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Spiritual Gifts - Preparation for Christian Service
BD25-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
We are looking at the background of spiritual gifts. We have been studying
Satan and the demons. Satan, as the opponent of God,
seeks to spoil the plan of God, particularly as that plan is expresses
in Project Footstool in Psalm 110:1. During
the millennium, all the demons and Satan himself will be removed from
active operation upon the earth. They will be
under the foot of Jesus Christ as conquered personalities. Satan also seeks to counterfeit what God
does, since he wants to be like God. The
increased pace of Satanic activity in the world today reflects this
desire on Satan’s part to be like God. This is
reflected in the rise in the tongues movement, in the rise of miracle healers,
and in the rise of occultism—the attempts to have contact with the spirit world.
So, Satan tries to neutralize the
effects of the works of Christians through his counterfeit activities. We
have reviewed, therefore, the nature of the church age, in order for
us to understand the background of genuine Christian service. This requires an understanding of doctrine,
especially the doctrine of the spiritual gifts and the role of the Holy
Spirit by which the believer’s Christian service will produce divine
good. Ignorance concerning the church and the
doctrine of spirituality opens the door to Christian counterfeits,
which is so prominently expressed today in tongues, healers, and occultism.
The Church
So, we’re going to review the background of Christian
service in the church age. We saw that
the word “church” itself means an assembly of people called
out of the mass of unsaved
Jews and Gentiles to form a new and separate company of believers. The word “church” is used of the
universal body of believers everywhere, as an organism; and, it is also used of
the local group of believers as an organization. We
also found that the church began on the day of Pentecost, and that it
will end at the rapture. The church is not an
extension of the nation of Israel. The
church is a unique body of believers in history. It
has its own beginning, its own program, and
its own conclusions. The teachings which
were directed toward the Jewish people under the law in the Old
Testament do not apply to Christians under grace in the New Testament. The teachings of grace are largely found in
the epistles. The Church was a mystery in the Old Testament; that it, it was never revealed—it was a
hidden truth. There is no concept in the Old
Testament of Jews and Gentiles being formed into a new body of saints.
The church also has some distinctive characteristics. These are features that
were never true of Old Testament Saints, but which are permanently true of Christians in
this age of grace. They are: union with Jesus Christ; believers indwelt by
Jesus Christ for fellowship; believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit for
service; every believer his own priest; the canon of Scripture
completed—all of the books written that God intended to be written; believers are called to
live a supernatural way of life; and, every believer is an ambassador of God. None of this was true in the Old
Testament. If you understand the doctrine of the church, you’ll have an understanding of your role
in this age of grace.
Spirituality
Secondly, we looked at the doctrine of spirituality. We looked at the fact that
there is true spirituality and false spirituality. Under
true spirituality, there is a difference between the ministry of the
Holy Spirit at the point of salvation, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit
after salvation. Some of the confusion
relative to the Holy Spirit today is because people are trying to bring
ministries that take place only at salvation and put them subsequently
to salvation. There were certain things
that were done for each believer at salvation. They
are: regeneration; baptism;
indwelling; sealing; and, He gives spiritual gifts at the point of your
spiritual birth. All of this is automatic.
However, there is a function of the Spirit of God after
salvation, and that’s called the filling of the Spirit. This is repeated many times in the experience
of the Christian, and the Bible tells Christians to seek to be filled
with the Spirit—and you do that by meeting the condition of the confession
of known sin.
So, spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive. They are absolute
states. You are either spiritual or you’re
carnal. When sin is confessed, you are filled with the Spirit, and you are spiritual. When
known sin is willfully unconfessed, you are carnal, and you are not
spiritual, and you are not filled with the Spirit. Spirituality is a matter of imitating Jesus
Christ by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit.
There are certain objectives that are achieved by
spirituality: We enter into partnership
with the divine nature; we imitate God; we glorify Christ; and, we
fulfill the Law of Moses. Spirituality is not dependent
upon keeping the Law of Moses. That’s
legalism. Spirituality produces the character of the Incarnate Christ. This
is called the fruit of the Spirit. Spirituality
is achieved by confession of all known sins. This
places the Holy Spirit in control of your life. There
is only one condition in the Word of
God for being spiritual, and that is telling God what you
did—naming the sin to
him, citing it and declaring that you were wrong and it was sin. Filling of the Spirit is crucial to the
exercise of spiritual gifts. That’s
what we’re getting at—we’re giving background for
spiritual gifts, which we’re going
to be taking up, one by one.
So, spirituality is achieved by placing
God the Holy Spirit in control, and you do it by confessing known sings. There will be certain results of
spirituality: Jesus Christ is magnified
in your life; you have the ability then to understand doctrine;
you’ll have effective witnessing—your witnessing will be in the right time to
the right person in the right place in the right context. There
are a lot of people who are bungling and
mulling through their sense of responsibility to witness because they are not filled with the
Spirit, and they ought to be keeping their mouths shut until they are filled
with the Spirit of God, and then the Spirit of God will give them effective
witnessing. You can zap people up for the idea of witnessing, which is what Satan does, and keep them
ignorant of doctrine so that their witnessing is ineffective, or ill-placed, or
they will not have the sustaining base to continue doing it. Somebody is forever going to have to harangue
you to get out and tell people about God.
Another result of spirituality is personal guidance and
personal assurance. You will have guidance for true worship. You will have guidance
for a proper prayer content. You will have capacity to help other believers to be restored to spirituality.
There will be production of divine good. We looked at certain terms for
spirituality. One of the positive terms
is “walk in the Spirit,” and another one is “walk in
the light.” There are some negative terms, such as “quench
not the Spirit” which means don’t be producing human good. “Grieve not the Spirit” means
don’t be tolerating willful known sins.
We found that emotions or ecstatics do not indicate
spirituality. Some people think that if
they get happy, then they are spiritual. So
they go around trying to create an emotional
ecstatic happy condition
in order to feel that they are advancing what is going on with God. Many times, people who are seeking the tongues
experience get on fire for the Lord. They
start going to church, reading the Bible,
contributing their money,
and service and ministry. Then somebody
notes how wonderful this is to see how spiritual they have become and
how active they are for the Lord once they got the tongues. This put them on the job. However,
in reality, the old sin nature
within that individual has been conned into thinking that he has
achieved some spectacular relationship with God. He is
so happy and excited over what he thought he had secured that it has
galvanized him into action. Anytime you see
somebody who is a spiritual dud in one place where the Word of God is
preached, and now he gets active in another place, you may almost inevitably know
that he has become excited in his old sin nature over something by which he
thinks he has improved his situation or made an advancement, and now he’s
getting hot and getting with it. There is a fantastic
amount of service to God which is done entirely in the flesh, and this
comes as a shock to most Christians.
So, be careful about the idea that if you’re happy, then God
is blessing you; or, if you’re happy, then you’re in the
place of service. This is the public relations image we give
toward Christian service. We want to
convey that it’s all fun, that it’s glamorous, it’s
so delightful, and it’s so
exciting to serve the Lord. Well, it may
be all of those things. However, the old
sin nature, the old flesh, can produce every one of those feelings. The unsaved believer can be just as faithful
in going to church, giving his money, and reading the Bible as you can. It doesn’t mean a thing. So, get this straight. The
knowledge of doctrine is what gives us
the knowledge and understanding of the filling of the Spirit.
There is a false spirituality that we
looked at. This is the result of equating
the means of spirituality with the results. There is
a means to being spiritual. Out of that
spirituality comes certain results. People
get this twisted. They look at the results of spiritual, and they think that this is how to
get spiritual, to get on the job with the Lord. They
think that if they do certain things then they will be spiritual. They get the process reversed. This is self-destructive to all spiritual
progress in your life. Consequently,
some people believe they will become spiritual by imitating certain
styles of dress, certain styles of speech, or certain mannerisms. All they do is end up looking foolish.
It doesn’t make them spiritual.
Some people think they’ll get spiritual by observing a
certain set of taboos. Everybody creates
his own set of what he thinks is nice and what is not nice to do. However, these are your own set of what you
like and what you don’t like. They
will not make you spiritual.
Others think they are spiritual by comparing themselves with
somebody else. They find somebody who is
worse than themselves, so they think they have made spiritual progress. Or, you practice asceticism. You deny something to yourself. You find something that you really like and
you just deny it for yourself. You just
feel so happy, and you’ve just risen fifteen feet toward the Lord
in your spirituality. No, you haven’t.
You may pursue certain highs of emotions and ecstatics in
order to be spiritual. Or, you may perform your rituals. You take your holy
water and sprinkle it. You cross yourself. You recite certain
prayers. You go through your rituals which will not make you spiritual. Or,
you practice self-crucifixion of your old sin nature. You make things hard on yourself.
Or, you engage in a program of activities. Churches love to give this
idea to Christians: “If you people want to be spiritual, then get
with the program. Start being a club leader or a Sunday school teacher. Start
doing this or that, and get in on the program. Well,
all of those things are very legitimate and proper things for you
to do as the Spirit of God leads you to exercise your gift within the
program activities of the local church, but that doesn’t make you
spiritual—because you’re in the program.
Finally, you are not spiritual by self-improvement of your
character. Many of you feel you need to impose some self-improvement on your character, and a lot of us would
agree, but this does not make you spiritual—because you have imposed
some improvement on yourself.
Spiritual Gifts
So, we pick the story up this morning, with that as
background. We are looking at the background of spiritual gifts. There are
some terms that we ought to look at first. Number
one is the “gift of the spirit.” The
gift of the spirit is used in the Bible in such
a way that it means two things. One, it refers to the coming
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; that is, God the Holy Spirit Himself
taking up His residence on this earth when he came to fulfill His role during the
Church Age (Acts 1:5, 8). Also, the gift of the
Spirit refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the believer
at the point of salvation. He comes to you and
takes up your body and makes it His temple. That’s
why we have no holy building. That’s
why it’s perfectly legitimate for
us to meet in this cavernous large gym auditorium. This is as holy a
place as any magnificent cathedral that you could build anyplace,
because God does not live in a building of stone, wood, and mortar. He has your body as His temple.
That’s what He comes into at the point of
salvation. When the Bible talks about
keeping the Lord’s house holy, it’s talking about your
physical structure, not about what you should do here in this physical building. This is not the meaning of the Lord’s house
in this age. However, we do get the gift of the Spirit of God (Acts 10:45) when He comes to indwell us.
There’s a second term, “the gifts of the Spirit” (plural) (1
Corinthians 12:4, 11). These are spiritual abilities which the Lord sovereignly bestows upon every
believer at the point of salvation. Every Christian
has at least one spiritual ability, and a great number have more than
one spiritual ability, or gift. These gifts
are bestowed as the means by which you are to serve the Lord. You can see why it’s important to get
some understanding of spiritual gifts. You
can’t really serve God and produce divine good until you know
your gift. When you know your spiritual
gifts, you know how to server the Lord.
Number three is “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians
5:22-23). The fruit of the Spirit comprises spiritual graces or virtues produced by the Holy Spirit
within a spiritual Christian. When you are a
spiritual Christian, you possess the fruit of the Spirit. It’s a single fruit with nine segments. It is summed up by the word
“love”, the first
word (“agape” love)—this condition of the fruit of
the Spirit. Very often the word
“love” is used in the
Bible and equated with this production of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It speaks about love, and it really means to
be filled with the Spirit so that you are producing the fruit of the Spirit.
These three terms are key: the gift of the Spirit—the coming of the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost and into the life of the individual believer at the
point of salvation; the gifts of the Spirit—the various spiritual gifts
for service; and the fruit of the Spirit—which is the expression of the
character of Jesus Christ.
Now we proceed with the introduction of spiritual
gifts. Will you turn with me please to 1
Corinthians chapter 12 which takes up in some detail in chapters 12,
13, and 14, this problem of spiritual gifts. The
apostle Paul says, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I
would not have you ignorant.”
Ignorance
In verse 1, he takes up a problem of ignorance among
Christians. The phrase “now concerning”
is a Greek expression that reoccurs in the book of 1 Corinthians, and
it signals the beginning of a discussion by the apostle in answer to a
question that was presented to him. You’ll
find this in chapter 7 verse 1 where he begins with the same expression as
he takes up a question that was put to him, “… now concerning
things about which you wrote to me.” We find this again in
verse 25, and in chapter 8 verse1—“now concerning.”
Here’s a question that was put to Paul about spiritual gifts. There was a
confusion in this church. Paul spends chapters 12, 13, and 14 answering
this question that was put to him.
In the phrase, “spiritual gifts,” the word “gifts” is in
italics. This means that the word has been inserted in the translation because it was not actually in the
Greek. What is in the text is the word “spiritual”
which is the Greek word “pneumatikos.” This
word means “spiritual things.” So
Paul is saying, “Now taking up the question that you directed tome
concerning spiritual things. However, in the fourth verse of
1 Corinthians 12, we read, “Now there are diversities of
gifts.” The word “gifts”
here is the Greek word “charisma.” This
word does mean gifts. It comes from the
Greek word for grace (“charis”),
and it indicates that these gifts are something that we receive by grace.
So, the context indicates that we are talking about
gifts. The particular spiritual things that he is talking about are spiritual gifts, so it is proper to insert
it up there in verse one.
“Now concerning spiritual gifts brethren”—He is talking to
those whom Galatians 3:26 refers to as the family of God. He is talking to believers. “I
would not have you ignorant,” and the word
“would not” is the Greek word “thelo.” “Thelo”
expresses a desire but it connotes a desire that has a quality of
emotion. He is saying, “I have a deep feeling about
this. If there’s anything I do not want
to see existing among Christians, it’s the stupidity and the
ignorance of doctrine. I do not desire for you to be ignorant,” and
particularly here concerning the doctrine of spiritual gifts. This word is in the present tense which
connotes the regular attitude of Paul the teacher. It’s active, which indicates that Paul
himself was actively involved in removing ignorance among Christian
people, and you should do the same. It should be the
pattern of your life to get take tapes and get yourself acquainted with
the various segments and the logical progression, especially of the basic
training series. Then as you come across people
that have spiritual problems, you say, “Let me give you something
that I think might help you with your particular problem,” and then give that
person the segment. If you find someone who is in
some misery over sins in his life because nobody ever explained to him
about the old sin nature being taken into the Christian life, and he was just
as rotten after he was after he was a Christian as he was before, but what
to do with that quality in himself, how to deal with it, and what it does between
him and God: Give him tapes number four and five and say, “Listen to these. These
will explain what’s going on in your life, and it will tell you how to
deal with sin and what God has provided for you in this respect.”
Paul says, “I have a deep feeling about people being
ignorant in spiritual things, and I’m actively engaged in doing
something about it.” You should be too. The word “ignorant” connotes a primary
problem in the Christian life—ignorance of God’s thinking
in Bible doctrine. It is ignorance here in the
Corinthians that led to ruinous abuses relative to spiritual gifts. Here was a church that was carrying on the
greatest perversion of tongues equal to everything we see taking place
today—the same ignorance about tongues today as they experienced then.
So, every church needs someone to apply himself to cranking out the
principles
of the Word of God or else ignorance will move in on the congregation. Here is how it works:
The Soul, the Mind, and Emotions
The soul has the mind. It has two sides to that mind. It
has a perceptive side, and this is where you take in doctrine, as you
sit in church and listen to a pastor-teacher, and you’re filled with the
Spirit, and here’s where you’re learning doctrine. It also has a directive side of the mind, and God
has created us psychologically so that this side of our mind gives directions to our
actions. This side of our mind tells our emotions what to do. This directive side
of the mind has a frame of reference from doctrine. It has divine viewpoint from doctrine. It has a standard and values in its
conscience as a result from doctrine. So, a Christian who is filled with the Spirit and
who understands doctrine has the directive side of his mind in control of his soul. We’re
talking about your soul here. Your mind is telling your emotions what to
do, and therefore you are a stable person. You
are a stable believer. Your mind is directing.
Now here’s the relationship that God established between the
mind and the emotions. The mind is
comparable to the right man in the marriage relationship, and the
emotions are comparable to the right woman. The
particular man is to be the aggressor in relation to his particular
women. The particular woman is to be the
responder. There is no way that you can
exist in the human race if you violate these roles for which God has
created you. If you are a man, you are to be an
aggressor, relative to the woman. If you
are a woman, you are to be a responder, relative to the man. However, suppose that the reverse takes
place. Suppose that the mentality is
devoid of doctrine. It has no frame of
reference by which to make decisions and judgments. It has no divine viewpoint to think God’s
thoughts after Him. It has no conscience to guide
in its actions. Instead, the emotions
take over, and the emotions become the aggressor, and the mind becomes
the responder. The mind is then blanked
out. The mind is absolutely blanked out
of any governing function. Your emotions
take over, and it’s your emotions that kick off your actions. However, there is no information in the
emotions. The emotions do not contain a
mentality. Your emotions don’t
contain intelligence. Your emotions do not
contain divine viewpoint. They don’t
have a conscience. There is nothing in
your emotions to direct your being. What
you have is a woman trying to tell a man what to do, and that creates
misery every time. When a man is telling a
woman what to do, that creates happiness every time. Sometimes she thinks it’s not, but many a
woman who has gotten rid of a man who is telling her what to do, later
woke up to the sad fact that that man was her right man, and he had the good
sense to play his role, and he was doing the greatest thing in the world for her
by telling her what to do, because she was made stable and controlled and
he played his role. Well, if there’s
nothing in your emotions, what’s going to guide? I comes from all the slop and all the junk
and all the inanities of your old sin nature come cycling up to your
emotions. Your emotions on the basis of
what it draws from the cesspool of your old sin nature directs your
life. Now is that what you want to do? That’s what happens when you let your
emotions attack the directive side of your mind and equalize it. Many believers are moving through life in
this condition. They love to say, “Well,
I just feel this is the right thing to do.” Oh,
you do, do you? Thinking with
your emotions—that’s what a woman does, because God made
her like that. She is inclined to be
emotional unless her right man is controlling her direction.
So, she invites someone over to dinner. She puts on a beautiful roast. One of the guest decides to say something
nice, so he says, “Oh, where did you get this meat?” Now the husband says, “Down at
Greenberg’s Meat Market.” However, the wife
answers, “Why, what’s wrong with it?” This
is because she is feeling-oriented. When
you let a woman run your life, it results in misery and trouble for
herself and for you. And the same thing happens when
you let emotions control your life. The
people who are talking in the gibberish of tongues; running around with
the demonic activity of the healers’ racket; delving into the world
of spiritism and occultism. People are functioning on
their emotions, and this is disastrous. You
better learn how God made you, the facets of
your being, and get your psychology straight within yourself, and then start feeding
yourself. When you do that, you have nothing but
blessings ahead of you. This is the
condition that a faithful pastor-teacher forever and constantly
fights—people thinking with their emotions. That’s why he
becomes the brunt of such violent swings of emotional antagonism. People who he resists, who are thinking with
their emotions, strike back with that emotional vengeance. It is unbelievable how unstable they are in
those swings, and they go up and down. A
woman cannot assume authority over a man, and get away with it. Nor can your emotions assume authority over
your directive mind and get away with it. It
results in wild and irrational swings in your actions.
This was the condition of ignorance that existed in the
Corinthian church. These people had
become so ignorant in their directive mind, they had been so failed by
their pastor-teachers and let down in their instruction, that the people had
begun thinking with their emotions. They were
just pulling up all of the vile stuff from their old sin natures, and operating on that.
So, here’s the condition. This church abounded, of all things, with more
spiritual gifts than any other New Testament church. 1
Corinthians 1:7 tells us that this church was lacking in no single
spiritual gift. Yet Corinth was the most carnal
group of believers in all of the New Testament church. So, possessing a spiritual gift does not make
you spiritual. Possessing a spiritual gift doesn’t mean that you have risen to some level of spiritual
maturity either. It is important to distinguish
between your spiritual gift and being spiritual. I
think you know the difference. Your spiritual gift is your ability for
service. Spirituality is your relationship to God the Holy Spirit that He is controlling through
confession of known sins. The proper use of your gift depends upon this filling.
The Corinthians church was infiltrated by false teaching on
two things: legalism and emotionalism. Chapters 12 through 14 are
refuting this. Legalism is spirituality by works. Emotionalism is seeking an
ecstatic condition in order to achieve what would be considered a spiritual level of life.
1 Corinthians 12:1 says, “Now concerning the question of
spiritual gifts, Christians, I do not desire (I have a great feeling in
my heart—an emotional attachment toward you) that you should not be
ignorant (in the directive side of your mind) concerning the matter of spiritual
gifts (so that you are operating out of the emptiness of your emotions).”
Verse 2: “You know that
you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols even as you were
led.” Paul reminds these Corinthian
Christians of their unsaved days when they were stupid enough to be worshipping dumb
idols. “You know” means information of
the mind, and in the mind, which is well known. “You
were” connotes a state in the past
that they constantly had by choice. “Gentiles” is the old
group of humanity to which they belonged before they moved into the new group of
Christians. And they were “carried away.” In the Greek, this is
imperfect passive which means that in the past they were continually carried away by this
ignorance which they absorbed from their surrounding culture and society. It’s passive, which indicates that they were
just helplessly carried along. Once they were empty in the directive side of their mentality, they were just
helpless. They were carried away and there was nothing they could do about it until somebody came along and
said, “Wait a minute. I’m going to teach you
some divine fact and viewpoint.” Until somebody
came along and filled that mentality with some information, they were
finished. They could not do anything. They were just helplessly
carried along and carried away, and that’s exactly what happened.
Furthermore, it says, “When you were Gentiles, you were carried
away “unto” these dumb idols. This word “unto”
is the Greek word “tros.” With the
accusative case in the Greek, this means face-to-face. What the apostle Paul is addressing here is
the fact that they stood and looked at these stupid objects that they
had created, and they said, “Ah, my god.”
Paul is saying that is really dumb. You really have to be dumb to stand before
something you made and say, “Ah, my god, please help me do this
and this and this.” He reminds them what, when they
were unbelievers, their ignorance of doctrine has led them into. They were helpless
before it. Whatever way they had gotten into it, they were helpless victims of spiritual ignorance.
So, what did Paul do? Well in their unsaved ignorance, he gave them the
gospel, and they believed, and it was to their blessing. Now
they had entered a new realm, but they
remembered some things. They remembered
that when they used to go to
the heathen temple, they used to talk in tongues—a gibberish just
like the tongues movement does today. They used
to do this all the time down at the heathen temple in Corinth. They would go in there and they would have
this ecstatic happy experience of talking gibberish. What Paul is getting at, as he goes into this
chapter, is that this isn’t the way that spiritual gifts work. They were bringing that ignorance that they
once had toward those dumb idols, and they tried using tongues, which
is what was happening in the church at Corinth—some of them. He is going to straighten this out and
explain to them how the gift of tongues really operates, and what its place is.
Spiritual gifts are not to be patterned after those old days
when they were associated with those dumb idols. The
relationship of the Holy Spirit in verse
3 is this: Wherefore I give you to
understand (therefore, for this reason, I give you, I reveal to you, I
cause you to understand), that no man speaking by the Spirit of God (nobody,
man or woman, habitually under the control of the Holy Spirit, actively
speaking out) is going to call Jesus accursed that is under the control of the Holy
Spirit. At the point of salvation, whatever you may have called Christ in your unsaved days, however you
may have used His name in a curse word, you will not call him accursed, or speak
of Him blasphemously, once you are a believer. Instead,
what you will do in contrast to what you did when you were worshipping
dumb idols, you will call Jesus Lord, also by the Holy Spirit. The word “Lord” has a specific
meaning. The Greek word is “kurios.” Kurios means deity. This is why Christians would not serve in the
Roman army. To serve in the Roman army, you had to stand up and say, “I believe that Caesar is
lord,” which meant to say that Caesar is god and deity. Some
ignorant people in our day like to point out that Christians would not
serve in the Roman army because they were pacifists, and Christians don’t
join armies, and Christians don’t kill enemies on the battle field. Don’t you believe it
for a moment. When Christians were required under certain
emperors to stand up and say, “The emperor is god,”
Christians refused to serve. To call the emperor lord was to
call him deity. However, if you are a
Christian, you will be moved from your spiritual ignorance into a
sphere of enlightenment where this is exactly what you will call Jesus Christ. You will call him Lord.
The Holy Spirit
Now the point is, the prominent place that the Holy Spirit
plays in enlightenment. Without Him, we are ignorant. Without what He teaches us
from this Word, we have no hope. Only He can fill the directive side of your mind. Only
He can give you understanding of God’s viewpoint. Only He can lead you in your
service. Only He can make clear to you what your spiritual gift is. Only He can lead you
into the enlightenment of service that is producing divine good for
which God is someday going to reward you, instead of wasting your life in a lot
of human good that people will praise you for but which God will reject. You call Jesus Lord as a result of what? The enlightenment of the Spirit of God who
removed your ignorance. Just because you call Him Lord is not why you are a Christian.
Romans 10:9-10
Turn to Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you shall confess with your
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has
raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” Now
a lot of evangelists are notorious for being poor students of doctrine. A lot of evangelists love to take this verse
and make a great deal of it, that a Christian, unless he stands up
openly and comes forward in a meeting, or raises his hand, or walks an aisle, or
makes a public profession, he can’t be saved. I
have heard an evangelist make his pitch and say, “Let’s
sing a verse of a hymn.” Ten verses later they sing one more
verse. Fifteen verses later they’re singing one more verse. Nineteen verses
later they’re throwing in one more verse for good measure. Everybody’s stomach is growling with
hunger around them, distracting them. They can’t be spiritual. Even the Salvation Army
knows that it’s soup before salvation. But these characters are going to crank it out and hit away at getting you
to make your public move. Why? Because they sincerely think that this verse
says that you can’t be saved. I’ve heard
them close the meeting by saying, “We’re going to close the
meeting. I’m sorry you didn’t come.” Bang! If
you hand your hand in the door, too bad. You should have come when it was open. As if
you couldn’t walk out and sit in your car and think this over and say,
“You know, I’m a sinner. God has removed the wall. His grace has offered me
salvation. He’s right, and I take it.” And sitting there behind the
wheel of your car out in the church parking lot, you can be born again. Don’t ever give a person the idea that the
door ever slams shut because he didn’t make a public move.
Now here’s what this verse is saying: In the context here in Romans
chapter 9, the question came up as to how close salvation is to the Jews. The end of chapter 9 indicates that Jews
cannot be saved through the Mosaic Law. But that salvation comes to the Jew as a matter of
the heart, as a matter of faith in Jesus Christ. So, the question
is, in chapter 10, how close is salvation to the Jews. Well, the Mosaic Law outside of them didn’t
produce anything. It couldn’t bring salvation. Inside them is their mind
which can believe in Christ. With information
concerning the gospel, all they have to do is reach out and take it. Their faith toward Christ within them is
closer to them than that Mosaic Law that can’t do any good to
them whatsoever.
So, verse 9 has a cause and effect. This is what you must understand—this
cause and effect relationship in this verse, or you will get in trouble.
The verse says, “If…” This is a third-class condition. That means that not all of you will stand up
and publicly profess Christ. Some of you will and some of you won’t. But it
has nothing to do with salvation. Therefore
it’s an “if” and it’s a third-class condition,
maybe you will and maybe you won’t. And
the first part of the verse is the
result. The result, the effect, is
“confess,” and in verse 9 it comes first. “If
you shall confess…” They reversed
the order. This verse puts the effect
first. And then, secondly, it puts the
cause which is, “if you believe.” So, he
says, the result is you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, as a result of
the cause that you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you
shall be saved. And “you shall be saved” is
connected with the cause, “believe.” “You
shall be saved” is not connected with “confess.” And in order to take care of that problem,
because some dummy is going to come along and reverse what is here (in
spite of everything the Bible elsewhere teaches), Paul explains it in verse 10. There he puts the cause first and then the
effect. “For with the heart man believes
unto righteousness (the cause), (and the result is that) with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation.” Maybe you’ll
make the confession, and maybe you won’t. But everybody does the believing for salvation. Some
people may profess, and some people may not. But it has nothing to do with whether you are saved or not.
Spiritual Gifts – Summary
Now let’s summarize the doctrine of the spiritual
gifts. This is the background of further detailed study:
1) There are four main areas of Scriptures on spiritual gifts. They are: Ephesians 4:11, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 28,
Romans 12:6-8, and 1 Peter 4:10-11. In some of these verses, we’re
actually given the order of importance of the spiritual gifts. Incidentally, the least important spiritual
gift regularly is tongues. The most important spiritual gift is explaining Bible doctrine, the
pastor-teacher gift. That does not make the one who
possess that particular gift important, nor the one in New Testament
times that may have possessed the gift of tongues less important. It simply means that the value to the body,
as these gifts are rated, the least valuable is tongues, and the most
valuable is teaching.
2) Spiritual gifts are the Father’s testimony to His plan in
the Church age (Hebrews 2:4). All gifts
operate in relationship to a team effort in the local church ministry. Each Christian’s position on the team is
determined by the gift you possess. Every
Christian has at least one spiritual gift that you receive at salvation. What you do in the local body is determined
by what your gift is, not by what your ambition is.
3) The purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the body of
Christ (Ephesians 4:7-16). Gifts are
abilities for spiritual service. Gifts
are different from the place of service. The
place of service is one thing, but how you serve
is something else.
4) There are two kinds of spiritual gifts: temporary and permanent. Temporary for the early New Testament church
as the canon was being completed; and, permanent throughout the church
age.
5) The believer is to recognize and exercise his gift in
humility (Romans 12:3). Every gift is important. While some gifts are more
important than others, it does not make any believer superior to other
believers.
6) The operation of spiritual gifts depends upon the filling
of the Spirit for maximum production of divine good (Acts 2:4).
7) Gifts are not rewards, but they are presents of
grace. They do not connote spirituality (1 Corinthians 12:4, 11). They are
simply what God give you in order to serve him.
We shall continue next time looking at the gifts themselves.
John E. Danish 1971
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