So please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
And there are some slides and there's a few verses we're going
to look at. So that's our this is our
mainstay, our foundation because I don't know about you, but
there's a lot of confusion and depending on what church you
grew up in or where you came from or what it is about the
gifts of the Holy Spirit. And Paul says in one Corinthians
12 verse one now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren says
talking to the church, I do not want you to be ignorant.
There's too many people in church that are ignorant of
God's word. You know, they have all these
well, I believe this and I I think that and I don't believe
the Bible says this is what I think about the Bible doesn't it
doesn't care what I think what my opinion is what others say.
It's what the Bible says Calvary Chapel pastors, we find out what
the text is teach the text. The text only has one meaning.
And so the question we want to answer tonight about the
spiritual gifts is this. Are the gifts of the Holy Spirit
no longer given to the church today?
The gifts, instead of being a blessing to the church, often
the discussion even of the gifts have caused more problems.
You don't believe in that, do you?
You're not, you're not, you're not one of those tongues people
or one of those prophecy peoples or discern or miracle people.
Are you or, or you mean you don't believe in the gifts at
all? And so there's this swinging
pendulum and the gifts have become a problem, shouldn't be
they've become an issue. And actually they've become a
point of division. While this church doesn't
believe in this. So we don't have that.
And this church believes in this.
So, and it's about the gifts and instead of being a blessing is
what they're supposed to be, they've become an issue.
Paul taught us not to be ignorant of three things.
Three things 1 he says do not be ignorant of God's plan for
Israel. Many people today are ignorant
of what's happening to Israel. Many churches stay, they don't,
they don't believe Israel is the God's people anymore.
They think God's finished with them.
They don't know what's going on, and so they believe every time.
Now Israel was mentioned in the Old Testament, it's spiritual
Israel, it's the church. And Oh no, that was for Israel.
But since they did this, now where is, well, the church has
become Israel. And it tells me initially that
they haven't taught the book of Genesis because you get your
bearings at the beginning. You know, when you set off on a
course, you want to have your bearing set.
This is the compass, this is the direction, and you stick to that
course. You've got to have your bearings
right. Genesis is the book of
beginnings. It's the book where we get our
theology correct. For the rest of the 65 books of
the Bible, Paul said do not be ignorant of God's plan for
Israel. Romans Chapter 11, verse 25.
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of
this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion.
Oh, everyone's got an opinion that blindness in part has
happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has
come in, until the work of the church is done, the church is
taken out. And then the 70th year of
Daniel, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, the 69 lots of seven
year periods, the clock, prophetic clock has stopped when
the church has raptured that last seven year period, the
tribulation period. If you read the book of Daniel
and you see how it matches with Thessalonians and with the Book
of Revelation, you see that it's all about Israel in the
tribulation period. Second thing, Paul says, I don't
want, do not want you to be ignorant of spiritual grips,
gifts. Oh, it's too difficult.
It's too hard. I mean, I can't work out, you
know, gifts of discernment, gifts of tongues.
It's all whoa, it's a bit hokey, pokey for me.
Paul says, now that's that's wrong.
He says, I don't want you to be ignorant of such things.
Thirdly, he says do not be ignorant about the second coming
of Jesus. Oh, well, we've heard this for
years. Every time I hear someone say
we've heard this so and so, it's people saying, you know, you're
expecting Jesus to come. Calvary chapel's a begun on the
coming of the Lord. And each time they hear that
it's another notch that I believe we're closer to the
coming of Christ because Peter says people will say in the last
days we've heard this for how long?
Nothing's changed. They're proving the point Paul
wrote to the church in Thessalonica.
He says, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
those who have fallen asleep, those who have died, lest you
sorrow as others who have no hope.
Christ is coming again. Gifts dividing both
theologically and spiritually. There are some who think that
those who believe all the gifts are put today, and they used to
be called, not so much now, but back a few years, they were
called Charismatics. Who's heard that term
Charismatic or Charismania or Pentecostals?
Who's who's heard that term? Pentecostals?
Maybe you've come from a Pentecostal background or know
about it. And many believe all those
people, Charismatics, Pentecostal, they're deceived by
Satan because they do all those weird stuff.
It's satanic. Wow, big statement.
Then there are others who think those who believe some of the
gifts are no longer given are unspiritual and dead in the
walk. So those who are Pentecostal,
charismatic say, well, if you don't believe in the gifts, man,
you're just dead, man, you're dead in your walk.
And so there's this this dichotomy, there's this A&Z,
there's this this great chasm. Calvary chapels are respected
for the biblical balance because we teach through the Word of
God. Expository book by book, chapter
by chapter, verse by verse. When it comes to the gifts of
the Holy Spirit we've seen Calgary chapels are seen to have
a balance and their place in church life.
Because we believe the gifts do have a place in church life.
Calgary chapels have sometimes been rightly seen as two
Pentecostal for the Baptists, 2 Baptists for the Pentecostals.
We've been called Panty Baptist or bapticostals.
Now. Balance.
Finding the balance is meaningless unless it's biblical
balance. You just don't go.
Well, let's, let's park over here.
That's just safe. No balance is found through the
Bible. We don't want to strike a
balance between heresy and truth.
We want the truth. The truth sets the balance.
So let's dig in tonight, Work through it biblically.
Are the gifts still relevant for today in today's church?
Have they finished? Did they finished?
Finished with the apostles? Now No, Christian, doesn't
matter where back what background you have believes all
the gifts have ceased in the church today, all Christians
believe the gifts of teaching. Otherwise, there'd be no
teaching in a church and administration.
In other words, those who guide and pastor and help look after
the church, deacons, etcetera. Gifts in that way are given and
needed in the church today. Everyone thinks, yeah, they're
still, they're still going, yeah, that they're gifts.
It's the other stuff that we, we don't know about.
It is the gifts that have a miraculous nature which are in
dispute. Paul gives them in details in
one Corinthians 12. He lists them and then he talks
about love, how to do them. Make sure you you're just not
going off and doing stuff without the love of God being
the guide. He says also that in chapter 12
of 1 Corinthians that gifts are given by the Holy Spirit.
It's not something. Let me see.
I've got a Bay Marie of gifts here.
Everybody come in, pick out the gift that you want when you're
going to use it. No, no, the gifts are given as
God wills them for the time and the need that God wants to use
them. I don't park a a gift.
I'm, I'm the healer man or I'm this or I'm that.
No. God gives them out by the Holy
Spirit as he wills, so it's the miraculous ones that are in
dispute. People often also seek to divide
the gifts in the categories, compartmentalise them.
There are no such divisions and categories in the Bible.
It's not biblical, Paul says. There are diversities of gifts.
It's the same Holy Spirit. There are differences of
ministries, but it's the same law.
There are diversities of activities, how they operate,
but it's the same God who works All in all, because it's the
Holy Spirit who is giving and guiding and operating how they
should be. So it says there are diversities
of gifts. Paul will go on in One
Corinthians 12 to list some 9 spiritual gifts for the sake of
time, you know them. We won't go through with them
tonight. Read them out.
But they're in One Corinthians 12.
And then in One Corinthians 14, Paul says this is how they to
operate in a church service or things are wrong.
There's a way that they are to operate.
And so Paul lists some 9 spiritual gifts in the following
verses and more in other places. People always say, well, how
many spiritual gifts there are? I'm waiting to see what your
answer is. There's not No, there's 12 and
there's this, this, this play on of whatever, how many, how many
you want to number of it. It's irrelevant.
There is only one giver, the Holy Spirit, who works through
the diverse gifts. So again, the real question is,
are all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit for today, 2025, That's
the issue. Are some of them no longer being
given by God? He used to give them out and he
said, no, I'm not doing that anymore.
Those who teach against the miraculous gifts of the Holy
Spirit definitely believe they have the gifts of teaching,
obviously because they're teaching.
So they'll say we're going to study the Bible.
We believe the gifts finished at this time they're teaching.
So they believe in the gift of teaching.
They also believe God still gives that gift today, the gift
of teaching past the teachers visions. 4 But what does the
Bible say on the matter? In Mark 16 verses 17 to 18,
Jesus made a promise and there was no timeline on this, He
said. And these signs will follow
those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons, they
will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents.
And if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt
them. They will lay hands on the sick
and they will recover. Now let me clarify this because
here you go. You go.
Hang on. Hey, wait a minute.
It's a wacko stuff in here. There's wacko stuff in America
where churches down in the Deep South actually get out.
Tigers. Not tigers.
Snakes, so they don't have them. Rattlesnakes.
And they pass them around the church and they're dancing.
It's freaky. And people die.
And then there's the tragedy of Jonestown.
Remember, they drank poison. They all died and so people will
see because of that this can't be on now hang on a minute.
You see, it's kind of like I was working for one of the big
government departments. I won't mention which one.
And one guy decided he because he needed a car, they they work
on call outs. He said, I'll take the car home
because I got call out. And then and they said, no, you
can't take cars home anymore. So all the cars you now have to
catch a bus, catch a taxi, whatever it is, go to the
headquarters there, you'll get your car.
So the guy said, OK, we're not using the cars.
We'll just take buses and and however long it takes me to get
by public transport to the place.
And so they threw out the baby with the bathwater.
You know, they go, well, no one's taking any cars home.
And so they made this stupid statements.
And this is what often happens. People go, well, that that could
be look what happens in the Deep South and look what happened
with Jonestown. So we're not doing any of that.
Well, that's just and wise to think that way.
This is a simple, what Jesus says, straightforward promise in
context given to those who are involved in spreading the
gospel. We know what happened to Paul,
didn't he? He's washed up, remember?
He's the first surf surfing that occurs in the Bible.
They hopped on their boards and they went to the ocean and made
it to the island. He's picking up firewood.
A Viper comes out and it's venomous, latches onto him.
He shakes it off and everyone says, well, he's going to die.
He must be a bad guy. He's been in a shipwreck and now
snake's bitten. He's going to, he's gone.
He doesn't die, and everyone says he must be a God.
So it's God's overall power working through people who are
proclaiming the gospel as they went throughout the world.
Paul laid hands on the sick and people were healed.
Not all it's a simple and straightforward promise that
Jesus gave to the church, that is those who are involved in
spreading the gospel. They will be unstoppable.
God will even use when he thinks right miraculous means to
protect them and make them effective in the book of Acts
Acts chapter 2 verse 33. Therefore, being exalted to the
right hand of God and having received from the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit, he, Jesus poured out this which you
now see in here, the day of Pentecost, tongues of fire.
The they're speaking in languages that they don't know
and other people are hearing them.
And at that time in the book of Acts chapter 2, every time they
heard it, it wasn't a word to the people.
It was words proclaiming and praising the goodness of God.
Read that at that time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a
day of Pentecost, Peter, this is Peter's words going on with
Peter. He says in Acts 2 verse 39 for
the promises to you and to your children and to all who are far
off as many as the Lord our God will call.
In other words, it wasn't well this has just happened for these
people. That's it just them ask for and
no more. The promise is what the Bible
says to the your children and and your on to their children.
So the promise of the Holy Spirit is ongoing.
The book of Acts has no Amen at the end of it.
So the promise of the Holy Spirit, specifically including
miraculous gifts as Peter was referring to, is a promise to
all generations. That's what the Bible says. 1
Corinthians 14 verse 12. Paul says this to the church at
Corinth because they were operating out of order.
They had the gifts operating, but man, it was a madhouse.
SO1 Corinthians 14, Paul details, Hey, if someone speaks
in this language or whatever, this is how it's to work.
This is when it happens, the way it happens.
Paul says this Even so you Christian Church Corinth, since
you are zealous for spiritual gifts.
That's why, man, they wanted the gifts.
They really sought the gifts of God.
Then Paul says this, let it be for what?
What are the gifts for the edification that is the building
up of the church that you seek to excel.
And what's happened today is people just gone up the gift.
Oh, I have this gift and we put up a sign.
Come and hear me. Come and speak at so and so.
I had the gift of this. No, you don't, because God gives
the gifts out as He wills, and the gift is not for your
ministry, your edification. It's for every gift. 1
Corinthians 12/13 and 14 is for the building up of everybody
else. Whatever gift God gives you,
it's not for you, it's for everybody else.
It's God gives you a certain gift and he says I'm going to
allow you to operate in this way so that you can bless the rest
of the body of Christ, build them up.
We read here by Paul the purpose, and that's important
for spiritual gifts, even the miraculous gifts, is the
building up of the body of Christ and individual
Christians. That need remains today.
Today the church still needs the gifts operating, building up,
edifying, encouraging. The constant testimony the New
Testament gives is that the miraculous gifts described in
the New Testament have not been retracted.
There's nowhere it says, by the way, these gifts finish on the
14th of February 1970 or these gifts finish with when these
guys die. That's it doesn't say that no
one with a fresh reading you. And that means I was talking to
someone this morning about the Bible.
I says, and they're thinking of coming to the church.
I said, here's the here's the deal.
You and I will never have disagreements until you come up
and say such and such and I'll go, That's not in the Bible.
That's not what the Bible says. Then I'll disagree the moment
you go home and you just read the Bible and you say the Bible
says and I'll go, yes, the Bible does say that.
We are in agreement. It's not my opinion that counts,
nor your opinion. It's what does the Bible say on
the matter? So the purpose for the spiritual
gifts, even the miraculous, is the building up of the body.
No one with a fresh reading of the Scriptures could ever come
to such an understanding to say the gifts have finished.
How could you do that? There's no biblical passages or
chapters or books to say, yeah, yeah.
And it's it's stop here because it doesn't.
There is no indication that miraculous gifts.
Would die out when the apostles died, it doesn't say anywhere.
And by the way, when the apostles all drop dead and John
was the last, he was 90 odd years old.
He's on the Isle of Patmos. Then he's set free again.
He goes to live in Ephesus with Mary the mother of Jesus there.
They died of old age. It doesn't say.
And when he died, the church went there's no more gifts that
was. It doesn't say that.
There is no distinction also made between sign gifts or
miraculous gifts and other gifts in the New Testament.
They come always and only as a package.
The Holy Spirit brings them as a package. 1 Corinthians 12 Little
is said in the Bible about the continuation of all the gifts
because why? Well, why does it say the gifts
will carry on? Well, little is given to say
about the continuation of all the gifts.
Why? Because it was a given.
The gifts carry on. The church carries on until
when? Until the church has wrapped it
out. So it just carries on.
That's why again, the book of Acts has no and this is the end
of the church. Jesus came.
No, you might as well, if you use that sort of thinking, ask,
well, where is the scriptural evidence using the same line of
thinking, and that's what you got to do when you make a
statement, it should carry on and be the truth all the way
along. You should say, if the gifts
finished that way, well, where is the scriptural evidence that
someone can be saved beyond the time of the apostles?
Because when the apostles were dead, that was the end of it.
Jesus just picked 12 go out and preach the gospel and when they
died that was the end. No more salvation you go well
that's stupid. No, it's the same logic used to
the ceasing of the spiritual gifts with the death of the
apostles. One would be hard pressed to
find one conclusive verse to refute the argument because it
was simply assumed salvation carried on after the apostles
died. So the question again is, well,
why do some Christians believe some gifts of the Holy Spirit
are no longer given by today? You know, I had someone asked me
a little while back, they come and said, you know, you know, we
don't see the gifts of healing of miracles anymore.
And I went, well, actually, I don't know about that.
That's your opinion. But each time I see a baby born,
I think that's a pretty powerful miracle gift of life.
And then in our Wednesday night prayer groups, you and I have
known how many miracles has God carried out in this fellowship
alone without and, and, and the other thing is a lot of times
God's working miraculously in answer to prayer or whatever in
the church and the person who's touched by it doesn't mention
it. It's happened, it's happened,
God has done it, but there's been a, by the way, everybody,
here's what happened to me. I don't know, you know.
And so such folk who say that gifts are finished, I believe
have a wrong understanding of history and they believe that
historically. So let's look at history.
They'll say the miraculous gifts actually did cease when the
apostles died because they haven't seen, because they think
in missionaries they're looking for the, you know, the raising
of the dead and stuff. You know, the people to talk to
about gifts are people in Africa, China, and places that
we don't know about. Don't go, go with until you bump
into someone and they'll tell you, Oh my goodness, God has
worked miraculously. The fact that I'm still alive,
the fact that this happened, it happened, it happened, it
happened and on and on and on. The people on the mission front,
they're the ones who can tell us the great deal what people are
wanting. Well, how come we don't see it
in the church? You know, you know this woo Hoo,
you know, that sort of stuff. It's because the church is
ignorant of spiritual gifts. It doesn't know what to do with
them. And it's either over the top and
it's chaotic mess. God can't work on that, or it's,
well, we don't believe in them. They're satanic.
We don't we don't have an understanding of them.
So people have a wrong understanding.
For example, 1 Corinthians 13/8, which says, well, it says there
the tongues will cease. So what are you going to say
about that? Or read the context because it
says that something else will see cease as well.
There's a couple other things that will cease.
Love won't cease, but it says other things will cease
something. And John MacArthur, I, he's one
of the best Bible commentators that I know.
I have a lot of his books. But John MacArthur, he says, and
I don't agree with him, that the gift stopped with the apostles.
John MacArthur is not the Pope. He's a good Bible teacher, but
in this area, I don't think he's right.
John MacArthur claims tongue ceased in the Apostolic age and
that when they stopped, they stopped for good.
But this passage passage doesn't tell us about tongues, that
tongues will stop by themselves. It tells us tongues will cease
only when that which has perfect has come.
And they go, oh, there you go, we got the Bible.
Now you know this is, and they say incorrectly, the Bible is
that which is perfect. No, When we look at what does
that which is perfect means, Paul says when that which is
perfect has come, then the gifts, yes, will be
discontinued. They won't need to be operating.
But what is that which is perfect?
It's not the Bible. I'm not saying that the Bible
isn't perfect, but I'm saying that's not what he's talking
about. In that context, though, some
believe that believe miraculous gifts ceased with the apostles,
say it refers to the completion of the New Testament.
I don't think I don't believe that they're biblically correct.
I think they're wrong. Virtually all commentators agree
that that which is perfect is fulfilled when we are in the
eternal presence of the perfect one.
We looked at that in Revelation chapter 5 when we were in heaven
with the Lord. Because you won't need tongues,
you know, we won't need the gift of healing.
You won't need gifts of interpretation.
You won't need the gift of, of, of pastors and teachers and
apostles and all that sort of stuff.
We're in heaven. We're with the Lord, the perfect
one. When we're with the Lord forever
through the return, either by the return of Christ or
graduation to the Eternal, that which is perfect is Him.
Now the same people have a wrong understanding, and they usually
say, well, what about Hebrews chapter 2, verse 3, where it
says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation,
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, was
confirmed to us by those who heard Him.
God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with
various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His
own will. So people take that verse, pull
it out, and here's what you do. That's how you make a pretext
instead of putting it in the context.
People take this verse incorrectly to say that the only
real reason miracles and gifts were given was to authenticate
Revelation, the Word, and there is now no longer a need for that
because we have it. But if miracles only happened
around certain times of revelation, that's what they're
saying, then there is a substantial amount of revelation
that is unaccounted or supported by miracles.
In fact, everything in the Bible from the book of Judges through
to the Song of Solomon, that's a fair chunk.
So if miracles do authenticate revelation, you put yourself on
dangerous ground by saying, well, if it's a miracle that
occurs, that's that's support that it's a revel.
That's the word from God. Be careful of that because false
prophets can and do perform authenticating miracles.
In the book of Exodus, Pharaoh got his wise, called his wise
men and his sorcerers to do magic to copy Moses.
Remember that Same again in Deuteronomy.
In Second Thessalonians, taking us further to the future, we're
warned of the lawless ones coming, the Antichrist who will
have the prophet, the false prophet with him and what will
he do to the world to authenticate he's the real
Messiah even and even the Jewish nation will believe he is
miracles called fire down from heaven.
Read it. Paul warns, hey, don't be duped
by miraculous things, saying well, it must be God because
look at the miraculous outpouring.
No, that's in Second Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 9
to 10. And that's how the lawless one
comes. So the primary purpose of
miracles, especially as they are seen in the New Testament, was
not to authenticate God's messages, though there is a
secondary purpose. The primary purpose of miracles
was to. And here's where we miss the
forest for the trees or the trees for the forest, whatever
that word is. The primary purpose of miracles,
you know what it was for was to humbly meet the needs of the
people. God's paralysed.
Been lying by the pool of Bethesda.
He's been there for years or he's been paralysed for years.
Jesus heals him. Why?
Because he's paralysed. He didn't do it.
I'm just doing it because of this.
It was to meet the needs of the people.
For example, in Matthew chapter 12 verses 3840.
I'll read it to you shortly. Jesus actually condemned those
who sought authenticate revelation by miraculous signs.
In other words, if you are who you say you are, give us a
miracle. Pull a rabbit out of the hat or
do something. Jesus offered them no other
signs other than his own resurrection.
He says that's the sign. Matthew 1238.
Some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered saying,
Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.
Come on, whip something up. Jesus answered and said to them,
An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign,
and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet
Jonah. For his Jonah was 3 days and
three nights in the belly of the great fish.
So will the Son of Man be 3 days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. In John chapter 2 verse 18 to
19, Jesus provided 1 miraculous sign to the seeking his
resurrection. In John chapter 2 he said this
early, destroy this temple, his body and in three days I'll
raise it up. That's it.
I remember working with a guy, interesting fella witnessing to
him. He said look, don't give me
that. He said until someone comes back
from the dead, then I'll believe.
And I went, actually someone has, you see, it doesn't matter.
And people who go on prove and prove God to me, OK, no, he
already has. It's the sign.
That's the sign. That's the proof.
The resurrection is the proof. Beware, Jesus says in the last
days of those who deceive because they're going to deceive
many. It says many will be deceived.
Why look at the miraculous things that are happening there.
Wow. And I've heard it.
It's been sweeping in the years that how long I have been saved
in in the ministry, 40 something plus 45 years.
Whatever it is, we've seen sweep after sweep of oh, this church
is on fire. You know why?
Well, people are jumping off the roof and and surviving, falling
onto the grass where they're tucking their neck in as they
roll over. And this is how, oh, it's
happening. And it disappeared, gone.
And the next movement and people just chase after where where's
that? Where's that?
Chuck Smith used to say when you put on a show like that, each
week you gather the crowd, but the following week you're going
to have a better show. You got to put a better show on
each time to keep the crowd. You know, in John 6 verse 29,
Jesus has just fed more than 5000 people and they followed
Jesus. Why were they following him?
You get free bread if you follow this guy.
Come on. Yeah, well, he's hot, man.
This is the place to be. You know what?
It's funny how we haven't had any more people since we got a
lot of bread, have we? Maybe we need to put some
sardines at the front when we get the bread.
That's a in house joke for people who are watching online.
Jesus rebuked them pretty harshly and rebuked them for
their refusal to believe in him. To see what Jesus has already
done, they said. Come on, do something else.
They said you just spoke to me with a mouthful of bread and
fish spattered me all over and you go viewers from on the moon
throw something. You already got a belly full of
fish and bread. In one Corinthians one verse 22,
when Paul notes that the Jews request a sign, he says they
don't mean it in a positive sense.
He says it's a poor thing that they seeking out for a sign.
Miracles are an insufficient evidence of authentic
revelation. In other words, this is the
argument. They can always be explained
away by an unbelieving heart. Well, yeah, but it didn't really
happen. And the unbelieving heart will
always be asking for more miracles.
Well, so yeah, if God does this, then I'll believe no.
And then he does this and you've heard people say to you, well,
you know, well, let's pray about that.
What happened? Well, God did do it.
So do you still believe? Oh no, I won't.
I won't believe until he does this.
It's not the dog chasing his tail.
I got around and ran around to prove God.
And in John chapter 12 verse 37, Jesus says, but although he had
done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him.
Miracles don't make believers. I've only had, you know,
miracles and people. No, no.
We agree, however, that miracles have a purpose in impressing
unbelievers and believers with the power of God.
But that is clearly their secondary purpose.
If this were the primary purpose of miracles, one could argue
that since we have the completed revelation of God's Word, we
would no longer need miracles to authenticate further revelation.
But they make a wrong application of the truth that
things like speaking in tongues, and I've heard it, you've heard
it. Some of you have demonic
counterparts. Well, only you know.
I know just cults do that. They're not unique to
Christianity. Speaking in tongues.
Well, that's certainly true and recognised by scripture.
Because there are false. However, the existence of a
counterfeit tends to prove the existence of the genuine, not
deny it. False teachers, false prophets.
Why? Because they were true prophets
and true teachers. The other thing is the
Antichrist. He's coming purely on the
premise of him being the real Christ, which he isn't.
So does the history of Christianity, when you look at
it, demonstrate that some of the gifts have passed away?
If so, when and how? Although the issue is finally
settled with what the Bible says.
So we've dealt with that. The voice of history, history
itself is also compelling about the gifts.
Those who believe the miraculous gifts ceased claim the testimony
of history supports them. That's their argument.
For example, again, John MacArthur wrote in his book The
Charismatics, he said this and I quote by the 2nd century, the
apostles were gone, things were changed.
Another fellow, Alba MacLean, said when the church appears in
the 2nd century, the situation as regards the miraculous is so
changed that we seem to be in another world.
The Apostolic age, he was saying, was unique.
It ended. History says it, they saying
Jesus says it, they say theology says it, and the New Testament
self attest to the fact. So we're told that's their
argument. But you know, it's interesting.
And one thing I learned when I was with the police is that
there are always three sides to the story.
No, that's not mine. No, I haven't touched that.
I never went there. I never touched that.
I never stole that. I never.
Oh, no, that's not mine. I I wasn't there at any time.
There are three sides to the truth.
History has another testimony. And if we will just look at
history, and I think it's an important thing for us to do and
let history alone speak, we find that Clement of Rome, Ignatius,
Justin Martyr. Iranus, Churchillian all speak
powerfully to the existence of miraculous gifts of the Holy
Spirit in their own day. Actually, the idea, the concept
that the miraculous gifts from God ceased with the apostles
didn't arise in the church itself until the middle of the
4th century, AD 350 or so on. Later, at the end of the 4th
century and into the Middle Ages, the gifts were said to
have ceased and there was certainly is the problem
neglected because it's the period when people neglected the
Word of God. The demise of the church and all
the moving and the power of God is always what the neglect of
the Word, the neglect of the Word.
But that wasn't God's desire. It was the result of people who
convinced themselves, and we do that, that the supernatural
working of the Holy Spirit was too dangerous for the
institutional church. It's safer to just ban it.
Ban it. And that's dumb.
It sounds like what Jesus said to two cities at the north of
the Sea of Galilee. Some of my, one of my favourite
places we go to where Jesus did all these miracles in Bethsaida
and Corazon, and he did more miracles there.
And he said, you know what, if I had done this many miracles in
Sodom and Gomorrah, they'd still be around.
I would have believed. But you guys, I've lived here,
I've performed more miracles than both, and I say woe to you,
judgement is coming because you've had the proof before your
eyes and you've chosen to say no, I don't believe it.
Now other factors were involved, but if you had gone up to a
Christian in ID 250 and said to them, hey mate, visiting from
2025, tell me the gifts, did they die with the apostles?
And you said we all know that miraculous gifts cease with the
apostles. He would probably tell you, you
know what you're talking about, mate, you know what you're
talking about. You see, it's how we come to a
place and then we neglect the work of God.
I want to throw in here today, I think one of them, it's not
mentioned in the gifts and such, but it's something that's so
neglected and we see that the art come of the weak church we
have in the Western world now is pray.
Well, why pray? It's not going to do any good.
You know, it doesn't change anything.
I mean, seriously, when the apostles prayed, wow, things
happen. But when you pray, nothing
happens. God doesn't hear you.
It's all done and dusted. He only answered the prayers of
Daniel and and Peter and John and all those people.
No, we've neglected prayer. We've neglected the power of
prayer. And thus the church is at its
weakest in the Western world than it's ever been.
Spiritual gifts aren't to be treated as toys.
And that's the that's the other swing of the pendulum, isn't it?
You know, you go to its service being invited to some, and you
frightened. You know what's going on.
You don't know what's going to come running down the aisle or
who's going to come jumping off the stage.
You know, Holy Spirit, you need a crash hat.
Oh, the spirit's really moving. Yeah, so am I.
I'm out of here. That's what Paul said.
When things get out of hand in chapter 14, people would go you
Mama crazy without a hand. So spiritual gifts aren't to be
treated as toys to play with. Here's the deal.
This is the problem. But rather as tools to build
with you are to pray, seek God. God, use me, use the gifts.
Use me to what? You can be a blessing to the
church like you've never ever known.
You can be the channel through which God can use you in the
gifts that are written down here to bring blessing, strength,
power, majesty to the body of Christ.
That's what's lacking today. And if the gifts ceased the
death of the apostles, tell me, why does Paul write and go into
such great detail about the body of Christ following on from 12
when he mentions the gift being an actual body and every part
has a part, how every part plays a vital part, parts that can be
seen, parts that can't be seen. We can't all be eyes.
We can't all be hands and legs and all that sort of stuff.
Why does Paul go into that detail?
He just said, look guys, you know John, he's going to be dead
soon. So just we don't need this
stuff. We don't need to know this
stuff. It's, it's God phasing it out.
As soon as John is dead, it's gone.
It's done. Because God wants us to have a
wonderful range of gifts from the Holy Spirit and an
impressive variety of people to manifest them.
What for? For God's glory and the church's
benefit, How much are we missing out on because of our ignorance
of spiritual gifts? Why did Paul go into great
detail in chapter 14 about how they're to operate?
Why did he say I'm not going to go into that's a waste of time.
You know, we don't have to go, but that's just a few
generations or a few years and they're all done and dusted.
We don't need to go. Be careful how the tongue should
work should be interpretation. Be careful that there's no
believers and believers around what?
Why go into that detail? That's three chapters of the of
the book of Corinthians because there the gifts are to operate
and Paul wanted to make sure that they were done decently and
in order. 1 Corinthians 1440. So tonight as we close, how do
we see the body of Christ? How I see it in the Western
world again, not in the third world, not in places where in
missionary fields with in our words, the salvation and the the
risking life and death simply by being believer.
But today I see the body of Christ is disabled.
We used to have a term and you can't use it now.
It's not not adequate or properly the term now.
It used to be handicapped. The church today is is so
disabled. Why?
Because of ignorance and abuse. We've either ignored it, thrown
it out, don't know what about, or we've abused the gifts and
God says that's like, that's the word.
That's not gifts. The spiritual gifts of the Holy
Spirit. When through God's Word are
used, we can see the body of Christ healthy, strong and
mature. That's how the church should be.