The Gifts of the Spirit, Part 2

Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to the Archie Hardy Ministries Program.

I'm Sharon Otz thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's teaching by my father, Brother Hardy, is exciting and informative so make sure you get each episode of this outstanding exposition on The Gifts of the Spirit. The most important of these words is charisma. Charisma, first of all, comes from the word charis. Charis, English meaning, means grace. Charis, grace. Charis, one of its meanings and the meaning pertaining to the gifts is enabling power and divine ability. Now, what we do is we take charis and come down and put MA on it and when we do that we get the word what? Carisma instead of charis.

How many say amen? When we put the MA on any noun, MA in Greek grammar means the result or portions of. So charis is enabling power and divine ability.

Charisma means the results of grace manifesting itself in portions of God's enabling power. I want you to notice the very important word here, portions. Portions. You don't get all of God's enabling power and divine ability at once and it's not always there all the time. You get a portion.

How many hear me? We can see this in the phrase gifts or charismata of healing. Remember charismata is just a plural of charisma. They don't put an S on it.

They put the ATA on it. How many say amen? They are gifts of healings. No one gets and there's no such a thing as the gift of healing. Can I say it again? No such a thing as the gift of healing which means that you have all of the healing power in your life at all times that you can use it anytime you want to heal any disease.

Nobody has that. When God wants to move in healing, manifest himself in that way, the vessel that he has chose to give portions of his enabling power to heal, he will begin to give him a portion for this person in this particular disease and a portion for this person in this particular disease. How many say amen? And when God stops giving the portion, you no longer have the gifts of healings until God gives you the next portion. Everybody doesn't get healed because everybody doesn't believe and everybody's not right with God. How many say amen? And the Holy Ghost knows who believes and the Holy Ghost knows who's on healing ground and then through that vessel, he will give him a portion of healing to give to that person. I've seen some ministers when the healing power began to gush out of them, they try to lay hands on two, but you can't spread it out. It's only going to go to the one God's going to give it to.

How many say amen? Hallelujah. Now, charisma is an event, an action enabled by divine power. Charisma is divine energy accomplishing a particular result in word or deed by the Holy Spirit through a person. Like I said, there's no such thing as the gift of healing, which means that you would have unlimited power to heal anyone at any time at your own discretion. The Holy Ghost gives only portions of healing power for a specific cure at a specific time.

He's the one who operates these gifts. When a person whom God is using releases a healing portion, no longer has he had any more until the Spirit gives him another portion for another cure. That's why some people in the line, I prayed for them, the first one had a miraculous healing, the second one getting up, and the third one had a miraculous healing. God didn't give me anything for the second one.

Although I laid hands on. How many say amen? How many has got that clear? You see, you only get your gift in a portion for that specific time and need, and when you deliver it, you no longer have it anymore. I cannot bring a prophecy until God gives me a prophecy. I cannot bring a word of knowledge until God gives me a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom, and when I give that charisma to the person or persons to whom God wants to hear it, I don't have it no more until I get another portion of the word of knowledge.

Can't you see? A word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, a portion of knowledge, a portion of wisdom. You don't get all of God's wisdom per se. You don't get all of God's knowledge per se.

You see, the Holy Ghost operates it. When he wants to move, he comes into the service, he's got his gifted believers that he's brought together and gifted them and placed them in that local assembly, everyone in their place, everyone in their office, everyone ready to function in their function, everyone ready to bring forth their measure of increase so that souls might be saved and the body edified, then whatever gift he wants to operate, he comes in and manifests himself through that vessel that he uses, that particular gift through, manifesting that he is in the midst. He's not manifesting a gift. He ain't trying to show off the gift.

He's trying to show himself off. He wants you to see he's here and because he's here, he sees the need and he meets the need of the people that's there. Now what it behooves every one of us is, first of all, which I preach in my body of Christ which is a carryover, we need to find out what function and office and place God created us for and placed us in the body as so that we can be, when we come in the service, be ready for God if he wants to use our particular gift to use it.

You know, we shouldn't come in frivolous, running around choking. We should come in serious, prayed up, in tune with the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost is the maestro. How many say amen? And he's got all of his points that he's placed in the church and individuals because then he wants to orchestrate a healing and a deliverance.

You know, especially you that understand music, you don't play a note because you feel like you want to play the note. You got to follow the script and the Holy Ghost has a script for each service. How many say amen? I said the Holy Ghost has a script for each service. And what we need to do is be in the spirit that we could discern the moving of the Holy Ghost and be receptive to the spirit if he wants to use our particular gift that he uses through us.

For the main thing of the presence of the Holy Ghost to us is first of all to lift up and reveal the Lord Jesus Christ and bring deliverance to mankind, body, soul, and spirit. Church will be increased and built up and the Lord Jesus glorified. How many say amen? Thank you Jesus.

Use me Lord. Like he said as we get in a little bit further on, Paul said that we ought to covet the best gift and desire gifts and desire to be used. How many say amen? For God wants to use us a whole lot more than we want him to use us. He just wants us to get into place so that he can use us in these gifts.

Amen? So right now we'll start kind of getting into the gifts their self. First of all let's start at 1 Corinthians the 12th chapter, the first verse. And God wants you to know, thoroughly understand the spiritual manifestations. He wants you to know all about them. He wants you to know all about the spirituals. He wants you to know all about the manifestations. He wants you to know all about the chrismata. He wants you to understand because he starts off saying now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. And when he makes that statement, he's going to be as plain as he can be. He don't want us to be ignorant.

He wants us to know. Also, now concerning is a key word in Corinthians, now concerning. You'll find it in different divisions of the book because these are the things that the Corinthians wrote Paul about and he's answering them.

And wherever you see now concerning, he's referring to their letter that they asked him about and he's answering. And they wrote and asked him about spiritual gifts. Now remember in the first chapter they had all the gifts operating in the church.

Did it say that? They came behind in no wisdom, no knowledge, and any gift. They had all the wisdom and the knowledge and the gifts working in the church, but the church was full of confusion and disorder. And things were happening that made some good Christians, right? Paul wanted to know about this because everybody was saying it's God.

You always find a person out of order saying it's God. The Spirit made me do it. The Spirit doesn't make you do it.

You are under control. Anything that's forcing you to do it's not the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. Nothing can make me do it except self.

How many say amen? The Spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. Nothing makes you. If something's making you, it's either self or a demon spirit.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I don't want you to be ignorant. What was their former state? What was the state of the Gentiles before they came to Jesus? They were dominated and under the influence of demons. How many know that? The second verse says you knew that you were Gentiles carried away under these dumb idols even as you were led. Who led them? Demon spirits.

How many say amen? Now to understand the setting at Corinth, we're going to have to go back with Paul to Paul's day in the world of the Roman Empire. Now, the people of the Roman Empire were used to spiritual utterances. Prophecies and spirits crying out and giving oracles was nothing new to them.

Did you know that? It was a common thing all over the Roman Empire. In fact, they had in Delphi, Greece and I've been there on a tour. They had a temple full of female prophetesses that from all over the Roman Empire, leaders, rulers would come to get an oracle or what we would call in our day a word from God. You know how in our day people they run all over the place to get a word from somebody and that's the same way they were in the Roman Empire during Paul's day. They were used to demonic utterances.

How many say amen? prophecy wasn't anything new to them. Just like prophecy wasn't anything new to the Jewish people.

They had all their prophets. All of the gifts worked in the Old Testament except two. That was tongues and interpretation because God reserved that for the last day.

How many say amen? They didn't need tongues and interpretation because they all were Israelites and they spoke Hebrew but in the New Testament he was going to carry the gospel into all the world with all the languages. So therefore on the day of Pentecost he gave this special gift of tongues so that they could speak in all the languages of mankind. He reversed Babel. What happened at Babel when he confused their languages? On the day of Pentecost he brought all the languages together. How many say amen? Hallelujah.

Isn't the Lord wonderful? So this was a world that were steeped in supernaturals but they were demons. They had all kind of gods but the gods were demons. Paul went to Ephesus and they had an idol to all the gods and except that they would offend any god because they were always scared, they're gods they had to be afraid of offend them unless they would be zapped by their gods. So to make sure they didn't take and offend any god they had an idol to the unknown god.

Paul said I know you don't know him but I do and I'm going to tell you all about him. How many say amen? They were used to gods and their gods were demons. Paul said in the 10th chapter of 1st Corinthians the things that they offered to idols they offered to demons. And you couldn't eat at the Lord's table and demons table.

How many say amen? So this was a very, very spiritual atmosphere with demons controlling the people and vying for their attention. And there were all kinds of spirits crying out, giving oracles and giving utterances. Paul ran into that when that girl had the spirit of Pythian. Following, hollering, these men are the servants of the most high god. So Paul got tired after a couple days and cast a demon out. She made gain for her masters by soothsaying, prophesying, bringing oracles, bringing words. See that was the common thing.

You know what I mean? We could kind of liken it a lot to fortune telling, you know, tea leaves, palm reading, prophecies, running for a word here, running for a word there and what they were getting was a word from a demon. The devil had already did that ahead of time knowing that God was going to bring in his charismatic, his gifts, the real thing. How many say amen? That woman that was saying that these are the servants of the most high god was trying to win the approval to let the people think that she was also right until Paul cast the devil out of her. How many say amen?

So here is the atmosphere. It's charged with demon powers. Opposite of the day when people are not god conscious, they were super god conscious.

That's what Paul said to the Ephesians. He says, I see you're superstitious. I've seen all your devotions. I've seen you're superstitious.

Did you ever check the Greek word for superstitious? It means you're demonized. You're traumatized by demons. How many say amen? So they write Paul and want to know about some things happening in the services because there's all kinds of utterances popping up claiming to be the Holy Ghost. So what does he say in the third verse? The second verse says, you know, the gentiles carried away into these done idols even as you were led.

How many say amen? The third verse, wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God. The clue here is speaking by a spirit. Speaking by a spirit. Call of Jesus a cursed anathema.

No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now for a whole long time, for many years, I just was puzzled at this verse. I couldn't conceive that someone was supposed to be a Christian cursing Jesus. I couldn't conceive in the services and being allowed for people getting up and supposed to be under inspiration, divine utterance, saying Jesus is a cursed. I just couldn't understand that until God opened up my understanding to it. And here, that's what they were doing in the services.

Some people were speaking out, supposedly under a spirit, saying Jesus is anathema, cursed. Now we wouldn't think of that in our day, would we? We'd shudder, wouldn't we? You'd never heard it. You ever hear it happen in any services?

No, but it did in Karim. They wrote him about it. And he's telling them, no man speaking by the Spirit of God, because they were saying it was the Spirit of God. He said, no. No one speaking by the Spirit of God is going to say a cursed is Jesus. Well, somebody said, well, how can, how can they allow that?

Why would they allow that? Because the Gnostic doctrine crept in to the 1 Corinthians church. Now what the Gnostics believed was that all matter was evil, including the human body and the human person.

The human part of man was evil. What they taught was that Jesus was a mere human being made of flesh and blood, not the vine, just the child of Mary and whoever, some other man, the Father. At his baptism by John, the eon Christ descended out of heaven upon Jesus and took possession of him.

And for three and a half years, used him to do miracles. At his crucifixion, the vine eon Christ left the mere human being Jesus to die. That's why Jesus, they said, cried out, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?

Amen. They believed in a dualism, that Jesus was just a man used by the Holy Ghost or used by the eon Christ. But Paul said, listen, therefore it was not a terrible thing for them to say Jesus is a curse because he's flesh and blood and human and everything flesh and blood and human to the Gnostic is cursed. The Gnostic didn't believe in a physical resurrection because it was cursed.

They believed in just getting loose from the body that was a cage in a prison and joined a great light in the sky. But Paul said, no. No one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is anathema. He's not cursed, he's blessed. And not only that, not some Gnostic Christ eon is Lord, but Jesus is Lord. How many say amen? Hallelujah. Jesus is Lord.

Not a curse, he is Lord. And not only that, he is the Christ, not your Gnostic eon. How many say amen? He is the Christ. Hallelujah. How many believe he's Lord?

Hallelujah. Nothing about Jesus is cursed. He is blessed. He is Lord. He is Christ. He's everything.

He's my all and my all. How many say amen? So God doesn't want us ignorant about spiritual manifestations, endowments, gifts of the Holy Spirit. He wants to understand that we're in a world of spirits seeking to gain the people's ears and control and there's all kind of spirits out there speaking. John 1, John 4, once said, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits to see whether they be of God or not.

Let me read it to you, John 4, 1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are going out into the world. Hereby we know the Spirit of God.

This is how we know. Every spirit that confessed that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Notice how carefully that the Holy Ghost hooked up Jesus with Christ here. Be careful when you read Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus.

How many say amen? Huh? They're telling you a whole lot. Hereby we know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses. Now we're talking about spiritual.

I'm driving this point home. I want you to understand the spirits. I want you to get in your mind speaking by a spirit, spirit speaking by you.

I want you to get that because you're going to find that out. You're going to meet it further on down the line. How many say amen? Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God and this is the spirit of the antichrist.

Where have you heard that it should come and even now it's already in the world and these antichrist spirits were saying Jesus is the knife of man. How many say amen? Hallelujah.

Amen. What an insightful and timely teaching by God's servant brother Hardy on the gifts of the spirit. Thank God that he has endowed his church the body of Christ with these nine marvelous manifestations of his Holy Spirit to bring forth mighty works of healings, deliverance and revelation to his people and also as a witness to others that they might believe on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When the early church in Acts went forth preaching and teaching the gospel, God worked with them, confirming his word through mighty signs and wonders. How much more do we today need the gifts of the spirit in this age of counterfeit supernatural manifestations by the kingdom and prince of darkness. This teaching is vital to our understanding for every believer and answers the question unequivocally and scripturally are the gifts of the spirit for today and who may operate in the gifts, how and when. You will understand the operation, the purpose and the function of the gifts of the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, prophecy and discerning of spirits and how these gifts often work in tandem with each other, as well as the power gifts of faith, healings and working of miracles.

And finally, you will understand the gift of diverse tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues and what the differences between the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues given to the individual for his own personal edification and the gift of diverse tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues that operate in the church assembly. This complete in-depth teaching on the gifts of the spirit is available on a double CD set and can be yours for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request offer 304. Our mailing address is RG Hardy Ministries, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or order online at RGHardy.org. That's RGHardy.org. And the offer number is 304 for the gifts of the spirit, a double 2CD set for your love gift of $15 or more. Our mailing address P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Natsay in Maranatha.