlotte says something or gives a certain look or acts nervous.
And David, in and of himself, because the fuzz buster beeps, maybe decides to slow down. Good illustration. That is in the middle voice because I myself stopped it. You see, it means like the subject of the sentence is the one who stopped the verb from happening.
Or maybe it was Charlotte that stopped it. I don't know, but I'm the one who took the foot off the gas and stopped it. All right. So now what's interesting when you understand that is with regard to tongues, the tongues ceased in of themselves.
So the gift itself stopped itself. Isn't that interesting? Whereas the prophecies, God just stopped it. Tongues just sort of stopped happening. So picture the church, picture the church being the instrument or the person, the whole church being the person who can speak in unknown languages miraculously, the church just sort of stopped doing it.
Do you get that picture? That's the true meaning of it. The church just kind of stopped doing it. And Paul says it will happen. Did he not? And then the words of knowledge will vanish away and vanish away is similar to cease.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part will be done away. There's the answer to when it happens. One verse later, he answers when it happens in one verse and the whole world says it's complicated.
We don't really know when it stops. We think it means when the rapture happens, it'll stop, which if you believe that that would allow it to still be happening, wouldn't it? Right. If you said, well, the perf that which is perfect, that's talking about when Jesus comes back to the second coming of the rapture, whatever you want to say.
Well, if it means that, then it could still be happening because it will stop. But you know, what's interesting about that is if that's true, then why Paul even say it? Because that's like saying, well, when the church is gone, all these gifts stop.
Well, isn't it also true that if that's what he meant by that, the gift of administration, the gift of giving all those other gifts would stop too at the second coming, wouldn't they? Because we're gone.
So it can't mean that. I mean, if it does mean that, why did you differentiate these three gifts from all the other ones and imply that these stop, but the other ones keep going? In fact, prophecy, the speaking of God's word will be elevated to the top one for a season of time is clearly implied.
So if the perfect, if that which is perfect, if that event is the rapture, the whole discussion is meaningless. God just wasted several pages of scripture. I've never seen him do that because God put everything about the universe, everything that is everything before the universe, after the universe, after time, before time and himself in a book, this thick, he is very concise.
God never wastes any time in the Bible. So why would they even have the discussion if that's what it meant? So there's a logical argument against that interpretation, but you can't just go with a logical argument.
I don't suppose unless you're a logical person and not everybody is a lot of people go by their emotions. When you say, you know what they call a person that goes by their emotions and not by logic. No one knows.
And the English, give me the English word for it. You don't have it a fool. No, a Democrat. Gosh, you guys see how thankful you are to have a leader preacher teacher. You wouldn't there's stuff. You wouldn't know if I weren't here, kind of like stuff.
I wouldn't know if Otis hadn't been here now, but my stuff is deep. Otis's was more biblical stuff. All right. So we kind of got the meanings and then verse 10 tells us when it happens. It happens when that which is perfect comes.
I would have to think that means when it comes into time and space, space and time, when it comes into our world, would you not think so? So the perfect two words, that which is perfect, the perfect, that thing, which is perfect.
The word means is teleos, which means it is complete in the sense of mature. It's finished. In other words, it's not still being built. It's not still being put together. It's done. You with me? So when the perfect is come, that word means when the thing that is totally complete and finished and mature, when that gets here, these gifts will stop or fall away from the church.
All right. Now, let me ask you a question. Can you name one thing in this world after the fall, this sinful world, this world and creation tainted by sin, even the physics of the world are first and second laws of thermodynamics.
I mean, everything is tending towards greater entropy, which means more chaos. If you don't believe that, look at your closet or your garage. And so can you think of a thing, not a person? Because we talk, we would say God, wouldn't we?
Or we would say Jesus. And we might say the Holy Spirit. If we want to name a person that's perfect, but I'm talking about a thing. Can you name one thing in this world that is perfect? The Holy Spirit.
That's a person. You got to name a thing. The Bible. Anyone else have a thought? I don't hear any answers other than the Bible. Good answer because that is the answer. But let me give you some church history.
And when Paul asked for the parchments and the books, he wanted the scrolls that had old Testament scriptures on it to study while he's hanging on that wall. But he also wanted other books that he had been reading, historical books, Plato, Socrates, who knows the Iliad and the Odyssey.
I don't know what he's reading, but other books that men, wise men, maybe Jewish scholars, certainly Jewish scholars going back as far as he had, he was studying all these books. He was studying logic.
He was studying science of the day, everything. Paul studied all these things, a very well-studied man. And it's interesting. That shows us we should be studying not just the Bible. We should also study church history.
We should try to figure out what our brothers and sisters for 2 ,000 years of history have thought certain passages meant and what they didn't think they meant. But I'll have friends that'll, if I get into this debate with them, they'll say, well, no, you can't use that.
We're just sticking with scripture. And I'll say, well, I'm not just sticking with scripture. I got other books. I have other factual books. I have books of church history that I've studied. Have you?
Well, not too much. Well, maybe that's why you don't want me to get into them. But you need to hear what I have to say. Would you at least listen? And they'll usually say yes. And I'll share some of what I'm going to share.
But I'll say this. By the end of the fourth century, now, Josh McDowell wrote this in one of his books. And he wrote two great books back in the 70s, I guess, maybe early 80s, Evidence, which Demands a Verdict and then More Evidence, which Demands a Verdict.
Fantastic books to read and to get your young people about Maddie's age to read these books. Even at that early, even Gemma could read some of it with her parents probably be best since she can't totally read yet.
But they're just great books. But he's a great author. He's an apologist. And that means a person who argues for the existence of God and for the truth of the scriptures. Like you should read his material on how he knows that the resurrection actually happened.
It's fascinating stuff to read. But anyway, he wrote this. He said, by the end of the fourth century, that would be the 300s. By the end of the 300, 300 years after Christ and the apostles were already in heaven.
By the end of the fourth century, by the end of the 300s, the canon was definitively settled and accepted. Now, the canon, I can't believe I didn't bring my Bible. One day I didn't bring it. Don't even have my phone up here to use as a Bible.
But the canon means the whole Bible. It means Genesis through Revelation. When all of the Bible was penned, inspired by God, penned by humans as God inspired them to write down to the jot and the tittle, the cross of the T and the dot of the I were inspired by God to be exactly as they were supposed to be.
When that was finished, it was called the canon. So this occurred. The canon was available to at least one church where there was at least one church in the world that had all the books of the Bible in one place.
This happened by the end of the fourth century. It was settled where the church agreed on what books should be in the Bible by the end of the fourth century as well, but not as part of the Council of Nicaea as some people claim.
And I've read that too, where people say, well, this happened in the Council of Nicaea where they determined the canon. That's not even accurate. But it was actually the Council of Carthage established, which established the Orthodox New Testament canon in 397 AD.
So 397 AD is when the New Testament was finished. It was complete. It was mature. It was no longer going to be added to by anybody. In fact, the last part of the book of Revelation says anybody adds to or takes away from this book will have a curse.
That's also in the Old Testament stated the same way, same words in the Old Testament. You never, Old Testament, New Testament, you've never allowed to add to or take away from the word of God. Now, God himself gave the word of God little by little through the ages.
We know that's how he gave it to us in time and space. But there came a time when it was finished. It was complete, mature, and that year was 397 AD. It was upheld again later by the Council of Trent in 1545, where they came back and said, yeah, back in 397, they were correct.
That is, those are the total books that should be in the Bible. And by 1545, they had other books that people were claiming should be in the Bible. And the scholars were having to study that, look into it and say, well, could there be other ones that they missed?
And you've even read things in your lifetime. Well, there's this hidden book of the Bible that's missing, you know, and they'll talk about that. False prophets who love to write books about that. People will suck them up and read them.
But it was determined in these two councils that the Bible that we have is the whole Bible and it's finished and God has spoken, it's done. Now, the scripture says bears this out as well, but history bears it out there in the Council of Carthage, in the Council of Trent.
By the way, Protestants and Catholics are in agreement on the canon. Isn't that interesting? Now, the Catholics add a few apocryphal books, but they say that they're apocryphal. And did you know that King James, when it was first printed, had some apocryphal books included in it, but they were not ever considered by the Catholics or the Protestants to be part of the canon.
Church history, okay? So, the whole Bible was together, certainly, by 397. It probably was already together before that, some years before that, but there was a council where they said, yeah, this is it.
We have it. We have it all now. Here it is. 397. In the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 11, it says, which also said, you men of Galilee, why stand you there gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.
So, there is a second coming, isn't there? And the scripture tells us how it's going to happen. He's going to, just as he went up into the clouds, he's going to come out of the clouds as the lightning from the east to the west.
And every eye shall see him. It will not be a secret rapture, like falsely taught and has been forever. Not forever. It's a relatively new theory, actually. But you know what I'm talking about. It doesn't happen that way.
And so, here we have it. Now, here's what's interesting. When the scripture talks about the second coming, would you agree Acts 1 11 is talking about the second coming? Who says no? So, everybody agrees that's second coming, right?
You guys think so? Second coming. Okay. So, when you take a look at Jesus coming back in the Greek, in that sentence, Jesus is in the masculine. It's not feminine. It's not neuter, which means a thing.
If it's found in the Greek, if it's found in neuter, it means it's a thing, like this table would be neuter. And if it's a man, it's masculine. If it's a female, it's feminine in the noun. The nouns are that way, and they have different endings in the Greek that mark so that you know which it is.
This is clearly in the Greek. It is masculine. However, when you look at 1 Corinthians 13 10, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away, the perfect is in the neuter.
So, it is not a person, male or female. It's not God. It's not Jesus coming back. It's a thing. Do you get that? All right. 1 Corinthians 13 13, and now by faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is love.
Follow after love and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy. Now, here at this point, even in the book of Corinthians, where people go to find out about tongue speaking, and I wish they read the whole thing in context, but they don't, gifts of knowledge, all these things, even in that book, it says there's going to come a day when the greatest gift is prophesying.
So, like if back then in that church, they still had tongue speaking, but it was foreign languages. They still had words of knowledge, but it says, okay, you got these spiritual gifts, but rather you need to follow after prophesying.
Now, don't you find the phrase interesting? Follow after. It's very difficult to, follow after would be like studying really hard to get good at something. Would you agree? I mean, that's a pretty good definition for that.
You could follow after being a carpenter or follow after being an engineer, get really good at it, but you can't really follow after, you know, you can't, it's very difficult to follow after a gift in the sense of getting better at it.
Not if it's the Holy Spirit doing it through you. So, like it's not the same as human effort. Do you see that? So, here he talks about following after love. Now, do you think that agape love is something you can get better at or is it something you only have because God put it in you?
Now, I'm not talking about the other two kinds of love, but agape is like you either have it or you don't, and you have it when you're walking in the Spirit and you're attached to God. Okay, so what about the Spirit, the seven spiritual gifts we already mentioned in our previous study and alluded to earlier this morning?
If they're gifts of the Spirit, you can't follow after them in the sense of practicing them and getting better at them. You just have them when you're filled with the Spirit and He gave you that gift.
Would you agree with that? And so, prophesying here is the same way. Well, you could say, well, that could be the old meaning, I mean the second meaning of it, telling the future, or it could mean the first meaning, right?
In fact, at this point in history, it means both because they still had people in the New Testament church who could tell the future because the Holy Spirit told them what was about to happen, or He told them what Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 meant when they didn't have that book yet, right?
At the time Corinthians was written, they did not have the book to the letter to the Ephesians in Corinth yet, as far as we know. So, people would have to stand and give those truths if that church was going to have it.
So, that was a needed thing and it happened. It was operative, but so prophesy here could mean both that and it also mean speaking forth God's word, and it did mean both. Now, what's interesting, in the other passage we just saw, Paul said prophesying is going to cease, that God will stop it.
Now, why would the Lord in 1 Corinthians 13, 13 and 14 in verse 1 say that it's going to actually be elevated to one of the highest gifts is prophecy, if at the same time it's going to cease? Does that seem like it contradicts a little bit?
It kind of does seem contradictory unless you think it through, and the only way you can make any sense out of it is if you understand, if you've done a word study on the word and you understand it has two meanings, and the only way you can tell which one's by the context.
So, what this clearly shows is that prophesying has two components, and if prophecies are going to cease, the prophecies that are going to cease are the ones that are telling the future, and they're like the gifts like tongue speaking and word of knowledge and telling the future, and we call these sign gifts because they are gifts that authenticated the spokesperson, and God said they're real because they can do these things.
Those will cease, but the telling forth of God's word will get bigger, and that's if you study church history, that's exactly what happened. The idea of a person speaking prophetically ceased from the church, and the ideas of preachers standing up and preaching the truth of God's word got bigger and bigger and bigger as you go all the way down through the days of Spurgeon and Whitfield and the people that caused revivals throughout the world.
That gift was the one that was elevated, and the other one ceased in and of itself in church history. It's very interesting. All right, so remember it has two meanings. Context is everything on this word of this idea of prophecy.
So what is the context of the type of prophesying that we should desire to do? Well, in 1 Corinthians 14, it says, for he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaks not to men. All right, so like if you have the gift of tongues and you do that in the church, what that means is you're doing it for yourself.
You're not helping others. You're not edifying the body of Christ. You're doing it for yourself, or you might be doing it for God, but you're not doing it for other people is what Paul's saying. So they're not a person speaking in languages that they didn't learn in school in a spiritual manner.
They are not speaking to the other men and women in the church or boys or girls in the church, but they're speaking to God for no man understands him. Why? Because he's speaking a foreign language that they haven't studied either.
Do you see that? So that is the true gift of tongues that the church early church had. How be it in the spirit, he speaks mysteries. Now that word mystery, you know, if you just look at the Greek meaning of the word mystery, what that means is if you and I have never studied the language that brother Bill gets up here and speaks spiritually and the Holy Spirit enables him to speak Mandarin, the only person that would get it would be Dave Uber over here, but the rest of us, it'd be a mystery.
We would have no clue. All that means is it doesn't mean it's gibberish or babbling. It means we can't understand the language in the Greek. So you see in English, the charismatics have taken hold of this so much that when you hear the word tongues and the word mystery, you think babbling, and that's not what it means.
It is a foreign language like Italian or French or Mandarin or whatever. So that's what we're talking about there with the gift of tongues. It's just that we would have to study for years to be good at that now, but in this day, it was a gift of the spirit where it was a miraculous ability to speak that language when you never studied it, and that's what it was referring to.
But he that prophesies speaks unto men to edification, to exhortation and comfort. Now what's interesting, by the time you get to chapter 14 of first Corinthians, this idea of prophesying has changed as far as the meaning of the same Greek word.
Earlier in the book of Corinthians, it was clear that some of that context meant like telling the future or telling you stuff only you could know if you heard this prophet say it because God told him that stuff and he's telling it to us.
But by the time you get to chapter 14, like if there are people in the room that are hearing this person who is speaking forth God's word clearly, then that edifies and builds the church. It exhorts the church and it brings comfort to the church.
That's talking about preaching. It's the same Greek word, but that gift is now being elevated already even in the book of Corinthians. So in the context, you can see which one of those two, are you talking about to say, to speak, to speak forth God's word?
Are you talking about predicting the future? It would be number one in that context. Edification, building, comforting, bringing consolation to the heart. They're hearing God's word and their hearts are comforted.
He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies only himself, but he that preaches the word of God and brings it forth to all the people, he edifies the whole church. The context is pretty clear. I would wish Paul said that you all spoke with tongues, but rather that you would prophesy.
So he says, you know, I wish all of you, you got to put this in the time period where Paul is, is talking. It's before these things had ceased. He said, they're going to cease out in the future. He said, I wish all of you had the Holy spirit gift of speaking other languages that you didn't study.
Why would you think he would wish they could do that? What would that help them to do? Living in Jerusalem, spread the word in all the different languages, the people that come there from everywhere in the world.
It's like New York city. You could speak the gospel to everybody. If all of you could speak foreign languages. So he wished that they could, but he said, but rather I would rather you prophesy, which means to preach, to speak forth the truth because that will edify and build people for greater is he that speaks forth the truth than he that speaks with tongues, unless there's an interpreter.
Now, later on, he says, don't even do it if you don't have an interpreter. Why? Because if you could interpret that, then all of a sudden that's speaking forth the word of truth, you know, because it was still an operative gift.
And then it would edify people because they could understand it in their own language. So the, this is some of the earliest teaching on the gift of tongues, on the gift of prophecy, on the gift of speaking words of knowledge and preaching and telling the future and what God says about it and what he says is going to happen in the future and what it's going to be like.
So it's very interesting material to read, but you got to really study it. You got to study the whole books, first, second Corinthians, the book of Acts, go into them and read them very diligently. Look up all the words, look up all the Greek, even, even look up the voices of the Greek.
You know, is it passive? Is it, or what is it? Is it masculine? Is it neuter? You really have to break it down and study. Not a lot of people actually care to do that. But what is the context of this type in first Corinthians 13, eight, but whether there be prophecies, they will stop happening.
What do you think the context that word prophecy means? Do you think it means speaking forth God's word? Is that going to cease from the church or get bigger? It gets bigger and bigger. So it has to be talking about the future telling part that will cease.
So you can only tell by the context, which meaning of that word's being used by the speaker at any given time. So I speak with tongues of men and angels, but I don't have love. I'm like a sounding brass, a tinkling symbol.
And though I have the gift of prophecy. Now tell me in the context of this, which meaning of prophecy are we talking about telling the future? Are we talking about speaking God's word here? Although I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.
So I've got the gift of words of knowledge to see, even if I have that, and even if I had all faith, like Jesus had a hundred percent full faith, like Jesus had, and I could remove mountains, but if I don't have love for other people, I'm worthless.
And what you got to understand, what is the context of this whole thing is not even talking about tongue speaking or prophesying. It's not even talking about that. It's talking about love, why you need to have love for other men and for men and women in the church.
It's the most important thing. None of these things even matter if you don't have that. That's what this is talking about, but in the midst of it, it has this interesting information. So do you think that prophecy there is talking about preaching or do you think it's more like the older, the New Testament prophet that could tell the future?
If you had that and you understood mystery, well, I think the context of that prophecy is like telling the future because it talks about words of mystery, words of knowledge along in the context. So that one is talking about the other one.
I'm just demonstrating how the word is the same word, but you can tell by the context pretty easily which meaning the author means in a given place. So obviously when Paul says that the gift of prophecy will cease, he does not mean the speaking forth of God's word, which got bigger and bigger to this day.
That's kind of diminishing in this day, actually, but you know what I'm saying. But he was talking about the ability to tell the future. All right, so now what's happening in that little passage in chapter 13, we call it hyperbole in grammar.
It is a figure of speech being exaggerated to a point where it becomes an example that can teach us something. So hyperbole is being used in 1 Corinthians 13, one through three as a figure of speech to help teach how important love is.
And the way you can tell that is the very next verse says, though, I bestow all my goods to feed the poor. Like if I took everything I've got and just sold it all, let my wife and my kids starve to death, this is what would happen if you did that, right?
If I did that and if I gave my body to be burned, so I'll walk out on the city square, put fluid all over light, lighter fluid on me and light myself and burn myself up. And I don't have love. It profits me nothing.
Now, can you tell that verse three is hyperbole? Do you think the Holy Spirit wants us to light ourselves with fluid and light ourself and burn ourself up? Do you think the Holy Spirit wants me to give everything I've got so that Charlotte and my kids and grandbabies starve to death?
Or is he using it as a figure of speech to say, well, even if I did that, but I didn't love people, I'm a sorry Christian. Maybe that's what he's teaching, right? It's kind of clear. So if that's true, then verse one and two is hyperbole too.
So especially verse one, where it says, though, you speak with the tongues of angels and they'll use that all day long to say, well, see, that proves you're supposed to have tongues in churches. It's gibberish.
It's gibberish because humans don't even talk and it's angelic speaking. And you've heard people teach that and they never teach verse three when they're teaching it ever because verse three would expose them as a false teacher because they're teaching it out of context because it's not saying that you can speak in tongues of angels or that even they exist.
What it's saying is if they did, but you didn't love people, you're worthless. It's hyperbole. So, I mean, you, this is how God expects us to study the word of God or else we get it wrong. And then we teach it to thousands of people who teach others and get it wrong.
Ephesians four, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called. So all those gifts that we mentioned out of the seven gifts, the ones that are still operative, if you're doing those, be worthy of that, you know, be diligent about that gift with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering for bearing one another in love.
So love is key, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. So whatever these gifts are, they should never divide the church, but false gifts divide the church all the time. Are people claiming that gifts that have ceased claiming that they still exist?
That brings division in the church because people that will point out that that is not what the Bible teaches. They can't fellowship with guys like me because it makes them uncomfortable. So they go down to a different church where the preacher either doesn't know that, or he willfully hides it from them.
And there are both kinds. They're ignorant ones, but there's also evil ones. And they'll go to that church. There's one body, one spirit. In reality, there's only one church, and we're all members of the same church.
And we're all called with the same hope of calling one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one father of all who is above all through all and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore, he saith when he ascendeth up, he led captivity captive and gave gifts in the men. Now look at this. He made some people be apostles. He made some people be prophets. He made some be evangelists, some pastors, some teachers for the perfecting of the saints so the saints could grow stronger for the work of the ministry, for the building of the body of Christ until we all come together in unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and to the perfect man where we understand everything.
And until that point, we need these gifts. We need the people that can do these things unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. What's interesting about it, verse 11, it mentions some gifts that they still had, not in the days of Ephesians, which is interesting because it was written after 60 AD, but looking back at the early church when these gifts were all operative, they were all necessary, and you did have apostles until they died, right?
And you had prophets until they died, and then those gifts ceased. You still have evangelists and pastors and teachers. So you have some of them, but you don't have them all still, and unless everyone's in agreement on that issue, you will have disunity in the church.
So it's very important to study these things. It's not peripheral because unity is one of the highest callings of the church is we're one body. We're all members of one body. You will grieve the Holy Spirit if you bring disunity in the church.
So this topic might be one of the most important today because there are such, all of us have good close friends that go to these churches that can't come here because I don't teach this stuff like they want to hear it.
And if I did, they would come here and our church would be five times the size it is. But I'm not going to teach something that's a lie because I can't do that, right? So the truth is everyone should teach the truth and then we wouldn't be divided.
He gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. Guess what? Those are the only three that are still operative. Those two are not. Now Ben stepped out for a minute. Ashton, when he comes back in, remind him to make available to all you guys listening and anybody here that wants it.
I have a document on what the Bible teaches about apostles and why there are no true apostles left on the planet earth today and how you can prove that biblically. If you'd like to have that document, it took hours and hours and hours to put it together, but it's all right there for you.
It's already done. It'll save you lots of time. If you study that, it'll show you why apostles and new testament prophets are now have ceased as a gift. Very important to do that study. No way in the world I can take the time to do it up here obviously because we're already way out of time.
So we have evangelists, pastors, and teachers still left and the ones out of those, all three of those are prophesying in the sense of speaking forth God's word which was elevated to the highest gift that exists in the church today other than love.
Okay, Hebrews 1 verse 1 says, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners used to speak, that's past tense, used to speak in time past to the fathers by prophets and that means fortune-telling people, people that could tell the future.
I don't mean fortune-telling, but the people that could tell the future because they had that kind of gift of prophecy. They could see visions, they could hear God speak audibly, and then they would come tell the people like Moses could do and God did this quite a few times in the Old Testament.
But what's interesting is you'd have vast numbers of years as much as six, the average would be about 600 years in between times when God did even these things even back then. So it's not like it happened in church every Sunday even back then.
600 years might go before God would speak audibly to another man or woman to tell his people something. So even then it was not the everyday thing for that type of gift to happen, but God used to do that and the first part of verse one in Hebrews one means God used to do that.
He did it in sundry times and in diverse manners, many different ways like they would have a vision, they would have a dream, they would see a ladder going up to heaven and angels and going up and down the ladder, they would hear a voice, they would hear see a fire in a bush and God would speak out of the fire and tell Moses what to do.
That's how God used to speak and that's what that says. He used to speak that way in time past. Now what do you think time past is basically Old Testament period, but you have to remember the apostles and Jesus lived in for the most part.
I mean Jesus entirely lived in the Old Testament, not the new because the New Testament church didn't start until Pentecost and Jesus is already in heaven by then. You did have some New Testament prophets that existed past the death burial and resurrection of Jesus and Pentecost for some years until the gift ceased, which certainly happened before 397.
Sometime prior to that it ceased. All right, but so Old Testament basically you could say that's what that means, but in these last days he has spoken unto us by his son whom he has appointed heir of all things by whom he also made the world.
So now he speaks to us through the written word of God, the words that Jesus Christ revealed to us about the father and so forth. All right, so the history of the church indicates that the sign gifts ceased until the end times when they reappeared during the tribulation period.
You find it in the book of Joel. Okay, we're out of time today. We'll pick it up here when we come back and we only have time for dessert now because I went a little bit long, so we'll start with dessert.
Let's stand and we'll be dismissed. Lord, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you that you've made it clear and then you also give us the Holy Spirit. You also give us wonderful teachers like Brother Myron and Brother Otis, Brother Bill and Brother Freeman and going on back in church history as far as we can read and think you've given us these great gifts to the church to help us to grow even faster and to grow deeper.
Thank you for that. Lord, thank you that you're clear on certain sign gifts that have ceased until the last three and a half years of the church age during the tribulation period. Lord, help us to be diligent in our studies and truthful in our speech and in our speaking and our preaching.
Help us to stay right with your word. Thank you for the church history that you've given us by many men and women who even died for the faith, who give us what they believe certain passages mean and don't mean.
Thank you for that as well. Such a help in our studies. I ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship now. Bless the meal we're about to have and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You are dismissed.