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MANIFESTATIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Theme: “The manifestations of the Holy Spirit enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12 are for the Church today.” Most of the church world is ignorant of spiritual gifts, which is not the way God would have it. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11: We have chosen to call them manifestations of the Holy Spirit because the word gifts does not actually appear in the original Greek in this passage, but the word manifestation does. We will go over the gifts individually, but there are some general truths we can learn about them from this passage. Anyone truly operating by the influence of the Holy Spirit will say and do things that exalt the Lordship of Jesus; no one would ever do anything to dishonor Jesus or contradict the Bible. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible will not tell you something in a service that contradicts what is forever settled in heaven! If someone were to say, “Thus saith the Lord! Jesus is truly the most beautiful thing I ever created!” you would know that it was not of God, because Jesus always “was” from the beginning; He is not a created being. If someone purports to predict when Jesus is coming back, you know that isn’t from God because He says no one knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36). There are different operations described here, but all of them are given for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ. A judgmental, condemning “prophecy” like “You rotten backslidden morons, you shall surely lose your jobs and apartments because the Lord Thy God is displeased with thy tattoos and pierced noses” would really never be from God. Such a “word” would not build up anyone, and the manifestations of the Spirit are given to build up others, not tear them down. The manifestations of the Spirit described here are not limited to formal church settings; in particular, the “power gifts” would be likely to be in manifestation out in public where they’re more desperately needed! We can see that public displays of miracles were common in the Bible. Another truth in this passage must be easy to miss, because the majority of churches do miss it. “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.” “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” God never intended for the manifestations of the Spirit to be for a select few or for a small number of local churches. He wants to use everyone, including you, in these supernatural ways. You should be open to such things when you come to church. 1 Corinthians 14:26, a scripture that is almost universally ignored, says, “How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification [building up].” God wants to use believers in services, not just pulpit ministers! So let’s look at the some ways the Holy Spirit may manifest Himself in a service. These manifestations are not the ONLY way the Spirit of God will move on people in services, since He will sometimes move on entire congregations to pray, worship, be still before the Lord, repent, and various other things. The manifestations we discuss here involve using individuals. They are sometimes divided into three groups: the vocal gifts, which say something (tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy); the revelation gifts, which reveal something (word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits); and the power gifts, which do something (gifts of healings, working of miracles, faith). As we will see, “faith” here is perhaps best referred to as “special faith” for something, since all believers by definition have faith; otherwise they wouldn’t be believers! For any of these manifestations, you would “move” in them when you feel that the Holy Spirit is leading you to do it. If your church expects you to let the pastor know and get his approval first, make sure you let him know that you have something. How do you know that the Holy Spirit is leading you to do something? Usually it’s something you know is not just “you”. It won’t be anything your head would have come up with just then. We encourage our people to be bold with these things. If you never step out, you’ll never do anything. We do our best to provide an environment where people can grow and make mistakes without being run out of town on a rail because of it. Often people who are new at this will start with something God gave, then end with throwing their own “spin” on what God just said. We’re not going to ridicule sincere people who make this mistake. I would rather see people be bold and maybe make mistakes at first than to never dare do anything for fear of “missing it.” You aren’t under the Law of Moses; no one is going to stone you to death if you miss God. If someone tries to do or say something that would be really harmful to the flock, the pastor needs to stop it and explain why he did it. But if it’s just something where someone went on past what the Spirit really inspired but the message wasn’t harmful, the pastor should deal with it privately with the person later. Sometimes it’s just something the person read in the Bible that morning, and it was really more for that person than for the congregation in general, but people need space to learn to follow the Spirit. If the pastor makes a habit of criticizing people publicly for what they do, no one will want to do anything! If you wonder if something was okay or not, ask your pastor afterward for his honest opinion of it if he doesn’t say anything to you first. Don’t get caught in head games trying to figure out if what you feel impressed to do is a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom or a general prophecy. We distinguish these manifestations to discuss them, but the important thing is to flow with the Holy Spirit, not to tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out the technical name for what you’re doing! Tongues We started discussing tongues in an earlier lesson. There are two uses for tongues, one is for your own private prayer and the other is for public utterances. The first you can do whenever you want; the second you would only do when the Holy Spirit moves you to do it. This is primarily a sign for the unbeliever (1 Corinthians 14:22); you would expect to see more messages in tongues in a service with unbelievers present than you would if everyone is a Christian. If only believers are present, God will more likely move through prophecy rather than through an interpreted tongue. Tongues and interpretation are different from the other gifts because they depend on each other. Tongues that aren’t interpreted are of no use to the people (1 Corinthians 14:5), and obviously there can be no interpretation of tongues if there is no message in tongues in the first place. Interpretation of Tongues After a message in tongues, it is proper to wait for the interpretation. This does not mean translation. In a rare case, the tongues may be a language someone present is familiar with. But most of the time, the language will be unknown to everyone. The Holy Spirit will move on someone to interpret what was just said. This will not necessarily be a word-for-word translation; sometimes a long message in tongues will have a short interpretation and a short message in tongues will have a long interpretation. If you feel that the Holy Spirit has given you the interpretation for the message in tongues, be bold to move out and give it. (If the pastor wants people to check with him first, get his attention and let him know you believe you have the interpretation. He may just ask if anyone has the interpretation, which would open the door for you to give it). Allow the interpretation to flow out of your spirit – your inner man – rather than from your head. In other words, if a couple words sound like something you learned in Spanish class, don’t assume that the interpretation must involve the English equivalent of that Spanish word, since the message in tongues was not likely to have really been in Spanish! You may wonder how you would know that you have the interpretation. There’s no good way to describe it for you in words; it’s something you come to just know as you get to know the move of the Spirit. The giving of a message in tongues followed by an interpretation is equivalent to prophecy, described below. It is okay to give the interpretation for your own message in tongues, though this would probably be the exception, not the rule. Sometimes this happens when someone else “has” the interpretation but is not bold enough to step out with it; the Holy Spirit will then move on someone else to give it. Prophecy This is speaking on God’s behalf, delivering a message from God to the hearers. Messages do not have to be given in a squeaky shrill voice or start with “Thus saith the Lord,” you can deliver the message in your normal speech, though you will probably sense the anointing of the Spirit upon you as you give it, and this may make your speech more passionate than usual. A couple of the manifestations we’ll discuss below would generally flow as prophecies, but the simple gift of prophecy on its own is to speak “edification and exhortation and comfort to men” (1 Corinthians 14:3). A message during a Sunday service would not warn nations to repent or tell elected officials that God will remove them from office. People get confused sometimes because they know that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel were prophets and did this kind of thing in the Old Testament; their prophecies often involved strict judgement. You have to remember which covenant you’re under! You are not Isaiah or Jeremiah. Does your message build up, exhort and comfort? You’re on safe ground. If your message condemns or tears down, it is safe to say that you have not really heard from God! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17), so if you are speaking by the Spirit of the Lord, your message will produce liberty, not bondage and condemnation, in the hearers. There are general prophecies for the church, and occasionally there may be a personal prophecy for someone. Someone who stands in the ministry office of prophet (which we’ll discuss more in the final lesson to follow) would be more likely to do something like this. Agabus gave Paul a personal word from the Lord in Acts 21:11, but an unknown layperson named Ananias was used to deliver a personal message from the Lord to Paul (known as Saul at the time) in Acts 9:17. However, a lot of damage has been done in some churches by people running around handing out personal “words from the Lord” that are utter garbage. A good rule to follow is that if you’re going to give someone a word, talk to the pastor first and get his blessing to do it. Some would say, “Well, I must obey God rather than men, so I’ll just do what the Lord wants regardless of what the pastor says!” But that’s rebellion, not submission, because God works through authority in the local church. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32); no one has the right to run around prophesying in a local assembly without being accountable for it. Also, no one in the New Covenant is to be led by personal prophecies! God gave you the Holy Spirit to be your Guide, not personal prophecies. A valid prophecy will confirm what God is telling you on the inside. If the prophecy makes no sense to you, just ignore it! God will never judge you for failure to act on a personal prophecy! I know of a man who went to Africa as a missionary because someone prophesied to him that he should do it! He came back a few weeks later utterly beat up. God wasn’t in it at all. He had no training or qualification or anointing to go plant churches in Africa. He just went because he got a personal “word” in a service that he should go. That’s crazy! Some have even gone so far to say that if you have a major decision in your life, you should go to a prophet. The New Testament teaches no such thing! If you have a major decision, you should talk to your Heavenly Father about it yourself! God said that as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the [mature] sons of God (Romans 8:14). A word may confirm what you have and encourage you, but you should never change direction just because someone “prophesied” something to you. And by the way, just because someone misses God when prophesying to you doesn’t mean that the person is wicked and should be stoned to death at the city limits. (Thank God you’re not under the Law of Moses!) Some people just haven’t been taught right in this area. Some have been taught that you can just “believe” that you will get a word for someone and just start speaking, believing that God will give you a prophetic word for the person. That’s dangerous! People start getting in the flesh and giving out “thus saith the flesh” words without knowing it when they do that, and they find it hard to really hear from the Spirit when they play games like that. You don’t give a prophecy because “you” feel like you want to do it; you only do it if you think the Spirit of God wants you to do it. “For prophecy never came from the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). If you go around thinking you can initiate prophecies anytime at your will, you will get into error and probably drag some others into confusion with you. There are sometimes people who will want to give you “parking lot prophecies” when no pastor or congregation is around to judge what you say. These sometimes end up trying to “prophesy” the pastor out of his pulpit! Such people should be reported to your pastor at once! Sometimes the Lord may give you a complete “word” before you come to church. In this case, let the pastor know you have something. At other times, though, He may only give you the first part of a message and you’ll only get the rest as you step out and are bold to give what you have. That takes faith, but the just are supposed to live by faith! Different people will be used differently; the same “message” would probably be “colored” differently based on who is giving it. That’s okay as long as the content is from the Lord. One person might say, “The Lord says, ‘I love you. You are precious in My sight. Will you spend some time with Me?’” while another might say, “God wants ya to know that He loves y’all and you’re worth a whole bunch to Him. Won’tcha spend time hangin’ out with Him?” But any form of prophecy will exalt Jesus, not Satan and not man. Keep in mind Revelation 19:10: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” I have heard a few prophecies in my time given to men that seemed to puff them and their ministries up rather than exalt the Lord. I have sat in services and heard that a particular church will be the “focus of revival in New England ”, “cradle of revival in New England”, “center of revival in New England”, “starting point of revival in New England” and so on, and the curious thing to me is that this was at several different churches, none of which was pastored by the man to whom it was prophesied that he was basically the apostle over New England and New England was his! So I guess all these “prophets” missed it, or we can at least say that at best, all but one missed it! Watch out if you get a word like this; the devil would love to puff your head up and make you thing you’re a bigger deal than you really are. Word of Wisdom God has ALL wisdom, but sometimes He’ll share a piece of that wisdom during a service so that all can see His wisdom in a particular matter. The Bible is not specific about what kind of wisdom might be spoken in a “word of wisdom”. Some teach that this always involves a future event, and that has become a fairly accepted concept, but the Bible doesn’t really say that anywhere in black and white. What this definitely isn’t is a way for you as a believer to get general wisdom for living. James didn’t say to seek a “word of wisdom” in a service if you need God’s wisdom about something specific; he said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Instead, a “word of wisdom” would be the sharing of a particular part of God’s wisdom regarding a certain matter. That’s about all we can say based on 1 Corinthians 12, since there really are no more details. The word of wisdom would generally come forth as some kind of prophecy. However, sometimes something will be “revealed” to someone in pictures and impressions in the Spirit, and the person just communicates what he sees. In such a case, what the person was shown was from the Lord, but the Lord did not specify any exact words to be used while describing it. One might categorize Paul’s urging to the sailors in Acts 27:10 as a word of wisdom from the Lord – “Don’t sail now or you’ll have a shipwreck!” God knew that the ship would be wrecked and tried to warn the sailors through Paul, but they didn’t listen, and the ship did end up getting wrecked! God is better at predicting the weather than any Internet weather service, and He knew that a horrible storm was coming across what would be their path when the sailors didn’t know that. Word of Knowledge Just as a word of wisdom gives some specific wisdom from an all-wise God, a word of knowledge gives some specific knowledge from an all-knowing God. Again, this can be spoken forth as a prophecy but also as a description of what someone sees in the Spirit. God isn’t a gossip; He’s only going to share something with you on a “need to know” basis. One common display of the word of knowledge is in conjunction with gifts of healings; the minister may know by the Spirit that a certain condition is present, and call out the person to be prayed for – or even just tell that person that God is healing him in his seat. The minister would not necessarily have any way to know, but the Holy Spirit knows everything. Some prominent healing evangelists have ministered this way the majority of the time. That isn’t the ONLY way to see people healed, but it’s one way God uses people. Again, 1 Corinthians 12 doesn’t go into detail about exactly what kinds of knowledge might be shared this way. Discerning of Spirits This manifestation is sometimes mistakenly called “discernment” or “discerning between spirits”. Some people have claimed to have the gift of “discernment” who really have the gift of “fault-finding”! They think that God lets them “discern” everyone’s hidden faults, which they then share publicly. That’s not encouraging or uplifting, is it? One minister said that if such people who think they have the “gift of discernment” would turn it on themselves, they’d never want to operate in it as long as they lived! The other mistake is that people think this manifestation is to tell if a prophecy was from God or not, or to “discern” which spirit was behind a message. You don’t need a special manifestation for that; most of the people in the room can probably tell you if something is really from God or not! I like the explanation one minister gave for how to tell the difference between the fire of the Spirit and burning flesh – “Burning flesh stinks!” If something is from God, it uplifts the service and the people in it. If it’s just man yakking away, it is a let-down for the service and the people in it. No special manifestation is required for that, though experience helps – you can have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil as a believer (Hebrews 5:14). Discerning of spirits means just what it says! Someone, by the Holy Spirit, is given a glimpse of something in the spirit realm. This sometimes involves seeing angels. It can also involve seeing demons. But beware of people who see seven demons under every rock! If someone is really used this way, he ought to be seeing more angels than demons! Some people unwittingly give the devil glory by declaring that demons are everywhere, without mentioning that angels are everywhere too! Remember, the manifestations of the Spirit always exalt Jesus, not Satan! If something that is said makes Satan seem big and bad and terrifying, that’s not God speaking! I remember a service where a man who looked like an Old Testament Jew walked into our service. I thought it was great that we had a visitor; at the time his presence would boost attendance by about 10%! Things were quite normal until all of sudden the man vanished into thin air! He wasn’t really a man; he must have been an angel, since normal people don’t just vanish like that. I’ve also seen a “man” walk out in a swamp and disappear and another walk through a wall and disappear, and in all these cases the person just looked like a normal guy until that happened! However, it’s quite possible to see an angel looking big and strong and clothed in white. They can manifest themselves in different ways. Some people saw big, imposing angels in the New Testament, but Hebrews 13:2 says that you can unwittingly entertain angels, so they sometimes can look like an everyday person! Also, sometimes certain people have sensed the presence of an angel without actually seeing one. This manifestation is sometimes faked by those who think that every Christian has one or more demons that need to be cast out and supposedly “sees” them. Avoid this nonsense. The believers in Acts did believe in and practice the casting out of demons, as we do, but they didn’t run around all day trying to cast demons out of each other. People have made up all kinds of things that don’t exist, like spirits of gluttony, where the Bible declares such things to be works of the flesh, not the work of evil spirits. It would be wonderful if you could just cast demons out of everybody to solve all their problems, but their real issue– and yours – is dealing with your flesh and keeping it in subjection to your reborn spirit man on the inside. You can’t cast out the flesh, you can only keep it under! Special Faith All believers have general faith; that is not any special manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The kind of “faith” mentioned here can’t be the kind of faith every believer has, since then everyone would flow in it. There are times, when God will give a person special faith for something impossible. I have been used this way in relation to healing. Most of the time, you have to explain how healing is received and then lay hands on the person and expect him to believe he receives as you pray. But when this gift is in operation, you suddenly feel like Superman and end up commanding someone to be healed who might not have a lick of faith! You just KNOW that it’s going to be done and a great holy boldness comes on you. You could also probably say that walking on water would be in this category as well as stilling storms or moving them. I was doing a healing crusade in the Caribbean during hurricane season, and a tropical storm named Bonnie was intensifying and heading straight for the island where I was doing the crusade. I guess that’s the closest I’ve been to moving a mountain, since Bonnie was a big mountain of clouds. I commanded Bonnie to turn away in the name of Jesus and miss that island as well as the ones nearby (I wasn’t trying to “inflict” the storm on someone else!), and Bonnie did an abrupt 90-degree turn and missed the island and the other ones before doing another 90-degree turn and continuing in “her” original direction. BEFORE that happened in the natural, though, I announced to everyone that the services would go on the next day as scheduled because the storm was NOT coming to the island as the government had warned. That takes some boldness, and it was definitely God’s boldness at work, not my usual level of it! You can split hairs on definitions, and if someone wanted to call that working of miracles, I guess I wouldn’t argue. But I know that there was a “special” faith involved – “I knew that I knew that I knew” that the storm would move even before there was any natural evidence that it was turning. Also, on many occasions as the Spirit willed, I have spoken to computer equipment in the name of Jesus and commanded it to start working again, and it did. At the time, there was no question in my mind that it would happen, though afterward I had chances to think, “What on earth did I just do?” Again, my normal faith couldn’t do that; if it could, I would be very rich from a Holy Spirit computer fixing business! Again, this kind of thing brings glory to the Lord Jesus because the name of Buddha and the name of Mohammed have never been known to move storms or repair computer equipment. Working of Miracles Just as Jesus did miracles, believers can do miracles in His name, and sometimes there will be a special manifestation of the Spirit for a miracle. For example, some multi-story scaffolding was falling down with someone on it, and someone I know command that scaffolding to stop falling, and it did, and the man got off okay. There are “miracles of healing” (Acts 4:22) but also other kinds. There was even a miracle of judgement in Acts 13:11; a practitioner of false religion was trying to talk someone out of believing in Jesus, and the person was struck blind for a while. This manifestation probably doesn’t require much explanation; a miracle is something you can’t explain in the natural, and God will do miracles on certain occasions through people as He wills. Having said that, though, if you need a miracle, you can believe for it and receive it from God without waiting for any kind of manifestation of the Spirit. In fact, you can always get every need met by receiving the answer by faith without any manifestations of the Spirit in operation. You don’t have to wait until someone who flows in this manifestation comes to town to get your miracle; Jesus has already provided it. So why have special manifestations of miracles, then, why not just have teaching on receiving miracles? Because some of these miracles are done for signs and wonders to the unbelievers who are around to show them that Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead and really is Lord of all. Since miracles are often signs and wonders, it would be natural to expect them “out on the street” where the unbelievers are, though they can certainly happen in church too. Gifts of Healings Note that both gifts and healings are plural. I’ve met quite a few people who flow in these gifts, and certain ones have greater success with some conditions than others. A couple had tremendous success with back problems, one had great success praying for people with tumors, flat feet and limbs that need to grow out, another often laid hands on women who couldn’t have babies and then they had babies! Why does God move like that? I don’t know; you’d have to ask Him! I just know that some people seem to specialize in certain things, often things they’ve been healed of themselves. Their testimony helps build an expectation in those who hear who have the same problem. Any believer has the right to lay hands on the sick and see them recover as an act of faith. They might not recover instantly, but they will get well as they continue to believe. But many times something dramatic and instantaneous will happen when “gifts of healings” are in operation; someone is instantly able to do things he couldn’t do before, bones snap and crack into place, crooked body parts are instantly made straight, limbs grow out in front of everyone, a missing vertebrae appears out of nowhere, and so on. I’ve been an eyewitness to all this; I’m not making this stuff up! You can always lay hands on someone in faith, and many times that becomes the starting point as you obey the Word in that area. Something extra can then occur where you feel the anointing flowing through you into the person who needs the healing, and the sick person immediately notices the difference. It’s that extra flow of the anointing that denotes the gifts of healings in operation as opposed to just simple faith. It doesn’t have to involve physical contact; sometimes the anointing just hits someone when his condition is called out as a “word of knowledge.” Sometimes God just zaps people around the room with his power and heals them without even telling the minister! I know because I’ve been the minister, and I was the last to know what was going on! God can use anyone in these gifts, not just ministers! The anointing might suddenly be on a small child to lay hands on sick people, and if that’s the case, the church would be wise to cooperate and let God move! Finally, I want to point out that being used in the manifestations of the Spirit neither requires nor proves maturity as a believer. You can flow in these the day you’re born again if you’re open to that! And it’s possible to speak with the tongues of angels of men and have not love, prophesy and have all kinds of wisdom and knowledge and have not love, and have faith that could move mountains and have not love – because Paul said so in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. Trouble is, it means you are nothing and you gain nothing, which Paul also said! But some have even had large ministries for a time who walked in no love or self-discipline, so it’s possible to do it – for a while! It didn’t prove out to be a good long-term plan for them; they died prematurely. Galatians 5:6 talks about “faith working by love.” Some use this verse to teach that you can’t walk in faith if you don’t walk in love, but 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 proves otherwise. We know that you can’t please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6). Still, God is love (1 John 4:8), and love is greater than faith (1 Corinthians 13:13), so you won’t please God if you don’t walk in love, too! So don’t be dazzled by Holy Spirit manifestations in a ministry, even ours! They don’t prove a thing as far as demonstrating that the ones being used are mature. They are not merit badges for good behavior. The Corinthians were obviously as carnal as they come, but they still “came behind in no gift” (1 Corinthians 1:7). Meanwhile, some older believers with excellent love walks (for which they will be rewarded) might not ever been used in these manifestations just because they’ve never been told they can! Question 20-1: Can I “claim” a particular manifestation I want to be used in by faith? No, but you can earnestly desire to be used in the manifestations of the Spirit in general. How He actually uses you in largely up to Him. Remember, the Spirit distributes individually as He wills, not as we will. You can still ask to be used a certain way; Scripture tells us explicitly to desire to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1). But you can’t make God use you in any particular way. Question 20-2: I’m visiting a service down at First Denominational where they don’t believe in tongues, and I think I have a message in tongues. Should I speak it out? No. God will honor the choice of the church’s pastor. He is in authority in that service. If his church rule is “No tongues allowed here!” it would be out of order for you to speak out in tongues knowing that the pastor disapproves. “But isn’t that quenching the Spirit?” Yes, but it’s the pastor who has chosen to quench the Spirit by not allowing tongues at his church, in direct violation of 1 Corinthians 14:39: “Do not forbid to speak with tongues.” God won’t move by His Spirit like that in assemblies where His manifestations are not welcome. However, you can pray in tongues quietly enough so that others can’t hear you if you want. I used to do that when I got together with other ministers to pray who I knew were not fans of Holy Spirit manifestations. You can still just “speak to yourself and to God” in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:28). Question 20-3: I really have something, but I can’t get the pastor’s attention, and he expects us get his permission before speaking something out. What do I do? If the rule is that you need his permission, you don’t do anything if you can’t get his attention. I’ve been in this position before (obviously not at PBFC, where I am the pastor!). I would pray and ask God to get his attention for me! However, there were still times when I had something and couldn’t get the pastor’s attention, and the pastor missed God on the matter (and said so later). But you still don’t have the right to be “out of order” just because you really have something. Question 20-4: Paul talks about those “having” gifts of healings and “having” the gift of prophecy; do some people possess a gift that they can exercise at will? No, some people are used more consistently in one manifestation than another, but they are always manifested as the Spirit wills, as 1 Corinthians 12:11 makes clear. Trying to “manifest” a gift yourself leads only to trouble. Let the Holy Spirit use you and follow Him. Question 20-5: Is it possible that God would use one person in more than one of these manifestations or even all nine of them? Certainly! He has used me in all of them, but even with me, the Holy Spirit uses me more consistently in some than others. The point of one having a prophecy, another having a tongue, and so on, refers to a single service; you could flow in more than one of these at different times, and sometimes you could be used in more than one in the same service! Question 20-6: Why do many churches teach that manifestations of the Spirit are not for today? The first reason is probably that they never see any of these manifestations in their church, so they assume that God doesn’t move that way anymore. Of course, He won’t move that way in a church that is not open to it. Then certain “cessationist” teachers have taught them that tongues and other gifts have ceased because “the perfect” has come, which they take to mean the completion of the New Testament. They quote Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, but this very passage disproves their position! While it’s true, and stated, that these manifestations will pass away when the perfect has come, the problem is their definition of “the perfect”. Paul said that when the perfect comes, we will see face to face, not in a mirror dimly, and we will know just as we are known. I don’t see everything “face to face” and I don’t know perfectly, do you? So that day of “the perfect” has not yet come, which proves that the manifestations of the Spirit have not been done away with yet! [On to Lesson 21: Ministry Gifts][Basics Index][Bible Study Index][Home] |
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