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STUDY GUIDE THE DIVERSITIES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS CONTINUED CVBC
The Miraculous Gifts 1 Corinthians 12:28-31
I. The Gift Of Miracles
Acts 2:22 "“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— "
2 Corinthians 12:12 "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. "
Hebrews 2:4 "God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will."
II. The Gift Of Healing
Exodus 15:26 "…for I, the Lord, am your healer.” "
Fallacies about healing:
a. Sin causes sickness
b. God’s will that all be healed
Truths about healing:
a. God usually does heal
b. Ultimate healing comes for those in Christ
III. Tongues and Interpretation of them.
Acts 2:4 "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. "
Acts 8 Samaria, Acts 10 House of Cornelius, Acts 11 Simon Peter and the Gentiles, Acts 19 Ephesus
Lesson Three: The Diversities of Spiritual Gifts Part Two
This lesson continues with a look at the diversities of Spiritual gifts. Where the last lesson covered those gifts that we will see in this lesson was mainly helping gifts. They support the serving gifts. That is why again we call them the supportive gifts. This lesson will cover the Miraculous Gifts with our basic text coming from 1 Corinthians 12:28-31.
The Miraculous Gifts
For purpose of our study, I have organized these spirituals gifts given to us in the Word of God in three categories. This is not the way the Bible does it. I have done it in order to help us understand and deal with them in a clearer manner. Some of the spiritual gifts are supportive gifts. They are in those gifts that we have covered that support the rest of the spiritual gifts and are for the encouragement of God’s people. Some of the gifts fit into the category of serving gifts. These are the gifts of service and ministry such as helps and leadership and giving and these kinds of gifts. The third category is what I call the miraculous gifts. These are the gifts that we find in these lists which fall into the category of those gifts that were used specifically to be miraculous and to authenticate the work of the Lord and the work of the disciples in the New Testament era. There is no question, when you study the Scriptures, which in the New Testament day there were miraculous and wonders and miracles. In the New Testament time people, experienced supernatural healings and people indeed did have the gifts of speaking in tongues and in interpreting those tongues.
The question we raise today about miracles and wonders is, “Does what we are seeing today in religious circles concerning miracles and wonders match up with what we find taught in the the Word of God?” Are they one and the same? In other words, what we see today in the category of miraculous and wonders and miracles, is this the same thing that we find when we study the Word of God.
First of all, let me be clear that there are many wonderful individuals who love the Lord who have a different view on this matter of spiritual gifts. Second of all, we must always look to God’s Word for direction. Every time we consider a matter, it must be looked at through the prism of scripture. We have a responsibility as Christians to go to the Scriptures, bring our experience to the Word of God. If the Word of God validates our experience, it is a valid experience. If the Word of God does not validate our experience then it is not a valid experience. Therefore, we are going to look at what the Bible has to say about these miraculous gifts and we are going to consider them according to the Word of God.
There are really four of these miraculous gifts. We find them in the text before us. The first of these is found in verse 29 where it talks about workers of miracles. The second one is in verse 30 - the gifts of healing. The third and fourth we are going to put together - speaking with tongues and interpretation of tongues - because they are related. Let us consider first the miracles.
I. MIRACLE WORKING.
He says in this verse - "Are all workers of miracles?" It is obvious that miracles did occur in the Bible. A miracle is a supernatural intervention of God into the natural course of things. When a miracle occurs it is God doing what He chooses to do with his own creation.
You study the life of the Lord Jesus and the four Gospels and you will find that Jesus Christ did miracles. That's what the Word says, that's what the Bible teaches. Jesus came into the world and he was a miracle worker. Sometimes Jesus performed miracles in the realm of nature. For instance, when Jesus walked on the sea, calmed the storm, or even in the feeding of the five thousand such miracles were miracles in the realm of nature. There were also miracles in relations to human beings - physical miracles. These are in the realm of healings. Certainly, Jesus had His reasons for performing these miracles. Of course most obvious was His desire to help people. He had compassion on people and out of His heart came miraculous power to help alleviate the pain and suffering He saw in people.
There's another reasons why the Lord Jesus performed miracles. We are told about it in the sermon Simon Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:22 it says - "Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs." The Bible had predicted that when the Messiah came one of the things that he would demonstrate was that He was indeed the Messiah was that He would do miracles, wonders, and the miraculous. Therefore, the miracles of Jesus Christ validated that He was indeed the Messiah.
The Apostles also performed miracles. You will find in the book of Acts, for instance, that different ones of the apostles had the ability to work miracles. Simon Peter raised Dorcas from the dead. One night the Apostle Paul preached a long sermon and a young man named Eutychus fell out of the window and it killed him. Paul went down there and laid himself on him and he raised him back from the dead.
By the way, if any of you go to sleep and hit the floor wherever you while you are reading this and kill yourself, I am sorry, I am not able to raise anybody from the dead. Therefore, you are on your own. You'll just have to take your chances if you fall asleep here. However, the Apostles did perform miracles like that.
Why did the apostles perform miracles and what was the purpose of their miracles? Of course, they were also helping hurting people but the Bible tells us that these apostles did this in order to validate the message, which they preached. In II Cor. 12:12 the Apostle Paul makes a very interesting statement. "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience. In miraculous and wonders and mighty deeds."
Hebrews 2:4 makes a similar statement that the apostles' ministry and their message was confirmed by the miracles that they did. When the New Testament canon was completed, there was no necessity for the Word of God to be validated by these kinds of miracles so you will find these kinds of things begin to diminish as you move toward the completion of the canon.
What about the miracles we have today? The question is raised - does God still perform miracles? Yes. God does perform miracles. Our God is a miracle working God. You can't kick God out of His creation. You can't tell God what He can or cannot do in His creation. God can do anything He chooses to do with His own creation and God indeed does work wonderful miracles in the lives of people today.
Are the kinds of miracles we are seeing today the kinds of miracles you saw in the New Testament? It is obvious we are not seeing some of the miracles today that we saw in the New Testament day. One doesn’t see anybody walking on water. I have not heard of anybody raising the dead. Does not one have to think that if anybody walked on water, it would be on Dan Rather's evening news tomorrow night? Nobody is raising the dead. If that happened, CNN would be down here to check that out. We are not seeing those kinds of miracles. If people are claiming to have, the gift of miracles like it was in the New Testament they need to go to places like the Sudan where hungry children are dying and break the loaves and fishes and feed the multitudes of hungry children. If they have the kind of miracles they had in the New Testament day then they need to follow some broken-hearted families out to the graveyards and raise their loved ones from the dead and relieve them from their agony. Therefore, we are not seeing the kinds of miracles in our day that we saw in the New Testament day.
There is a reason why Jesus said in John 14:12 these words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my Father." What are these greater works Jesus is going to do? Remember back in Luke 5:21-25 When the Lord Jesus healed the man who was sick of the palsy he looked at him and said to him, "Son, your sins be forgiven you." The Scribes and Pharisees said, "Who is this that can forgive sin?" Jesus said, "Which is the easiest to do - forgive this man of sin or to heal him of his palsy? So that you might know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sin he said to the sick of the palsy, rise take up your bed and walk." Jesus was trying to say this - I am going to do in the physical realm a miracle in order that you might know that I can do something in the spiritual realm that is far greater and that's to forgive a sinner of their sin.
The greatest miracle that has ever occurred or will occur on this earth is the miracle of salvation. When a person is born again that is a miracle of miracles. You are a testimony as a saved individual to the great miracle working power of God.
The second miraculous gift is what is called the gifts of Healing
II. HEALING.
Every time that particular statement is made though it does not show up this way in the King James, it is in the plural. It is literally gifts of healings. This seems to indicate that this was a miraculous gift that made it possible for their to be healing at every level of human experience. Healing in the realm of the physical - diseases. Healing in the realm of the emotional. Healing bruised and damaged emotions. The Lord Jesus came to heal the broken-hearted.
When one studies the New Testament he finds out Jesus performed healing miracles. He healed people of physical diseases. He healed the blind, the deaf, mute, and even raised the dead back to life. Jesus never did any of this to be spectacular. Never did He do this in order to draw attention to Himself. In fact, sometimes Jesus would specifically say, as in Mark 1:44, “See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way,” Almost without exception they would go out and tell folks. It's amazing. Jesus will tell some folks - don't tell it and they tell everybody. He's told us to go tell everybody and we don't tell near as many people as we ought to tell. You have to keep in mind what the Lord Jesus Christ did when he healed people.
Look at the Apostles - they healed people. The question comes - what about the matter of healing today? Does God heal people today? Yes. He does. The Bible says in Exodus 15:26, “for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” It's the Hebrew word, rapha, from which we get the word, Rapha. God is a God who heals people of their sicknesses. The problem comes in some of the teaching of the modern healing movement. Many of the teachings of the modern faith healers are in error in terms of what the Bible has to say. Some say it is always because of sin that people get sick. It's true some people get sick because of sin, no doubt about that.
In I Corinthians when Paul was speaking of the Lord’s Supper, many were partaking of it in a manner that was unworthy, so Paul mentions to the Corinthians that there were some people who were sick and some who had even died because of their sin.
I do believe that there are some people who what they really need is an old-fashioned mourners' bench experience with God. What they need to do is get thoroughly right with God and it would help them in their physical ailments. I believe that's true. However, scripture teaches that it is not true that every time a person is sick that they have sinned personally to cause that sickness.
When Jesus healed the man who was blind in John 9:2-3 and the disciples said, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
Jesus was teaching that this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God. God had a purpose in the sickness of this man.
Another mistake they make is that it is not always God's will to heal. That's not what the Bible says. The Apostle Paul had the ability to heal people.
Yet, he says in 2 Timothy 4:20 that there was a man named Trophimus and he said, "Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." He did not heal him. The Apostle Paul had a sickness in his own life. He called it a thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7. He said it was a messenger from Satan to buffet him and he said he prayed three times and asked God to heal him and God didn't heal him. However, God said to him in verse 9 of that same chapter in 2 Corinthians, "My strength is made perfect in your weakness."
Sometimes God demonstrates his perfection and glory in a sickness that a child of God bears and the witness they give and the glory they bring to God in the midst of it.
Ultimately, all sickness is going to be healed. Normally it's God's will to heal people today. How many of you have ever been sick? How many of you got well? Therefore, you have already experienced a healing yourself. One of these days, we are going to experience that final healing.
If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are going to get the ultimate healing one of these days. We are going to have a resurrection. One of these days there will be no more disease or sickness. God indeed does heal people today, but it's not always His will to heal. Sometimes God has a purpose and a plan for the sickness that comes into our lives.
Let's talk about the matter of speaking with tongues and interpretation.
III. Gift of Tongues and Interpretation.
There is no question in the New Testament day this was exercised. The Lord Jesus predicted this. In Mark 16:17-18 He specifically predicted –
"And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."
It says the disciples went out everywhere preaching and "the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."
There is no question that tongues occurred. These disciples spoke with new tongues. By the way, if you want to try to use this passage of Scripture and apply it today you have a problem. You cannot pick and choose. If you want to say that all of this is for today, then it all has to be for today. If they are going to claim part of this, they are going to claim the rest of it. He says here that you'll drink deadly things and they won't hurt you. They do that and we have sad cases where people have died because of it. However, Jesus was predicting something that would occur among the disciples.
You come to the book of Acts and you come to the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. There the Holy Spirit of God came upon these believers, these apostles, and disciples. We are told in verse 4 - "and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues." That's the first occurrence in the book of Acts of the speaking in tongues on the part of believers. There seem to have been three other times.
The second time was in Acts 8 and verse six where Phillip was in Samaria and he did and spoke in miracles. It doesn't specifically say it, but it would lead you to believe that they spoke in tongues there. The third time is in Acts 10: 44-48 at the house of Cornelius there Simon Peter goes there and preaches and the they spoke in tongues. Simon Peter shares specifically about this event with the Gentile in chapter 11:15 saying it was the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost.
The fourth time is in Acts 19:6 when Paul shares with the disciples of John and Paul came to the church at Ephesus and said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They said, "Why we don't even know there is a Holy Spirit.” All they knew was the preaching of John the Baptist - the baptism of repentance. They did not even know about the crucifixion, the resurrection, or the ascension. Therefore, the Apostle Paul laid hands on them and they spoke with tongues and they prophesied. When you look at these four occurrences and especially at what happened on the day of Pentecost, there is no question what this tongues is.
The tongues spoken on these occasions are foreign languages. Look carefully at Acts 2. When they began to speak with other tongues keep in mind that there were Jews from all over the known earth that had come there for that day of Pentecost. Therefore, these disciples began to speak and the people who had come from everywhere, who spoke all kinds of languages and dialects began to hear them speak in their own languages and dialects.
It says in verse 6 - "Now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together and were confounded because every man heard them speak in his own language." It's the word, dialect. In verse 8 he says, "How hear we every man in our own tongue (language) wherein we were born. There is no question what occurs in the book of Acts. It was a language and it was a known language.
The only other time tongues are mentioned is in I Corinthians 12. All of the letters in the New Testament that were written to churches (9 of them to 7 churches) there is only one church to which Paul writes that was evidently experiencing some kind of tongues phenomenon. It was the church at Corinth. The King James' translators have done a very interesting thing. You will notice that sometimes there are words that are a little smaller than the other words. These are what you call italics. These words are there because the translators have put them there. They are not there in the original text. Therefore, they have added these words. Look at I Cor. 14:2 - "For he that speaketh in an unknown (in italics) tongue." That means the word, unknown, does not occur there. Why did the King James translators do that? They did it because they are trying to indicate their opinion that what you have in Corinth is something different from what you have in Jerusalem in the second chapter of the book of Acts. It's different, not the same. That's why they have added the word, unknown. Therefore, there was something going on in Corinth that was a little different.
Keep in mind the background of the Corinthian church. The people in the Corinthian church were saved out of deep paganism. If you want to see a group of people who were in the depths of depravity before they came to the Lord Jesus Christ, we read I Corinthians 6:9-10
"Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, (homosexuals) nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."
You talk about a group of folks who got saved out of the depths of the pit that they were in. When people are saved out of something like that, they are just thrilled to death to be saved.
The Corinthians mistook the symbol of the power for the power itself. Therefore, what is going on in Corinth is not what went on in Jerusalem. Paul is going to be very careful here. He knows these are young converts and he doesn't want to disturb them. He does not want to quench their enthusiasm. He doesn't want to throw cold water on their salvation experience. Therefore, Paul gives a series of guidelines to go by. He says if you are going to speak in tongues here's what you have to do.
Guidelines for the Gift of Tongues and Interpretation.
In I Corinthians 14, he gives those guidelines. If you read that with this in mind you will understand it far better. He is not writing I Cor. 14 in order to encourage them to speak in tongues, but to discourage them from speaking in tongues. He gives three guidelines for them to go by.
A. Two or three at the most 1 Corinthians 14:27
In verse 27 he says, "If any man speak in a tongue, let it be by two or at the most by three.” He is saying two, no more than three are allowed to do it. Almost without exception everywhere, there are those who have witnessed tongues that have been violated.
B. Let it be done decently and in order, one after another v.27
Secondly, "and that by course (that is, in order), one after another." One gets through, then another one. Not all at the same time. That is usually violated.
C. Let it be done with an interpreter or not done at all v. 27-28
Then, number three, "and let one interpret. If there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church." If there was nobody there, who had the gift to interpret the tongue that was spoken - let no one speak. Almost without exception that is violated.
D. Let women be silent v.34
The fourth one is in verse 34 - "Let your women keep silence in the churches." He is saying that in the context of tongues. He says the women can't do it. Why did he say that?
Every Greek city had what they called an acro above the city - that is a mountain. On the top of the Acro Corinthus, the mountain of Corinth, there was the temple of Aphrodite. There were a thousand sacred priestesses that went there and carried on their religious "prostitution." They did all kinds of things. They spoke in tongues. They went through all kinds of orgies. Paul was saying to them - listen, you've been saved out of that kind of lifestyle. Do not do that, women, in the church because people will come in and think they are in another pagan temple. When you take these four guidelines that Paul lays out and requires that people go by them today, tongues would stop. That is the end of it.
What were tongues for?
A. Tongues were used for the propagation of the gospel
Tongues are really a miracle of the lips as well as the ears. In other words, not only did people who received this gift speak in a language that they did not know, but also the listeners heard it in their own language. For example on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:6-11 the miracle of tongues was used by God for each man to hear the gospel or “the wonderful works of God” in his own native language. The disciples received this gift for evangelization of the lost so that there would be no linguistic barriers to the gospel. Paul also had this gift he said, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than ye all.” What was Paul talking about? He was talking about preaching and teaching the gospel on the mission field. He was sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, tongues were given not as some secret prayer language to edify the church as is practiced by a segment of Christendom today, but it was clearly given to propagate the gospel. The gift of tongues is the divine enablement to speak in a language not known to the speaker.
For instance if a group of Russians drove up to our local church of which not one could speak any English and the Pastor began to speak in Russian this would be an example of the gift of tongues. There would be one who spoke in the unknown tongue and then one who could interpret the message for the rest of the audience.
B. Tongues were given as a sign of judgment for unbelieving Israel
I Cor. 14:21-22 tell us why there was the gift of tongues in the New Testament day. "In the law it is written - then he quotes Deut. 28:49,” with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people. And yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord." In the Old Testament God would give the people a message. The people would reject the message. God would send a foreign people whose language they did not understand to judge them and carry them off into captivity. That is exactly what God was getting ready to do in the New Testament time. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:22 that "Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." He's talking about unbelieving Jews. Tongues were a judgment sign to unbelieving Israel. In A.D. 70 the Romans came under the Roman General Titus, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by fire and they were carried away. God had judged again. When that happened, then the tongues and the purpose of tongues passed away.
Look at I Cor. 13:8 - "Love never fails, whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease..." Why does God say tongues shall cease? The first obvious reason is if it was a judgment sign to the unbelieving Jews, when the judgment occurs there is no more need for the sign. However, there is another reason here. Verse 9
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
He is saying you are in the infancy period of the church, but it's time to grow up. You have to get past babyhood. "That which is perfect is come, that which is in part will be done away." What does he mean by that? Verse 12 "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face...” Glass is an illustration of the Scriptures - the Word of God. They didn't have the whole Word of God. They had part. That's why God gave these sign gifts - to validate their message and their ministry. However, God says there is going to come a time when that which is perfect is come - when the Word of God comes. When the Word of God is come, there is no more need for these other things.
What about miracles? The greatest miracle is when a soul is saved. What about healing? The greatest healing is when God heals the sin-sickness of the heart. What about tongues? The greatest thing you can do with your tongue is to speak the good news of Jesus. Look at verse 19 of I Cor. 14. "Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." It would take about an hour and a half, at a normal delivery, to speak 10,000 words. To speak five words it would take about two seconds. Paul is saying I would rather speak five words in two seconds that people can understand than to take an hour and a half speaking in something nobody understands or gets anything out of.
Let me give you five words you ought to speak. Christ died for your sins. If you will just speak those five words to people tomorrow and tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ, you will do what God intended you to do with your tongue.
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