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Transcript 373A — Seeking the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: In I Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 it talks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that we ought to actively seek after these gifts. And I was wondering how we are to go about doing this. Do you just ask for them and hope to receive them, or what?
HC: The Bible, in I Corinthians 12-14, says, "Seek especially to prophesy." Remember that?
CALLER: Yes.
HC: Now why does it say, "especially to prophesy"? You see, the only person who legitimately is a prophet in the eyes of God is the born again believer. And since Pentecost every born again believer, man, woman or child, is given the office of a prophet. The gift that we really are to seek is that we might be qualified by God to declare God's Word. That's what prophesying really means in the broadest sense, to declare God's Word.
Now the source of God's Word is the Bible. This is what we are to declare to others. Now God also speaks about other gifts. There is the gift of faith, and every born again believer has the gift of faith. Now there are other gifts. There's the gift of teaching. Some are better teachers, more qualified to be a teacher than others. But every believer is qualified to be a witness, and that is what we are to seek, to make sure that we are born again
Now in times past there were some very special gifts, which are also named in I Corinthians 12-14. For example, there was the gift of being able to do miracles. Before the Holy Spirit was poured out, and this is always kind of an amazing thing to me. You know, there are people today who speak about the gifts of the Spirit and relate this to Pentecost. They want to identify with Pentecost, and then they make a big thing about the gifts of the Spirit. And they particularly focus on gifts like doing miracles, or healing. But the fact is that there were far more people who were gifted by God to heal and to do miracles before Pentecost than after Pentecost. And that is never mentioned. But that is the fact.
When Christ was on earth, there were the seventy that went out, there were the apostles, and of course there was Jesus Himself. They had special gifts of being able to do miracles, or being able to heal. After Pentecost we only read of five of the apostles – that is all – there's not another individual after Pentecost recorded in the Bible who was able to heal or do miracles. We read it of Peter and James and John and Philip and Paul. These are the only ones.
And so it is true, what I Corinthians 12-14 indicates, that there were some who had the gift of healing and of doing miracles. But actually, to do miracles or healing is not really an integral part of God's ongoing program. Healing and doing miracles is to bring signs. The word sign in the New Testament is the word miracle. And Jesus already, when He was on earth, warned the Jews, "An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh for a sign," or for a miracle.
Later on we read that we are to walk by faith, "The just shall live by faith," not by sight. In other words, miracles and healings, miraculous healings, are not a part of God's salvation program, even though for a little while some did this, during the days when the Bible was still being prepared.
Now there was also the gift of speaking in heavenly languages, called tongues, in I Corinthians 12-14. This was at a time before the Bible was completed. It was still the day when an apostle could receive a vision from God, or an individual might receive an angel confrontation, or he may receive a message from God in a dream. All of this was possible, because the Bible was not complete.
And so also it was true in the church at Corinth. There were some who received some kind of a message from God in a heavenly language, and they were admonished to be sure to have someone interpret it, particularly if it was in the presence of the congregation, so that the whole congregation could be edified by this message from God. And so it became a revelation from God.
Now all of that was possible only until the Bible was completed, because when the Bible was completed God indicated, in Revelation 22:18, "If anyone adds to the words of this book, I will add to him the plagues written herein." In other words, He closed off the possibility that ever again would He be speaking with divine truth from a source other than the Bible itself.
CALLER: But do you believe then that people who speak in tongues, or who claim to speak in tongues, or the faith healers, are not from God then?
HC: According to what the Bible teaches, anyone who claims to have received a message from God, whether it's in an unknown language, or whether it was in a vision, or a dream, or whatever, you can depend upon it, it was not from God. It may have been out of their minds, it may have been a hallucination, it may even have been from Satan, because Satan goes about as an angel of light. He works overtime in the secular world in the occult activity. And certainly, since the Bible warns constantly about his activity in the church, we would expect to see occult activity in the church.
A lot of the miracles, of course, that are being done are not really miracles. No one is doing miracles today like Jesus did. No one is healing those who have withered limbs, so that instantly they are able to walk around. No one is raising the dead. No one is healing those who have leprosy instantaneously. No one is able to go into a hospital and go from bed to bed and heal each one. That is not happening today.
There is a lot of activity that is looked upon as miraculous healing. Some of this is psychosomatic illness that has been corrected by the fact that the patient is putting his trust in what the healer is saying. Some of it is chicanery. Some of it is deception. And so forth. There may be a lot of explanations for it.
But the kind of healing that Jesus did is just not being done today.
CALLER: Okay, granted. But I know many devout Christians, I myself included, I mean, I have spoken in tongues, and I would hate to think that this was from Satan. I couldn't believe that, not the way I feel when it happens. I feel very close to God. I feel a very personal relationship to Him.
HC: Well, I can't answer to you, or tell you where your tongues came from I can only tell you what the Bible says. Now I do want to say this, that in II Corinthians 11 God does declare that Satan comes as an angel of light. Now I know, speaking for myself personally, I would want to make absolutely certain that any visitation I had was from God. And the only thing I'm certain of is the Bible. I know that that is from God. I also know that Satan does go about as an angel of light. He is able to practice his occult powers. And therefore I would not want anything to do with anything at all that relates to the occult. The Bible is not an occult book. When we become saved, it is true that a supernatural event has occurred, and that we have experienced the resurrection of our souls, we've become a child of God, and all of this is supernatural.
But the supernatural has not broken into the everyday world in the sense where we can touch it and see it and feel it. And the occult activity is where this happens. The medium, for example, is able to do this, as she claims to be talking with those who have departed. And actually, she's speaking with evil spirits, obviously. Witchcraft is of this nature. Occult activity is everywhere.
If you really want to be absolutely safe in Christ, then you want to listen only to the Word of God, and you want to carefully examine anything that goes on, to make sure that it is not something that is beyond the Word of God. And there are many gospels today, many, many gospels. But there's only one true Gospel. Now each gospel thinks that it is the true Gospel. There are many gospels, for example, which start out with the Bible. They believe that the Bible is the divine Word of God. But they also believe that another book is the divine Word of God. Well then, by definition that's going to be a different gospel than if we believe only the Bible is the divine Word, because our authority is going to be different. The gospel that has another book is going to have a far more expanded authority than just the Bible.
Now by the same token, there are gospels that start out with the Bible, and they also believe that God is speaking through visions today, or revelations outside of the Bible. Well, then their authority is the Bible plus what they expect to receive from these visions or these revelations, or these dreams, or whatever. So by definition it's another kind of a gospel than that which would be circumscribed just by the Bible. Obviously you're going to have a different foundation upon which to build truth.
Now I personally believe that the only true Gospel is circumscribed by the Bible. It alone and in its entirety is the divine Word.
CALLER: I agree with you, but the Bible says that the Spirit will intercede for you when you don't know quite what to pray for. And Paul says, "I thank God that I speak in tongues," and it is something.
HC: But you see, when Paul said that he was still living at a time when God had not completed His divine Word. The apostle John was going to receive a series of Revelations on the island of Patmos after that. And other of the apostles received visions. For that time that was entirely possible
But now we have the whole Word of God. Now we have the entire Word of God, and it alone is the divine Word. We have to make a decision, and every person makes this decision. Am I going to trust the Word of God and it alone and in its entirety, or am I going to start out with the Word of God and then either take away parts of it that I don't particularly care for, as some religions or some gospels do, or am I going to add to it whatever comes along by other visitations?
Now in either of the latter two cases, you end up with a different gospel, even though you may think you have the true Gospel. But obviously it's going to be a different gospel, and you're going to come up with different doctrines, and that happens much more quickly than if you believe the Bible alone is the divine Word.
Now I admit, the true Gospel is not very exciting. This is one of the problems that people face. There are many gospels today that are very exciting. There are manifestations, and there's so much outward evidence that some kind of a miraculous thing has occurred. And so this becomes exceedingly exciting and enticing.
The true Gospel isn't like that at all. The true Gospel has to do with a broken and a contrite heart. The true Gospel has to do with coming to God like the publican of old, "Oh God, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner." It has to do with walking by faith, patiently reading the Bible to discover what God's will is, and trusting, and being obedient to what is in the Bible, and not trying to do like those around Jesus, looking for something that is a miracle, like Jesus warned, "An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh for a sign [or a miracle]."
The true Gospel, as the world looks at it, is not a bit exciting. It strips us of our self-respect, of our pride. We've got to admit that we're nothing but a rotten sinner before God. There's nothing that I can do to contribute to my salvation. My works mean nothing. There's no manifestation. Heaven doesn't open up in a bolt of light of any kind. There's no feeling of some kind in my soul. It means that I simply have trusted implicitly and altogether in what the Bible declares. And that is the nature of the true Gospel, and that is not very exciting to most people. Most people want something far more wonderful than that.
But the true Gospel, once we have it, we know that we are safe in Christ. We know that Satan can have nothing on us. There's no way that he can get at us. He can't deceive us with a vision or something that looks exactly like it is Christ speaking. There's no way he can do this, because we have the Bible as the only source of divine truth.
CALLER: Are you saying then that the sections of the Bible that relate to gifts of the Spirit, that relate to being able to pray to God through the Spirit, were meant for the people then and not us now?
HC: There are statements in the Bible that, in fact, the whole Bible has to be read in the light of the whole Bible. I can point out passages, for example, in the Old Testament where the Israelites were commanded to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, or their children were commanded to be circumcised. And when we come to the New Testament, we see that Jesus was circumcised. And we see that Jesus celebrated the Passover. He was strictly obedient to those Old Testament commands. But we don't do those things anymore. Why don't we do those things anymore? Because later on in the Bible we find that those particular laws were completed in Christ's going to the cross.
All right. Now by the same token, you can read in I Corinthians 12-14 where it talks about gifts of the Spirit, it talks about healings and miracles and tongues. And that was all valid for that day. Those things could have happened. But we have to finish reading the Bible. We interpret scripture with scripture.
Just as we finish reading the Bible and we find that no longer are we to do what Jesus did and be circumcised on the eighth day, nor are we to do what Jesus did and celebrate the Passover or celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. Why don't we do it? Because when we interpret those statements in the light of the rest of the Bible, we find we're not to do this any longer.
Now by the same token, when we read the rest of the Bible and find that God has completed His holy Word and that we're not to walk by miracles, then we know that we're not to expect those things today. And yet we have the whole Bible to follow.
The amazing thing to me is, and it's an amazing thing to me, in a sense, in another sense I can understand it. But we have this marvelous holy scripture, which is the revelation of God's will for man, in which we can read word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and every one of those words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs is the voice of God. And no man has ever plumed the depths of the riches of the Word of God. And we can spend hour after hour, thousands of hours, studying it and comparing it and chewing on the Word and meditating on the phrases. And we always know, absolutely, this is the Word of God. We absolutely know that it is God's voice for us.
And yet with all of this possibility, men today want something different. They want something more. They want something that they can hear. They may not really be sure of what they hear, but this is what they're going to pay attention to.
Now frankly, I want to rest my case with the Bible. And I know that when I stick with the Bible I'm on very safe ground.
And thank you so much for calling. Good night.