get to chapter twelve by Easter and all, by the whole beginning of chapter fifteen by Han Easter. But the way we're going, nevertheless, is a simple thorough study, the signs and so on. Yes, I think we can go slow and get all the benefits and the advice and counsel that's in here for us. First Corinthians chapter twelve and verse eight. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit, to another faith, by the same Spirit, to another the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit. That's all to read for the moment. Three weeks now, to my ad, I was mentioned I was going to speak on these three signs of gifts. I've had to visit them each week. They differ from the week before, and I haven't got to add them yet. But we'll try and get up to you three just tonight. Well, two weeks ago, we were speaking on the truth of the body, and it's a wonderful subject, and I was enjoying some things relative to the body. That is, the human body, as God has designed it. We were speaking about how wonderful the human body is. God's vast defeat, how smoothly it operates, and the Lord Jesus himself, he uses the human body as a picture of the church, a remarkable comparison, and its Christ's own illustration. And so we find this human body, we take a lot of our body, most of us do. But do we think as much of the church as his body? And the Bible gives us that parallel, just as the Bible, body, as our human body, is God's masterpiece. So is the church, the body of Christ, God's masterpiece. Well, do I do right or wrong in criticizing my body, my human body? No. God made it up. Either every sinew, blood, vessel, nerve, and bone, and just where it belonged and how it should function. One would be foolish to criticize God's work in the creation, the design of the human body. Do I equally believe that the church, as it was formed on the day of Pentecost, was God's design for his people? His masterpiece, just how they should operate and function. I don't like to criticize my own body. Should I criticize what God has designed and illustrated in his word concerning the church, I think we ought to appreciate what God says about the church. It may not always be running smooth. Neither is our human body. Always running smooth. There are a few knots in it sometimes. Nevertheless, we think a lot of our body. Because it's God's design. It's God's majesty. Things may not always be running smooth in a local church. But still it's God's design, and I think a lot of it. Because that's the way God designed it. There may be some things I may not appreciate, but nevertheless, when I get back to my Bible, I see what God designed, what the Lord Jesus Christ did. designed, and also how the body was born, that is, the church which is his body at Pentecost. In my opinion, the most paltry organism. So that's what a local church truly is, as God has designed it. The most paltry organism, to me, is better than the text organizing it on earth. That which is the nearest of what it started out to be is what God intends us to follow. And it's a big difference between an organism and an organization. I got a letter a little while ago from Billy Weaver, not one of the certain letters that he sent out. It was written in his own hand. And he said, Father Wilson, he said, I don't mind telling you. the growing crop. And he said, I'm going to get to the reading. He said a couple of years ago, he said, the work was growing good. He said, the Lord's people, the writing in, having fellowship, commending me for the work and how to reflect through it. He said, until they discovered that I was not a Baptist or a Methodist or a Methodist or a Terran, but I had fellowship in the three oak chapel, he said, they've all dropped off. Why did they do that? That goes to show you the difference between an organization and an organization. Well, these were Billy's own commitments for me. In this letter, the trouble he was having. In other words, did he not believe he was a Christian? Yes, they believed he was a Christian. Well... Yes, the Lord led them, as some of them said in the letter, the fellowship of him, because he was a Christian, he was preaching the gospel, he preached the Bible the way they enjoyed it. Why did they withhold their fellowship when they found out he went to an assembly instead of a denomination? How contradicted this is. In other words, did the Lord not lead them? They did. They said they did. He did. He let them. Well, then would the Lord lead them not to give just because Billy Weaver went to the field of justice? Not a case of the will of God in their giving. It's a case of what's the denomination that I like and what is not. It's a case of an organization. It's not a case of an organization. I know this from my own experience in life. Many, many years ago, I went to Toronto, Canada. and had a very successful campaign there. Quite a number were saved, fellow missionaries today. Well, back in those days, this came up in a conversation a day. We didn't used to have musical instruments some forty years ago. It was wrong to use a piano and organ. In fact, most of the denominations were this way at their beginning. They believed that you would sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord, and the Spirit of God was to be the one who would lead. in the singing. Well, I was brought up that way, and back in those days, I say, a lot of even churches. Even Ferguson didn't have a musical instrument. They had a man with one of these earphones or a tuning fork, rather, and he would set the pitch. And so these people up in Toronto, a number of them got saved, and there was no piano in that assembly, a very large assembly, about three hundred in television. So I didn't tell them. that when I was down south, I used the musical instrument. I didn't sound that. They wasn't any of their business. They wanted it. But you know, several of them after that, they said to the fellowship, and oh, how they thanked me for leading them to the Lord, and how the Lord had laid this on their heart and laid that on their heart. And one brother, he's now a preacher. He said, he's burdened, the Lord burdened him about my parents. You wanted to know, he said, do you help your parents? I said, yes. He says, how much? I said, that's private. Well, now he said, I'd like you to tell me. He said, you know, I just thought about it. I've been exercised. And he said, instead of sending you some money down there, I'd like to send it to your parents. So I gave him an approximate idea of what I sent to my parents. You know, they found out that I used a piano in my meetings. And the fellowship stopped. And they said they could no longer have fellowship with me. I wrote them back. I said, who led you? And I can recall some of your letters. When you said the Lord burdened you to send me fellowship. And Pern, you said the Lord exercised you and burdened you about helping my parents. Did the Lord not know then that I used the piano? I said, the Lord knew I used the musical instrument. Honey Lou later on, I went on the radio, I went on the TV, I used the song leader, and I used a lot of things that they used in you forty years ago. I said, strange to me that all along you were writing, and the Lord was leading you to have fellowship, and the Lord knew all the time the way I was serving him. But when it got to your mouth, And I use this now. You change your mind. The Lord had enough thing to do with us. Changing your mind. And it just goes to show how people can be influenced by tradition. They can be influenced by a denomination, an organization. But getting back to the truth of the Bible. I believe the Lord wants us to be exercised before him about how we contribute to that body and that which is the closest to his will as we see it in the Scriptures and as we have it given us in his work. When you think further about the body, it's God's arrangement. You'll find, I think, eighteen times over in the last two chapters of Exodus, you'll find God telling Moses, to make that tabernacle according to the pattern that was showed him in the mountain, that eighteen times, according to the Lord's children of the mountain. God says, this is my dwelling place in the midst of my people. I'm giving you all the details, even to the pegs that go into the sand, the hole, the rope that go up to the tabernacle. God gave instructions. minus detail of how that tabernacle was to be built. And God told Moses eighteen times, he says, you see that it's done, just as I give it. Don't alter the faith. Now, if that was so concerning the tabernacle, I think the body of Christ is more important. God has given us absolute detail in Corinthians. how an assembly is to function. And he wants it done that way. And so an assembly is a wonderful thing. And I'm a hundred percent for it. I wouldn't give my life to anything else. And I've had a chance at the big thing. Big power, the big church, big money. No. I've seen with my Bible what an assembly is. It's a living organism. That's what I want to give my life to. When you come to the body and you think of the church, how it started out. By the way, there was a lovely church that formed at the beginning. Here you find it all of one accord, five times over, you read that. But you know in the first epistle of Corinthians, Paul emphasized the unity and growth of the body, but he also exercised, make this remark, and makes it plain. There are some members in that body that are detrimental to the development and growth of that body from which other members are to withhold their fellowship. Now remember this. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ, the young bridegroom if you like to use that expression, and here is his lovely young bride, the church. There she is on the day of Pentecost. how beautiful she was in his sight. And God looked upon the church as it met in Corinth, in just the same way. But to know if something happened, there had to be some amputations made, amputations of some members. They called them moral, doctrinal disease, a misbehavior that was necessary. The action comes from whom, not the elders. That action comes from that young bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's only a matter of days. If you read your Bible, it's AD thirty-three, Pentecost. And what took place in Acts five? The same. Two young believers had lies and annihilated the fire. They lied. What happened to them? The head of the church, the one who loved every member in that church. Peter, there's a certain dead. Now nobody can tell me that anybody loved the church and loved those who tricked us more than the Lord Jesus had. But this is the instruction coming from the head of the church. Do the bond. In those infancy. Oh, you could have put up an argument. But they're just saved. Lord, they're just saved. They're young Christians. Yes. Yes, there's purgation in the body. The Lord Jesus, he designed the box. It's a wonderful organism. But in chapter five, all first Corinthians, put away from your son that virgin person. Chapter eleven. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep are taken away. Because of their abuse for the Lord's sake. Then in chapter five, we want to go on in many other instances. In other words, you find the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is exercising the disciplinary measure, and he's doing it for the boss. That wonderful little organism. his bride in a local church. We can't get out of balance on this thing. This business saying that we can't exercise discipline the church is just as foreign as exercising modernism or something like that. We can allow these things to happen. And here's the Bible that has got to be counted out. The Bible gives it to us. The early church in this loveliness gets so soon. feel the heavy hand of the divine discipline, as we've already mentioned. So I want to get over to the scriptures we read over in first Corinthians twelve, eight and nine. Generally, the order of these gifts, wisdom comes before knowledge. Wisdom is fundamental. tells you that, I believe, as you see the order here, and wisdom comes before knowledge. If you have that in those verses, verse eight, for to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit, to another faith, by the same Spirit, to another gift of healing by the same Spirit. I was struck in reading this how many scriptures you have that give this order Wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge. Now, God must have a purpose, as we've been talking about, the body, physical body, the local body, the church. He has a point, an argument, a design in the way he gives us it. And here are some scriptures. I'm going to read them to you to show you the order that God gives us. Over in Romans chapter eleven and verse thirty-three. Oh, the death. of the riches, both of the wisdom, and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out, in whom I hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now you see twice there, in verse thirty-three, wisdom and knowledge. Verse three of Colossians two, in whom I hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So you have those two references. Then again you have also over in Exodus thirty-one, if you want to go back to the Old Testament. And I have filled him, these are ill, with the spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship. Also you have concerning the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah eleven two. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom. and understanding the spirit of counsel, and might the spirit of knowledge, Peter's wisdom, then knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. And shall make him a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And verse six of Isaiah thirty-three. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of his time and strength of salvation, and the fear of the Lord is his judgment. Now, there must be a reason why you see this order. Wisdom and knowledge, wisdom and knowledge, wisdom and knowledge. Strongness of the book of Proverbs is taken up with the wisdom, wisdom, wisdom of God. In fact, over in Ecclesiastes, I think it's chapter eleven, he speaks about that wisdom is better than weapons of war. And we read about the poor, wise man who was in this city. And the whole city was against this poor, wise man. But this poor, wise man, by his wisdom, delivered the city. Forces came against that city. And there was a poor, wise man. He was poor, but he was wise. And he was in that city. Now, how are they going to get out of this military predicament, this crisis? The poor man didn't have any money. But he had wisdom. And he delivered the city. Solomon says, wisdom is better than weapons of war. By the day we've got weapons of war, not to blow up the globe. And if somebody in the White House don't use some wisdom, it will be blown up. In fact, these nuclear weapons that are getting in the hands of a lot of these smaller countries, all it's going to take is one fellow that's not going to use wisdom. He's going to use what he wants to use to promote himself, and he's going to start a nuclear holocaust. Here's where wisdom comes in. Wisdom is even better than weapons of war. God intends us in this world that we are opposed by enemies on every hand. The enemy's arsenal is greater than we can go with. All kinds of enemies. Wisdom. the way to get around and overcome all that is against the world, the flesh, and the death. So we're speaking here of wisdom. And the Lord reminds us of what wisdom can do. I was surprised this week, and I'm going to tell you what I have been meditating on hasn't been too comfortable to Lester Wilson's flesh, the old man. It goes through First Corinthians. I notice seven times. You read about Pascaa. Pascaa. Pascaa. I'm going to read them through. You'll find the first one in chapter four. You'll notice the knowledge of what's popped up in these days. In First Corinthians four six, it says, And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself. and to Apollo, for your sake that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. Save it is. Then you have verse eighteen. Now some are puffed up as though I would not come to you. The Apostle had written saying he was going to come to court because of a mess that was there. And some, they just blew off in the absence of the Apostle, and it was popped up. We don't care. Paul says, I'll come. But when I do come, I'll use a walk. But there were those who blew off in the absence of the Apostle. Paul made it very plain to them that he wasn't afraid of that stuff. He was going to come straight out of it this way. Said your notice, verse ninety. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. Knowledge that puffs up doesn't have any power. It's not very easy, according to this day. You know, leaven is a fermentation of bread that speaks of the human element, whether in the mind or in the flesh, in the things of God. Something that puffs up. And I am surprised as I looked at my dictionary and thought of some other things, synonyms, about being puffed up. In other words, yeast, as you know, is a minute-celled fungus that causes fermentation. What is that little pungent in you and me? Sin and self. Now this is quite a description, being hot, hot, hot stuff. It means to be inflated, something light, nothing solid. And I thought that when I used to go to a circus when I was a kid, we'd get one of those things and we thought we had the world in our hand and a great big plush. of blown-up candy supposed to be, and you got about one mouthful, and the whole thing was boiled down. And a lot of things, just foam on top of the cup when it settled down. There's not much to it. In other words, something that's inflated. A big blow. Powder puff. Cream puff. Yes. That's the place. Not much to it is. That's the big pile of hay, wooden stubble. Works of the flesh, meaning the judgment seat of Christ are going to be reduced to a little heap of ashes. And the judgment seat of Christ, that which is done in the flesh. Seven times he speaks of pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta. What are some of the other occasions? Notice... in chapter five and verse two. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you, lenient on discipline. Here they have a man in their midst that is guilty of moral error. And they were going along with it, not doing anything about it. And he says, You're puffed up. lenient on discipline. Chapter eight, verse one. Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Yes, all have knowledge. And know it all attitudes, though often. We have knowledge. But knowledge tops us out. And love it about. If you have thirteen and four, Love suffers longness, kindness. Love envy, if not. Love vaunteth not itself. It is not puffed up. Then you have another one in Colossians two, the seventh one. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. claimed to be humble, but have a very lofty and liberal imagination. Now these are seven scriptures, and I ponder over these, and I tell you, they get pretty close to you. They pop up, pop up, pop up. If there's something causing this fermentation, it's Christian, instead of something solid, something concrete, something that laughed something that abides something that God has pleased in and glorified with here is this assembly in thought the Apostle Paul reminds him about seven distinct things for the rich they were taught and taught and you know the Apostles still loved that church in Paul he would fight for their troubles he wouldn't have left with any There he saw them trying to carry out and function, and also to perpetuate that little organism. With all the difficulties, there still was the organism. And Paul loved it, and he used his authority on this occasion relative to this assembly that tried to straighten out some of these situations. Colonel, where am I? But after all, you have the need for wisdom and then knowledge. If knowledge is possible, you know, from all these scriptures, not wisdom, wisdom doesn't follow. If knowledge is possible, if knowledge is possible, and they're entirely choosing different things. Wisdom is really the want of knowledge. Why, if all you've got knowledge sometimes, all you can have is cold chunks of doctrine. And that's all they are. Cold chunks of doctrine. That knowledge. Good wisdom. Christ is the wisdom of God. Christ is the power of God. And then whatever we do in life or in service, the more we've got of Christ in us, the more of the want of the love of God is going to be in our knowledge. It's the knowledge. Apostle, that natural animal that's not stabilized by the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is made unto us wisdom, sanctify wisdom, and knowledge, wisdom, sanctification, what are the other two? Made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. How wonderful to have that stabilizing personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes first, knowledge followed. Wisdom is wonderful, but be sure that your knowledge is colored and controlled by the wisdom that you have. To have a wisdom that for this world, which James speaks of, he said, is devil, essential. The wisdom which is found above is first pure, peace of both, easy to be and true. because this wisdom is from above. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the wisdom we need in these days. Wisdom in our own lives, wisdom in the earth, and nature. And I trust, and I want to say this, in getting into these other subjects, I'll make this, you say, how do I know I've got a gift? I want to know. I'd like to know if I've got a gift. We haven't time the time. No, we've got another fifteen minutes. I thought we were closing. So we go on with this. But the answer to all this is being filled with distress. How am I going to overcome all this puffiness? This exercise of the flesh. How am I going to overcome it? And how am I going to develop these gifts that God is speaking about? And I have the opportunity to use. and the privilege of you well if you want whatever gift you have to surface come to the surface so you can see it and also if you want God to take that gift and use for his glory for the benefit of others there's only one answer to the flesh and to the exercise the first discovery and the exercise of gifts and that is being filled with the surface at the end. And I have to have you. I didn't think I had a witness, but I've got the text on being filled with the Spirit and of these kinds of mission clues. I want you to notice what you have over in Acts chapter two. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Lord gave them utter. Now I want you to underline the word filled. Then you have, in chapter four and verse eight, then Peter filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel. Chapter four again, verse thirty-one. And when they, that is the disciples, had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. Chapter nine, verse seventeen. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, that is, Saul, said Brother Saul. The Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto me in the way as thou...appeared unto thee in the way as thou came. Has sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. How wonderful. Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes upon him. and said, then you have occasion, in chapter thirteen, then Saul, also whose altar called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on this man, and said, O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. Acts chapter thirteen, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. chapter or in Ephesians five and eighteen. And be not drunk with wine when in his excess, but be filled with the stirrup. John four, but whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall see in him a well of water springing up his everlasting life. There is being filled with the stirrup. John seven and thirty-seven. The last day that great day of the feast Jesus stood and tried, saying, If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture says, Out of his belly or inward part shall flow rivers, or living waters. But this spake ye of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet given. You've been noticing the body and Pentecost. One Pentecost. Then the Spirit of God came down and baptized a hundred and twenty believers into one body, the infant church. So many people today think they have to keep another Pentecost. No. There's no second Pentecost. What about the individual believer? The individual believer is to be filled. That's why you find seven times over. The Lord brings it out plainly in John chapter four. It's the Spirit is returned to you. And there are many fillings. Time and time again, you find in these texts, the disciples and individuals are filled with the Holy Spirit. That's our personal enjoyment. Daily being filled with it. And as you were meditating on the person of Christ, and that last day, that great day of the peace Jesus was, so to inquire of any man, sir. The crux of the whole thing is that word, thirst. Do you search for the filling of the Holy Spirit? Do you search and hunger for an absence of all that puffed up nonsense, the fruit of the flesh? Do you want something solid and something that's real and something that's lasting, something that's spiritually concrete, thirst, the day that hunger and thirst that the righteousness shall be saved? And a Christian today can most suffer of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Meditating in the Word, you're not going to be filled with the Spirit. You don't meditate in the Spirit. You're not going to be filled with the Spirit. if you don't spend time in prayer. And they're not likely to be filled with the Spirit if you don't spend time in fellowshiping with God, beloved people. Those who are seeking the practice of the truth of the body. Back in those days, there were just three known groups in the world. The two, the Gentile, the Church of God. There were no such things as denominations in those days. You were either a Jew, or you were a Gentile, worshipped to make an idol temple, or you were in the assembly. Paul is writing these epistles to the assembly. That's what he's writing. That little organism in all these places there was that little organism. Patterns, as God had patented and designed it, after a human body. And here you have a local assembly. and it's an organism, all possessing the same life of Christ, life in the head, having a guideline in his words. And then that body growing, growing, souls being saved, people coming in. I'll tell you one thing, tough stop knowledge will never win souls to Christ. You have to have the Holy Spirit set. because the Spirit of God will not countenance that which is puffed up the fruits of the flesh, that little fungus, sin, and death. So the idea is, am I thirsty? Am I hungry? In these days in which you live, the world is like a desert, a veritable Sahara. You look out, you see, the stress on every hand, turmoil, unrest, What's the answer to that all? The answer to that all is getting back and thirsting and hungering at the righteous, and so that which is right in the sight of God. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of it. And if he really fears God, the day that feared the Lord should take off from one to another and the Lord hot and burned, and the book of remembrance was written for them that feared the Lord and brought upon his name, God is so delighted when a group gets together and they all fear his work and tremble at his work. Notice that. Tremble at his work. I wonder, do I tremble at the things I read in my life? And God was so delighted with that little group. They that feared the Lord spake awesome wonder of oneself. And the Lord Hocken, he heard. And he says to the recording angel, write that down. A book of remembrance is written, for them that fear the Lord, and thought upon his name. This again goes back to the little flock, the organism, held together by subjection to the head, and held together by membership in the body of Christ, enjoying the same life, the same love, one with the other. As in Israel's day, it was the strangers that came in that weakened Israel as a nation. The nation became mixed. They were Jews, half Jews, some Gentiles, that knew not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they got intermarried into the nation of Israel, and Israel as a nation began to weaken. But around us today we've got mixture of saved and lost. a mixture of modernism and fundamentalism. Whenever you get a mixture, you have a weakness. God wants that, according to his flesh and grave, and only those who are born again, in the box, subject of the head, has the privilege of carrying out his mind, the baptism, and remembering the Lord to carry on his activity. The more you get of a foreign element, the more you're going to get of that product, And all that was just fucked up. I won't announce them up. And just these things will exercise your heart, as it exercised by. If you're here tonight and you're not a Christian, it just means you're lost. You're not in the body of Paul. You're on the way to a lost eternity. I trust God will exercise you, but the need for being saved of Jesus. convicted, converted, written, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we come into thy presence. We thank thee for thy searching words. It's not our words. It's the word of the living God. It's Christ the head of the church. He knows the need of the body. He knows what the body... stands in need of, sometimes correction. Other times exhortation. Other times they need comfort. Oh, Father, we thank you. The head knows all about us as individuals, what our needs, desires, and pangs of ours. He knows all about an ascended testimony. We thank the head, who holds the answer to all members of his body, But then my word, yes, you know, she was such as me.