Some Gifts Not Present Today

Transcript

GR 1464
03/20/11
Some Gifts not Present Today
Romans 12:6
Gil Rugh

We're going to Romans 12 in your Bibles. We're talking about a subject that has created controversy among Bible believing Christians. More than controversy, it has caused division. It's the subject of the spiritual gifts. It is a matter of great importance, and we need to have a biblical understanding of spiritual gifts, otherwise that which is a blessing from God to us becomes a cause of conflict, division and corruption of biblical truth.

We're in Romans 12 and the chapter began with the exhortation that on the basis of the wondrous work of salvation that God has accomplished on our behalf, has brought to our lives through His mercy and grace, we are to present our bodies to Him as a sacrifice which is living and holy and pleasing to Him. Now the rest of this last division of the book of Romans that goes from Romans 12:1 through Romans 15:13 is really an unfolding of these first two verses of chapter 12. When we have presented our bodies as a sacrifice to our God to be used for His glory, to bring honor to Him in all we do, there are certain things that will characterize our behavior, our conduct, our actions. Certain things will be true of us, must be true of us. That's what he is talking about, picking up with Romans 12:3. And it's a natural connection. In verses 3-8 he's going to talk about spiritual gifts and how we function as one body, the body of Christ. And yet we are characterized by beautiful diversity with every individual believer contributing what God has planned so that we function harmoniously as one body. That is a manifestation of a people who have committed their bodies to the Lord as a sacrifice to be used for His honor and His glory.

Paul moved into this section on spiritual gifts in verse 3 by exhorting them not to think more highly of themselves than he ought to think. No one among you is to think of himself more highly of himself than he ought to think, Paul said. That's a cause of jealousy, of division, of conflict. Rather we looked at Philippians 2:3 where we were told not to do anything from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Now he doesn't say, think down on yourself, not that idea of I'm nothing. That's just another self-focused thinking. But rather the thinking is directed out to others. And we noted the great appreciation we are to have for others in the body of Christ, to be so thankful to God for the grace He has shown to another believer, for His work in that believer's life, for the way that God is using them as part of the fellowship of believers. And I am struck by your importance, we are taken up with the importance of others. And that gives me, then, a greater appreciation of God's grace for myself, that I am privileged to function with such a body of believers and people that God is using in such great and significant ways to bring honor to Himself. That brings balance to the body and harmony to the body.

We've observed several things about spiritual gifts as we have looked through verses 3-5 already together. First, they are from God. We were told in verse 3, God has allotted to each a measure of faith. God has allotted, distributed, dispensed His gifts. We looked at fuller references in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Chapter 12-14 deal in depth with the subject of spiritual gifts. There it is emphasized as well that God sovereignly dispenses His grace in giving a gift. It says God has allotted, God has determined. Furthermore we noted that every believer is gifted by God. Still at the end of verse 3, God has allotted to each, each believer. We saw parallel passages on this as well in Corinthians, and it's true in other places as well, we'll see further today. Each believer is gifted by God. The same grace that brought salvation to your life has brought the gift of God because when you believed in Jesus Christ you were cleansed and forgiven your sins, the Spirit of God took up residence within your body and provided you a special ability to enable you to function in such a way as to make a contribution to the functioning of the body of Christ. So the spiritual analogy follows the physical analogy of a physical body—one body, many parts; each part making its own contribution to enable the body to function harmoniously in doing what it should do. So spiritually when we were born again we were created new in Christ Jesus, we were gifted by God. I Corinthians 12:13, for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. It was the work of the Spirit of God to identify us with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection and thus make us part of the body of Christ, the church. And with that the Spirit gave us a special ability, place to play, function to serve within the body. Every believer is given, we are one body as he has mentioned in verse 4, as we have many members in one body. That's the challenge—to appreciate the unity we have and the diversity we have and not allow the diversity to become a cause of division. We see that as part of the sovereign plan of God so that we can accomplish His purposes as His body. We are one body and we have different functions. Verse 4, all the members do not have the same function.

So a simple analogy but profound in its import. That's why all of us with our diversity, our differences, our various interests, our various backgrounds and so on can be brought together and function as one. Because it's the sovereign work of God. The One who saved us, placed us into the body of Christ, and when He placed us into the body of Christ, He placed us into that body with a specific function, a gift, an area to contribute. So that the body is not just a collection of parts, but these are parts brought together each with a purpose from the beginning given by God.

So Paul gives a summary here of what he elaborates more fully in I Corinthians 12 and develops then in I Corinthians 13-14 as well. And I want to note here, something we emphasize and I want to emphasize again that the gifts do function in the context of the church. The church is the body of Christ. There is the universal church as we noted, every person who believes in Jesus Christ and experiences His salvation becomes part of the universal, we call it, body of Christ, believers wherever they are, the church, the bride of Christ. But the specific focus of the gifts is to the local church.

Turn over to I Corinthians 1. And you'll note Paul is addressing in verse 2, writing to the church of God which is at Corinth. That's not the only church but the universal church comprised of all believers everywhere has its manifestation in local churches. And Paul is writing to the church of God, the church which He purchased with His own blood as Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. It belongs to Him, it's His church meeting at Corinth, that local church there. To the church of God which is at Corinth. It's comprised of those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, who are called saints. And they join with everyone everywhere who calls upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one Lord. So this is the church of God at Corinth, but it also joins with believers everywhere by virtue of their relationship to Jesus Christ.

Note verse 4, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus. We saw that in Romans 12, we're going to see it in verse 6 in a moment, the emphasis on the grace of God. Paul referred in Romans 12:3 to the grace of God which was given to him. Now in verse 6 when we get there in a moment he's going to talk about the grace of God which was given to all of us. Here he is talking, I thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. Now note this, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ who will confirm you also to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. When we're called into fellowship with His Son, do you know what that also entails then? Fellowship with other believers. In I John 1, John writes and says, we desire that you have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with God. So that's the fellowship here. We are called into a relationship with Jesus Christ and when we are called into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are called into a relationship with one another. So we function together in our service for Him.

The point here is that this church, verse 7, is not lacking in any gift. I am writing to the church of God which is at Corinth and I'm thankful for the grace of God which was given you so that you are not lacking in any gift. So each local church by virtue of the fact it is a church is gifted by God with every gift that it needs at that time. As the church grows the Lord adds to it, He adds other gifted people, either through conversion or through bringing them from other places. And the body develops. There are never extra parts in the body, nor are there to be parts that are lacking. Just like our physical bodies, each part has a role to play. So the body of Christ.

Come back to Romans 12. What we're going to do is look at verse 6, the first part of the verse, and then I want to expand out a little bit on the subject of spiritual gifts and some of the important matters we have to be clear on.

Verse 6 picks up, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. And he just explained in verses 3-5 that we do have gifts. That's part of the grace bestowed upon us, the grace that saved you is the grace that gifted you. It's part of the package of salvation. We just read in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, you come behind in no gift, you're not lacking in anything because God's work of salvation is a complete work. And so we as the church, we are gathered together here, we have gifts. The word gifts is from the Greek word for grace, charis. Some of you have named a child Charis, it's the Greek word for gifts. Charisma is a grace gift, we use the word charisma. A person has charisma, not particularly related to grace today, but that's where it comes from. If you looked in the dictionary at the word charisma, what is a person who has charisma? They have a special ability in an area, a special attractiveness, something like that. So when we talk about each of us has gifts we realize the word grace. If we were reading this as Paul wrote it, it has the word charis in it, the word gift here. So we're reminded this is a gift of God's grace.

These gifts differ according to the grace given to us. So that's the same word grace there, we just have a little different ending here added to make it gifts earlier. So we have grace gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. That same emphasis. We saw it in I Corinthians 1:4, I thank God for the grace given to you. Constant emphasis that we have been the recipients of a gift from God, His grace bestowed upon us, not just in saving us but then in gifting us for proper service for Him. These gifts differ, we don't all have the same function. They differ according to the grace given to us. God has dispensed the gifts according to His sovereign determination in grace. We don't search to acquire a gift, we don't pray to receive a gift, we don't train to get a gift. Sometimes I've talked to men who want to go to seminary and were seeking recommendation. And I've shared on occasion with them that I haven't seen any evidence that you have the gift of pastor/teacher. Going to seminary will not gift you to be a pastor. It will give you further training and equipping, and perhaps to serve with another gift. But a difficulty that comes, often men go to seminary with the idea that when they graduate from seminary they will be a pastor. God dispenses the gifts, seminaries don't. Seminary can provide training or other places, but a person who does not have the gift of being a pastor/teacher will not have it when he graduates from seminary either. Then it becomes a difficulty and sometimes a frustration. That's true for all of us. We can get further training and be equipped to better use our gifts, and we should desire to be at the best with the gift we have, but we ought to first be concerned, what is the gift God has given me. And we'll talk about discerning our gifts when we conclude our study here in a week or two.

All right, we gifts according to the grace given to us. That's the same thing as we noted earlier, God has measured out faith, verse 3, alloted to each a measure of faith. And that trusting Him to serve Him in an area. You look at someone doing something in service for the Lord and you say, I could never do that. Well, the Lord can do it through a person, but you may not be the person because maybe He has not gifted you for that, given you the measure of faith. And another way of saying it is, I don't know if I could trust the Lord to use me in that area. But if He has gifted you in that area, it's amazing. He gives you a measure of faith and He develops you in an area.

There was a time when I was growing up, through high school and into college, I had never spoken in front of anyone, never stood up in front of anyone, never thought that I could or would. But if God has gifted you, that should become evident and you trust Him in that. And it becomes evident. That's true for each one of us.

Now we have the gifts and they differ according to God's grace. Come over to I Peter 4, a parallel passage on gifts. And note verse 10. And interestingly, we don't have time to talk about it but we move through Romans 12, if you read I Peter 4 you'll see a similarity in content. But we want to just pick up verse 10. As each one, note that emphasis again, same thing we saw in Romans 12, same thing we saw in I Corinthians 12. As each one has received a gift. We have the word special added there, it is a special gift, it's a grace gift, it's a gift. Employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So you see what he says about the spiritual gifts here. They have been given to us, each one has received a gift by God's grace. It is a manifestation of the manifold, multifaceted, multicolored grace of God. Here you see God's grace displayed in all its splendor, it is multifaceted, multicolored in the sense the gifts are diverse. There are a variety of gifts, we'll talk about some of them, and even within the gift there is diversity. And that displays the multifaceted, multicolored grace of God. It is a manifold grace, it has dispensed a variety of gifts and every gift has variety within it. And all manifests the grace of God.

Now you see the significance and importance of our functioning as God intends, that we are one body, the unity and harmony and oneness that must be here, and yet the diversity that is there. And here we are displaying the grace of God and the work that only He could do. When he says here, employ it in serving one another, that is the proper use of the gifts. We won't be able to do an extended study of the gifts because that would take us some time, beyond our purpose in Romans right now. But the purpose of the gifts is to serve others. If we would go back to I Corinthians 12 we would find an emphasis the gifts are given for the benefit of others. So we use our gifts to serve others. I was thinking about that this week as I was working through this section. Often my practice is as I'm sitting at my desk in my study working through things, I also go through explaining it, like I'm explaining to you. Try to organize my thinking and be clear in the presentation. But you know that's not the use of my gift. I'm sitting there and as when any of us use our gifts, I benefit from that. As I'm working through this, as I'm trying to get it clear in my mind and how I would want to explain it. But if that's all I do, that's not a valid use of my gift. I'm benefiting from it, I'm profiting from it as I work through that, but the gift was given for your benefit. And that's true of everyone's gift. We all receive blessing and benefit in the exercising of our gift. But the prime purpose of the gift is that others would benefit and profit from it. They are given for the edification, the building up of the body. If we would go back to I Corinthians 12, so here they are given to serve one another. We are to exercise our gifts in serving one another so we can be good stewards of the grace of God entrusted to us. Stewardship, compound word, comes from the word house and it comes from the word law. And it means someone entrusted with responsibility in a house or a household. So you have a responsibility there given to you and you must carry it out. We have a stewardship.

So when God bestowed His grace on us in gifting us, that was a great privilege, but it brought with it great responsibility. Now I have a stewardship of God's grace that has been entrusted to me.

Come back to I Timothy 3:14. Paul is writing to Timothy, Timothy is at the church at Ephesus completing things that Paul wanted him to do with the church there. Paul was planning on coming but he says in verse 14, I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. Now remember we said stewardship, as stewards of the manifold grace of God. The word steward there is a compound word. Oikos is the word house, and then the word nomos, law, put together to make a compound word, steward. It means house law, one with a responsibility in a house. Here you have the household of God, that's our word oikos again. This is God's house, God's household that's translated here. I'm writing so you'll know how to conduct yourself in God's house, God's family, God's household, the household of God, which is the church of the living God. This is God's family, this is His household here and we are stewards in the household, entrusted by Him with a measure of His grace to serve Him and carry out His will.

Come back to I Corinthians 4:1. Paul, as has happened in both his letter to the Corinthians, has to deal with the tax on him and his ministry for Christ, sadly. He says in verse 1, let a man regard us in this matter, as servants of Christ, now note this, and stewards of the mysteries of God. As an apostle part of his gift was to be entrusted with new revelation from God. We're going to look at that in a moment. That's part of the stewardship of grace entrusted to him with his gift of apostleship. Here he is a steward. Remember that back to I Peter 4, we are stewards of the manifold grace of God. The area of Paul's stewardship, responsibility entrusted to him, the grace bestowed upon him was to serve as an apostle. What does he say? Moreover in this case it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. When we talk about that we've been made stewards of the manifold grace of God, you've been given a dispensing of the grace of God with a gift to serve Him. You are now a steward of that grace, and the number one requirement is that you be found faithful, you be found trustworthy, you carry out that stewardship as God intends you to carry it out.

To me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you or any human court. In fact I do not even examine myself. Now note that in the context of the next verse, I am conscious of nothing against myself. I have a clear conscience. Yet I am not by this acquitted, but the One who examines me is the Lord. You see what it means to be entrusted with the stewardship of God's grace. What others evaluate you as and think of you is not what's important. What I think, I think I'm doing a pretty good job, I think ..... That doesn't matter. There's only one person whose opinion matters in this, and that is God. The One who examines me is the Lord. I'm a steward, I'm not the boss, I'm not the lord of the house. I have a stewardship, a responsibility in God's house. Do you see how serious this is? This is God's family, God's household, He has dispensed to each of us a responsibility. What is Paul saying? We give an account to Him and even my opinion of myself is not what matters, although I want to function with a clear conscience. But the only opinion that matters is the lord of the house.

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts. Then each man's praise will come to him from God. That will be a just judgment, not only what I did but why I did it. So you see the context here. As stewards there will be a day of accounting and I will give an account to God for how I carried out the stewardship that He gave me, how I used the gift that He gave me. Did I use it to the best of the ability He gave me? Did I serve in the body as effectively as I could have? Did I serve with the right motive? And so on. You can't judge that about me, I can't judge that about you. Only God can do the kind of judgment that would be totally accurate and totally fair because He will judge the action and the motives and all entailed. You see the seriousness of it? As those entrusted with.......... And we can't just sit on it because that would not be faithful stewardship. Because the gifts were given and we were instructed to employ it in serving others. So I have a gift, I'm just going to be careful, I'm not going to do anything that would discredit it, I'm just not going to do anything. That's not faithful stewardship. The gift was given me to do something, to serve, and to serve others. So I'm being an unfaithful steward if I'm not carrying out my stewardship. It's a responsibility God has given.

Come back to Romans 12. Rather than going on in Romans 12, what I want to do is diverge a little bit on this matter of the gifts and the grace for the background of the gifts that many of you are familiar with, but we're going to review it anyway. There is discussion about the gifts, and we move into the specific gifts at the end of Romans 12:6 with the gift of prophecy. And there is a division over how we view the gifts—the cessationists and the non-cessationists, referring to the fact that some people do not believe that all the gifts are present that are referred to in the New Testament. They would be cessationists. They believe some gifts have ceased and are no longer operative today. The others are non-cessationists. They believe that the gifts have not ceased, all of them are present. That's the difference between the charismatic movement as it has become known, the neo-Pentecostal, those who believe in speaking in tongues and performing miracles and so on, and those who do not. Here in this local church we have the position that certain gifts have ceased. They were present in the foundation, the early period of the church in the New Testament but they have not continued on after that early period. One verse that is sometimes taken to support the fact that we ought to have the gifts today is Hebrews 13:8. It says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And sometimes in discussions this verse has been brought up and the person has said to me, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, so I can expect He will do today what He did then. But that's just not true. I cannot expect that Jesus Christ will walk in, in bodily form today and I can go to dinner with Him. But during His three years on earth people went to dinner with Him, sat down with Him, ate with Him and so on. He doesn't do that today. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, He has unchanging character. But that does not mean He does the same thing all the time. He did great and mighty miracles to deliver Israel from bondage in Egypt and destroyed the Egyptians, their enemies. He is not doing that today, He doesn't do the same thing every day. But His character is unchanging and His nature and being as God is unchanging. So that alone would not tell us whether all the gifts are present or not.

There are some gifts that are temporary, they existed for the foundation of the church. Again, most of your have been through this. One of those gifts is the gift of apostle, Paul's gift of being an apostle. That's a debatable area today. Some believe that there are apostles present today. I believe the New Testament indicates the gift of apostleship ceased with the death of the New Testament apostles, there were no others. In fact I believe the scripture indicates that Paul was the last to be placed as an apostle. He identifies himself as an apostle, he starts out Romans 1 where he identified himself as one who had been a called apostle. And we're familiar with that, we've looked at that, we won't go further into that.

Come over to I Corinthians 9. Again there is constant conflict of people who try to discredit Paul's message by discrediting Paul and denying that he was a genuine apostle and so with the church at Corinth he had to defend his apostleship. He does it even more in depth in II Corinthians. I Corinthians 9:1, am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? One of the requirements to be a genuine apostle was you have to have seen Jesus Christ after His resurrection from the dead so that you could be an eyewitness of His resurrection. The apostles were to be eyewitnesses, one of the requirements set down in Acts 2 when they were looking for an apostle to replace Judas. Paul said, am I not a genuine apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? In other words the church in Corinth existed because the Apostle Paul had come and brought the gospel to them and they were saved. That's why he says in verse 2, if to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, you're the seal of apostleship. How did you get saved? You heard me preach the gospel.

But the point we want to pick up is it's required of an apostle that he has seen Jesus after the resurrection. Then he goes on to talk about those that Christ appeared to. Come over to I Corinthians 15. He reminds them of the gospel he had preached in the opening verses of I Corinthians 15. Christ died for our sins, verse 3; He was buried, verse 4, and raised from the dead the third day; verse 5, He appeared. This is the confirmation that He was raised, the seal of a finished work. He appeared to Cephas, that's Peter, then to the twelve, then to more than 500 brethren at one time. Then He appeared to James, verse 7, then to all the apostles. Now note this, and last of all as one untimely born, to me. I'm not fit to be called an apostle, I persecuted the church. But by the grace of God I am what I am. He's an apostle by the grace of God, not by His own worthiness. But he says He appeared to me last. All the appearances here, they don't go on after Paul. He appeared to me, I'm a unique case, I'm one untimely born. The others saw Christ after His resurrection before He ascended in Acts 1. But the Apostle Paul was given a unique appearance of Christ in Acts 9. That qualified him to be an apostle.

Since a requirement to be a genuine apostle was to have seen Christ bodily after His resurrection from the dead, there are no other apostles. The last one qualified by God was the Apostle Paul. That's what the scripture says. He was the last, he was a unique case.

With apostles come to II Corinthians 12:12. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance. Now note, the signs, the attesting miracles that demonstrate a person is truly an apostle, were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs, wonders and miracles. What is Paul saying? The evidence of my apostleship was made clear to you. He's just gone through an extensive defense of his apostleship with the Corinthians in this second letter. The signs, wonders and miracles I performed among you. We say certain miracle gifts were present in the church at Corinth. Yes, but the church at Corinth was a direct result of the Apostle Paul's ministry. The miracles in the church at Corinth were an evidence of Paul's apostleship. That's what he says here. They couldn't say, we have miracles in our church, it's a result of Paul's apostolic ministry in their midst that those things took place. They are the signs of a true apostle. I say that because if apostles were required to have seen Christ after His resurrection, and Paul says he was the last one, there are no further apostles. _________ ______________, I have a couple books that were written a few years ago that talk about the gift of apostleship has been revived. There are different men who claim to be apostles of churches and have written chapters in one of the books. And they have a greater authority than anyone else, they rule over everyone in the church because they have apostolic authority. They are false apostles because Paul said he was the last one. And there are no appearances of the bodily resurrected Christ going on today. There may be claims, but there are no appearances of His in bodily form.

With that according to II Corinthians 12:12, the signs of a true apostle are signs, wonders and miracles, signs being miracles done to attest to the validity of the message and the person. These various gifts that are miraculous in nature—healing, speaking in tongues and so on—they were temporary. They were associated with the apostolic gift. Why? They were necessary to validate the fact that apostles were receiving new revelation from God.

Come to Galatians 1:11, for I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. See what Paul is saying here in Galatians 1:11? I did not receive the gospel I preach from men. For I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. This is new revelation. So the apostles and prophets were given the ability to perform miracles to validate the new revelation they were receiving from the Lord.

Turn over to Ephesians 3. Paul refers to the fact, verse 2, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me. That's the terminology we've seen—I Peter 4, Romans 12. The stewardship of God's grace which was given to me, that's to be an apostle. And part of being an apostle was to receive new revelation from God like the letter to the Ephesians. That by revelation there was made known to me, verse 3, the mystery. A mystery by definition is something that hadn't been revealed before. By referring to this when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it now has been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

So you see the signs of a true apostle, II Corinthians 12:12, were performed among you with all signs, wonders and miracles. Why? God is revealing things He had not revealed before. How do you know this is just not a man making up something, as false teachers make up false claims today? Well God validated their message with miracles.

Hebrews 2:3-4, the writer to the Hebrews says that God validated this new revelation God was giving with signs, wonders and miracles. God bore testimony to them with signs, wonders and miracles. So signs, wonders and miracles, the miraculous gifts as we may call them, were associated with apostles and prophets who were being give new scripture by God. This is why this becomes very important. We have people claiming, these apostles are claiming to be able to speak authoritatively directly from God. Wait a minute, is our Bible not complete? My understanding is that God is not adding any revelation today.

This is serious. I was reading a book that came out in 2005, rereading it this week in connection with this. I referred to it a few years ago. But it's all by professors or graduates of a seminary that has been a leading evangelical seminary that many of our men went to in past years. And the position of this book is that the Bible alone is not adequate. And that's the statement, I found the Bible alone was not adequate; I needed the additional ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now they are not saying that all the gifts are present, but they are saying the Spirit of God brings additional revelation in our lives. And if you just have the Bible and the Spirit working through the Bible in your life, that's not sufficient. We see this erosion of a drift. It's interesting to me that the man who wrote the introduction to this book and the conclusion is a full non-cessationist, a charismatic, because he sees where they are going. Where does it stop? If all the gifts are present and apostles are present, if the word of God is not finished. And they are strong because their seminary's position has been that the word of God is complete, and they think there can be new revelation, additional revelation. And it's tied to our experience. Now we are out walking on water without the ability to walk on water. Paul says revelation was given to me, it was validated.

So I take it that apostles are not a gift, apostleship is not a gift given, the gifts given to validate apostleship are not given. There are foundational gifts. Ephesians 2:20 says that the foundation of the church are the apostles and prophets. That's what we do, we study the book of Romans. That's the teaching of the Apostle Paul given to him by God. We continue to build the church on the foundation of the revelation given through the apostles and prophets. That's our New Testament in addition to the revelation given through Old Testament prophets. There is no new revelation being given.

Let me talk about the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues was the ability to speak a language, an earthly language that you had never studied or learned. That's the gift of tongues. Everything else is an imitation, is false. So all kinds of babbling, garbled speech that professes to be tongues is not genuine. The New Testament gift of tongues was the ability to speak in a language. Babbling speech which is the only kind of tongues as we use it in a religious sense present today, it's practiced by all kinds of pagans. The Mormons speak in tongues. There are books that have been written, ____________ years ago wrote one on tongues and he's an unbelieving linguist. But he demonstrated all the different peoples and different places in the world of all kinds of religious beliefs that practiced garbled speech, babbling speech. But that's not biblical tongues.

To say that it is a heavenly language. Years ago a man named John Sherrill took microphones, recording devices, went all over the world recording, because he himself believes in tongues, tongue speakers to see ............ Had them analyzed by linguists to see if he could find any characteristics of a language. And by his own admission they couldn't find any language. I mean, certain sounds have to have similar meaning, otherwise there is no language going on, they are just sounds.

The New Testament is clear, a tongue or tongues ............ Turn over to Revelation 5:9, singing in heaven, worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals. For you were slain and purchased for God with your blood; men from every tribe and tongue, glossa. We have glossaleo, to speak in tongues, glossa, tongues and aleo, to speak. Glossaleo is speaking in tongues. But here what is it? Men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. We're not just talking about languages here. Every tribe and language and people and nation. Someone may ask, what's your mother tongue. That means what's your mother language because our tongue is what we speak with, what we form our words with.

And that goes on. Revelation 7:9, same thing in Revelation 10:11.

Come back to Acts 2, many of you are here on Sunday nights and we studied this not long ago. The first appearance of speaking in tongues as we think of it, as a miraculous gift. Verse 4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterances. Verse 6, when this sound occurred the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. That word translated language is dialektos, we get it in English as dialect. Each in his dialect, each branch of language. They asked a question, verse 8, how is it that we hear them speak in our own dialect, language, to which we were born? And then they give the variations here—Parthians, Medes, Elamites and all the different places that they were from, including in verse 11, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them in our own tongues. They go back and forth between tongues and dialect, language and the various forms of language here. What are they talking about? Well it's their own language. It even mentions the languages and dialects being used. This is not some kind of garbled, babbling speech.

We say, it was the gift of hearing because they said, we hear them in our own language. Well verse 4 says, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages. No wonder, they heard them in their own languages, that's what they were speaking. I don't think there is any doubt here that we're talking about languages.

One more passage, I Corinthians 14, then we'll have to stop. Paul is talking about tongues particularly since the church at Corinth was divided over this gift. And Paul reminded them at the beginning of chapter 14 that the right use of the gift was for the edification of the church. And if you can't use your gift to edify the church, be quiet in church and talk to yourself at home. All right, down in verse 21, in the law it is written, and he's been talking about the gift of tongues in chapter 14. By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers, I will speak to this people, even though they will not listen to Me, says the Lord. He quotes here from Isaiah 28:11-12, in that context. Well what is Isaiah talking about? Isaiah is prophesying the time when the Assyrians are going to come down into Israel and conquer them. What is he saying? When you hear the Assyrian language being spoken on the streets of your city, you'll know you are under the judgment of God. So the presence of a foreign language in Israel was a sign that God had sent conquerors to punish them.

So when he quotes from Isaiah in I Corinthians 14:21, in the midst of this discussion of tongues, by men of strange tongues, he is obviously talking about a strange language, a language that is strange and different from the Hebrew of the Jews. So verse 22, then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but for unbelievers. It's a sign to unbelieving Israel because they would not listen to Me, verse 21. So it's a sign, a testimony of the unbelief of Israel that this foreign language is there, and I had to send the Assyrians to conquer you. Then later the Babylonians to conquer you. Why? Because of your unbelief.

So in Acts 2 these languages being spoken, they are an evidence miraculously of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but what is that an indication of? God's judgment on the nation Israel because Acts 2 is the beginning of the church. And while the church begins with the salvation of the Jews, it spreads out and become Gentile with few Jews. So the tongues were a sign of God's judgment. The tongues being spoken at Corinth, a Gentile church were a sign that God had judged Israel and now the gospel and His salvation was coming to Gentiles. So tongues were a sign for unbelievers, an evidence that God had brought judgment.

But I Corinthians 14:21 clearly indicates, drawing from the Old Testament, no one disagrees that the strange tongues there are the language of the Assyrians. You go back to read Isaiah 28, you'll see there can be no distinction.

In I Corinthians 14:10, there are perhaps many kinds of tongues or languages in the world, voices. But the word kinds there means nationalities, kindreds, races, genos, certain words in English, but it means a nationality. There are different kinds of voices, languages. And through here that's what he's talking about, the tongues, the voices, the languages, and there are different kinds. Back in I Corinthians 12 he used that word in verses 10 and 28—kinds of tongues. Nationalities of tongues, of languages.

So the ability to speak in foreign language that you had never studied or learned, that was the gift of tongues. It was not an evangelistic gift, it was not given for the purpose of evangelizing. Some people say, well maybe God gives it so people can carry the gospel to new places. No. In Acts 2 they speak in all the dialects, then Peter gets up and presents the gospel in a language that everyone understands. We have the same situation in Acts 8 and in Acts 10 when Peter preaches the gospel to the Gentiles they believe and are saved and then they speak in tongues. He didn't use the gift of languages to bring the gospel to them. The same is in Acts 19 as well. So it's not an evangelistic gift, it's a gift of evidence of God's miraculous work and His judgment on the nation Israel for their unbelief.

All right, the gifts of God, great grace gifts. While not all of them are present, all of them are present, we'll be further into this in our next study, that God intends for us to have today to accomplish His purposes. Certain gifts are not necessary today because they have served their purpose. They were for the early days of the church, now we move on to a later stage.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your word and its richness. Lord, thank you that the grace that brought us salvation has brought us a stewardship of your grace, a special enablement from you to function as part of your body. Lord, may we take seriously the fact that we are stewards of that grace and some day we will give an account before you, the sovereign God, of how we have used that gift of grace for the accomplishing of what you intended us to accomplish, doing the right thing with the right attitude in the right moment so you are honored and glorified in it all. May that characterize our service together until Christ comes. And we pray in His name, amen.