Spirtual Gifts

Potential Dangers Surrounding Spiritual Gifts

The Corinthian Church was facing many problems that were about to tear the church apart. One of the issues was spiritual gifts. No gift from God should be abused or cuase controversy. The Corinthians were abusing the gifts so badly that it was about to tear them apart. It was such an important subject that Paul worte 3 chapters giving instructions about the spiritual gifts.

A quick look at the history of spiritual gift :

The Old Testment had fortld that God would send His Spirit to earth and gift his people.

Joel 2:28–29 ““And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”

Acts 2:17–18 ““ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

2. Jesus had promised and discussed the Holy Spirit with His followers in great detail.

John chapter 14: 15-26 and 16: 7-15; Acts 1:5-8

3. The day of pentecost was such a phenomenal event that it start the greatestr movement in history ever.

All the promises God made in the Old Testment were and by Jesus were witnessed on the Day of Pentecost.

4. Before Christ. God would equip the people He called for service with the gifts and abilities needed to complete their work for God. Now we have the Holy Spirit.

We will talk about 4 things today that are dangers of the gifts of the Holy Spirit:

Being ignorant about the gifts

Being carried away to false worship

Speaking a false meassage

Speaking the truth apart from the Spirit

Verse 1 - Being ignorant about spiritual gifts

There are spiritual gifts and abilities that are given by God to us. They are not natural abiliites which developed form birth. They are gifts given to to a beleiver to serve Jesus in the Church and the world to help in ministering to people and in leading lost to Jesus.

Note the exact words Paul used: Concerning spiritual gift...I would not have you ignorant. There are 3 way that a person can be ignorant about spiritual gifts.

That there is such a thing as spiritual gifts. They can fail to believe that God would bestow spiritual gifts to enable and empower them for the work of minstrinty and serving God.

We may know that God gift spritual gift to someone but not know what gift He has given us. Not knowing how to serve God and the chruch.

You may know what your gifts are but not know how to use the gift properly. This was the point that the Cornithians were at and having so much trouble with. Many of them knew what thier spiritual gift were, but they were misusing them, failing to use the gifts as God intened for them to be use.

There is only one solution to ignorance: Study. Study the word of God and seek guidenace of the Holy spirit:

To learn about spiritual gifts

To learn what their particular calling and gifts are

2 Timothy 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”

Acts 17:11 “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

Romans 15:4 “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”

Colossians 3:16 “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”

1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,”

Verse 2 - Carried away to false worship

Many of the Corinthians had be saved from heathen religions from that day and time. They were now believers in Jesus. They use to woeship false gods and idols which were unable to communicate with them. They now worship the one and only true God who could communicate with them. They were once carried away by a spiritual focre to worship idols and false gods. Now they were under the power of God through the Holy Spirit and need to be carried along by Him not led astray.

The false religions of that day practiced special gifts the seemed to come from a spiritual force, such as trances, tongues, ecstatic utterances, and prophecies of the futrue. These so called gift ran rampant during this time. The Corinthians would have been familiar with these counterfeit gifts and practiced them before coming to know Jesus. They were apparently using counterfeit gifts to imitate real gifts, misusing the gifts and not really worshipping God, had begun to feel and act super-spiritual, worshipping the gifts ans self ather than focusing on God.

Think about how often we see spiritual gifts counterfeited and misued? How often do we see a person preaching ot prophesying and it is clearly evident that they are only counterfeiting the gift and has not really been called by God? The gift of tongues and miracles, how often do we see beievers counterfeiting or using the ecstatic and miraculous gifts in a manner that does not lead to a true worship of God?

John 4:24 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.””

Revelation 14:7 “He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.””

Psalm 96:9 “Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.”

Psalm 99:5 “Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.”

Verse 3 - Speaking False Messages

Some people in the Corinth chuech apparently spoke in tongues and distorted the great truth that JESUS IS LORD. From all indications the person took the truth that Paul had preached that Christ was “made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”) and said something to the effect the “Jesus is accured.” Paul proclaims the truth in no uncertain terms: this is not the Spirit of God.

Every believer must be carful not to speak ot proclaim a false message. We must proclaim God; it must be the truth od God. The world has enough false messges. We do not need any more misrepresentation and counterfiet messages that leave us hopless. The world needs the truth about God, the glorious gospel, that He has sent His Son into the world to save all, everywhere. It is time for the false meassage to cease to come out of the mouth of people who are counterfeiting the gifts of God.

The Believer must guard against two decsptions when dealing with spiritual gifts and truth.

Making a statement or proclaiming a meassage that is not the turth of God and His word.

John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.””

2 Corinthians 12:6 “Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say,”

Ephesians 4:25 “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”

Zechariah 8:16 “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts;”

Malachi 2:6 “True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.”

2. Either becoming or sitting under a person who counterfiets the gifts of God, whether they be a self-proclaiming minister or leader in the church.

1 John 4:1–3 “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

2 Corinthians 4:13–15 “It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.”

1 Timothy 4:1–2 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”

2 Timothy 3:1–5 “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”

2 John 7 “I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

2 Peter 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.”

Verse 3 - False Profession

That is a danger in speaking the truth apart from the Holy Spirit. No man can please God apart from the Holy Spirit. Any perosn can speak the words that “Jesus is Lord” but to please God they have to truly acknowledge Jesus as Lord over their lives. No perosn will do this really unless they are moved by the Holy Spirit. It is very simply to say Jesus is Lord but not be commited or truly confess it. Apparently some in the Corinthian church were saying Jesus is Lord, but were not truly converted. They were professing turth, but not committed to live turth. Tragically, from the eearliest days of church history have overflowed with counterfeit and hypocritical professions.

How many counterfeit the gifts of God and profess the truth, yet they are not really led by the Spirit of God? How may preach, teach, and speak in tongues; yet they are only mouthing truth, not proclaming truth through the Spirit of God? No spiritual truth can ever be used effectively by God apart from the leadership of His Spirit.

John 14:26 “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 16:13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

1 Corinthians 2:12–13 “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.”

1 John 2:27 “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.”

Too often envy and jealousy over gifts of others cause a person to counterfeit a gift and to proclaim a truth in the fleash that is not led by the Spirit.

Matthew 7:21 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 23:28 “In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

Mark 7:6 “He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Titus 1:16 “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.”

Psalm 78:35–36 “They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;”

Ezekiel 33:31–32 “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.”