The Gifts of the Spirit

"Therefore, my brethern, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. But let all things be done properly and in an orderly manner." (1 Corinthians 14: 39-40)

The Holy Spirit dwells in the spirit of all born again believers. He moves from the spirit, through the soul, as the believer allows Him to. The fruit of the Spirit, such as love, joy, peace, patience, understanding, etc., will be produced in the lives of all who earnestly seek to do the will of the Father and who are willing to be led by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit equips each person with abilities helpful to advance the kingdom of God. Yet while all of that is certainly good and necessary, there is still an impartation of power that God wants each child of the kingdom to have. Usually that is not a result of a natural growth in spiritual maturity, but instead is a special gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift floods the soul part of man and can often result in the impartation of what scripture calls the "gifts of the Spirit". The initial bestowing of this special gift is known as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit", indicating an immersion of the soul into the Holy Spirit, and a death of self-lordship in the soul.

There are nine gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12; "For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues". These are not natural abilities that we are born with, or learned actions. These gifts are not dependent on the maturity of the believer, but instead result from the willingness of the person to yield (a decision of the soul) to the moving of the Spirit in a supernatural way. The Corinthian church was filled with immature believers and leaders who non-the-less were blessed with many supernatural giftings of the Holy Spirit. Paul's instructions were part of their process of gaining spiritual maturity in the use and operation of the gifts.

The gifts of the Spirit come from God and not from the knowledge or ability of man. Wisdom would be a Spirit given instruction, knowledge would be a Spirit given revelation, faith would be a Spirit given assurance. As there are different types of sicknesses and injuries, so there are needed different kinds of healing gifts for the purpose of bringing about a physical restoration of the body. A miracle is a creative work of the Spirit, adding or accomplishing something not normally possible in nature. There are at least two types of prophetic words. One is a word of encouragement given by God, and the other is information given about something in the future. Distinguishing of spirits is revelation given by the Holy Spirit showing the source and sometimes the idenity of spiritual forces active in a person or location. There are three types of tongues that I am aware of. One is a Spirit given private prayer language. The next is a Spirit given ability to speak to another person in their language or dialect. And the third is when the Spirit directs someone to speak out in a meeting in tongues. The last type should be accompanied by a Spirit inspired interpretation of tongues. The operation of the two gifts together is often refered to as prophecy.

Notice how the moving of the Holy Spirit in the soul is expressed in the physical. The Spirit gives us direction or guidance, and often times He will only give us a part or a beginning, and the gift becomes manifest as we start to act or speak out in the physical. Sometimes when we are praying for a person my wife will get a prophetic word for them. She may have a picture in her mind of what the Spirit wants to convey, or an impression of an overall theme, or maybe just the start of a sentence. But the word for that person takes shape and becomes complete only after she begins to speak out. God wants us to trust Him and to believe without first physically seeing, and the Spirit helps us grow in the gift as we learn to be obedient to the Spirit's prompting.

That is why the gift of tongues as a prayer language is such an important part of the baptism of the Holy Spirit It is valuable as an initial gift, and as an aid in growing to maturity in the Spirit. Although I believe it is possible for a person to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and yet not be able to speak out in tongues, tongues is usually the first gift evident in a Spirit-baptized person. The yielding to the move of the Holy Spirit through the surrender of our language in the physical, builds up our faith, thus opening up for us the activity of all the other gifts as well. And speaking in tongues daily as one part of our conversation with God not only helps us to be more sensitive to the moving of the Spirit, but it is a spiritual exercise for our soul. We want to be able to talk to God all through the day, with understanding as well as with a language that the Spirit gives us. Through tongues our soul and spirit express to the Father worship, praise, and inner desires and concerns that we often cannot find the proper words for.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the gifts associated with it, are for the building up of the body of Christ, of which all people who are reborn in their spirit are members. Jesus sent the Spirit to help us grow to maturity in our soul, and to better enable us to minister in the power of the Spirit to those already in the body. The baptism of the Holy Spirit also equips us to minister in power to those outside the body. Jesus provided for us a salvation that changes the spirit of man, and in His love for us He has sent the Spirit to transform our souls, and our physical nature, so that we may be built up into the image of Christ, Who is our Lord and Saviour.

Jesus Is Lord

"And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, 'Which', He said, 'you heard of from Me; For John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now . . . You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.'" (Acts 1: 4-8)

I saw a license plate on the front of a car recently which said; "Jesus is Lord". I was brought back to the 70's when it was early in my marriage and I was young in the Lord. Jackie and I attended charismatic prayer meetings, helped out some with prayer meeting leadership and Life in the Spirit seminars, and we went to a couple of the big charismatic conferences at Notre Dame. The theme of a lot of what the Spirit was doing in the Catholic charismatic renewal at that time was summarized with the saying, "Jesus is Lord." It was on banners, and bible covers, and often expressed verbally. And it really is a good phrase to express both an accurate theology about what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, and how a Spirit baptized person feels toward Jesus.

What was Jesus asking His disciples to wait for in Jerusalem? He had taken on the sin of man while on the cross, His perfect blood had paid the price that the Father demanded, and He had risen from the dead as first fruits of an eternal life now possible for all men with the Father. The disciples believed that this was so, and I think that their faith had already allowed the Holy Spirit to bring the Spirit of the risen Christ to unite with their spirits so that their spirits had become reborn. The Holy Spirit had been active on the earth prior to this time, was active in the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus had already breathed on them saying; "Receive the Holy Spirit". Before the redeeming death of Christ the Holy Spirit was present in their lives, equipping them for ministry. And it was the Holy Spirit who recognized the faith of each disciple, bringing to them the Spirit of Christ, to make a reborn spirit in man. And because they had a reborn spirit, allowing Jesus to live in them, they already had the Holy Spirit present as well in their spirits.

The disciples were waiting for Jesus to pour out upon them the Holy Spirit in a different way. It was going to be more than equipping man with a particular gift or gifts for the purpose of declaring the kindgom of God, although that was part of it. But more importantly, it was to be an impartation of the Spirit of God into the soul of man, to clean and to renew, and to allow the soul of man to better worship and serve his creator. To understand this we remember that we are more than a two part being; Body, Soul/Spirit, but rather a three part being; Body, Soul, Spirit. The soul, which is our personality, our will, and our desires, has a physical dimension and a spiritual dimension. God designed us to come to know His will by having the soul hear the Holy Spirit moving in our spirit. The Spirit then would minister life to every part of our soul, affecting our decisions, our feelings, our relationships, and our memories. And the Spirit-led soul would bring the body into submission to the will of God as well.

The sin of Adam changed things because the fruit of that sin caused the soul to become master of the three part nature of man, often times strongly influenced by the desires of the flesh. And the body was now subject to physical death. When death came, the soul and spirt of man could not be in the presence of a holy God. The sacrifice of Jesus made it possible for us to have a reborn spirit, which is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But we have a soul that still needs to be transformed. In everyone's soul there are different experiences, memories, and personality traits. And our body places demands on our soul as well. I have always pictured the soul as a house with many rooms and closets. Jesus wants to be Lord of every part of our house, to let His light shine in every room and corner. But we are fearful of losing lordship in certain areas. There are dark places where we have been hurt, or are ashamed, where we keep sin, and where pride is master. We often are blind to the simple truth that God wants to heal, that He already knows what is hiding at the bottom of that dirty pile of rags, that He longs to forgive, and that all of our abilities have been given with a purpose by Him. Whatever He has for us is better than what we are holding on to.

The disckiples knew Jesus as the One that was sent by God the Father. The Holy Spirit in them testified to that. But at Pentecost, the walls of the rooms and closets in their houses were blown down, and they could know Jesus as Lord of each part of their life. And they responded by praising and magnifying God, and by yielding themselves, both in their minds and their bodies, to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Of course, being baptized, or flooded in the Holy Spirit was just a beginning. It shows us that the Lord can move in us and through us with power. But there are usually doors that still need to be opened, and more that the Lord wants to show us. His Spirit is gentle, not forcing Himself without our permission, but always prodding us to grow closer to Jesus.

When I say "Jesus is Lord", I am thanking Him for how He has changed my life. I praise Him for His presence and for being there when I pray. I magnify Him because He is worthy, and has shown me just the slightest glimpse of who He is. And He is Awesome! "Therefore God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Phillipians 2: 9-11)

Time and Numbers

I love big numbers, although I can barely comprehend them. For example, light from the Sun can get to the Earth in less than 10 minutes. But if you had a spaceship that only traveled as fast as the car in your garage and started heading for the Sun today, neither you nor the kids that you brought along for the ride would live long enough to get there. The Sun is 93 million miles away, so you do the math. And yet if you wanted to travel to the next nearest star with a possibility of a planet, and could travel at the speed of light, it would take you something like 20 years to get there. Well, except for one little problem. A few nuclear fuel rods allow a large submarine to go for a year without refueling. But if all the atoms present in the entire Earth were split, there still would not be enough energy produced to enable that same little spaceship to obtain light speed. Or let me put it this way. UFO's do not come from beyond our solar system.

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The Hubble telescope has scanned the universe, and it is estimated that there are 200 billion trillion stars. Scientists have looked at something called red light shifts, and calculated the speed and time that all matter is moving outward from some central point, and have estimated the universe is between 13 to 20 billion years old. I recently heard a creation scientist ask this question. If we divide 200 billion trillion by 20 billion years, there needs to be 20 million stars formed per second, from then until now, to reach 200 billion trillion. If this is so, then why do we see so few stars being formed? So I checked out star formation on Google, and got the neat picture above. Seems that Hubble has identified a lot of "star birthing areas", visible only with infared scanners, and these have great "potential" to form lots of new stars, although the last new star identified for sure was birthed 1000 years ago. But not to worry, it's a little telescope and a very big universe. So what's 20 million per second among friends?

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We are told that the Earth began forming about 4 billion years ago, and that conditions for life were not present until about 400 million years ago. Now 400 million years is a lot of time, but not enough to program by trial and error the 3 million links of genetic code needed for the most basic initial life form. Even if chance could provide the first 100 links, which I doubt, why would links be added year after year after year, when those links would not benefit the potential life form until a million years later? The same argument applies to the latest idea that there might have been millions of shorter RNA links floating around. What is the purpose of their existence? What would cause more than a few links to combine over any amount of time? As my two year old grandchild once said, shaking her head; "I can't like this!" I think the DNA of all life is already pre-programmed to allow for variation up to certain limits. But check out sources such as the National Geographic edition on evolution, or check out evolution web sites, and still you will not find any evidence that shows gradual development of new features over time. Anthropologist can chart extinct species, and suggest that one led to the next. But the fossil record is absent of uniqueness in development. You might find a small dinosaur fossil with wings, and if that is an actual fossil, it's an already done deal. We simply do not have wings in the process of being developed over time. Nor do we find in any species of animal, plant or insect, existing today, new features in the process of development. Maybe we should call that "faith based science".

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So is the universe really 14 billion years old, beginning with a big bang? Did life begin 400 million years ago? Have the ancestors of modern man been walking around this planet for 100,000 years? The search to understand the ever increasing flood of knowledge is both exciting and important. But we need to learn how to properly balance what science tells us, and what scripture teaches. Science looks at material evidence, and interprets everything mechanically and mathematically. It looks at only the material world, and cannot measure or comprehend the spiritual world. And it is limited by two biases. The first is that because it cannot measure the spiritual, it denys it. I personally believe there are physics that govern both, perhaps the same physics, and if so then their glass will always be half empty. And the second is that because everything is regarded mechanically, science is most comfortable with a uniformist view of time. This measures the pace that things happen at today and the conditions that are known today, and then applies that pace and condition when looking backward. So an earth-shaking event like the flood is ignored, not because of a lack of a tremendous amount of evidence, but because that would be "introducing religion".

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There can be bias when looking at scripture. We need to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit to help us understand and descern what is written, and what is taught. If there is a conflict between what God says in scripture, and what science says, God is always right. I don't worry about science questioning miracles because I know that He is designer, creator, and substainor. But if a verse talks about the "four corners of the earth", I should understand the truth in that statement without having to believe that the earth is flat. Scripture talks about the sin of Adam and Eve, and believing that Adam and Eve were real people is criitcal to understanding God's plan of redemption for man. But putting a time frame on when Adam lived, and when "God created the heavens and the earth", is a matter of interpretation. Science may lead us to better examine certain sections of scripture, and it could be very wrong in its interpretation of evidence. However, the tools we use to help us understand scripture, such as teachings, and commentaries, and books, may or may not be inspired. Honest people can look at scripturre literally, and consider scriptural evidence as a whole, and still have areas of disagreement.

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Unfortunatly, the overall tendency in the church today is to try to conform scripture to current scientific and cultural information and standards. There is an evolutanry flavor being injected into the teaching of redemption and morals. It denys the authenticity of people and events in the Old Testament, and transforms a Spirit-breathed, spirit-reborn, relationship with the Creator of the universe, into a values-changing, society-conforming, philosophy left by an evolved grand master. But this has been true, even from the time of Peter. "Mockers say, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation . . . When they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, flooded with water. But the prresent heavens and earth by His word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men . . . Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people should you be in holy conduct and godliness . . . But according to His promise we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3)

"It Will Be Months, Not Years"

"Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation' ". (2 Peter 3:3)

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About a year before he died of a heart attack, my father-in-law heard what he believed was the audible voice of God. He had always been a great student of Biblical prophecy, as well as gifted in the prophetic, and had been praying, asking God as to the timing of the rapture. Harry believed that before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He promised that one day He would return to this Earth, and he believed that this return would come in two phases. The term that is commonly given to the first phase is "the rapture", when Jesus will bodily come to the atmosphere of the Earth, a heavenly trumpet will sound, and all humans who have a reborn spirit will instantly be transformed, and caught up into the atmosphere, to meet Jesus there. Jesus then returns to Heaven with this "caught out" group for a period of time. Harry was in the camp that believes that the rapture will take place prior to the beginning of a seven year period known as "the tribulation". This is a time of great judgement upon the Earth, where men will need to declare to whom they will serve. The tribulation ends with the second phase of Jesus return. He comes to the Earth with an army of those that had been reborn, His feet finally standing on the spot that He ascended from, the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He defeats The Enemy, the Antichrist and False Prophet, and the armies that come to oppose Him. Jesus will then rule on the Earth for 1000 years, at the end of which will come a rebellion, a judgment of all those who have not been reborn in their spirits, and the creation of a new Heavens and a new Earth.

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In response to Harry's question in prayer as to the timing of the rapture, God said; "It will be months, not years". Harry was surprised to hear the audible voice, which had happened to him only once, and that was a voice that said "WAKE UP!" when he had fallen asleep and was heading off the road while driving back from a prayer meeting in Paw Paw. He was also surprised at the directness of the answer. And so he prayed, "How can I know that this is really true?" And the audible answer was; "This year, when you go deer hunting, you will get your biggest buck ever". And a month later in November, at a location in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where his group had been going for years, often without success, and on their last day, a huge buck walked out 20 yards in front of where Harry was waiting, giving him a clear shot. I think it dressed out at over 300 lbs. It was so big that one of their party, a nephew who had traveled the world to hunt big game, and who has a pole barn full of mounted trophies, asked if he could have the animal head stuffed. That head is now hanging at a hunting "lodge" owned by a group of family relatives, many of whom are not believers but who still admire "the big buck".

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Harry told this to us at a family prayer meeting shortly after he returned. He said he was reluctant to share it with us before he went hunting, and even after the confirmation, because of the message, he still wanted to be cautious. The events happened about 10 years ago. As I said, a year later he had a heart attack and died. One of his sons always believed that this was a personal message from God to Harry that his time was short, and in a sense, events would bear that out. I have never been comfortable with that explaination, believing that the message was actually talking about the timing of the rapture, but unsure as how to interpret it. The most obvious interpretation would be to establish a certain time frame from the giving point of the message, to the happening of the rapture. But 10 years is 10 years, and not months. This has bothered me for a long time, and I have often prayed about it. I am convinced that the message was from God, and not something from the enemy, or imagined. One of the reasons is that Harry had a real passion for searching out scripture concerning the end times, and had prayed specifically concerning the timing of the rapture. And I believe that there must be some purpose, some reason, for God to give such a message.

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A couple of months ago I started thinking and praying about it again, and I remembered a comment from my Bible's footnotes on the book of Revelation. The first verse of the first chapter says; "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-spevants, the things which must shortly take place". The commentary says that the word "shortly" is the same Greek word which is translated "speedily" in Luke 18:8. In other words, the time frame of the events that are laid out in Revelation did not necessarily have to begin soon, but rather when things started to begin, things would happen quickly. And I think that would be a reasonable explanation for the word that Harry received. When certain prophetic things start to happen, know that the rapture will soon follow, in a time frame of months, not years.

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Now, I hold to the theological view that the rapture can happen at any time, and that there is nothing that has to precede it. But I have a suspicion that it may happen during the time frame of a future Jewish feast of Pentecost, or perhaps Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Feast of Trumpets, although I don't know when. And I also have a suspicion that if my interpretation of the word given to Harry is correct, that the starting event will be obvious to those that search the prophecies of scripture. And that might be something like the invasion of Israel laid out in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Various Biblical scholars have identified Magog as Russia, which leads a coalition of countries against Israel, with Persia (modern day Iran) as their main ally. At the last moment God intervenes for Israel, destroying the coalition forces. It is my opinion that action against Iran's nuclear facilities may be a trigger for those events to happen.

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This could happen five, ten, or twenty years from now. Or it could happen in 2007. The rapture may signal the beginning of the tribulation period, or there might be a space of months or years after the rapture before the tribulation begins. Whatever the case, or whatever the timing, we should be concerned for all those who do not have a reborn spirit in Christ Jesus, and pray frequently for those we know. At a specific point in time the Word became flesh. At a specific point in time He suffered, died, and rose from the dead, changing forever the dynamics between God and man. At a specific point in time He ascended into Heaven. And whether we are ready for it or not, He will return at a specific point of time. Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.