Spiritual gifts are not native abilities, inherited traits, or bestowed by church authority, but are Spirit-given manifestations for the profit of the church. The sermon explains that every Christian possesses spiritual gifts, which function like parts of a body, each with a unique role. It distinguishes between sign gifts, like tongues and healing, which were temporary credentials for the early church and have ceased with the completion of Scripture, and abiding gifts such as evangelists, pastors, and teachers, which are essential for edifying believers and convincing unbelievers. The purpose of all gifts is to build up the body of Christ, prevent division, and ultimately glorify God.
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The gifts of the Holy Spirit are first the definition of gifts. One, this is not native ability. Native ability means something that you have naturally. a man may have the gift of gab and he assumes that he ought to be a preacher, maybe he should be an auctioneer or something else, you know. A person has a good voice and so he assumes that the Lord has called him to do, to sing or to do something of this kind.
He's called him to do, to sing or to do something of this kind. I'm not meaning to discount the value of native ability. Any of these may be sanctified and devoted to God's glory. We ought to give God anything that we have, put it into His hands. But that is not what we're talking about when we talk about the gifts of the Spirit. It's not something that you inherited from grandma, not something that you have naturally to... These are not to be confused with service of elders and deacons.
Serving God in the local church as an elder or a deacon is not a gift. Now an elder may or may not have certain gifts. They're not to be confused. Those are services while we're talking about gifts. And three, they are not bestowed by ecclesiastical authority. There are a number of churches, especially ritualistic churches, who claim that they have the power to give to whatever persons they choose the spiritual gift.
but this is in direct contradiction to the teaching of the Scripture, as we shall see. And number four, they are spirit-given manifestations for profit. Now I'm giving you the revised reading of First Corinthians twelve in verse seven. The manifestation of the spirit is given to every man for profit. Manifestation means some way by which we are able to see that the Spirit of God is working through that person.
And these are given to every man. This is repeated twice in First Corinthians twelve and the seventh and the eleventh verses. So there is no such person as a Christian without spiritual gifts. We don't all have the same gifts as we shall see. And we don't all have the same amount of gifts. And we do not all have the same development, even though they may be the same gifts. But every Christian is given spiritual gifts. That is, he is spiritually endowed with the ability to do something for God.
And B, each member has a special function. First Corinthians twelve, twelve to twenty-five outlines by using the analogy of the human body how that each member has his own particular place. And each of us must find out where God has put us. He says God has placed the members in the body as it pleased him. And he says that the eye can't, the eye is not more important than the ear, that even the head can't say to the foot, I don't need you.
I think this is wonderful because the Lord himself is the head and the foot is the part that's the farthest away from the head. There isn't anybody that the Lord doesn't need. So there's nobody that we don't need. We need each other. Each member has a special function. Now the second section, this is a very difficult topic, the sign gifts. The popular word for this today is charisma or the charismatic gifts, spelled C-H-A-R-I-S-M-A-T-I-C, the charismatic gifts, the sign gifts.
That word means power, gifts that indicate power. Now, number one, the lists in the New Testament, the lists of gifts vary in the New Testament. You will find in I Corinthians twelve a list of nine gifts in the first part of the chapter. In the end of the chapter, you will find a different list of, I believe, eight gifts. And then you will find in Ephesians chapter five a list of five gifts and so on.
And I think this is to indicate to us that there are a number of gifts, not all necessarily listed in any one place. There's an obvious reason for that, as we'll see in a little bit. Now, second, the reasons for signs. What was the purpose of getting sign gifts, such as healing and tongues and interpretation of tongues? What was the reason for giving them? A, the Jews required a sign. First Corinthians one, twenty-two says, The Jews require a sign.
The Greeks seek after wisdom. In Matthew twelve and verse thirty-eight, the Lord Jesus rebuked the Jews because they had already seen his miracles. He had been performing miracles for quite some time, and they said, Show us a sign. And he said, This is a wicked and adulterous generation. And he said, You'll get no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah. They had already had enough signs. Now what were these signs for? The Old Testament predicted them. And I've given you some passages here from Isaiah, which I hope you will study, and compare these with Matthew eleven, one to six.
Now the occasion in Matthew eleven was when the disciples of John came to the Lord Jesus. John was in prison. and his disciples were sent to the Lord Jesus to ask him this question, are you the one we were looking for or do we look for another? That is, are you the Messiah or not? The Lord Jesus didn't give him a categorical reply. He said, you go back to John and tell John what you see happening. And the quotation there is definitely from these passages that I've given you in Isaiah.
The Lord Jesus was really quoting from Isaiah what was promised seven hundred years before this. The Lord Jesus said, you go back and tell John these things are happening and he'll know from that that I am the one who was sent. And so, see, they were the credentials of the Messiah. Let me say a word about credentials. Every official representative of a government performs as his first governmental duty when he arrives in the country where he is representing his own country.
He goes to the State Department and presents his credentials at his first official function. because it has to be established that he has a right to represent his country. Now suppose that the ambassador from Moscow, from Russia, arrives in Washington and goes to the State Department, first time he comes as an ambassador to this country, and he presents his credentials. And these are looked at and accepted by the heads of the State Department. And then they're handed back to this man, and he puts them in his portfolio, and he goes back to his own headquarters.
And then suppose a week later he comes back to the State Department to present something from his country. And the State Department says, well, we want to see your credentials. What would that man do? Well, he'd get in touch with Moscow and he'd say, they've insulted me over here. I presented my credentials a week ago. Now they're demanding my credentials again. Now this is exactly what the charismatic people, the Pentecostal movement, whether it's the old Pentecostal or the neo-Pentecostal, this is exactly what they're doing when they're demanding signs. They are demanding the credentials of the Messiah. They presented every meeting that they hold.
Because that's why they were given. You study the passages that I've mentioned to you, and you'll see that this is true. And there is absolutely no point in asking for these credentials today. Now, third, their limitations. A, they were given to few persons. In First Corinthians twelve, He asks the question, are all apostles? Obviously the answer is no. Are all prophets?
Obviously no. Do all speak with tongues? And yet the Pentecostal movement says, oh yes, they have to. If they don't, then they don't have the Holy Spirit. Now read the passage and you'll see, it is no more fair and right. to ask that everybody speak the tongue than it is to ask that everybody be an apostle or that everybody be a prophet. It just doesn't happen that way. In fact, you would have a hard time proving that anybody except the twelve apostles spoke in tongues on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down. It's true that three thousand people got saved that day.
But there's nothing to indicate that anybody but the apostles ever spoke in tongues on that day. And they did so for the special purpose of proving to the Jews. Well, there was nobody present there. It was a feast of the Jews, and nobody was present but Jews and proselytes. And they spoke in order to prove to the Jews that this was what God had promised, and to give the gospel to all of these people in their own languages. It was not an unknown tongue at all. In fact, the word unknown, which occurs only in First Corinthians chapter fourteen, is always in italics.
They never spoke in an unknown tongue. They never talked in some angelic tongue. In First Corinthians thirteen, he said, though, I speak of the tongue of men and of angels, but that is simply a poetic expression, even though I were a silver tongue, we say sometimes, in this country. That doesn't mean I have my tongue amputated and a silver one put in. It means, though, I'm able to speak eloquently. Paul said it amounts to nothing if I don't have love. But there's nothing in the Scripture to indicate that they ever spoke in any kind of an ecstatic language. They spoke languages. And the word for tongue is exactly the same word translated languages in every place.
And it tells what languages they spoke in the first part of Acts chapter two. and it lists many languages of these Jews that were gathered in all the other countries. They had to come three times in a year to Jerusalem for the feast. And they were there at this feast day, the feast of Pentecost or the feast of weeks, and there God saw to it that all of these Jews heard the gospel in their own language. That's exactly what it says, happened. Now, B, First Corinthians thirteen and verse eight says that these things shall cease. He said that tongues shall cease. He says that knowledge, the kind of knowledge that they had, that kind of knowledge would vanish away.
And he told when it would happen. He said it would happen when that which is perfect is come. Now that which is perfect is the word of God. And when the perfect Word of God was given, that is, when the canon of Scripture was totally set forth, when the Bible was completed, there was no further need for either the miraculous gift of prophecy, nor the miraculous gift of tongues, nor the miraculous gift of healing, for that matter. They were not needed after the Word of God was complete. Now all records of tongues fall into twelve years after Pentecost.
There is no record of anything happening longer after Pentecost than twelve years. And it's easy to see by consulting the verses that I have put down for you here, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, twelve and verse eight, that Paul himself was not able to get healing for his own body. Now it's true that Paul had healed some before then, but he was not able to get healing for his own body. The Lord said, My grace is sufficient for thee. And it won't do to say that this was some other kind of infirmity, because the word infirmity here is the word that's always used of physical distress.
And then in First Timothy five and verse twenty three, he wrote to Timothy and said, Drink no longer wine. no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and then often infirmities. I won't do to say that Timothy didn't have faith, or to say that Paul didn't have faith and couldn't heal him, because Paul was certainly the greatest of the apostles. And Timothy, he said, in Philippians chapter two, is the finest young man I have. I don't have anybody comparable. He's the most godly young man that I know. And yet he had many infirmities.
And finally, in Second Timothy four in verse twenty, he tells about Trofimus, and there is not a word said against Trofimus in all of the New Testament. He was a godly young man. But Paul said, I left Trofimus at my levis sick. Now why? Well, for the very simple reason that healing was no longer in existence at the time that Paul wrote his epistles. You see, the epistles of Paul were written between about the year fifty-five and sixty-five, roughly. And this would be some twenty-five years after the day of Pentecost.
And there was no record of any healings of any kind. There is nothing said about healings more than twelve years, or tongue, more than twelve years after Pentecost, and nothing said about healings in any of the officials of Paul. Now it is mentioned in James, but James was undoubtedly written within two or three years of the day of Pentecost. Now see under their limitations. It was for the childhood of the church. First Corinthians thirteen, eight to eleven, tells us very distinctly that anyone who is taken up with these things is juvenile in his spirituality.
And Paul said, when I became a man, I put away childish things. And in the fourteenth chapter and verse twenty, you might want to put that down in your notes. First Corinthians fourteen and verse twenty, he exhorts the Christians that they should no longer act like children. Don't be childish. And that whole fourteen chapter is a rebuke of their obsession with tongues when they should have been teaching the word of God. And Paul discredits it to this extent that he said, I would rather say five words that were understandable than a long speech in a tongue that nobody could understand.
He said, I'm thankful that I have been able to speak these different languages more than any of you. But he said, the important thing is to get across the sense, which of course is the very opposite of the so-called tongue's movement. It is totally senseless. Now let's pass on from that to number three, the abiding gifts. And I have a note here regarding the apostles and prophets. Ephesians four and verse eleven says that we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Now that's the figure of a building. Suppose you're building a stone building. The first thing you do is lay the foundation. And the foundation is Christ himself. Then the next thing you do is to put in the bottom course of stones. And the bottom course of the stones included the apostles and the prophets. And there haven't been any sin. In the sense that they're spoken of there. So A. they were in the foundation of the church. Ephesians two, nineteen twenty-two. First I just quoted. And B, they had special credentials as apostles.
In Acts one, twenty-one to twenty-six, it says that an apostle must be someone who has been with the Lord Jesus, who has witnessed from the baptism of John until the time that Christ was taken up. Make a point of that. Study it. Acts chapter one, twenty-one to twenty-six. After Judas, by transgression, fell. And they had to make up the twelve, because on the day of Pentecost they were going to appear before the Jews, and twelve was the number of testimony to the Jews.
There were twelve tribes. They had to have twelve men. And this was not a mistake. They prayed, and the Spirit of God led them in the choice of this man to replace Judas. And in speaking of this, Peter said, we've got to choose a man. who has spent time with the Lord Jesus from the baptism of John to the time that he was taken up from us. Now, there are no people like that today, so there are no apostles today. And the prophets were the men who gave the word of God before the Bible is completed. Since the Bible is completed, we don't need that kind of prophets.
Now, let me make one more point. See, prophecy means to tell forth as well as to foretell the word prophecy we usually think of as meaning to foretell events but this was not so many of the Old Testament prophets never foretold anything they merely delivered a message from God yet they were called prophets and it's in this this second sense of telling forth that prophecy is still a continuing gift. Number one, prophesying was preferred.
First Corinthians fourteen, three and thirty-one. In fact, at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter, he says, covet earnestly the best gifts and especially that you may prophesy. Now here prophesied, not used as the early prophets of the church, but it is used to stand for telling out the Word of God. The most important thing, he says, is not sign gifts and miraculous demonstrations. The important thing is to get the Word of God out. So he said, this is what is preferred. Why? A, because it edifies believers.
It edifies believers. The word edify means to build them up. Now the sign gifts do nothing for believers. I think this is very evident. All you have to do is to check up among those, and you'll find that they are not Bible students. They have never produced one theologian. There isn't anything in the charismatic movement to indicate real, intelligent study of the Word of God. But prophecy, or the telling out of the Word of God, edifies believers.
And B, it convinces unbelievers. First Corinthians fourteen and twenty-four says that if an unbeliever comes in, He is convinced of all, he is judged of all, and he says God is among you of the truth. So it is very convincing when you give people the word of God. What effect does it have upon the non-Christian when you have one of these hilarious demonstrations of tongues? Are they going away saying something wrong with those people? They must be nuts. What's the matter with these people? This is exactly what I've heard people say who have gone to that kind of a thing.
All sorts of extravagant actions rolling on the floor and climbing on top of the piano and dancing. This kind of thing never convinces anybody that this is of God. While the Word of God does do this. Ephesians four not only says that God gave apostles and prophets, which we have seen are in the foundation of the church, but also evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Number two, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Now, what do we mean by this?
Well, the word evangelist comes from the word evangel which means the good news or the gospel. An evangelist then is simply one who tells the good news or tells the gospel. Paul said to Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. The work of an evangelist is to go into a new place and preach the gospel there and see people led to Christ and then baptize them and gather them together and teach them how that they can meet together and study the word and remember the Lord and so on. And then it's time for someone else to come in and give them additional help.
And so he says they're evangelists, and then there are pastors. Now this is not a man who is trained at a seminary. This is not a man who has a title to his name or wears his collar in some special way. The word pastor simply means a shepherd. And the gift of a shepherd is a gift. Now elders ought to be pastors, but all elders do not have the gift of a pastor. The gift is, being a pastor is definitely a gift. And some people are gifted to pastor the sheep.
Now the word pastor comes from the same word as pasture, and it means shepherd. Shepherd is a sheep herder. one who cares for sheep. Pastor is one who leads sheep to the pasture. So that's the root of the word. We're thinking now about someone who is able to look after the sheep. Now he may not be able to teach, but he's able to keep them from scarring. He's able to help them with their problems. He's able to visit them when they're sick and he's able to look after them. This is not in the singular. It's always in the plural. You never read of one pastor You never read of one elder in the local church.
You always read of them in the plural. There ought to be a number of pastors in every congregation of believers. That is men who have the gift of shepherding and helping the people of God. There ought to be elders in plural in every assembly. These are older men who can oversee the flock. They may not be capable of shepherding, but they at least can oversee them. They are older men with experience. Now a teacher, as the name implies, is one who has the gift of teaching the Word of God. There's a good saying in a book on pedagogy, the art of teaching, that says, teaching, this is only part of the quote, teaching is not telling.
There are some people who try to teach school and they never make a success of it because all they do is tell the children. Now teaching is not telling. Telling is not teaching. You have to be able to impart knowledge. You have to be able to get it across. You have to be able to illustrate it. You have to be able to take a passage or an idea apart and then show them how the parts fit back together. And this is a gift. And it's a gift which has to be developed, of course, but it is a gift. And so some have the gift of teaching. Now, A, they give the Word of God first place.
All of these three gifts. They give the Word of God first place, which is right. And B, they have a part in building the local church. First Corinthians three, ten to fifteen. describes how Paul laid the foundation at Corinth, and now he said each one of you can build on that foundation. And finally, three other gifts are seen in use in the epistles, such as helps and governments and so on. This is not to say that the only gifts now are evangelist, pastors, and teachers, but simply to say that the sign gifts have passed off the seat.
Now, number four, the purpose of gifts. The charismatic gifts were for signs. We've already seen that. The power gifts. That's number one. The charismatic gifts were for signs. Therefore, no longer needed. Number two, the other gifts are for the building up of believers. Ephesians four, twelve. for the edifying of the church. A, so that they may serve in the work of the Lord. B, until all come to maturity. Now the gifts are not to do all the work.
The gifts are not to do all the serving. These men who have gifts are not the only ones who help bring maturity. But they teach all the believers so that all of the believers learn to serve and so all of the believers come to maturity. This is the ideal. Also, number three, it is for the exhortation of some. First Corinthians fourteen and three says it is for edification, exhortation, and comfort. And so number four is for the comforting of some. Now to exhort a person is to Stir him up.
He may already know, but he isn't doing it. It's sort of like shaking the furnace. And if you're burning coal, you don't need to put more coal on it, just need to shake it so it'll get some air to it. And some Christians are like that. They know plenty, but they need to be shaken up a little. That's what agitation is for. Then there's the need of comfort when a person is distressed, if for any reason. And five, that there be no division in the body of Christ. That's the reason for these gifts, to keep division down. If each one did his part, there would be no division among the people of God. And last of all, that God may be glorified.
Now just a word about the development of gifts. One, we must recognize the Lordship of Christ. Two, we must be willing to accept the place God gives us. Three, we must grieve not the Holy Spirit. Four, we must study the word prayerfully. especially church order.
Five, consult with spiritual elders. First Timothy, four, fourteen tells us about Timothy. And Acts, sixteen, one to three also describes how Timothy was chosen to go with Paul. And six, exercise what gift you believe you have. This can be done two places, A in the local assembly and B among non-Christians. That's the best way to find out whether you have gifts or not. If you try it and find out what you don't have, then you must find out what that gift really is.
And last of all, expect God to add more to faithful stewards. We haven't time to go into this, but Luke nineteen describes the parable of the pounds, and the one who has much will be given more. So you can develop and become more gifted than you are to begin with. I'm sorry I ran over on the time on that. I was thrown off with my watch.