Classroom: Gifts of the Spirit TWO 03-22-07
03-22-07 Pastor Nabil
Gifts of the Spirit 2
Let us continue looking at the gifts of the Spirit. We’ll start by taking a look, again, at this passage.
1 Corinthians 12:8-10
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
Remember there are three types of gifts?
Gifts of Revelation:
Word of Wisdom
Word of Knowledge
Discerning of spirits
Gifts of Power
Gift of Faith
Work of Miracles
Gifts [note the plural] of healing
Gifts of utterances
Prophesy
Different kinds of tongues
Interpretation of tongues
We’ve already gone through the gifts of utterances; today we’ll be talking about the other six.
There is a story in Mark 11:21-23
And Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered." And Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.
The gift of faith. Have faith in God. The actual translation should be “have faith of God.” Now we cannot always have this faith. But sometimes God gifts us to have this faith when we need it. This is not the natural faith that we are normally walking in. It’s a supernatural faith that we get sometimes. It comes in certain moments and fulfills a purpose, and it will come again when God has another purpose.
Here are a few other examples.
Mark 4:36-41
And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?"
Luke 7:12-15
As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Now do you see what this is? The gift of faith? It’s not the natural gift that we have – but it’s the supernatural gift. Now let’s go to the next gift of power.
The Gifts of Healings.
Why is it the gifts of healings, plural? Sometimes you’ll notice that in the Body of Christ, some people are very effective in prayer for some kind of sickness.
I had a desk for many years; but at a time in my life – I was thirsty and hungry for God and I wanted to walk in this realm of the Spirit; and I hadn’t prayed for the sick before even though I was a pastor at that time. But I would go to visit a sick man I would ask about the doctor and about the medicine – and suppose I’d pray at the end. I would pray, “Oh Lord, please give this man to know what this sickness means and allow the pain and suffering to glorify You.” And I went home one day and the Lord told me, “You are full of pride.” And I said, “why, Lord?” And the Lord said, “You came and you knocked on my door and you didn’t heal me.” Even for me here, there is something that needed to be healed; not my body – but my mind – my thinking – we call it my theology.
One day I was preparing a message about Jesus the healer, but my focus was that I was talking about “he was, he was, he was, he did, he did” – and it was all in the past! And my focus for the present day was talking about how He can heal what’s inside of you! Because I was a specialist in this! But I didn’t know how He could heal your body. I did believe that He could! But I didn’t know how and I didn’t believe He did it through us. One day, I got sick and couldn’t preach this message and somebody had to fill in for me. I was sitting in my bed and I said, “why, Lord?” And the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “You want to teach about me? You know I’m a healer. Why don’t you teach about Me as a Healer? How can you teach about someone you don’t know?” So I repented and I went to teach again. I was in a lot of pain – my back. I was really sick. I got my notes and I was sitting there in the last pew of the church. There was a praise and worship and I was just holding my back. I had to have extra help just to sit up. When the praise and worship ended, I was called forward to take the microphone. I didn’t know what to do – I was walking so funny. I said, when I came to the pulpit, I said “let’s pray.” I got to the microphone, for the first time in my life, I said “Lord, I came here to teach about You as a Healer. But I don’t know You as the Healer. And if you are the Healer, please heal me now.” What a crazy prayer! But I stood there… and He did it. I felt His hand go across my body, and suddenly I started to feel pain – and it wasn’t pain in my back, it was a pain from the bilt I was wearing. So I took it off and threw it down. As I did that, people were bowing down and praying – and a sheet of my notes fell on the floor. So I bent down, easily, for the first time in four months, and got those papers. And since that day this pain has not come back. Now, because I had this big position, I didn’t have the courage to pray for anybody else! Because I had this big position! And I thought, “well what if it doesn’t work???” It was PRIDE that was holding me back! I had to become humble.
Why does God heal?
This is God’s character (Exodus 15:)
The atonement – He gave His only begotten Son for us, to carry our sins. (Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 8:17)
Compassion and Mercy (Mark 9:35-38)
Apostolic Work – this is the same thing Jesus commanded his disciples to do, and it’s still the same for us today: Go and heal the sick, as the Father sent me so I am sending you.
Confirm the Word (Mark 16:17-18; Hebrews 2:3-4)
To bring glory to the Lord (John 9:1-3)
Unforgiveness will block the healing. In this gift, I have many, many, many stories – but there’s just not time. One of the things that stops healing sometimes – witchcraft and curses. Sometimes these things interfere and we need to ask God what is wrong here. Another thing that can hinder healing is the atmosphere of unbelief. The Lord Jesus sometimes could not make miracles. We see this when he went to visit his own town, Nazareth. He couldn’t do miracles because of their unbelief. Do you remember there was a time when Jesus wanted to raise a girl from the dead. He only told three of his disciples – and he asked everyone to leave. He only kept the mother and father; this was to make a kind of faith atmosphere. Unbelief can hinder healings.
I will give you 4 things to do:
1. Interview, now I’m talking about individual prayer, one to one. Ask when it started, what caused it, what symptoms do you have – just to have a picture. There is a natural reason for this sickness, or he inherited it… I just want to know what spiritual reason we get this sickness. I want to know what kind of prayer to pray.
2. Where should you pray? (Where the sickness is)
3. What kind of prayer should I pray? Sometimes Jesus commands the spirit to leave. Sometimes Jesus rebukes, sometimes Jesus commands, and sometimes Jesus prays to the Father.
4. Ask the person how they feel, repeat the prayer, and ask for confirmation.
Why pray in groups? Because you can use more than one gift of healing.
Psalm 23, goodness and mercy should follow you. Mark 16, he said “do signs” – follow the believers. You can read what the signs were.
The third gift of power in English it mentions miracles – in Greek it’s the work of δυνάμεων.
Now this miracle, in the gift of powers – this miracle, no doctor can do. For example, somebody has a short leg and you pray for the short leg to get taller. Something like this – the blind regaining their sight.
Mark 6:29-34
Luke 5:4-7
During the day, and in the deep, and they put their net there and all the fish just swim right into the net. This is a work of power.
Matthew 17:27
It’s a time for taxes and Jesus needs to pay the taxes. So he told Jesus to go to the sea and catch a fish and find the gold – then pay for both of us. This is power. To go from someplace to someplace in the Spirit. I have many personal stories – and there is just no time for them now.
Acts 13:
One time I went to the USA. At that time there was an evangelist who was sharing how to use the gifts of the spirit. He was one of the finest preachers I’ve met in my life. Many jokes – making fun of the people the whole time, and make fun of himself. And while he’s talking he said, “okay maybe you’ll meet somebody” and he was a guest of the church, “you will find somebody like this gentleman, and he has a problem in his back – do you sir?” And this man says, “yes” and you will find that one of his legs is shorter than the other! And he knelt down and held the man’s feet, and he took the mans feet, still talking – he didn’t pray – he didn’t do anything. I didn’t see it, but my wife was sitting right next to me and I could see what was happening by her face. She looked amazed! And the preacher stood up and said, “come on brother, wash your sox!” And he would do it again. And there was another lady and he asked the audience – “which is the shorter leg, the right of the left?” And the people said it was one leg so he went with the other one. And he checked and it turned out he was wrong… so he sat and made fun of himself for two minutes. “Thank God for the Body of Christ! Come on guys, I can make mistakes…” So this man took the legs and said, “okay, do you want the left one to be shorter or the right one to be taller?” And she said, “taller.” And so he prayed for the leg, and this is the one I saw – right in front of me it grew.
Now we’ll go to the third group in the gifts of revelation.
I want to remind you that every one of these gifts comes from the roots – which is the gift of faith, of supernatural faith. Let’s go with the words of wisdom.
In the book of Proverbs, it tells us that the wisdom is God. You can read about Jesus Christ that he is the wisdom of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 30
And in James 1:5 he encourages us – if you need wisdom, ask. We are talking about wisdom that we need in a particular situation. But this gift is not the natural wisdom that we need through life. But it’s supernatural wisdom. It gives direction. It gives solution – what to do, how to get out of this, how it will open our eyes to know. This kind of wisdom, we didn’t get it through the experience of life, or through a lot of education of from getting old. A young man, maybe even 16 years old, can speak a word of wisdom – because it is supernatural. There are many examples in the Bible, but let me just take one or two.
King Solomon, in 1 Kings 3, there is a story from verse 16-28. Two prostitutes came to King Solomon. Do you know what King Solomon asked the Lord in his dream? Not to gain power or money – but he asked for wisdom.
1 Kings 3:16-28
Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, "Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne." But the other woman said, "No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours." The first said, "No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine." Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, "The one says, 'This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead'; and the other says, 'No; but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.'" And the king said, "Bring me a sword." So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other." Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him." Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother." And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
In John 8:1-11, there is a similar story. It’s another woman has been caught after she has committed adultery. The people said to Jesus, “Listen, this woman was caught and she needs to be stoned.” And they thought – he can’t say anything against this or he will be breaking the law! So Jesus began to write on the ground, and he said, “he who is without sin should throw the first stone.” And the people left.
What is this? This is the gift of wisdom. This is the word of wisdom.
Try to hear the Holy Spirit giving you counsel. This is the prophetic word, that you hear the Holy Spirit and you speak.
Now let me go to the word of knowledge. It’s a master seed – from the word of God! Psalm 139 talks about the word of knowledge. Sometimes God will give you specific details about things – this is the word of knowledge. As much as you give yourself to the world, the world will give you more.
Let me give you an example of a word of knowledge.
Acts chapter 9
The Lord speaks to Ananias – and tells him to go and find a man named Saul.
Let me tell you another story about Wolfgang Simpson. He was living somewhere in Africa as a missionary. There were a lot of people – prophetic people. He starts to listen to a word. One of them says, “I feel the Lord wants you to visit your homeland.” Another says, “I see you in a place by the border.” Another said, “There is a river there.” Another says, “God will give you a house, and the Lord says don’t worry about the money, God will give it to you.” So they went to Sweden and they found the place on the border, by the river. They found the house and they went to take the house, and the woman said, “Are you Wolfgang? Uh… okay – the Lord told me to leave the house to you and the you can pay whenever you want.” After a week, they are checking everything in this house, and they went to the mailbox and they found the letter right there. They found the money. And with the letter they said, “The Lord said that for this house you must pay 50,000 francs. Please send me your account number.”
Listen, our God is a supernatural God. He is a God of knowledge. He loves you. He is a God of the supernatural. Now if you can go crazy and believe Him – He is looking for crazy people. He is looking for fools.
How often do things like this happen? Hearing about these things sometimes it seems like they happen ALL the time.
[At this point, Pastor Nabil told many stories on healings – too many for me to type.]
Last one, hallelujah. The discerning of the spirits. This is a supernatural gift, and we need it very badly!!! Because we are living in this world and it is evil.
In 1 Timothy 4:1
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
We need this gift to give light to the dark places. Deception is not 100% light! It is not 100% dark! It is 50/50! This is so that you focus on the light and ignore the dark, so you can be deceived. There is a natural discernment that we have that grows as we grow in faith. You can read about it in this passage.
Hebrew 5:13-14
for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
But there is also a supernatural discernment, to discern what is out of evil and what comes from the Lord – and to discern what the Lord wants to tell you right now. Sometimes we use these gifts when we pray for the sick.
Listen guys, you can see in the Body of Christ right now – God is there. And God is doing whatever is in His sight that is there.
1 John 4:1-3
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
The Church of Christ today needs the flow of the gifts of the Spirit.
I respect every other school, every other church that does discipleship, church planting, evangelism. They are my brothers and sisters! I love them! I am telling you – let the Holy Spirit flow in your life. This is the example of Jesus. “Go, and do my work!” How are you going to do His work? You cannot do the job without the gifts of the Spirit.
And I am sorry that this is not what your denomination taught you, but this is what the word of God says. I am telling you, young men and women, you are here to learn. And I hope that when you go back to your homes – and you go back to your friends and family – that you will NOT be the same.
And when you go and pray and heal, and when people see miracles – and when you prophesy – people will say, “what church are you attending?!? What do you believe?!?” The world is in need. It needs help. People are even saying, “mother Mary, show up and provide some miracles!” WOOOOH! They are paying MONEY! They are spending their vacations there!
In John 5:
There were hundreds of people waiting for a miracle! One of them waiting for 38 years! WAITING for a miracle! And I’m telling you that the world around you is full of this. They need this.
Listen. I’m finished. I don’t have time for the religious people. If you believe – come and do it. If you don’t? Stay away from me. Stay away from me.
Do you know what the Lord Jesus said to his disciples? There was a man who came to Jesus and said “qoijasdjf; aoiweasjl;zxcklv
Do you know what Jesus says? For how long are you going to NOT submit to my power? For how long are you NOT going to use my authority? For how long are you going to take the fears of the evil one and put it over my word!?
Lord I am thirsty and hungry. I want to depend on you today. Please help me. Don’t go digging through the Bible as if it’s a menu. “Hmmm… yes, I think I’ll have some of this. Nooo… this is not so good right now. I really don’t agree with this. Yes, let me have some more of this.”
NO – take the entire Bible – or throw the entire thing out.
Sometimes you’re going to see a conflict between the gift you see and your understanding – and it could be a big gap because of your understanding. And you might not understand from which perspective he speaks.
Not everything people say is bad, and not everything is good – but you need to put it up against the word of God.
--COFFEE BREAK--
[After coffee break, Pastor Nabil prophesied over each of us, one by one. They were prophesies about the future of our lives and walks with God - encouraging and uplifting only. Each prophesy for each person was recorded on a cassette tape, so I have mine.]
Gifts of the Spirit 2
Let us continue looking at the gifts of the Spirit. We’ll start by taking a look, again, at this passage.
1 Corinthians 12:8-10
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
Remember there are three types of gifts?
Gifts of Revelation:
Word of Wisdom
Word of Knowledge
Discerning of spirits
Gifts of Power
Gift of Faith
Work of Miracles
Gifts [note the plural] of healing
Gifts of utterances
Prophesy
Different kinds of tongues
Interpretation of tongues
We’ve already gone through the gifts of utterances; today we’ll be talking about the other six.
There is a story in Mark 11:21-23
And Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered." And Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.
The gift of faith. Have faith in God. The actual translation should be “have faith of God.” Now we cannot always have this faith. But sometimes God gifts us to have this faith when we need it. This is not the natural faith that we are normally walking in. It’s a supernatural faith that we get sometimes. It comes in certain moments and fulfills a purpose, and it will come again when God has another purpose.
Here are a few other examples.
Mark 4:36-41
And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?"
Luke 7:12-15
As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Now do you see what this is? The gift of faith? It’s not the natural gift that we have – but it’s the supernatural gift. Now let’s go to the next gift of power.
The Gifts of Healings.
Why is it the gifts of healings, plural? Sometimes you’ll notice that in the Body of Christ, some people are very effective in prayer for some kind of sickness.
I had a desk for many years; but at a time in my life – I was thirsty and hungry for God and I wanted to walk in this realm of the Spirit; and I hadn’t prayed for the sick before even though I was a pastor at that time. But I would go to visit a sick man I would ask about the doctor and about the medicine – and suppose I’d pray at the end. I would pray, “Oh Lord, please give this man to know what this sickness means and allow the pain and suffering to glorify You.” And I went home one day and the Lord told me, “You are full of pride.” And I said, “why, Lord?” And the Lord said, “You came and you knocked on my door and you didn’t heal me.” Even for me here, there is something that needed to be healed; not my body – but my mind – my thinking – we call it my theology.
One day I was preparing a message about Jesus the healer, but my focus was that I was talking about “he was, he was, he was, he did, he did” – and it was all in the past! And my focus for the present day was talking about how He can heal what’s inside of you! Because I was a specialist in this! But I didn’t know how He could heal your body. I did believe that He could! But I didn’t know how and I didn’t believe He did it through us. One day, I got sick and couldn’t preach this message and somebody had to fill in for me. I was sitting in my bed and I said, “why, Lord?” And the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “You want to teach about me? You know I’m a healer. Why don’t you teach about Me as a Healer? How can you teach about someone you don’t know?” So I repented and I went to teach again. I was in a lot of pain – my back. I was really sick. I got my notes and I was sitting there in the last pew of the church. There was a praise and worship and I was just holding my back. I had to have extra help just to sit up. When the praise and worship ended, I was called forward to take the microphone. I didn’t know what to do – I was walking so funny. I said, when I came to the pulpit, I said “let’s pray.” I got to the microphone, for the first time in my life, I said “Lord, I came here to teach about You as a Healer. But I don’t know You as the Healer. And if you are the Healer, please heal me now.” What a crazy prayer! But I stood there… and He did it. I felt His hand go across my body, and suddenly I started to feel pain – and it wasn’t pain in my back, it was a pain from the bilt I was wearing. So I took it off and threw it down. As I did that, people were bowing down and praying – and a sheet of my notes fell on the floor. So I bent down, easily, for the first time in four months, and got those papers. And since that day this pain has not come back. Now, because I had this big position, I didn’t have the courage to pray for anybody else! Because I had this big position! And I thought, “well what if it doesn’t work???” It was PRIDE that was holding me back! I had to become humble.
Why does God heal?
This is God’s character (Exodus 15:)
The atonement – He gave His only begotten Son for us, to carry our sins. (Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 8:17)
Compassion and Mercy (Mark 9:35-38)
Apostolic Work – this is the same thing Jesus commanded his disciples to do, and it’s still the same for us today: Go and heal the sick, as the Father sent me so I am sending you.
Confirm the Word (Mark 16:17-18; Hebrews 2:3-4)
To bring glory to the Lord (John 9:1-3)
Unforgiveness will block the healing. In this gift, I have many, many, many stories – but there’s just not time. One of the things that stops healing sometimes – witchcraft and curses. Sometimes these things interfere and we need to ask God what is wrong here. Another thing that can hinder healing is the atmosphere of unbelief. The Lord Jesus sometimes could not make miracles. We see this when he went to visit his own town, Nazareth. He couldn’t do miracles because of their unbelief. Do you remember there was a time when Jesus wanted to raise a girl from the dead. He only told three of his disciples – and he asked everyone to leave. He only kept the mother and father; this was to make a kind of faith atmosphere. Unbelief can hinder healings.
I will give you 4 things to do:
1. Interview, now I’m talking about individual prayer, one to one. Ask when it started, what caused it, what symptoms do you have – just to have a picture. There is a natural reason for this sickness, or he inherited it… I just want to know what spiritual reason we get this sickness. I want to know what kind of prayer to pray.
2. Where should you pray? (Where the sickness is)
3. What kind of prayer should I pray? Sometimes Jesus commands the spirit to leave. Sometimes Jesus rebukes, sometimes Jesus commands, and sometimes Jesus prays to the Father.
4. Ask the person how they feel, repeat the prayer, and ask for confirmation.
Why pray in groups? Because you can use more than one gift of healing.
Psalm 23, goodness and mercy should follow you. Mark 16, he said “do signs” – follow the believers. You can read what the signs were.
The third gift of power in English it mentions miracles – in Greek it’s the work of δυνάμεων.
Now this miracle, in the gift of powers – this miracle, no doctor can do. For example, somebody has a short leg and you pray for the short leg to get taller. Something like this – the blind regaining their sight.
Mark 6:29-34
Luke 5:4-7
During the day, and in the deep, and they put their net there and all the fish just swim right into the net. This is a work of power.
Matthew 17:27
It’s a time for taxes and Jesus needs to pay the taxes. So he told Jesus to go to the sea and catch a fish and find the gold – then pay for both of us. This is power. To go from someplace to someplace in the Spirit. I have many personal stories – and there is just no time for them now.
Acts 13:
One time I went to the USA. At that time there was an evangelist who was sharing how to use the gifts of the spirit. He was one of the finest preachers I’ve met in my life. Many jokes – making fun of the people the whole time, and make fun of himself. And while he’s talking he said, “okay maybe you’ll meet somebody” and he was a guest of the church, “you will find somebody like this gentleman, and he has a problem in his back – do you sir?” And this man says, “yes” and you will find that one of his legs is shorter than the other! And he knelt down and held the man’s feet, and he took the mans feet, still talking – he didn’t pray – he didn’t do anything. I didn’t see it, but my wife was sitting right next to me and I could see what was happening by her face. She looked amazed! And the preacher stood up and said, “come on brother, wash your sox!” And he would do it again. And there was another lady and he asked the audience – “which is the shorter leg, the right of the left?” And the people said it was one leg so he went with the other one. And he checked and it turned out he was wrong… so he sat and made fun of himself for two minutes. “Thank God for the Body of Christ! Come on guys, I can make mistakes…” So this man took the legs and said, “okay, do you want the left one to be shorter or the right one to be taller?” And she said, “taller.” And so he prayed for the leg, and this is the one I saw – right in front of me it grew.
Now we’ll go to the third group in the gifts of revelation.
I want to remind you that every one of these gifts comes from the roots – which is the gift of faith, of supernatural faith. Let’s go with the words of wisdom.
In the book of Proverbs, it tells us that the wisdom is God. You can read about Jesus Christ that he is the wisdom of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 30
And in James 1:5 he encourages us – if you need wisdom, ask. We are talking about wisdom that we need in a particular situation. But this gift is not the natural wisdom that we need through life. But it’s supernatural wisdom. It gives direction. It gives solution – what to do, how to get out of this, how it will open our eyes to know. This kind of wisdom, we didn’t get it through the experience of life, or through a lot of education of from getting old. A young man, maybe even 16 years old, can speak a word of wisdom – because it is supernatural. There are many examples in the Bible, but let me just take one or two.
King Solomon, in 1 Kings 3, there is a story from verse 16-28. Two prostitutes came to King Solomon. Do you know what King Solomon asked the Lord in his dream? Not to gain power or money – but he asked for wisdom.
1 Kings 3:16-28
Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, "Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne." But the other woman said, "No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours." The first said, "No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine." Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, "The one says, 'This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead'; and the other says, 'No; but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.'" And the king said, "Bring me a sword." So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other." Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him." Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother." And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
In John 8:1-11, there is a similar story. It’s another woman has been caught after she has committed adultery. The people said to Jesus, “Listen, this woman was caught and she needs to be stoned.” And they thought – he can’t say anything against this or he will be breaking the law! So Jesus began to write on the ground, and he said, “he who is without sin should throw the first stone.” And the people left.
What is this? This is the gift of wisdom. This is the word of wisdom.
Try to hear the Holy Spirit giving you counsel. This is the prophetic word, that you hear the Holy Spirit and you speak.
Now let me go to the word of knowledge. It’s a master seed – from the word of God! Psalm 139 talks about the word of knowledge. Sometimes God will give you specific details about things – this is the word of knowledge. As much as you give yourself to the world, the world will give you more.
Let me give you an example of a word of knowledge.
Acts chapter 9
The Lord speaks to Ananias – and tells him to go and find a man named Saul.
Let me tell you another story about Wolfgang Simpson. He was living somewhere in Africa as a missionary. There were a lot of people – prophetic people. He starts to listen to a word. One of them says, “I feel the Lord wants you to visit your homeland.” Another says, “I see you in a place by the border.” Another said, “There is a river there.” Another says, “God will give you a house, and the Lord says don’t worry about the money, God will give it to you.” So they went to Sweden and they found the place on the border, by the river. They found the house and they went to take the house, and the woman said, “Are you Wolfgang? Uh… okay – the Lord told me to leave the house to you and the you can pay whenever you want.” After a week, they are checking everything in this house, and they went to the mailbox and they found the letter right there. They found the money. And with the letter they said, “The Lord said that for this house you must pay 50,000 francs. Please send me your account number.”
Listen, our God is a supernatural God. He is a God of knowledge. He loves you. He is a God of the supernatural. Now if you can go crazy and believe Him – He is looking for crazy people. He is looking for fools.
How often do things like this happen? Hearing about these things sometimes it seems like they happen ALL the time.
[At this point, Pastor Nabil told many stories on healings – too many for me to type.]
Last one, hallelujah. The discerning of the spirits. This is a supernatural gift, and we need it very badly!!! Because we are living in this world and it is evil.
In 1 Timothy 4:1
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
We need this gift to give light to the dark places. Deception is not 100% light! It is not 100% dark! It is 50/50! This is so that you focus on the light and ignore the dark, so you can be deceived. There is a natural discernment that we have that grows as we grow in faith. You can read about it in this passage.
Hebrew 5:13-14
for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
But there is also a supernatural discernment, to discern what is out of evil and what comes from the Lord – and to discern what the Lord wants to tell you right now. Sometimes we use these gifts when we pray for the sick.
Listen guys, you can see in the Body of Christ right now – God is there. And God is doing whatever is in His sight that is there.
1 John 4:1-3
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
The Church of Christ today needs the flow of the gifts of the Spirit.
I respect every other school, every other church that does discipleship, church planting, evangelism. They are my brothers and sisters! I love them! I am telling you – let the Holy Spirit flow in your life. This is the example of Jesus. “Go, and do my work!” How are you going to do His work? You cannot do the job without the gifts of the Spirit.
And I am sorry that this is not what your denomination taught you, but this is what the word of God says. I am telling you, young men and women, you are here to learn. And I hope that when you go back to your homes – and you go back to your friends and family – that you will NOT be the same.
And when you go and pray and heal, and when people see miracles – and when you prophesy – people will say, “what church are you attending?!? What do you believe?!?” The world is in need. It needs help. People are even saying, “mother Mary, show up and provide some miracles!” WOOOOH! They are paying MONEY! They are spending their vacations there!
In John 5:
There were hundreds of people waiting for a miracle! One of them waiting for 38 years! WAITING for a miracle! And I’m telling you that the world around you is full of this. They need this.
Listen. I’m finished. I don’t have time for the religious people. If you believe – come and do it. If you don’t? Stay away from me. Stay away from me.
Do you know what the Lord Jesus said to his disciples? There was a man who came to Jesus and said “qoijasdjf; aoiweasjl;zxcklv
Do you know what Jesus says? For how long are you going to NOT submit to my power? For how long are you NOT going to use my authority? For how long are you going to take the fears of the evil one and put it over my word!?
Lord I am thirsty and hungry. I want to depend on you today. Please help me. Don’t go digging through the Bible as if it’s a menu. “Hmmm… yes, I think I’ll have some of this. Nooo… this is not so good right now. I really don’t agree with this. Yes, let me have some more of this.”
NO – take the entire Bible – or throw the entire thing out.
Sometimes you’re going to see a conflict between the gift you see and your understanding – and it could be a big gap because of your understanding. And you might not understand from which perspective he speaks.
Not everything people say is bad, and not everything is good – but you need to put it up against the word of God.
--COFFEE BREAK--
[After coffee break, Pastor Nabil prophesied over each of us, one by one. They were prophesies about the future of our lives and walks with God - encouraging and uplifting only. Each prophesy for each person was recorded on a cassette tape, so I have mine.]
posted by CarbonChris at 1:44 AM
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