You should ask yourself. Have I a gift of the Spirit?
Now that could be a hard question because a lot of people will do this. My gift is teaching.
Well, I think you need to go learn before you start saying something like that. It's better. To be serving the Lord and have someone else identify your gift.
Well, you know man, you really have a gift for that. as opposed to being self-appointed. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastorik is currently teaching through a topical series.
Please stay tuned with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick as he begins his message: Spiritual Gifts. Questions 9 and 10, kind of a few questions packed into one.
So I'm going to lose count at some point, and I think that point starts now. But I do have a follow-up. From last week's discussion on Who do we pray to, the Father or the Son? And my response was: the Father or the Son. but not to the Holy Spirit.
At least it's no New Testament example. or a direction. to pray to the Holy Spirit. We petition him through the Father or the Son. And so a question came up, and I addressed it at the beginning of the session.
Where what about songs that are Holy Spirit, come, you're welcome here. Father, we love you. Jesus, we love you. Spirit, we love you. What about that?
Can we sing songs about the Holy Spirit?
Well Not every prayer Is a song And not every song is a prayer. The intention behind the beholder determines which is which.
So if you're singing a song as a prayer, Some songs are, not all of them. Others are statements of faith. And To sing. A song that totally supports The Lord giving the Holy Spirit, and it's fine. John 20, 20 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.
And Stephen comes along and says to the Jews, You always resist the Holy Spirit.
So to sing songs of praise of the Holy Spirit that are directed or about the Holy Spirit. That's not the same as prayer, I don't think. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord, God is spirit. Those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I discussed some of the reasonings behind this.
And I just wanted to follow up on that. I see welcoming songs. as a statement of faith that I side with God Breathing the Holy Spirit on me. And I'll close with just a few verses on that: that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Be filled with the Spirit.
You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. Again, prophecy is not limited to prediction.
So that's just a follow-up on that. Each one has to settle it for themselves ultimately, like everything else in our faith. Spiritual gifts. is what our question will be about. And before I State the question, I want to just talk briefly about spiritual gifts.
Paul said to the Corinthians, You So that you come short in no gift eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that church in Corinth lacked no spiritual gift. And yet they were the most rebuked. Of all the churches. Till you get to the seven churches of Revelation.
And condensed into just a, you know, thyatire, progamus, laodicea, those total rebukes. But Corinth lacked no gift And they messed everything up with it. Acts chapter 8. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, Hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. He was not.
An apostle of Jesus Christ. He was a deacon in the church, likely a pastor in the church. The New Testament church was still forming. He certainly had authority there. And he goes up to Samaria, and this movement of the Holy Spirit takes place.
So much so, John and Peter have to go up and. Validate it. Jesus said, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.
Now, I include these two verses. To give us an idea of what's going on with the gifts of the Spirit from the perspective of Jesus and the perspective of the work of the Holy Spirit after his ascension. Because there are those They say the gifts have stopped. And they present Not a good argument. A polished one.
Well, all that glitters ain't gold. The believer does not use God's power. God's power uses the believer. And when we have these things right, we don't become like the Corinthians. And abuse these things.
So you could say, thank you, Lord, for the church at Corinth. One, that I don't have to go there. Attend there. And two, that we learn so much from their mistakes. If we would just pay attention and apply them.
The gifts of the Spirit are For serving to get work done. to the glory Of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, on the other hand, is for the character. Of the individual, to be Christ-like, to be filled with the Spirit, to get the work done. But primarily nowadays, Reformed theology, which is one of the questions, and I'll get to that in latter sessions.
There's this contest between Reformed theology and Pentecostalism. They're polar opposites. and how they go about ministry. And then somewhere on the fringe you've got your Cult Your prosperity movement. f faith movement.
That you just Cherry picks words out of scripture and throws everything else out and then presents this twisted Presentation of false Christianity. But Reformed theology, of course, they are still back in the Reformation, and they're very proud of that. Whereas Pentecostalism ideally has moved into the great awakening which was an enthusiastic movement. And then into The You could say your early 20th century. when the gifts of the Spirit were revived within Christendom.
They'd gone dormant. That is not new because during The age of the popes. In the Middle Ages many doctrines went dormant. The doctrine of salvation was replaced by works and superstitions. Doctrines that teach the exclusivity of the Godhead.
Had been twisted so that they could pray to saints and to Mary.
So this is something new. that whole generations have gone largely without proper Bible teaching. Pentecostalism is not the same thing as believing the gifts of the Spirit. It includes some of it, but they're not identical. Pentecostalism has become emotional charismania.
The gift mania curve. Crazy. Reformed theology has become intellectual charismania. They think so hard that it's crazy what they come up with. in dread of fanaticism.
That's your reformed theology. You're so afraid of fanaticism, we don't want any of the gifts that express any of our emotions. We just want the gifts that express our intellect. 'Cause after all, we have a lot of that. One accuses one of having strange fire.
The other one accuses th the that one of having no fire. I love Calvary Chapel 'cause they cut it right down the middle. Very much pay attention to The patriarchs of the faith. Looking to see what other men of God have to say, even if we don't share every single doctrine, as long as the essentials are in place. And also, believing in the gifts of the Spirit, without those gifts of the Spirit, making Christians look like utter buffoons.
Which we have. But the ones that do it don't think they look like buffoons. They're so busy trying to impress you that they're right with God because their theology is so messed up. If they think they have to validate their salvation by some weird action. Because they're not of this world.
My God, my people are a peculiar people.
Well, that's not the Hebrew. The Hebrew doesn't say my people are an oddball people. They are a special people. That might classify them as oddball in the eyes of the world, but not in the eyes of God.
So What's happened now, we have topics like free will and spiritual gifts. They have become sour subjects. I don't like debating. I don't like arguing. I like my point.
Well, before I was a pastor, I didn't mind. But And now this the field is so much larger than Points. There are people involved. There are lives involved. There are other things going on too.
So now that's the introduction to the question. The first one: gifts of the Holy Spirit. I'm reading it verbatim. Are they for to day? Along with that, there's another question.
That says Cessationism versus continuationism. Have the gifts stopped or are they ongoing?
So they're really they belong together, are they for today?
So we'll take the first part. The gifts of the Spirit And we'll just enjoy what the scripture has to say about them, and then we'll talk about those who say, Well, you can only have some of them. We have decided, through our hypothesis, in support of our doctrine, To eliminate 4 may be 5. And we reserve the right to remove more.
So you already know I'm biased. I'm trying to be calm. About it, but I get irritated because it's so smoke, all right, and they get away with it.
So, gifts of the Holy Spirit. First, we never own the gift. It belongs to God. Many of these gifts overlap. You might have the gift of wisdom and also a gift of helps.
For example, If you have a gift of the Spirit, and gifts aren't talents, the world can have talents. The Christians are supposed to have talents and gifts. Natural abilities and supernatural abilities. Which aren't flashy. But if you ask yourself, you should ask yourself, Have I a gift of the Spirit?
Now that could be a hard question because a lot of people will do this. My gift is teaching.
Well, I think you need to go learn before you start saying something like that. It's better. To be Serving the Lord and have someone else identify your gift.
Well, you know man, you really have a gift for that. as opposed to being self-appointed. So we'll talk now. You can't be 100% with these because there are little pockets here and there. But in the time that we have, I'll try to cover them.
Already 12 minutes into it, and I'm getting nervous about do we have enough time? 1 Timothy 4:14, late in Paul's ministry. He says to Timothy, Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy. with the laying on of the hands of the eldership. A couple of gifts working there.
Why I say it's late in his ministry is because there are those who say the gifts have stopped. They stopped with the Corinthian letter.
So hey, I haven't read Acts 28, 27. They don't know about Paul's shipwreck on Malta and how many people he brought to the Lord through healings. And these are the learned ones that everybody listens to. They are the influencers. They're very polished.
And I don't question their sincerity. Though they're even pushing up to say that if you believe in the gifts, you do not believe in sola scriptura, and they do this with every single thing that you disagree with them on. If you do not believe in election, then you do not believe the scripture. How can you be? And it's just crazy.
It's almost, it's like they're turning into a cult. Wisdom is a gift of the Spirit. That's an insight. Understanding to apply to situations that are spiritual. Not wisdom like Well, I think you should get four wheel drive.
We got a lot of snow around these parts. Or no, we live in Florida. Don't get photo drugs, don't waste them, I don't know, whatever. That's not, that's worldly wisdom. There's nothing, it's okay, it just has nothing to do.
With the Holy Spirit. It's an effortless insight. It operates And all of these are supposed to operate mainly for the edification of the body of Christ. It operates in board members of a church.
Well, they have insight to things, or they just have the discipline to know that they don't have that insight and nothing to say. There's a critical need of the church to have Good stewardship That's what your board members do. A pastor directed elder protected church Some give awful advice. Again and again and again. You think that you know that's a bad product?
Don't buy that. Effortless insight. And I'm just going to touch on them. I can't spend too much time and cross-reference them, but most of these are stated in First Corinthians 12, and we'll mention where others are too. The gift of knowledge.
Supernaturally imparted information, not education. You want education, you want that kind of knowledge, you study, you work hard. Not spiritual, that's hard work. You may have the appetite for that that's given by God. A pastor should have that, able to teach.
Well, he better be able to study. But the gift of knowledge is to know something that could only be known if God revealed it. such as Peter with Ananias. Satan has filled your heart. To withhold the money.
Well, who told you, Peter?
Well, God told him. Peter did not possess the gift. He exercised it. That time Ephesians 3.3, Paul says, How that by revelation God He made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already. And as you read Paul's writings, where did this man get these things?
They match. The apostles, they match Christ, they match the prophets. He got them from God. In First Kings fourteen five, there's the prophet Ahijah. He's losing his eyesight.
He's old, and his eyes are failing him. And Jeroboam the king sends his wife to the prophet to find out if their sick child is going to live. And the prophet Ahijah Says the Lord had said to Ahijah, Here is the wife of Jeroboam coming to ask you something about her son, for he is sick.
Well, he couldn't see and recognize God as giving him information. That's one example, there are many of them. But that's a gift of knowledge. in operation in the Old Testament, and I mentioned Peter and the New. The gift of faith.
Now faith, saving faith, is not a gift. It is the outcome of a response to an invitation by Christ. Which reformed theology recoils. You don't have free will. In the free will they have decided that.
Anyway. This is serving faith. When Peter In the midst of a storm, Peter could hear the voice of the Lord when he said, If it is you, tell me to come out to you. He could hear him. What a lesson for life.
To be in a storm in life and hear the voice of the Lord. This is serving faith. He wants to walk on the water too. He wants anything he can get from Christ. to give him an advantage over this life.
That's a good thing. God-given trust. in God's promises. in critical moments. The gift of faith.
You can't possess this. You're going to have it in one critical episode in your life. and then scramble to find it. 10 years later, going through another. Critical moment.
Faith helps us do the impossible. And Hebrews 11 writes all about it. Thomas Watson Said a weak faith can lay hold of a strong Christ. And of course, Peter, so long as he had his eyes on Christ, we know the lesson. He walked on the water, he walked on it.
If he took two steps, he did it. You took one step. And didn't sink. But he took his eyes off of Christ. And so, what a lesson for serving the Lord.
You want to serve the Lord. When some catastrophe has come your way, you got to keep your eyes on him. But Peter looked at the sea. The gift of prophecy.
Now I covered this. We tend to think that prophecy is always telling the future, foretelling. It's not. That's part of it. It is forth telling.
It can include singing songs. It could include reciting scripture. It could include praising the Lord. And it's Spiritual language in agreement with Scripture is a form of prophecy. And that's why they said about King Saul is Saul amongst the prophets.
He's not the only one. This one comes up in Romans 12 also in 1 Corinthians 12, you find it there.
So looking at 1 Corinthians 14, but he who prophesies, speaks, listen to this, edification, exhortation, and comfort to men. And then I had to tell the future. The future could be dire. That wouldn't be fine. How would you do that?
Well, a word in season, a scripture verse that God put on your heart.
Some people don't know when to stop talking. They want to help. And they won't stop talking, and they end up. talking in Jesus' name and is not Jesus. Others Can have a word in season.
You know, God just put this on my heart. I don't you know, and I'm just gonna share with you, you brought it up. And they say it, and the listener goes, I confirm that. That's right. That is the Lord.
I've been asking the Lord about this. And you just said it to me. I have witnessed that I have been part of those kind of things even before becoming a pastor.
So Always according to the scripture. All of these gifts, every single one of them, is according to the scripture. We do nothing contrary to the scripture. unless it is contrary to God. That's the consequence.
Acts 19.6 When Paul laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And that prophesying is praising God. They didn't have any much. They had some Old Testament. They could have been quoting scripture.
The Bible leaves it out because it's a broad area. There are 10 different people there, just for example. They might not all be praising.
Some might be quoting scripture, some might be praising, but there's this movement of the Holy Spirit. There's some are speaking in tongues. There could have even been interpretation of tongues by these new believers. I knew an assistant pastor in New York who's also the music leader. I mean, he's just great.
played the piano, just great at teaching songs. Anyway, He said when he got baptized He knew very little about Christianity. When he came out of the water, he was speaking in tongues. He never heard of tongues.
Now I can say you're lying. to suit my theology. Or I can say, well, that's a credible witness. I'd rather do it that way. They walk around suspicious and and paranoid of any gift that makes me uncomfortable.
Because of mine. I'll get back. We'll get to that when if we get to Cessationist. You can't even say it. It's cease like ceasing cessationists.
It's hard for me to say that without spitting. Let's everybody move a little closer. Discernment of spirits.
Well, this is distinguishing between the true and the false spiritually. Not necessarily, that guy's a con on us. If you live around him long enough, if you could pick him out without the spirit pointing, you could point him out to the spirit too. Don't you see that with me? That's a little humor there.
But anyway. This is being able to say This is from hell what's happening here. And have proof. You may not have the proof immediately because if you have that gift, you're going to get a lot of people in the church. Rebuking you, and then it comes true.
But they won't tend to come back and say, I should have listened. Paul He saw that Elimus was filled with Satan. Peter said to Ananias, He didn't just say you withheld the money, the gift of knowledge, he also said, Satan has filled your heart. He could have just said, Well, you're just a crook. You're just dishonest.
No, he took it to the spiritual realm. Discernment is the gift. That smells the sulphur when nobody else smells it yet. It is a great benefit. And unfortunately, many people who have nothing like it claim they have it.
And they will go to a visceral church that is emotional, not spiritually sound, and they will claim, I have the gift of discernment. If you did, you wouldn't go to that church. Healing is another one. The ability to restore health. Without Medicine.
I believe if there are medicine that can help me, if I feel a headache coming on, I am going for the Tylenol. And I'll pray, Lord, make this title no word quick, please. I tr when I first became a Christian, I tried to fight off a headache. in the spirit. And I lost.
I learned a valuable lesson. Don't tempt the Lord. You know, if I'm thirsty, but I'm not going to drink water. The Lord's going to solve my thirst. No, He's not.
She's not going to do it like that. If there's water there, drink it.
Well This one A reminder: the believer does not use God's power. God's power uses the believer. Why should God heal people? Why? And if you look at it from heaven's perspective, his people, when they get sick, if it's terminal, We're praying to keep them here.
God, I'm trying to get him up here. There's more pain. Go more this, go more that. And you're down there, Lord, heal them. I'm making light of it somewhat, but the truth of within that is this.
Why should God heal people? Well, if you look at the life of Christ and the apostles, they were healing people because it had something to do with healing souls. with salvation. It wasn't just, well, all right. You know, I got nothing else to do and I've got this gift.
clanging around everywhere I walk. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast. Just go to your favorite podcast app and look for Cross Reference Radio.
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