Alright, let's take our Bibles
now and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. In this chapter, Paul deals with
spiritual gifts. He's been dealing with all sorts
of things and he's telling us how these things go awry. if
we don't have a proper understanding of what they're about. And he's
dealt with the preaching of the Gospel. He's dealt with marriage. He's dealt with employees and employers and kings
and governments and all sorts of things. And now he's going
to deal with this thing of spiritual gifts. He's going to tell us
where they come from. He's going to tell us what they
are, and why they were given, and to whom they were given.
And then He's going to illustrate what He teaches by comparing
these things to our bodies. The church of Christ is a body. It's referred to often in Scripture
as a body. Christ is the head of the body,
the church. And he compares these things
to the body and the various members of it and their functions. All
right, let's begin here in verse 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts,
brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ignorant is the state and condition
of the lost. That's why we don't debate with
them. That's why we don't try to reason with them. They're
ignorant. And that ignorance goes all the
way to their nature. And you can't reason with an
ignorant man. God has to do something for him.
That man has to be enabled of God. He has to be made meat to
be a partaker of these things, to be partakers with the saints
in light or enlightened saints. He has to be made meat to do
that kind of thing. I showed you in the story of
the rich young ruler here last week, and his coming to Christ
and his going away, five things that define the ignorance of
the natural man. He's ignorant of Bible terms.
You don't know. When you're talking to somebody
out here, a natural man, an unregenerated man, and you're talking to him
about the goodness of God, your definition of good and his definition
of good is not the same. And this young man came to Christ
and he called him good master. And Christ just stopped him right
there and he said, why callest thou me good? There's none good
but God. So let's get this thing of goodness
straightened out. They're ignorant of Bible terms.
They're ignorant of what you call salvation and what they
call salvation, two different things. What you're defining
to them as repentance and what they believe about repentance
is two different things. They're ignorant of Bible terms
and they're ignorant of the person and work of Christ. They don't
understand why He came. They don't know who He is. They
don't know what He did. And they don't know where He's
at. And then thirdly, natural men
are ignorant of the law. They try to incorporate the law
in salvation. And the law was not given to
save. The law was given to shut our mouths. It was given to manifest
our condemnation. It was given to condemn and to
shut us up to Christ. And then fourthly, men are ignorant
of their own inability and state before God. They know they've
done some bad things. I don't think you'll ever come
in contact with any man who won't admit to having made some mistakes
and done some wrong. But he's not going to admit what
he is by nature. He's not going to own up to that. I've had many people tell me
after service, mad, just mad. I don't hate God. You said I
hate God. I don't hate God. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You sure do. God says you do. If you say you
don't, you make God a liar. That's what that is. We do hate
God. A natural man is under the wrath
of God. He's condemned, confined, and
he's waiting execution. He's helpless, he's hopeless,
and he's lost. And were it not for divine mercy
and grace, we'd all be just like Sodom and Gomorrah. And then
fifthly, natural men are ignorant of the way of salvation. Salvation
is by grace. It's by grace. It has to be given
of God. Paul tells us concerning spiritual
gifts, he said, I would not have you ignorant. And this world
is ignorant of spiritual gifts. They are ignorant of why they
were given. Why they were given. They are ignorant of who gave
them and to whom they were given. Whole religions are built around
spiritual gifts because of man's ignorance. He doesn't build his
religion around Christ. He builds them around speaking
in tongues. He builds them around faith healing.
Builds them around things like it states over in Mark 16. If
any deadly thing, you should drink any deadly thing, it won't
hurt you. If you're bitten by poisonous venomous snakes, it's
not going to hurt you. So we'll just build a whole religion
on that. They don't understand what that
gift was about. They're told that the gift of
tongues is a heavenly language whereby God speaks to them and
through them to others. That's not what tongues is. All
you've got to do is turn over to the book of Acts and read
the first and second chapters in there and it will tell you
what the tongues are. Every man there understood what
they said in their own language. That's what tongues is about.
It's not some mysterious heavenly language that nobody else can
understand. He tells you over there when
he talks about these tongues, that to stand and preach in tongues. Let's say this morning that God
gave me the gift of tongues and I was able to speak fluent French.
What profit would it be for me to stand up here and rattle off
a bunch of French to people in here who don't have a clue what
I'm saying? And that's what Paul said. People,
these ignorant folks who built the whole religion around these
gifts and languages and tongues and things, they don't want you
to understand what they're saying. And so they get two idiots. They
get one up here babbling around in some unknown tongue and another
idiot pretending like he knows what they're saying to tell everybody
else. That's what tongues are. And
men are ignorant of what these things are. They're ignorant
of these gifts. Faith healing. Smack a man in the forehead,
knock him down. You're healed. Why, you're not
healed. You're sicker than you ever were.
And the fact that you're doing stuff like this shows you sickness
and shows it death. It's ignorance. Men are told that they can work
miracles if they truly believe, if you truly believe. Men are
ignorant concerning spiritual gifts. Verse 2, Paul said, I
wouldn't have you ignorant, brethren. I don't want you ignorant. I
want you to understand what these things are. I want you to understand
why they were given. Verse 2, you know that you were
Gentiles, carried away under those dumb idols even as you
were led. It's a good thing to be often
reminded of where we come from. It is. Oh, my soul. Paul said, I'm going to remind
you of something. You remember back there, you used to bow down
to that big old statue of a frog and pray to it? You remember
that? You were Gentiles. You were heathen
idolaters, carried away under those dumb idols, idols that
can't speak. even as you were led. Believers are not ignorant of
the past. And they shouldn't be ignorant
of the deceit, power, and ways of Satan and false religion.
This is what Paul reminded them of. He said, I would not have
you to be ignorant. You were Gentile. You were ignorant.
That's ignorance. Bowing to snakes and frogs and
four-footed beasts and creeping things. One god that Egypt bowed
to was a dung god. They made a god out of dung.
That's ignorance. And he said, you were Gentiles.
That's what you were. But you're not that anymore.
You're not that anymore. And he said, I wouldn't have
you to be ignorant. They shouldn't be ignorant of
their own weakness. and susceptibility to Satan's
power and ways. Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall." Think of your own calling. Think of your own calling. Think
of how others went unaffected, unmoved, while God worked in
you affectionately. Think how Others were persuaded
by lies and natural reasoning why God moved in you to convince
you of the truth. Were we not all just like these
Gentiles, worshiping our dumb idols, following our upbringing
and the religion we were taught? Paul reminds these people of
these things, and not to He doesn't do it to embarrass them. He doesn't
do it to shame them, but to show them the folly of being proud
and puffed up about these things, and using these things in an
ignorant fashion. Verse 3, Wherefore I give you
to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth
Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but
by the Holy Ghost. Two statements given here. I
want to take them one at a time. No man speaking by the Spirit
of God calleth Jesus accursed. Now, I'm 65 years old, and to
the best of my recollection, I've only heard one or two men
in my lifetime refer to Jesus Christ as being accursed. Just a couple of times. And those
two men made no claims to speak by any power other than their
own. They didn't pretend to be religious
in any fashion at all. They actually made a profession
to be atheists. But this is not what Paul's talking
about here. What Paul's talking about in
this verse are preachers and teachers pretending to be God's
servants reacting to the truth about who this man Jesus is,
and why he came, and what he came to do, and where he is now. They're saying to this people,
they're trying to preach to this people, and they're trying to
say that this Jesus of Nazareth that these men preached is accursed,
and the Christ that they preached was not. Now that's what he's
talking about here. And the reason for any man to
call Jesus cursed is because they do not agree on the way
that He is described in the Word of God. This world, when you
stand up here and you take the Word of God and you declare who
Christ is, He is Sovereign Lord, Creator of the universe, Ruler
over providence, He is God's federal head. He's our representative. He's the one who is salvation
itself. And you tell them that God chose
a people in Him before the foundation of the world and that He came
and that He loved those. He loved those given to Him by
the Father. He went about and accomplished
the work given to Him by the Father for those people. And
He affectionately fulfilled those things, manifested those things,
accomplished those things, and then he was approved of God,
raised from the dead, and ascended to sit on the throne of glory,
expecting to his enemies. That Christ is accursed. That is what preachers say about
Him today. He is accursed. No man speaking
in the Spirit of God is going to refute these things. That
is what Paul is telling us here. Well, you better be careful,
preacher, about what you say about these preachers. I am careful.
I'm saying to you exactly what Paul says here in 1 Corinthians,
that no man possessed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
of God can stand before you and deny the Christ who testified
in the Word of God exactly as He set forth in the Scripture.
If he goes against those things, the Spirit of God is not in him. Not in him. And that's what Paul's
talking about here. Talking about the Redeemer of
God's elect, the sovereign mediator, the Lord of the dead and the
living. And every man, woman, and child
after 2,000 years of heresy, lies, and deceit have in their
minds an opinion of the Savior. And the image they've formed
is tolerable, it's accepted, and it's pretty much okay universally. But when they hear the truth,
the Jesus of God's eternal appointment, the only means of salvation,
His absolute sovereignty and power over all things, this Jesus
they despise and react to as an accursed thing. And any man, preacher, teacher,
Dear friend, father, or otherwise, who despises the person and work
of Jesus Christ, cannot speak in the power or with the presence
of the Holy Ghost. That's what Paul's telling us
here. The Holy Ghost empowers his ambassadors to speak the
truth and rejoice in the truth and to love Jesus Christ as God
has set him forth. And then the second statement
here is of equal importance. No man can say that Jesus is
the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. To be the Christ, he must be
the eternal Son of God made flesh. He must be. Born of a virgin,
made under the law to redeem them who were under the law. The whole of God's representative
will, or redemptive will, was trusted into the hands of his
mediator before the world began. Scripture said God has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began, in whom we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His
own will. Now listen to this, that we should
be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ.
Who first trusted in Him, God did. God did. Well, how did God
trust in Him? He trusted all things to Him
and in Him, having appointed Him as our sovereign Mediator,
eternal Mediator. One Mediator between God and
me and the man Christ Jesus. And to call Him Lord by the power
of the Holy Ghost is to acknowledge His Lordship according to God's
appointments. and to be subject to Him in both
your heart and your mind. I'm not talking about everybody
that calls Him Lord. You say, well, that man must
be born of God. He called Him Lord. Jesus said,
in that day, many shall say unto me, what? Lord, Lord. Isn't that what He said? Had
not we done many wonderful works in thy name? Had not we prophesied
in thy name? He said, depart from me, ye workers
of iniquity, I never knew you. And what Paul is doing here is
establishing the credibility of their teachers and the foundation
of what they truly believe. To be ignorant of Jesus Christ
and God's purpose of grace and His redemption has a domino effect
all through our understanding of the Scripture. If we don't
have a right understanding of Christ, you ever seen a picture
where they stack all these dominoes up around and you hit the first
one and then the next one falls and it just goes around and around
and around until they all fall down? That's the way it is. If
you don't have a right understanding of who Christ is and what He
came to do, who He is, of His eternal appointments and all
of these things, if you don't have a right understanding of
these basic fundamental doctrines of the gospel, It has a domino
effect all through the scriptures. Everything you read goes right,
because you're wrong on the main points. And especially when it
comes to spiritual gifts. Verse 4, now there are diversities
of gifts, but the same spirit. Not everybody can teach. Not
everybody can. It is a gift. Not everybody can
write the scriptures. That was a gift. It was given
to a handful of men, and they were gifted to do it. They wrote
as the Spirit of God moved them. And there are diversities of
gifts. They are all not the same. They are given by the same Spirit,
and they are given for the same reason, to benefit the whole
body. Verse 5. And there are differences
in administration. but the same Lord. What are these
administrations? Well, apostles, prophets, evangelists,
missionaries, pastor-teachers, all kinds of administrations. The Father is the head of the
home, isn't He? Isn't that what Scripture says?
That's an administration. And so on. But we've got one
Spirit who moves to establish these things,
and we have one Lord who is Lord over all. The universe does not govern
itself, and neither does the church of the living God. God's
administrators are appointed by Him and to His end, and not
their own. And we have one Lord over all. So there are differences in administrations,
but the same Lord. the same Lord. So what Paul's
telling them here is this guy's got an end and this guy has an
end and this guy has an end and they all got this thing they're
going out to do. Well, there's diversities in
administration, but there's just one Lord. And His purpose reigns
through the whole. His rule reigns through the whole. His understanding reigns through
the whole. One Lord over all, verse 6. And
there are diversities of operations, but it's the same God which worketh
all in all. Fathers have a different operation
than pastors. Civil law has a different operation
than gospel preachers. But looking at the big picture,
I see angels and principalities and powers, but the same God
which worketh all in all. He works the whole thing. the
whole thing. Or maybe, as I believe it is
intended here, concerning the church and our roles as pastors
and deacons and supporters and workers and so on. God has appointed
us to different jobs, if you will, a different position. And
we are to be faithful in that. Verse 7, But the manifestation
of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. to manifest presence, His presence
and teaching. And the gifts of the Holy Ghost
are given to profit everyone. That's why He gave these gifts.
It was for our good. It was to profit the body as
a whole. So, when you look at the false
way that gifts are, the false teaching of gifts, where is it
profiting? Where's the profit of it? What's
it doing? How is this helping the church?
It's not. You have no benefit whatsoever.
But all of these spiritual gifts were given to profit the body
of Christ as a whole. And if His working, His office,
His gifts do not profit all, then there's something wrong.
There's something wrong because this is why those gifts were
given. Verse 8. For to one is given
by the Spirit the word of wisdom, that is, an understanding of
the will of God, the redemptive will of God, the way of grace,
and the person and work of Christ. To another, the word of knowledge
by the same Spirit. We're told in the Scripture eternal
life is to know God. It's to know God. God sent His
Son into this world and all true knowledge emanates from Christ. It emanates from Him. He is our
wisdom. Isn't that what Scripture says?
He is our wisdom. All true knowledge emanates from
Him. You want to know the reason for
creation? Look to Him. You want to know the power behind
creation? Look to Him. You want to know
what salvation is all about? Look to Him. All true knowledge
emanates. You want to know who God is?
Look to Christ. It emanates from Christ. Verse
9. To another, faith by the same
Spirit. That is, faith to believe in,
love, and trust in Christ. And to another, the gifts of
healing by the same Spirit. Now, I want to say something
here. I've already talked about this a little bit. But healing
in the very beginning of the Gospel age was performed by the
laying on of hands. And these early gifts were given
in this way to establish the truth in the beginning of the
gospel age. God was doing something that
seemed totally contrary to everything that He had done up to that point.
He did away with the priesthood because the priesthood had served
its purpose. He did away with the tabernacle
because the tabernacle had served its purpose. There was no Ark
of the Covenant because all those things were fulfilled in Christ.
And what he was about to do establishing this gospel age was so totally
contrary to everything that had been taught to that point that
God enabled these early men in the church and his apostles and
prophets. He gave them supernatural gifts. so that you would recognize what
they were writing as part of the Scriptures and that you would
recognize that their message was of God. And He didn't just
give them things where they smacked somebody on the forehead and
cure them from the hiccups. He raised the dead. He raised
the dead. He took lepers whose flesh was
falling off of them and cleansed them. And no man could deny these
miracles. Listen to what they said over
in the book of John. When he raised Lazarus from the
grave, they had a meeting right then. They called it an emergency
meeting. And the Sanhedrin all come together and they said,
if we leave this man alone, everybody in the world is going to follow
him. He raised the dead. Now I ain't ignorant to argue
when you watch a man raise the dead and you won't listen to
him. Huh? Get you to thinking maybe you
might be dead yourself. Huh? Maybe you need raised too.
He raised Lazarus from the dead. And to manifest these things. He gave these men these gifts
of supernatural healing. You know that they came and took
crippled people and laid them down along the path where they
heard Peter might be coming. lest His shadow fall on them
and they be healed. You think about that. Now you
compare that kind of gift to what's being pushed over on the
public as spiritual gifts today, and you'll see how ridiculous
these men are. To another verse 9, faith by
the same Spirit. And then what he has to say here
about healing. We still have gifts of healing,
but not as visible as in them times. That doctor told me that
there was no chance, no chance, not one, but three or four. Her surgeon, Kathy's surgeon,
told me she had 12 months at the very most to survive. 12 months, that was it. Better
get things in order, she's got 12 months. The cancer doctor
up to 18 if she took radiation and chemo. She might be able
to go on out to 18 months, but they wouldn't guarantee anything
and she's not going to go past that. She had an MRI this week
and she's cancer free. And it's been three years. And
now they've changed her tone. Every now and then somebody might
survive. God still heals. He just don't
do it in the same way. The Scripture is complete. I
don't need Him to raise the dead, do you? I've got His Word. It's complete. The Gospel Age
is established. It's been 2,000 years since Christ
died. Over 2,000. Surely we don't need
a miracle to realize that the Gospel Age has begun. But God
still heals. He still heals. And James tells
us that the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth
much. Should we pray for the sick?
Well, sure we should. Sure we should. God still heals.
But we pray, not our will, but Thy will be done. And to another, the working of
miracles. And to another, listen to this,
prophecy. To another, discerning of spirits.
To another, divers or different kinds of tongues. To another,
the interpretation of tongues. And then as I said earlier, Acts
2 verses 1 through 6 gives the definition of the gift of tongues.
Speaking in a foreign language. And doing it without training,
without anything. They just began on that day to
speak. Everybody, they were from all
over the world, all these different people, and they all heard them
speak in their own tongues. We've got men today. Walter Grover,
he speaks in tongues down there in Mexico. He speaks Spanish
better than they do. And we have those who can interpret.
I preached down there one time out in a little Pueblo. Tree
frogs and things hollering up on the thing. My head, the people
so small, my head was up in the rafters of this little Pueblo
that I was inside of. And I'd try to preach in English
and Walter would interpret into Spanish and had another guy that
would interpret into Mayan. And so you'd say something and
about ten minutes later you'd get to say the next thing. It
was the hardest preaching I ever did in my life. But we have speaking
in tongues and we have interpretation of tongues. And that's what these
things are. Verse 11. This kind of ties the
whole thing together. But all these worketh That one
and self-same spirit dividing to every man severally as he
will. As he will. We're not preachers
because we want to be. God gifts us to that end and
he orders the providence and he unlocks the keys and he calls
men to that office. And the same thing with faithful
workers. Faithful workers. Workers who
don't mind to work and support. Most of the time, they're not
even known, not even recognized in the church. And what would
the church be without them? Huh? Well, you couldn't have
a pastor. He can't preach and work and
do all these things. We've got some who are trying
it, but they're not good at either one. Their mind and heart ain't
on the job, and they can't have their mind and heart on the things
that they're going to teach and preach if they're out here trying
to work. You see what he's saying here?
There's gifts and these gifts are spread all through by the
Spirit of God. And they're done that for the
good of the whole and for the benefit of the whole. And if
what they're doing ain't for that benefit, it's not of God.