Why We Believe Certain Gifts Have Ceased, Pt. 2 (09/12/1999)

Amen. Turn with me this morning to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 8.

If there is any way that we can look at another human being and try to figure out whether they're saved or not, it'd be through their eyes.

You know that? That's the way it is. And I guess the longer that you've been walking with the

Lord and in the word, maybe you may have more capacity to do that than before.

So we're going to get into 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 8 in just a moment.

Let me read you a little bit from two Sundays ago. I wasn't able to be with you last

Sunday, but we started a series Sunday before last on what we call the sign gifts.

And I just want to say a few words before I begin this morning, in case you weren't here two Sundays ago and you didn't hear the introduction to it.

But the Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15, but sanctify the

Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of your hope.

We're supposed to always be ready to tell someone if they ask us with an honest question, why do you believe the way you believe?

We're supposed to be able to have an answer. And that's really all that I'm attempting to do in this series.

I'm not attempting to get people to believe like I believe. I'm just trying to get people understand why

I believe the way I do about these issues. So what we're talking about are some of what we call and what theologians through the ages have called the sign gifts that are listed in the

New Testament in particular. And so the title of the message two

Sundays ago was why we believe that certain gifts are no longer operative in the church age.

Why we believe that certain gifts are no longer operative in the church age.

And so we're kind of continuing on that theme today. Let me read to you a little paragraph that we began two

Sundays ago with. On January 1st, 1901, Agnes Osman, a student at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, was the first person in modern times to have received the tongues experience as a result of specifically seeking the baptism in the

Holy Spirit with the expectation of speaking in tongues. Now, this is a historical point.

On January 1st, 1901, this young lady, Agnes Osman, was the first person who spoke in what the modern folks call tongues and what

I call it the modern tongues. This is when it occurred. And I'll continue reading.

It says, this along with the popularization of the modern tongues movement by a well -known adulteress,

Amy Semple McPherson, and her four square church on the West Coast ushered in the modern

Pentecostal charismatic full gospel movement. Now, whatever you may believe about these issues, we certainly can discuss truth together and we can discuss history.

And I said this two Sundays ago. And let me just say it again. There is nothing that I want to say in this study that would bring contention in the church or division in the church of any kind.

One time, we did an old -fashioned tent meeting here in town. And one of the charismatic preachers who was in this area at the time came out as we were putting the tent up one night.

We had lights everywhere trying to get the work done. And he came out and he sort of confronted me and told me who he was and asked me by what authority we were in Corsicana.

And I said, well, by God's authority. And he said, can you prove that? Did God talk to you and tell you that?

And I said, he sure did. And then he said, you heard his voice? And I said, I heard it in my heart.

And he said, explain that to me. And I said, well, the Bible says to go to preach the word to every creature.

And I said, so there are some creatures here. And so God sent me here. And he went on to say, well, he said, you know, you're really, you're divisive.

You folks are divisive. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? And he said, well, I'm charismatic. I'm a charismatic preacher here in town.

And you wouldn't invite us to this. You wouldn't even want us here. And I said, I invite you? He said, no, you wouldn't want us here because you're afraid that we're different and things might happen and it might change things here.

And so you've brought division. And I said, at that point, it was kind of like Brother Otis was talking about in Sunday school this morning, he was talking about anger a little bit.

If you were there, remember that? And he said, you know, anger only hurts you. But he did quote his first preacher that he ever had when he was saved,

Brother Barney, who gets quoted around here quite a lot. Brother Barney said, well, you know,

I do think I'll go have a word with him so I can make sure I tell him what I'm praying for him for.

That's how he handled anger. But I started getting a little bit angry at this man because he wasn't telling the truth.

I mean, he was accusing us of things that just weren't in our hearts. And I said, at that point,

I said, now, wait a minute, Brother, I said, we didn't leave you, you left us.

And he thought a minute and he said, what do you mean? And I said, if you go back to 1900, before the year 1901, there was no such thing as a

Pentecostal or a charismatic. They didn't exist. All you had was shouting Baptists.

And I said, what you did was you left the Baptist movement and you went and started something new.

And you left us and you divided away from us. So we didn't bring the division and we didn't want the division.

And so he kind of, we discussed it for a little while longer and then he left and needless to say, he didn't come to the 10th meeting, though I invited him.

But my point is, we're not trying to cause dissension or division, what we're trying to do is speak the truth.

And sometimes truth will divide. You remember when Jesus said one time, he said, you say that I came to bring peace,

I tell you nay, but a sword. Remember that verse? Why did he say that? He said,

I will divide father from son and brother from brother and so forth. Why did he say that?

Did Jesus really come to bring division? I mean, was that his purpose? I wouldn't say that's his purpose. But what he's saying is the truth sometimes slices because truth is like light and lightness dispels darkness.

And so light and darkness can't be in the same place together, so therefore it does create division. But we don't want to be the ones who cause the division.

We don't wanna work at making divisions happen, do we? But if we stand for truth and it happens, we can't help that any more than the

Lord Jesus could. Now, I'm gonna give you some fact this morning and all I do is just ask you to examine it.

We're gonna examine biblical history, we're gonna examine just some historical facts that we know that you can go look up in the library from old newspapers and so forth.

But it is a fact that on January 1st, 1901, what we call the modern charismatic movement began in this country and it never had existed before that time.

And then there was a lady named Amy Semple McPherson who came along a little bit later and she would grab a microphone and go back and forth across the stage and she was like a movie star and she was charismatic in the true sense of the word.

She just had a great personality and she began to preach this doctrine of tongues and it became so popular and it started what we call the four square church movement which is still out on the

West Coast, excuse me. And that is where the modern tongues movement began to be popular in this country and it has grown and grown and grown until today.

I would say that the charismatic movement is the fastest growing part of what we call Christendom in the world.

And yet as we examine many of the core beliefs that they have and the things that do separate them from us, we find as we examine them against the scriptures that they don't hold up.

Now the problem that we have is they study more than we do. They know their parts of the

Bible better than we know the whole Bible. And so that should move us to study because the

Lord did say and the apostles themselves said that there are certain cases where false prophets arise and their mouths must be stopped.

Well, let me ask you something. How are you gonna stop them if they're smarter than you are in the scriptures? It's very difficult.

So I wanna give you some ammunition to be able to at least stand for the truth if you get into conversations about this topic.

You need to at least know what history says, you need to know what historical fact is and you know what the Bible teaches about these things.

That's all I'm gonna give you. What you do with it is between you and the Lord as it is with anything that is ever preached or taught.

So with that in mind, let me review just a little bit about what we discussed

Sunday before last since it's been a little bit a while ago. We mainly covered the first major point in this study.

And that is that we did a little bit of a study on miracles in the Bible. Those of you that were here, think back about it a little bit.

You can remember a little bit of that, I'm sure. But it's a surprising thing to go into the Word of God and to study miracles because we get the impression, especially if we listen to modern preachers, that miracles are supposed to happen every minute of the day and every day of the week and every week of the year.

Now I will say this, there are two main kind of miracles that are listed in the Bible. You can put them into two groups.

There are miracles where God uses natural things to make things happen in this world.

Now I would debate whether that's the true definition for a miracle or not, but we can, if what you want to think of as a miracle is when

God does something, if that's how you think, then that's one kind. I just wouldn't call that a miracle because to me that's just natural for God to work in the world around us.

It's His world, it should be expected that He's working all around us.

But some people do define that as a miracle. The second definition of a miracle, which really is a truer definition, is when

God intercedes into natural law and does something, sets aside natural law and does something.

For instance, the parting of the Red Sea. I can remember going to Baylor University, and I'm not proud of the fact, but I'm just telling you some history, and I sat there and I was not even a saved person.

I didn't know the Lord at that time and I thought I was a Christian because people told me

I was one and I had been dunked before at the age of 12. Every lot of stuff happened to me when

I was 12 years old, but that was one of them. But I was not saved at the time and you're required to go to a

New Testament course and an Old Testament course if you go to Baylor University. At least you used to have to do that. Probably don't even have to anymore.

But I remember that my Old Testament professor's name was Dr. Christian, if you can believe that. And the ironic thing about it was he weren't one.

But he began to go through and show miracle after miracle in the Bible and he made this statement, the first day of class,

I'll be able to show you throughout this semester how you can explain everything that's called a miracle away by natural phenomenon.

He said, for example, the Red Sea that was parted, we know, he said, it really was not called the

Red Sea, it was called the Reed Sea and it was only about three feet deep. And that's how the children of Israel were able to get through.

And some smart aleck in the back of the class, it wasn't me because I liked what the guy was saying. I was lost, sounded good to me.

Some smart aleck who was probably a Christian in the back of the class raised his hand and the professor made the mistake of calling on him.

And he said, well, he said, professor, if that's true, could you explain to me the miracle of how

Pharaoh and all of his horses drowned in three feet of water? So either way you cut it, you got a miracle going on there somehow.

But the second type of miracle that you see in the Bible is when God just flat intercedes and he moves aside the laws of nature and he does something that we see like the parting of the

Red Sea. Now, as you study miracles, and let's talk about those kinds of miracles, you'll be very surprised to find that there aren't very many of them and that many times there are five, six, 700 years of history, biblical history, between two miracles like that before you see another one like that.

And yet we get the idea they just happened every day. I mean, Moses walked around everywhere he looked, there was a miracle. And it's not that way.

Those kinds of miracles God did for specific purposes in time and in the history of this world and according to his own purposes for the history of this world.

And when they serve the purpose, they ceased. You didn't see Moses able to just go like that and part the

Red Sea or anything just every time they wanted to go do something. You didn't see him able to do that at his own whims when he wanted to create a miracle.

It only happened when God had a purpose to fulfill and when that purpose was done, then the miracle ceased.

And that's the way it always is throughout the Bible. Last time, I don't believe I brought the notes with me, but last time we presented a timeline and we showed that most of the miracles are clustered around three major events.

One of them is around Moses and the time when God was instituting the law. And another time was around Elijah and Elisha when

God was pointing out the office of the prophet. And then another obvious time was around Jesus and the apostles.

And what we find about these miracles, I don't wanna read you at this point, we're kind of getting into today's message now.

I'm sorry that we took that much time to review, but really it's hard to teach this topic and get it all in in 30 minutes and you have to put a lot of material together.

It doesn't make sense. But let me read this to you. Interesting observations about miracles in the

Bible. Like I said, most of them clustered around those three events and they serve these purposes.

First of all, the miracles of God had to do with new revelation.

Or secondly, they had to do with authenticating the credentials of the man of God who

God was using to give the revelation into the world. Now let me read this to you.

A man named Joseph Dillow who wrote a book entitled Speaking in Tongues discusses just miracles in general here at this point.

He says, according to the Bible, the need for miracles is fourfold. Whenever God began to move in a miraculous way in biblical history, we're able to discern four common purposes for these kinds of miracles.

Number one, miracles such as, for instance, the gift of tongues, which we're gonna discuss that this morning if I ever get through the introduction here.

First, miracles were used to introduce a new era of revelation.

Thus, the miracles of Moses' time introduced the 10 Commandments.

Think about it. Think back about all the miracles that Moses was able to do and what was their purpose.

They introduced the 10 Commandments. They introduced the new nation of Israel. They introduced the tabernacle and the sacrifices and the priesthood and all the new revelations of the

Jewish dispensation of the law. I would say that's a major point in God's history.

And so God brought these miracles and authenticated Moses as God's spokesman for that time.

The miracles then, second cluster, were around Elijah and Elisha, were a revival of the prophetic era, had to do with the prophets and authenticating the prophets.

And the Jewish dispensation obviously consisted of both the law and the prophets, so that makes sense.

And then miracles introducing the Lord, the church age and so forth.

Finally, one, of course, the miracles introduced the new era of the church when the one of whom the law and the prophets spoke came.

So then we have the time of Jesus and the apostles and you have a cluster of miracles around that time.

So first of all, we see that the first purpose that miracles serve then is to introduce a new era of revelation.

Secondly, miracles were used to authenticate the messengers of the new era.

Thus Moses and Joshua in Exodus chapter four, verses one through eight, were authenticated by miracles.

And also Elijah and Elisha in first Kings 17, 24 and following. And then finally, the

Lord Jesus and his apostles as in John chapter 10, verse 25. And we know all the story of the miracles that were done there.

It's interesting in John 10, 25, that Jesus answered and said this to them. He said, I told you and you believe not.

The works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me. Now I want you to stop and think about that verse.

And we've read it. You read over the Bible a lot of time. We don't stop and kind of chew on the meaning of it.

But Jesus very clearly said, here I am. And he said, I know some of you do not believe in me.

So then how did he, what did he give them was God's way of proving that he was who he said he was.

He said this very clearly. I told you and you believe not. But look what he said.

The works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me.

When he would take mud and spit on it and rub it in the blind man's eyes and then he could see.

Did he do that just to make that blind man be able to see because he had compassion on that blind man?

No, how do we know that? Because he didn't heal every blind person, did he? When he made the deaf man hear, was it just simply because he had compassion on that person and wanted him to hear?

No. If that were true, he would have just spoken a word and there'd never be deafness again. When he made the lame walk, when he turned the water into wine, when he did all these things, did he just do that so they would have that to drink at the wedding feast?

No. Why did he do it? He said, the works that I do in my father's name, first reason he did is the father told him to do each one of those things in that particular instance at that particular time.

Jesus said, I do nothing but what the father directs me to do or tells me to do. And he said, I say nothing except the words of the father.

So these were specific things that God the father wanted done at specific places for specific purpose.

And Jesus said, look, the works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness that I am who I say

I am. So we see very clearly that Joseph Dillow in his book is correct when he says that the second reason for miracles is to authenticate the messenger who brings the message of God.

Jesus himself said that. Look at the works that I do, they authenticate me. Now, the third reason or purpose for a miracle, they were used to not only authenticate the messenger, but to authenticate the message itself, the message that the new messengers brought.

It's interesting that there are only three main clusters of miracles throughout the Bible time.

And 20 % of the miracles that happen in the Bible happened around Moses and the bringing in of the

Old Testament and the law. And then the fourth reason that we see for miracles is that always in every case when you see these, they brought instruction to the observers who were in that new era.

And it brought authentication to these people. Now, so the first thing we had to study as we get into this is the idea of miracles themselves.

There's a misconception that miracles happen all the time in Bible days. They really didn't, not these kinds of miracles.

Now, if you define a miracle as you praying for someone who is ill, and then they get better and they get well, if you define that as a miracle, then those miracles are happening around us all the time.

I don't necessarily define it as a miracle, I just find that as natural. I mean, that's just naturally what God does in the world around us as his people pray.

Because you see, our whole idea of prayer is backwards. We think that we pray and beseech

God and beg God to change something and go fix something. That's not what prayer is all about.

And that's why really only a true born again believer, that's kind of a redundant statement, isn't it? But only a true born again believer can really pray.

Because what prayer is, is the Holy Spirit bringing from God to us what we need to pray about because he already knows what's gonna happen.

And he wants us to play a part in it. He likes to work together with us. I don't know why he does it that way, but he does it because he wants to.

When's the last time you saw God write in skywriting, I am here, believe in me, and thou shalt be saved.

Anybody see that? If you raise your hand, I wanna have lunch with you, okay?

But, no, no, am I a preacher? But what does he do?

He tells you, as his people, to be a witness everywhere you go. And you know what? You are one whether you obey him or not,

Nat, because you're either a good witness or a bad one. But doesn't he work in us? He chooses to work in us to get that message out.

And if God has decided to, God doesn't decide. It's hard to talk about God when you think about it, especially with Otis listening.

But he'll clean up your language a little bit. But when God's going to heal a person, do you think that he needed you to pray for that person, for that person to be healed?

No. But you know what? He chose to work with you for that person to be healed, to work together with you.

And his Holy Spirit put in your heart to pray for that person that night. Maybe you woke up late at night, first you were mad because you couldn't sleep, and then you realized that your heart was in prayer.

And a lot of times, how many of you ever had a specific person just pop in your mind and you just sensed you should pray for that person?

Raise your hand. I want to see that. Everybody nearly in the room has had that happen. Well, how do you know who to pray for?

You don't, but the Holy Spirit does. And he's in communion with your spirit, and he leads us in prayer, and we pray, and God's working together in us to create things and make things happen in this physical world.

Now, you know, is that a miracle, or is that just everyday life in the life of a

Christian as the Lord works in us? Those things are happening, so don't ever leave this place and say,

Brother Mitchell doesn't believe in miracles. If your definition for a miracle is

God working, it's just that our definitions may be a little bit different. When I'm talking about miracles,

I'm talking about like the parting of the Red Sea, where the laws of nature are set aside. And don't say

I don't believe in that either. I do believe in it. I just believe that God does it right when he wants to do it for a specific purpose, for one of those four purposes, and when that purpose has been fulfilled, that miracle's gone.

It's not gonna happen every other day. And that's all we're trying to say about that. Now, for the next few moments,

I want to go into a little different area, move away from the idea of miracles, and I wanna talk to you about the testimony in Bible times that the signed gifts have ceased.

Wow, there's a sign right there. You see, I'm right. I'm telling you the truth. Look with me, if you would, at 1

Corinthians chapter 13 and verse eight. 1 Corinthians 13, eight.

Do you have it? All right. Charity never faileth. That means love never fails.

But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Now, this is an old English word for cease.

It means they'll go away. In the Greek language, it just says they will go away. Whether there be testimonies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.

Now, that one got translated exactly right. They shall cease. They shall go away. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Now, some people have contested and said, no, wait a minute. If you're trying to teach from this verse that tongues cease, then you gotta say we don't have any knowledge.

Duh. Maybe we could say that. But that's not what it's saying.

If you study biblically what this word knowledge means in the New Testament context, in the early church context, it means what the modern folks call a word of knowledge.

Have you ever heard that expression, that phrase? Does anybody have a word of knowledge? Well, really, they're right on what they mean by that.

That's exactly what it means here. A word of, but the only place where they're wrong is it's not happening now. But it was happening in the

Bible days during the age of the apostles. Now, what a word of knowledge was at that time was this.

They did not have this book in its entirety. If you think about it. For instance, we're in the book of Corinthians here.

This was actually a letter that was written to the Corinthian church, but they did not have the letter to the

Romans. They didn't have the letter to the church at Ephesus. So that means they didn't have the truth that says, for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's no way that the church at Corinth could know that truth because they did not have the

New Testament yet. So how would God get that truth to them?

He would send a prophet who had a specific gift for that time or a man very similar to the prophetic gift.

He would stand up and say, I have a word of knowledge from the Lord. And they would recognize him. He'd stand up and say, for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And they'd have three or four other people in there that God had gifted with the gift of discernment to discern whether that was

God talking or not. And they would stand up and say, brother, you're exactly right. And you know what they'd do?

They'd sit there, write that down. Why? Because that's the word of God. Well, let me give you a clue.

Now this is pretty simple. See this Bible, it has two interesting things. It has a front cover and it has a back cover and it's finished now.

And the Bible says this book is an eternal book that has always been. And that it has been given down to us through the

Old Testament prophets and through the apostles and so forth. And now we have it. It's all together and we don't need someone to stand up and tell us the truths of God because we have them and we have the

Holy Spirit who is our teacher. Therefore, that miracle has ceased because its purpose has ceased.

Does that make sense? It's the same reason you don't go over there to Israel and you say, well, I wanna get the tour that goes over and watches the sea because every so often it opens up and closes back.

And if you sit there and you get your lounge chair and you sit out there long enough, just because God's working in the world, that thing's gonna open up and I'm gonna get to see it.

That's exactly what the charismatic movement is saying today. And I'm not making fun of them at all because I'm just,

I'm not, I'm just saying it's sad because they're sitting in a lounge chair by the Red Sea waiting to watch it open again when the purpose has already been fulfilled.

Now, this verse very specifically says that prophecies will stop, tongues will cease, and this word of knowledge will vanish away.

The debate through the years has been, when will that happen? And I'm not even gonna teach from this verse yet.

We will get to it. But today, the main battle is in this area because the very next verse says, for we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then these things will be done away.

And they say, well, what does that mean? When that which is perfect has come and they have several theories, depending on which theory you pick will determine whether you believe you can still have tongues and prophecy and word of knowledge or not.

And they try to base it all upon this verse. Well, I'm gonna tell you, I know what this verse means.

And we're not afraid to discuss this verse. We're gonna save it. We'll just keep you coming, you know, because it's gonna be next week.

But in the history of the church, the orthodox Christian belief has always been that these ceased off the scene.

And they really have not predominantly used this scripture to prove it. There are over a hundred other places that they go to to show it.

And we're looking at some of those today and as we do this series.

Now, one of the things they look at is the study we just did on miracles. Now, let me get into another one. Let's look at the testimony in Bible times that the signed gifts would cease very shortly.

And I'd like for you to turn with me to the book of Hebrews just for a moment. We won't get into this real far this morning for sake of time, but I want us to get into it at least.

And I want to list several, I wanna get some biblical history going here.

I wanna show you what the author of the book of Hebrews said. Who is the author of the book of Hebrews?

Anybody know? Many of us believe it was

Paul and for good reason, the apostle Paul. And then as I wanna show you what he said in the book of Hebrews, I wanna show you what the

Lord Jesus Christ said. How many of you would put some authority on what he might've said about this topic? I mean, if he said it,

I mean, that kind of settles the issue. And I wanna talk to you about what Paul says in some other places other than the book of Hebrews.

And I wanna show you what the author of the book of Hebrews And I wanna talk to you a little bit about what Peter said. And so this is

Bible history I'm giving you. What did the apostles themselves in Bible times believe about these gifts?

Did they believe they would cease or not? And when did they believe they would cease? Now, the

Pentecostal movement gets its name from the day of Pentecost where there was speaking in tongues and so forth.

One thing we need to understand as we, when we're not doing it, we're not even gonna see the tip of the iceberg on this topic of tongues, the modern tongues movement.

There's just no way to take, you could study it for six months with just 30 minutes at a time like we have. But one thing that is not brought out by the modern folks is that in the

Bible, when you see the phrase unknown tongues, the phrase unknown is in italics, which means it was not in the original

Greek language. It's not in the Bible. What it literally means is languages, that they spoke with languages.

Very easy to prove from the scriptures, both in the book of Acts and in the Corinthian passages where it deals with tongues.

So tongues was not gibberish. Now we have in the last, oh, 20 years, we have hit that so hard and proven it that now the

Charismatics and Pentecostals have changed their story and they no longer say, what they say now is, well, it's not really gibberish, it's just, it just sounds like that to you, but it's a true language.

Because we've proven to them finally that it's not gibberish. An ecstatic utterance is not what tongues was in the

Bible and some of them are starting to agree with us on that now, so they're just saying, well, the stuff you're hearing is languages. And there's some problems with that too because there have been some linguistics experts who have sat in those churches and listened and there's no language in the world that they were speaking.

They were just, it's just gibberish, folks. You can call it a language if you want to, but it's gibberish. But in the Bible days, tongues was not gibberish, it was a known world language of the day.

So you get into some of these issues, but let's look at this passage in Hebrews chapter six. And all we have time, rest of our little bit of time here is just look at what the author of Hebrews says about this.

Hebrews 6, four, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the

Holy Ghost and have tasted, and I want you to underline the word have tasted, the words have tasted, the good word of God, and then underline this next phrase, the powers of the world to come.

I just stopped there. I want you to point out, I want to point out to you that Paul said when he penned this under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, who's the true author of this, that these tongues and the prophecies and the miracles and the sign gifts that these people saw in the first century were a taste of powers of the world to come.

Do you see that? Now, I'm gonna tell you that that will help you so much in seeing clearly how all this fits together.

Let me go back and read a quote.

I guess maybe I won't be able to find, yeah. Let me read this from the sermon a couple of Sundays ago.

Periodically, God's kingdom, this goes back to the study of miracles. Periodically, God's kingdom, let me stop there and make sure everyone understands what that kingdom is.

Can somebody tell me what that kingdom is? We're talking about God's kingdom. It means his authority.

But as a historical time on this earth, what is it? The kingdom age, we call it the age of the kingdom.

Just like now we live in the church age, there's gonna be a kingdom age which is a 1 ,000 year literal reign of Jesus Christ on this earth when he comes again.

Are you with me? Now, when the Bible speaks of the kingdom, it means more than that, but it includes that.

And when the Old Testament Jewish people looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, more often than not, their eyes were upon that literal 1 ,000 year kingdom.

They just didn't understand. They thought it was gonna come now. And then when Jesus came, they thought, well, he's gonna set up the kingdom now.

And when he didn't do it, what did they do? They rejected him. Because that's what they wanted. They wanted

God to do it on their timetable. We want it now. That's kind of like us, isn't it? Well, so we look forward here.

Now, periodically, God's kingdom erupts or breaks through into this world since miracles are part of everyday life in the future kingdom.

Now, you go out past the tribulation period, past the rapture, past the tribulation period, and you go into that 1 ,000 year millennial kingdom.

At that point, miracles will be part of everyday life in that kingdom age.

The interruptions of the kingdom always are accompanied by miracles, miraculous manifestations.

At the second coming of Christ, the kingdom will break in completely and finally be established on the planet

Earth. These eruptions are evidences that God is moving to fulfill his promise to Israel.

What this scholar points out is this. When we see those three eruptions of miracles that I spoke about earlier, they are like the kingdom coming down into time and space for a few moments so we can get a glimpse of it and going back out to remind us that that kingdom is coming.

Now, the proof that that is fact, just, you have to understand, just because you read a book and you read what a scholar said, it doesn't make it true, does it?

But the proof of it is found in Hebrews 6 and verse 5 where it says, those of you who have tasted the powers of the world to come.

What was he referring to? Well, you go and you look in the book of Hebrews back here at the point when this was penned, they're only about 30 years to 34 years beyond the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

And he is obviously looking back at the day of Pentecost. He's looking at the speaking in unknown languages, the miraculous speaking in unknown languages.

He's looking at the healings that took place, the raising of the dead. He's looking at the time when the, or thinking perhaps the time when the poison of snakes bit

Paul and he did not die. And some of them were poisoned by people who would persecute the church and they didn't die from the poison.

He's looking at these gifts that were there, these sign gifts and miraculous things that happened. And he said, that was a taste of the powers of the world to come.

Now that phrase implies very clearly that it is not for today. The author of Hebrews is saying, folks, you're gonna walk by faith in our day.

We're moving into the church age. The book of Acts is a time period of adjustment between the

Old Testament and the New Testament dispensation between the law and the age of grace and the church age.

And he says, we're moving into the church age and it's not gonna operate like this on a day -to -day basis. You're gonna walk by faith on a day -to -day basis.

What does faith mean by definition? It means not walking by sight. Now why is it that the

Lord Jesus, and I'm not gonna have time to get to his quotes this morning, but why is it that the Lord Jesus said, you adulterous and evil generation, you seek after a sign.

But he said, I'm not gonna give you one. Now why would he say that to the church age?

Because he wants us to walk by faith. You don't have to see something to believe that what

God said is true. And yet that's what the modern charismatic movement demands that God do.

God, when I come to church on Sunday, if I don't see you making people hop up out of the chairs and run around the pews and the pastor come up, where's

Richard this morning? Man, I slapped him on the head last two Sundays ago. And he just fell right over and quivered on the floor.

And the ladies come up and tear their clothes off. And you wonder why their churches grow like crazy.

The Bible says they allure by the flesh. And if I can't see these things happening,

I'm just, it's not real. God's not doing anything. Let me ask you something.

Has God done anything in his service today? Yes, sir. How do you know?

I was there when it happened. You see, to me, the fact that God can teach me something is as miraculous as anything else.

I don't have to see someone jump up and jibber or dance around to prove that God's in this room.

Now, this is exactly what the author of Hebrews is saying. He's saying to them, look, you have tasted of the powers of the world to come.

Now, let's go down in here and look at this. Look at Hebrews chapter two. Go back a couple of pages to chapter two.

The author of Hebrews realized that the next generation of Christians would have to go on in faith, looking back at the reality that was confirmed by the eyewitnesses of the first generation.

We have to walk in faith, looking back at the authentication of the apostles and of Jesus and of the message.

God is not gonna reauthenticate anything. Hebrews two and verse three says, for how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken of by the

Lord, and look at this word, and was confirmed. You see that word? Very important word that we just read right over it.

Confirmed unto us by them that heard him. God also bearing them witness with what?

With signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts of the

Holy Ghost according to God's will. You can't just determine we're gonna make this happen in our congregation this morning.

God's gonna come down on this place. We will will that to happen. Let me tell you, there are services that we have when you do sense an awesome evidence of the holiness of the presence of God and tears are shed and people do literally, at least inwardly, shake and they sense and they have a proper fear of the presence of God.

That happens from time to time, but does it happen every Sunday here? No. You know why?

Because God does that when he chooses to do it, not when we try to work it up. Now, he says right here that these signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the

Holy Spirit were done according to God's own will and were done to confirm to us that those who

God chose to bring this to us were telling the truth. It very clearly says, how can we neglect such a great salvation?

Which at first, now that's a key phrase. What does at first mean? It means it's not happening now.

Now, so you go to the year 64 AD, which is when Hebrews was penned and that's a mere 34 years after Jesus died on the cross and he's looking back in time and saying, these things first happened back then in the church age, in the early beginnings of the church age.

These things at first happened and they have confirmed to us that what

God was saying was true and what God's messengers, Jesus and the apostles and these men said were actually true and were going into a new era.

You see how he's looking back at it even just 30 years after it happened. What does that imply very clearly that these things have already ceased?

I defy you to find any book of the New Testament written, penned beyond the year 60

AD that mentions tongues, that mentions prophecy and word of knowledge and all this stuff.

It had already ceased within 34 years after the death, burial and resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible attests to it, it's just you got to study to see it. These are not obvious, these don't just jump out at you but they're here if we study.

Now, it's interesting to look at this phrase where it says in Hebrews 2, 3, which at the first began to be spoken by the

Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. That's the apostolic age, the apostles.

Was confirmed, if we look at the grammar of that phrase, it is in the aorist cumulative tense and I say that only for this reason because it really helps us to understand something.

In the Greek language, when you see something written in that tense, it means it is something that has ended at a certain point.

Now, in English, we don't have all that kind of stuff but in the Greek language, it is very, very specific.

That's why God wrote the New Testament in Greek so he could be specific and so he is saying when he says that these things were confirmed, he's saying they were confirmed once and for all.

He's implying through the language, I'm not gonna reconfirm them. If you don't look at that and believe, then you wouldn't believe me if I just walked right up to you and told you.

That's what Jesus would say. He said, if you can't look back and see what was done and the testimony of the apostles, the eyewitnesses that saw these things happen, if you don't believe, if that will not confirm it to you, nothing will.

You must walk by faith, not by sight. And then let's go, we'll stop with this one.

Hebrews chapter one, verse one. I just wish that if we had softer pews and harder behinds, we could just sit here for three or four hours and just move on through this material, but I'm gonna stop because it's much easier to stand here than sit there.

I know that because I've heard Brother Otis teach while I was sitting out there, but anyway. And he'll get me back this evening.

Okay, look at Hebrews chapter one in verse one. God, who at sundry times, do you know what that's like saying?

Once upon a time. Isn't that how we start our stories for our children? Once upon a time.

God, who once upon a time, in diverse manners, spake in time past.

Does that tell us anything? Does that place a time reference on anything? He spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.

Does that, I like what you teach so often, you say, dwelt among us, the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

The word is who reveals things to us now. And this is the written word.

This is the compilation of the words of Jesus Christ, the New Testament.

That he gave us. And so it says, God, once upon a time, in diverse ways, spoke in time past unto us by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us. Isn't it interesting that it says, but has in these last days spoken.

Do you understand the grammar there? What does has spoken mean? In past tense.

He's not, listen, some dude stands up and says, I got a word of wisdom for you. God told me last night that you're supposed to be an accountant.

Deborah, one of them told you that one time. You're supposed to be an accountant. So she goes off to accounting school.

What does she find out? I hate accounting. Yeah, but listen, there are people all over this country today where people walk up, they have, they eat too many onions the night, they go to sleep, they have a dream, they come and they tell you at church,

God revealed to me last night, you're supposed to go to Africa and they'll go do it. Well, I want to tell you something.

God doesn't speak that way anymore because he hath already spoken. He hath already spoken in his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

And we're talking about gifts and tongues and message, specific message, but isn't it wonderful that right in the middle of all this, he says that he has by himself purged our sins.

Do you understand there's no way you can purge your own sins? It's the

Holy Spirit ordained rabbit trail, I think. You cannot purge your own sins.

We cannot do anything or be anything that will do away with our sins and cause us to be able to be fit to go to heaven.

Not one thing. All the religions teach us that we can though. And most of the Christian cults, like Mormonism, I call them, use the term very loosely,

Christian cults, but they teach, and many of the denominations teach that you get to heaven by building a stairway to heaven.

But the only group I knew that taught that was Led Zeppelin and they were wrong about it because there is nothing that you or I can do.

You know why? Jesus did it all when he was on that cross. He said, it is finished.

You know what he meant? Did he mean his life was finished? Of course not. But he meant everything, all of the work that has to be done to get

God's people saved and get them to heaven, I just finished it. So what do we have to do?

We don't do, we just rest. We just trust him. We just realize that he died and that completed the work.

And we come to him humbly and receive him as Lord and Savior.

Isn't that marvelous? Why do they call that the good news? That's what the word gospel means. Why do they call it that?

Because it's a whole lot better news than if I told you this morning, what you got to do is you got to be good. You got to start coming to church here every

Sunday and every Wednesday night and every night of the week. And you better join the Cub Scouts and help some ladies across the street from time to time.

And you better have a good prayer life and you better get in the word and you better not do anything wrong.

If you'll do all that, you can go to heaven. I'm telling you what, for me, that'd be bad news. I don't know about you.

I mean, how much are you going to pray to pray enough? How much are you going to attend to attend enough? How much are you going to work to do enough good works?

How are you going to ever climb a stairway to heaven? That is not good news. The good news is this, it is finished.

And that's what this says. If you want a verse that says that the Bible has a front cover and a back cover and that God is no longer adding to it by words of knowledge and words of wisdom and words of prophecy, if you want a

Bible verse to prove it, Hebrews 1, 1 through 3 says it. At sundry times and diverse manners,

He spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom

He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He also made the worlds, who is the express image of God, upholding all things by His power.

And when He had by Himself, I mean, we don't help Him, by Himself, He purged our sins and sat down on the right hand of majesty on high.

It's all right there. Don't search for it anywhere else. It's right there. Jesus has done everything it takes.

Everything that God has ever ordained that it would take to get a human being in a right relation with Him.

He has done that. And all you can do is rest in that and trust

Him and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior. And that is the gospel.