Sermon Tone Analysis

I COR.

12:28-31

“Signs, Wonders, And Miracles.”

I.

The Works Of Miracles

 

          II.

The Gifts Of Healing

 

                               

     With the beginning of I Corinthians chapter 12 we have introduced to us the subject of spiritual gifts.

We’ve been spending several weeks now looking in particular at what God says in these verses about the whole area of God’s grace gifts to men.

The Bible teaches several basic facts about spiritual gifts.

One thing the Bible teaches is that every believer has one or more spiritual gifts.

Another thing the Bible teaches is that spiritual gifts are intended to be used by believers to build up the body of Christ, to edify God’s people.

Spiritual gifts are not to be used for our own selfish purposes, they are not toys to play with, neither are they tanks to battle with, but they are tools to build with.

All believers have one or more spiritual gifts and those gifts are to be used to build up the body of Christ.

And then another thing the Bible teaches is that no believer has all of the spiritual gifts.

We find this in verse 30 of this chapter and also in verse 29 because he makes it very clear that there are some gifts that were current in the New Testament day that all believers at that time did not have.

Now when you study the different lists of spiritual gifts that are given in the New Testament you will also find some fascinating things.

For instance you will find that none of the lists of spiritual gifts is exhaustive.

I mean by that that nowhere do you find these all listed in the same place, every one of those lists is a little bit different.

But I think the most fascinating thing I have found, when I look at the different lists of spiritual gifts, is that when you put them in chronological order the number of the lists diminishes.

For instance, I Corinthians was evidently written first and when you look at that chapter, First Corinthians 12, he mentions *NINE *of the gifts in one place and then he mentions *EIGHT *in the next place.

The next book is the book of Romans, and when you look at the list there you will find that *SEVEN *spiritual gifts are mentioned.

The next book is the book of Ephesians; when you look at the spiritual gifts listed there there are *FOUR.

*And then when you come to First Peter chapter 4 you will find, rather than a listing of the spiritual gifts you will find that they are isolated into *TWO PRIMARY CATEGORIES.*

*     *1 Peter 4:10-11 Now I said to you that you can take the spiritual gifts and you can classify them into three general classifications.

There are the *SPEAKING GIFTS: *God talks about the gift of teaching and the gift of preaching and these kinds of gifts, the speaking gifts.

And then, secondly, there are the *SERVING GIFTS: *helps, encouragement, and these kinds of gifts.

But when you look at the gifts you will also find there is a category that can be described as the *SIGN GIFTS.

*So there are speaking gifts, there are serving gifts, and then there are sign gifts, but when you come to the last mention in the New Testament of all of the spiritual gifts you will find that he mentions the speaking gifts, he mentions the serving gifts, but he does not mention the sign gifts.

Now what is the meaning of this?

What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in giving us this kind of arrangement of spiritual gifts?

I believe the meaning intended by that gives us an understanding of the whole area of signs and wonders and miracles.

When you look at all of the spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament you will find that there are four of those gifts that would fall in the category of sign gifts.

Here they are.

Number one, *WORKS OF MIRACLES, *number two, *GIFTS OF HEALINGS, *number three, *DIFFERENT KINDS OF LANGUAGES, *and number four, *TRANSLATION OF LANGUAGES.

*Now there are some things we need to understand about these sign gifts.

Number one, *NOT ALL BELIEVERS HAD THE SIGN GIFTS.

*I Corinthians 12:29 that not all are workers of miracles.

Not all believers had the gifts of healing, because in verse 30 he says, have all gifts of healing?

And the answer is no.

So those particular sign gifts were given in the New Testament age to a specific group of individuals and for a specific purpose.

All right, I want you to keep your place here and move over to II Corinthians 12:12.

He’s saying that signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds were the signs of an apostle.

Now the apostles were a particular group of men that God set aside in the New Testament church for a particular purpose.

There were certain requirements necessary before you could be an apostle.

For instance, in order to be an apostle you had to be an eyewitness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

We learn this from Acts 1.

I Corinthians 9, Am I not an apostle?

Have I not see our Lord?

What he’s saying is, I was an eyewitness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now the apostles had a specific ministry to the body of Christ, to the church, in the New Testament times.

In Ephesians chapter 2:20, the Bible, talking about the church, says, And you are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

Now what that verse means is is that the apostles had a specific foundational ministry.

It was the job of the apostles to build the church upon the firm foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And, folks, I want to tell you what, you can try to build a church on anything else in the world but if you don’t build a church on Jesus it is destined to fall.

Now the apostles were those that were chosen by the Holy Spirit to give us the written Word of God.

It was through these Spirit-anointed men, either an apostle or someone very closely related to apostle, that the Word of God was given to us in written form.

So, you see, when the apostles were preaching in their day they could not refer to the written Word as I refer to it tonight.

When I make a statement I must be able to build it upon what the Bible says, the written Word of God.

But they didn’t have the New Testament in that day, the New Testament was being written, and so God gave to these apostles, these early believers, specific spiritual gifts that authenticated their ministry among the people and validated their message.

Hebrews 2:3.

Who was that?

That was the apostles.

See, the Lord spoke, the apostles heard it, and then the apostles confirmed it unto the writer of the book of Hebrews, and then he says in verse 4. It says that the Holy Spirit confirmed the ministry and the message of the early apostles by means of signs, and wonders, and many miracles.

Now what I want to do is I want to deal with the working of miracles and with the gifts of healing.

I Corinthians chapter 12:28-29 you will find miracles mentioned again in verse 29 (workers of miracles), you will find the working of miracles mentioned in verse 10.

Three times in that chapter it talks about miracles, workers of miracles, working of miracles.

Now we know that the Lord Jesus Christ did miracles when He was on this earth.

In fact when Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus Nicodemus said to the Lord Jesus, he said, Master, we know that youu are a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that youu do except God be with him.

Well of course Nicodemus was wrong.

Jesus Christ was not a teacher come from God, He was God come to teach, but he recognized that the Lord Jesus Christ did miracles.

Now what is a miracle?

Well a miracle is a supernatural intervention of God into the normal course of things; it is God doing what He chooses to do with His own creation.

So when Jesus came He was God in human flesh, He was the God-man, and so when Jesus came He just performed all kinds of miracles.

Sometimes Jesus performed miracles in nature: Jesus walked on the water, Jesus calmed the storm upon the sea, Jesus took the bread and the fish and He broke them with His hands and He multiplied them.

Sometimes Jesus did miracles in the natural realm.

By the way, it’s the same kinds of things that Adam would have been able to do if he had not fallen into sin.

And by the way, it’s the same kinds of things that you and I are going to be able to do when we get our resurrection bodies.

Listen, friend, you’re going to be able to walk on water when you get your resurrection body.

In fact you’ll just be able to go all over this universe with the speed of thought when you get your resurrection body.

So Jesus did the things that Adam could have done if he hadn’t sinned, and what you and I are going to do one of these days in our glorified resurrection body.

He did miracles of nature.

Jesus did physical miracles also.

Jesus saw blind people and He gave them sight.

Jesus saw people who could not talk and He gave them the ability to talk.

Jesus saw crippled people and He made them walk.

Jesus performed miracles in the realm of the physical.

Jesus also performed miracles in the realm of the spiritual because, you see, Jesus could say to a man, Your sins be forgiven you, and the man’s sins were forgiven.

Jesus could say to a poor woman taken in adultery, He could say to her, Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more, and miraculously her sins were forgiven and she was made white as snow in the presence of God.

So Jesus performed miracles.

Now in Acts 2:22, The *MIRACLES OF JESUS VINDICATED HIS MINISTRY.*

*     *The *MIRACLES OF JESUS ALSO DEMONSTRATED HIS DEITY.

*When you read the gospel of John you will discover at the conclusion of that book of John that John tells you why he wrote that book and he says, These miracles (the word is signs in the King James, these miracles) did Jesus and manifested His glory that you might believe that He is the Christ the Son of the living God.

So, you see, those miracles demonstrated the deity of Jesus.

Now strange as it may seem the miracles of Christ did not cause people to believe in Him.

In fact Jesus said one time in John chapter 6, You believe on me, not because you see the miracles which I do but because you ate the bread and you were filled.

So miracles did not bring people to Christ in an of themselves but Jesus performed miracles.

Now when Jesus performed miracles He was never sensational.

In fact Jesus seemed to refuse to do anything in order to sensationalize the situation.

You remember when the devil took Him to the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, Throw yourself down, He’ll given His angels charge over thee?

And do you remember what Jesus did?