Are You A Crart-Matic?

ARE YOU A CRART-MATIC?I Corinthians 12:1-11Dr. Jerry vinesThe charismatic movement is a relatively new development in thehistory of the American church. It has its roots in the old linepentecostalism, but it finds its manifestation today in all of the mainline denominations in our land. The charismatic movement is a movementthat has burst upon the scene in America and has been a source of agreat deal of discussion and a great deal of disagreement among thepeople of God. There are charismatic Christians as they are called.Charismatic Christians who say they have the gift of tongues, the giftof healing, a variety of spiritual gifts. There are many sincere,genuine Christians who call themselves charismatic Christians. I haveno purpose in this series of Bible studies to in anyway disparage anyof the children of God. I have no intention to say anything that wouldbe discourteous or unkind to any of God's children. My purpose is tostudy the Bible and see what the Bible says about the whole area ofspiritual gifts.There is a great deal of confusion in this particular area -- alot of misinformation about the whole area of spiritual gifts, speakingin tongues, healing and these matters. For God's children, the finalauthority is always the Word of God. For a Christian, the questionalways is - what does the Bible say. We do not build our doctrine onthe basis of our experience, but rather on the basis of the Bible. Wedo not bring the Bible to our experience, but rather we bring ourexperience to the Bible. What the Bible says, we must say. What theBible we must teach. What the Bible admonishes we must be willing to2follow.The whole area of spiritual gifts in the charismatic movementcan best be understood if we understand it in the context of ICorinthians 12, 13 and 14. You will notice this section beginssimilarly to what has previously been said. He begins in verse 1 bysaying - "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren..." That is a littlephrase that is used in previous chapters. Early on back in chapterseven we had that similar statement - "Now concerning the thingswhereof you wrote unto me." Evidently the Corinthian believers hadwritten Paul and were asking Paul to answer a series of questions thatwere sources of controversy and confusion in the church at Corinth.So, he has been ringing off these answers. He has been dealing withthe variety of questions that they have asked. There is also adivision point that comes right now in the book of I Corinthians. Inone sense of the word you could say that the first eleven chapters Paulis dealing with carnal matters in the church. Now, beginning inchapter 12 he is dealing with spiritual matters. G. Campbell Morgan,the great Bible teacher says that the first part of the book has to dowith the carnalities, the remaining part of the book has to do with thespirituality. I think he is exactly correct.Notice in verse 1 where the word gifts used there and it is initalics if you have a King James Bible. That means that was added bythe translators to make the sentence smoother. I really believe inthis instance though it obscures, really, the intention. You would bebetter to read verse 1 this way. "Now concerning the spiritualities,brethren, I would not have you ignorant." Spiritual gifts is just onepart of the whole area of what the Bible teaches about being a3spiritual believer. Listen to me very carefully. It is possible for abeliever to have one or many spiritual gifts and yet not be a spiritualChristian. Spiritual gifts and spirituality are not necessarilysynonymous. For instance, we find this in the Corinthian church. Infirst chapter, seventh verse, Paul has already said to them, you comebehind in no spiritual gift. In the Corinthian congregation, all ofthe gifts of the spirit were operating. There were individualbelievers in that church who had these spiritual gifts. Yet, when Paulwrote to the church in the third chapter he said, "Brethren, I couldnot speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.!' Havingspiritual gifts does not nfcessarily mean that you are a spiritualChristian. He is just dealing with spiritual gifts as they relate tothe overall subject of spirituality. All of God's children ought todesire to be spiritual believers. I believer the Bible teachers thereare two kinds of believers. There are carnal believers and there arealso spiritual believers. The fact of the matter is in any given dayyou and I can move from being carnal at certain times of the day andspiritual at others. Could I illustrate? You begin the day with aquiet time. It is such a sweet time. You have yielded your life tothe Lord. You are studying the Bible and on your knees in prayer andthe touch of heaven is upon your soul. You walk out of that quiet timeand you are spiritual -- close to God. You get in your car and headtoward work. You get on the Matthews Bridge and somebody in aVolkswagen pulls in front of you and all of a sudden you have movedfrom spiritual to carnal. That happened in the life of the apostlePeter. Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God."He climbed the heights of spirituality. Then in the next moment when4Jesus talked about the cross, he took Jesus aside and said, "Be thatfar from you." Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." One moment hewas spiritual, the next minute he was carnal. Don't ever think we everarrive in the Christian life or ever get to a level of spiritualityfrom which we cannot descend. But it ought to be the desire of everybeliever to be a spiritual Christian--to be close to the Lord JesusChrist--to be filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit every day of ourlife. In that connection (it's very important that you get thismessage because we will build on it in all of the other messages as wemove into the Charismatic movement, tongues and these kinds of matters)there are three aspects of spiritual gifts as they relate to spiritualChristianity that are found in these verses. For instance, in verses2-3 we have given for us the foundation of spiritual gifts. He showsus what is the foundation of the whole area of the spiritual life of abeliever. He approaches the subject negatively in verse 2 andpositively in verse 3.Negatively he says in verse 2 that there was a time when theywere carried away by the demonic. You must always understand thebackground of the Corinthian believers. They were living in a timewhere mystery religions and a variety of cults were current. When youstudy what literature says about these mystery religions and thesecults you will find out that they were experience oriented. They werewild, frenzied sort of affairs. They were characterized by ecstaticutterances and babblings. They would fall in the services and therewas all kinds of wild frenzied activity. They were carried away bydemonic forces. They completely lost control. They were under theinfluence of demonic powers that they neither understood nor could they5resist. But, they had come to the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Theyhad received Jesus as their Savior and they were no longer to becarried away by these dumb idols as Paul calls them.As you look as these Corinthian believers you will find thatthere are some suspicious similarities between the worship as they wereconducting it now that they were believers and what they hadexperienced in their previous religious life in those mis-religions andfalse cults. There is always a tendency for people to bring from theworld into the religious experience that which has been characteristicof the world. There are amazing parallels to the 20th Century. Youand I are living in an experience oriented society. We are living inthe rock and roll culture. That is an experience oriented music. Thatmusic gets in you. It becomes a part of you. We are also living,unfortunately, in a drug culture. Everything is based one experience.Because of that atmosphere there is a danger that people will want tomake their worship of the Lord similar to what they have come out of intheir unconverted state. People talk in terms of getting high onJesus and these kinds of terminologies. That's dangerous language. Itis very, very close to the experience centered religion out of whichpeople have come. So, negatively, he says you were carried away by thedemonic, but now that they have come to Christ, positively, he says inverse 3 that they now confess that Jesus is Lord.In those days there were evidently some who, under theinfluence of demonic experiences, were blaspheming the name of Jesus.That's why he says in verse 3 that nobody by the spirit of God can callJesus Christ accursed. That is the word, anathama, which means devotedto destruction. There evidently were those in the Corinthian6congregation under the influence of demonic power who were professingto have experiences with God which indeed were not divine in nature,but they were demonic in nature. Under the control of those demonicspirits they were blaspheming the very name of Jesus Christ. But, whenyou come to know the Lord the most deeply spiritual activity in whichyou as a believer can engage is from your heart to acknowledge andyield to the lordship of Jesus Christ. It's one thing to say it, it'sanother thing to sing it, but it's another thing for it to be true.Jesus said one time - "not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord,will enter into the kingdom of heaven." It's not just talking aboutsomething you say and there is no meaning in your heart. He's nottalking about just a song that you sing--Jesus is my Lord. But he issimply saying from the depths of your being, as a Bible-instructed,Spirit-directed believer, you acknowledge the lordship of Christ inyour life. Jesus is lord whether you acknowledge his lordship or not.When I was a teenage boy, the lordship of Christ was one of thethings that God used to really speak to my heart and bring totalcommitment to my life. They used to use this kind of terminology toyoung people - "Make Jesus Lord." You can't make Jesus Lord. Jesus isLord whether you make Him Lord or not. The Bible says in the book ofActs "God hath made Him both Lord and Christ." All you and I can do isto bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ - acknowledge His totallordship. You cannot do that apart from the indwelling and control ofthe Holy Spirit. Genuine spirituality is not experience oriented, itis Bible oriented. When you have a genuine experience with the HolySpirit your intellect will never be bypassed. You will never be out ofcontrol when you are yielded to the lordship of Christ. In fact, you7will be more controlled if you are yielded to the lordship of Christthan you have ever been in your life. To be filled with the Spiritmeans that you are under the conscious control of the Holy Spirit ofGod.Can you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of my life? Can youtestify that you have yielded my life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Whenyou acknowledge His lordship it simply means that He and His Wordbecome the final authority in your life. What really matters for abeliever is what does Jesus say? What does the Bible teach? Itdoesn't matter what somebody's experience may say it's what does theWord of God have to say about the matter. If you are yielded to theauthority of Christ and His Word, that means you will make much ofJesus Christ. Jesus Christ will be preeminent in your life and youwill make much of Jesus.I want to show you something that is very important in John15:26. Jesus is speaking. "But when the Comforter, the Holy Spirit iscome whom I will send you from the Father even the Spirit of truthwhich proceedeth from the Father, he, the Holy Spirit, shall testify ofme." He is saying that it is the role of the Holy Spirit to callattention to Jesus.John 16:13 - "Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come hewill guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself, butwhatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show youthings to come. He shall glorify me." One of the things you have toalways keep in mind. Any movement that emphasizes the Holy Spirit tothe depreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ is a movement that must becarefully, carefully examined. The Holy Spirit never calls attention8to himself. It is the role of the Holy Spirit to exalt the Lord JesusChrist. Jesus said he will testify of me. So, foundationally, in thewhole area of spiritual gifts and spiritual matters, we must understandthat Christ is preeminent. That's the foundation of spiritual gifts.II. The Variation of Spiritual Gifts. vs 4He says in verse 4 - "Now there are diversities of gifts..."Diversities means variety. Verse 5 - "there are differences ofadministration." Really the same word - varieties, variation. Noticethat the origin of spiritual gifts is the godhead. Verse 4 - the samespirit. Verse 5 - the same lord. Verse 6 - the same God. There youhave the trinity - the godhead. Verse 4 - God the Holy Spirit. Verse5 - God the Son, the Lord Jesus. Verse 6 - God the Father. He issaying that all spiritual gifts originate from God the Father. It isGod who gives believers spiritual gifts.Not only the origin of the gifts, but look at the operation.There are three words I want you to circle -- verse 4 - gifts; verse 5- administrations; verse 6 - operations. Those three words show us howspiritual gifts operate. Look at the word gift. That's where we getthe word, charismatic. It is the Greek word, . Onetime back when the charismatic movement was just beginning one of mymembers came to me and said, "Preacher, what do you think about thecharismaTICS?" It's not an easy word to pronounce, but we get the wordcharismatic from the word, charisma. The word, charisma is reallybuilt on the word for grace. Koris, for your girls who are namedKaren, that's the English form for the word, Koris, which means grace.The spiritual gifts are grace gifts - spiritual capacities. Aspiritual gift is not a natural ability, not a natural talent. A9spiritual gift is a spiritual capacity. It is something that the HolySpirit sovereignly grants to a believer. It is an equipment that youwould not be able to use and exercise if God Himself didn't give it toyou. There are believers who are doing things that they would neverhave imagined they would do. But when God saved them, He gave them thegift to do those things. I'm standing up here preaching tonight. I'mthe last boy in my home town that anybody ever imagined would preachthe gospel, me included. I almost flunked junior English because youhad to give a speech to get out of the class and I never could give thespeech. I was petrified at the thought of preaching. To be perfectlyhonest I've never quite gotten over that. Every time I walk into thepulpit I think about the Scripture, "He was led as a lamb to theslaughter." I get butterflies in my stomach and the nervousness isstill there. If God didn't help me I couldn't preach a lick. I knowits not me doing the preaching. If there is any preaching comes out ofthis man, God has to give me the spiritual gift of preaching His Word.That's the spiritual gifts -- not natural abilities, but grace giftsgiven by the Holy Spirit. Spiritual capacities.The second one is administrations. That's what I callspiritual ministries. The administration, the ministries (that's theroot of the word, deacon) are opportunities where believers can usetheir spiritual gifts. Through a local church God provides outlets ofservice where people can use the spiritual gifts they have. Forinstance, we have a number of Sunday School teachers here and classeswhere they teach. God gives these individuals the spiritual gift ofbeing able to teach. Then He provides an administration - a ministry.A Sunday School class where they are able to exercise that gift.10Then, number three, verse 6, he talks about operations. That'sspiritual energies. In other words that's the power of God. Here youhave it -- spiritual gifts, spiritual administration --the divineplaces of service; spiritual operations-- the power of God. I thinkthe best illustration I ever read of this is the explanation of acannon ball firing. The cannon ball represents the spiritual gift.The cannon represents the spiritual ministry. The power represents thespiritual energy. When a person is willing to exercise that gift inthe ministry of a local church and they yield to the Holy Spirit toprovide the power -- the dynamite from on high -- you have an effectivechild of God. This church couldn't function were it not for the folkswho are faithful to use their spiritual gifts in their local churchministries empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. There we have thevariations of the gift. Given by God the Father, God the Son, God theHoly Spirit. Given in order to be a blessing. Given in order to havea ministry.III. The MANIFESTATION of Spiritual gifts. verse 7.The purpose of spiritual gifts is in order to be a blessing tothe body - the church. Spiritual gifts are never given for selfish orself-centered enjoyment. I like the statement of Warren Weirsbee whois the bible teacher on the Back to the Bible broadcast. We've had himhere to speak in a Bible Conference several years ago. He says thatspiritual gifts are not toys to play with, but tools to build with.You don't have a spiritual gift just to entertain ourself. That's notwhat they are for. He says that the manifestation of the Spirit isgiven to every many for the common good. Spiritual gifts are notmerely enjoyment, they are for employment. They are to be used to be a11blessing to the body of believers. Think about all the people who area blessing to you. Think about those Sunday School teachers whofaithfully teach. Think about those visitors who came to your home andtold you about Jesus. Think about these wonderful musicians who singand use their talents and play their instruments and they do itanointed by the Holy Spirit. Think about those in our congregation whohave the gift of encouragement, the gift of mercy, those who have thegift of helps and do the little things that nobody really sees, but itis so vital in the fellowship of God's people. Every Christian has oneor more spiritual gifts. You have at least one spiritual gift. Youmay have more than one, but you have at least one.In verses 8 and following he gives us a list of gifts. Hementions in verse 8-10 about 9 of these spiritual gifts. Later on atthe conclusion of this chapter he will mention a number of others ofthose gifts -- 7 or 8 in those verses. In other places in the Bible hementions them again. Romans 12 he has a list. Ephesians 4 he has alist. I Peter 4 he has a list. When you examine all of those listsyou will find that none are the same. I believe that God gives thegifts that are necessary for His church at that particular point intime and that spiritual gifts change. There are some gifts that areneeded for some particular ages of the church and then they pass offthe scene. They fade a way and are no longer necessary. We find thatwas true in the early church. Some gifts were essential for the firstcentury church that are not essential for the church tonight. Thereare some gifts being used, I am confident, that were not necessary inthe first century. I'll give you an illustration. I really believethat the operating of sound equipment is a gift. I want to just12publicly thank all the folks in our Media Ministry. These folks have athankless job. If everything is going right in a service you don'tknow anything about it except that everything is fine. But whensomething goes wrong everybody knows it. These folks who work in theMedia Ministry only hear from folks when things go wrong. I'mconfident that operating sound is a gift that God gives some people. Iknow He gives some people the gift of music. Some folks think theyhave the gift of music who don't. One of the best ways you can figureout whether or not you have the gift of singing is to see if there isanybody who has the gift of listening. We used to have a dear lady inthe church where I was pastoring and she always wanted to sing. Idon't mean to be unkind but she was awful. She really couldn't singand she just worried the Minister of Music to death -- always wantingto sing, but nobody was gifted to listen to her sing. If a man hasbeen gifted to sing, God will give somebody to listen. If you thinkyou have been gifted to teach God will give somebody the gift to listento you teach. So, God gives different gifts in this day. But Hedoesn't give everybody the same gift. Nor does He give everybody allof the gifts. All of it is to be used for the common good.Verse 11 (I'm not skipping 8-10, I'll go into that in detail inthe next message or two and examine these spiritual gifts).But all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividingto every man individually as He will. That means that it is not for usto choose our spiritual gifts. It is God who makes that choice. Everybelievers does not have all the gifts. Verse 29 - Are all apostles?are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Theobvious intended answer to each question is no. "But covet earnestly13the best gift and yet I show unto you a more excellent way." The HolySpirit sovereignly gives spiritual gifts to believers as He (the HolySpirit) will. Our role is not to tarry and beg God to give us acertain gift. Our role is to just be yielded to the Lord, andavailable to the Lord and let him give us what He wants to give us.There is a difference between the gift of the spirit (singular) and thegifts of the spirit (plural). The gifts of the spirit are varied, theyare individual and the Holy Spirit gives them as He chooses. The giftof the spirit is the Holy Spirit Himself. In Act 2:38 the Bible says,"Repent and be baptized everyone of you for the remission of your sinsand you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Far more importantthan the gifts is the giver. Far more important than what particularspiritual gift, in His sovereignty may choose to give to you is thatyou have the Lord in your life.Do you know Jesus as your Saviour? Have you invited Him intoyour life?