And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6
All who trust in their own works to Save them or to keep them Saved, cancel out the GRACE of GOD!
When one Believes unto Salvation they are Eternally Saved!
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2Timothy 2:15
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DR
 IP: 71.222.84.138 May 10, 08 - 11:37 AM |
The Goal of the Gifts
For consideration. From The Berean Searchlight Studying God’s Word, Rightly Divided May 2008 By Pastor Ricky Kurth From a message delivered October 2007, at the Berean Bible Fellowship Fall Conference in Evansville, Indiana After our Lord rose from the dead, and before He ascended into Heaven, He commissioned His apostles to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15). Those who believed the gospel and were baptized would be saved (v. 16), and empowered with certain supernatural abilities, known as spiritual gifts: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17,18). While the early disciples indeed displayed nearly all of these gifts, it is obvious to most Christians that believers today no longer possess these supernatural powers. We believe that this is because these gifts uniquely qualified those saints to preach the gospel safely during the Great Tribulation, but that the coming of the Tribulation was put “on hold” with the introduction of the dispensation of grace. The purpose of this article will be to show how these gifts will equip the saints to meet the unique challenges that will be present in the Tribulation period. In so doing, we also intend to demonstrate how in the absence of these unique challenges, there is no need for these gifts in the present dispensation. Let us now consider these gifts one by one, in the order in which they are enumerated in our text above. The ability to cast out devils is mentioned first, and so we must begin with a brief study of this controversial subject. Demon possession is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and so there must be a reason for the sudden appearance of this phenomenon during our Lord’s earthly ministry. We believe the reason to be Satan’s propensity to imitate God and counterfeit whatever it is that He is doing. A simple example of this proclivity can be seen in a comparison of prophets and apostles. In the Old Testament, God had prophets, and so Satan countered with false prophets (Jer. 23:31,32). It is not until we come to the New Testament that we read about “false apostles” (II Cor. 11:13; Rev. 2:2), for it is not until then that God introduced the office of apostle. This helps us understand why it is that demon possession did not appear until the New Testament. When John the Baptist preached that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2), he was referring to the kingdom of heaven that God intended to establish on earth. In this kingdom, God’s people would be filled with His Spirit and supernaturally controlled by Him (Ezek. 36:27). To counter this endeavor, Satan could not personally indwell different men, for he is not omnipresent. Opting for the next best thing, he commanded the members of his fallen host to possess different men. With this process the adversary hoped to raise up an army to be present on the earth, ready to oppose the army of Spiritfilled believers God was about to raise up at Pentecost (Acts 2:4). This then is why demon possession did not appear until the New Testament, for Satan does not attempt to counterfeit what God is doing until God actually starts doing it. In the present dispensation, the filling of the Spirit is a goal as opposed to a gift (Eph. 5:18), and men are not supernaturally controlled by the Spirit as they were at Pentecost. And since God is not filling men with His Spirit in the controlling sense today, Satan has consistently ceased his efforts to possess and control men as well. In the absence of demon-possessed men today, there is no need for God to empower believers with the ability to cast out demons. And the absence of this need is the reason for the absence of this power among believers today, for God does not give spiritual gifts for our amusement, but rather to equip believers to meet specific needs. Mindful that some may be doubtful about the absence of demon possession today, we pause to present what we consider to be further evidence. The Apostle Paul tells us that the believer who is equipped with the inspired Word of God is “throughly furnished unto all good works” (II Tim. 3:16,17), and the casting out of devils would certainly be a good work. Yet nowhere in Scripture are we given instructions as to how to cast out devils. If then the Bible equips us to do every good work we need to do, and it does not equip us to cast out devils, we believe it is safe to conclude that the need for casting out devils does not exist in the present dispensation. “...God does not give spiritual gifts for our amusement....” It could be argued that those who cast out devils in our Lord’s time did so seemingly without any instructions, but were rather equipped only with the empowerment of His command. To this we would reply that believers today do not operate under the commission of Mark 16, and we have likewise received no empowering command from the Lord through the apostle of the Gentiles to cast out devils. This too forces us to conclude that there is no need for the power to cast out devils today, and in the absence of a need for this gift, the gift itself has not been given to us. Moving on, the gift of tongues was likewise a gift that was given to empower believers to meet a specific need. The gift of tongues was a supernatural ability that enabled a believer to speak in a language he had never studied in order to be able to communicate a message from God to those of other tongues (Acts 2:4-11). This gift was needed at Pentecost, for “there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). In the Tribulation that will come to pass after the Rapture brings an end to the present dispensation that has interrupted God’s prophetic program, the gift of tongues will enable God’s Tribulation saints to fulfill His commission to preach the gospel to every creature in all the world (cf. Matt. 24:14). This gift will continue to be available to God’s people when in the kingdom “ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zech. 8:23). In that day, the gift of tongues will enable Israel to be the kingdom of priests to the nations of the world that God intends them to be. However, in the present dispensation, God has not chosen the people of one nation and one language to be His channel of blessing and bring the gospel to the world, but is rather raising up men in every nation to accomplish this purpose. Because of this, there is no need for the gift of tongues in the present dispensation. And in the absence of a need for this gift, God is not supplying this gift to believers in the present dispensation of grace. Continuing on in our text, the next gift the Lord predicted that believers would have is the ability to “take up serpents” (Mark 16:18). Like the gift of tongues, invulnerability to snake venom would be a handy thing to have in any dispensation. However like the gift of tongues, this gift will furnish the Tribulation saint to meet a specific need in that day. In Revelation 9:17-19 we read, “And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. “By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. “For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.” The presence of such demonic serpent-like creatures on earth during the Tribulation will present a formidable challenge to God’s people in that day. However, the filling of God’s Spirit at that time will give men the invulnerability to snakebite that will enable them to continue to serve the Lord, even in the face of such a supernatural threat to their lives. Once again we see how a gift of the Spirit will uniquely empower God’s Tribulation saints to meet the spiritual challenges that will be present in their day. However, in the absence of these serpent-like creatures in the present age, there is no need for this specific gift at the present time. And since there is no need for the gift, we contend that God is not giving this gift to believing members of the Body of Christ. The Lord also predicted that “if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them” (Mark 16:18). Who among us wouldn’t want to possess this gift, especially when traveling in countries where we are warned, “Don’t drink the water”! However, this gift also will have a particular application during the coming Tribulation. In John’s vision of that great and terrible day, we read of a judgment he saw fall on “the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters” (Rev. 8:10). This judgment caused that “the third part of the waters became wormwood” (v. 11). While earlier judgment affected the salt water “sea” (v. 8,9), the contamination of the “rivers” and “fountains” will affect man’s supply of fresh drinking water, and so we read that “many men died of the waters” (v. 11). Excluded from this number, however, will be those Spirit-filled believers endowed with the ability to drink any deadly thing without harm. As we look around today, however, we can’t help but notice the complete absence of any “great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp,” falling into the rivers and contaminating the fountains of waters. In the absence of this judgment today, there is no need for the spiritual gift that will render men impervious to its effect. And once again, in the absence of the need for this supernatural gift, God is not today giving this gift to His people. It should be pointed out that the power to take up serpents will help believers overcome the power of a Satanic threat to their life, while the power to drink deadly things will render them resistant to a God-given judgment. If the reader is wondering why God would send such a judgment, we propose the following. Notice that the wormwood waters “were made bitter” (Rev. 8:11). This calls to mind a strange passage of Scripture found in Numbers 5:11-31. Under the Law, if a man suspected that his wife had been unfaithful, he was instructed to present her to the priest, who would cause her to drink some “bitter water” that he had prepared for this purpose. If she was guilty of infidelity, a curse would enter into her bowels causing her thigh to rot and her belly to swell. We believe this to be a parallel passage to Revelation 8:11. If it be pointed out that this passage differs in that the woman is not said to die from drinking the bitter water, we would respond that death is implied, if not explicitly stated. We have to wonder how long one could live with a rotting thigh. To this we would add that under the Law, a woman who had been proven guilty of unfaithfulness was condemned to die by the hand of Israel (Lev. 20:10; John 8:5). And so we contend that this passage is indeed analogous to Revelation 8:11. If it be asked why God would administer such a test in the Tribulation, we would reply that spiritual fidelity will be an important issue in that day. As in the past, God’s people will be His espoused bride, who will be expected to remain faithful to Him (Jer. 2:2 cf. Matt. 24:12,13; Rev. 2:4). These saints will be severely tempted to be unfaithful to the Lord and commit spiritual fornication (Rev. 2:14,20,21; 14:8) with “the great whore...the mother of harlots” (Rev. 17:1-5). In that day, Spirit-filled believers will not be harmed when they drink the deadly bitter waters, but those who “say they are Jews, and are not” (Rev. 2:9) will fail the test and die. We propose that this is the reason God will send this judgment during the Tribulation. The final spiritual gift the Lord predicted would follow them that believe is the ability to “lay hands on the sick” and enable them to “recover” (Mark 16:18). Like the others, this gift is, as they say in the world of advertising, “often imitated, never duplicated.” It too would be a handy gift to have as believers today continue to groan and travail in pain together with all creation (Rom. 8:22). However, this gift is also particularly suited for the ages to come, as we shall see. In Exodus 19:5,6, the people of Israel were told that they are destined to become “a kingdom of priests.” However, like the sacrifices that they brought, Jewish priests themselves had to be without blemish (Lev. 21:17). If a man was “blind” or “lame,” for instance, he could not be a priest in Israel (v. 18-23). As we fast-forward to the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ began His public ministry by preaching “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17), and He meant that kingdom in which the people of Israel were destined to be a kingdom of priests. As He looked around, He couldn’t help but notice that many were “blind” and “lame” in Israel, and hence did not qualify for the priesthood. The purpose of His healing ministry among them then was not merely to prove His deity and compassion, but also to render them fit for service as priests in the kingdom. However, in the present dispensation of grace, God is not now preparing His people Israel to be “kings and priests” to “reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10). He is rather training members of the Body of Christ with His Word to fulfill their destiny to someday reign with Christ in the heavens (I Thes. 4:13-18; Eph. 1:21-23) where we will “judge angels” (I Cor. 6:3). In the absence today of the need for unblemished priests, there is a corresponding absence of the gift of healing among believers. Yet again we see how the spiritual gifts that the Lord promised would follow them that believe are particularly suited for Israel’s program and her future. In conclusion, this brief study is not meant to be an exhaustive refutation of the claims that our Pentecostal brethren make in defense of the spiritual gifts of Mark 16. We rather trust that the reader will add these few thoughts to the arsenal of spiritual weaponry with which we must equip ourselves to draw the attention of the Body of Christ away from imagined spiritual gifts back to “the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery” where it belongs. |
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