By Titto Thomas
In the last post, we learned a few aspects of the “charismatic gifts” mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. In this post, I want to look at this topic from a different angle. It is interesting to note that before Paul started to teach about the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, he put emphasis on what the gifts were not, and there was a reason for this. Supernatural manifestations were not alien to the people of that time. Like it says in verse 2, they all had heathen backgrounds and hence had seen and experienced such manifestations.
A famous African missionary of the 1900’s narrated an incident in which he saw a tribal witch doctor speak in tongues and heal the sick. This sort of gifting is not just confined to the jungles; they have reached our concrete jungles as well. All around the world there are holy men doing miracles left, right and centre. In my country India, this is commonplace. There are sadhus and “god men”, who have even raised the dead. Now let me ask you, what is your reaction to all this?
This concern is very evident in verse 3 where Paul explains how we can judge between God’s gifts and demonic gifts. The answer is very simple. Gifts that bring glory to Jesus are from the Holy Spirit. God’s gifts used in the right way always points to Jesus. It causes people to say “Jesus is Lord“. The contrary is very obvious, any gifting or manifestation that does not point to Jesus is not from God. It may seem like it is from God, but if it does not point to Jesus, it is rubbish. Paul takes time to mention this because the demonic was very real. Satan does have some power and people under his bondage also exhibit counterfeit gifts.
My dear brethren, don’t be surprised by counterfeit gifts but BEWARE of them. Satan tries to imitate God only to get your attention. Don’t fall for it. There are a lot of misleading teachings out there, and I just want you to know this–in this series on foundations, our whole vision is that you are grounded in truth on spiritual realities. We do not want you to sway and waiver over every false doctrine or miracle that comes your way. Manifestations are not God; they point to God, and resurrecting someone from the dead does not make you a super spiritual person. It might be a Christian man operating in the gifts, but I want you to understand that operating in the gifts does not imply anything more than the fact that God’s grace gave him a special kind of gift to benefit the body of Christ. Be sober about the gifts, so that even if you see some great manifestation, you are not led away by it. Being sober about it will also safe guard you to operate in gifts by shielding you from pride. Gifts are not eternal; they are given for this present age–not as a weapon against the enemy, but as a weapon against the enemy’s works of lies, death, sickness etc. But if they cause you to seek and glorify man, beware!
Let me end with an illustration from the book of Exodus. In this book, we find Moses confronting the king of Egypt demanding the release of God’s people. Here God uses his servant to do great signs and wonders. But pharaoh’s magicians duplicated some of God’s signs. Note that they couldn’t reverse them. It is not uncommon to see duplicate gifts like here or God’s gift misused like in Balaam’s case. Satan is on the final run, trying to deceive people. In Revelation 13:13-14, we see how the demonic forces will also come out with great signs and wonders in the last days. The moral of the story is this–do not be misled by miracles. Keeping this in mind, let us proceed. In the coming posts we will describe God’s gifts in detail. We will divide the gifts into three sections:
(i) Revelatory gifts
(ii) Speaking gifts
(iii) Power gifts
In the next post I will explain what the revelatory gifts are.
Very good.
The best way to discern true spiritual gifts from the false is through the gift of discerning of spirits. With this gift, we can discern if its from the Lord, or the enemy.
Blessings
first of all I would love to say that the Holy made me visit this page before going to bed tonight . . . I heard the voice of the Holy Spiritsay, so go the Imrah Ministries and read their post and I did.
God bless you Tito for this post. these false preachers are everywhere, it is so much now and am telling you we cannot stop Preaching the word especially now.
Godbless Imrah
Thank God for the gift of the precious Holy Spirit. The bible teaches us that it is the anointing that teaches us all things. With so much teaching going on, at one point I was really confused about what the truth really was. Isn’t it comforting to know that, at the end of the day, God wants us to see Him as our teacher. Therefore it is so important to take every teaching you receive from others, to God. Even these series can become revelation only if you take it up to the LORD.
I believe our reaction to manifestations are important. If someone runs up to you and says. “Hey the pastor of this church raised up a man from the dead” Next sunday would you run to his church? It is sad to see christians run like this after manifestations. Honestly, I would also be very excited to hear something like that but I want to come to a point where, when I hear such things, I want to go “PRAISE THE LORD, GOD BE PRAISED FOR HIS AWESOME WORKS”. Basically be excited about the Lord. It is very important to be sober minded about the gifts. In the coming posts Sidharth will explain why.
This is really good Titto!
\”Manifestations are not God; they point to God.\” This quote struck me. So true. So often people seek after a sign or manifestation instead of God himself. This seems to lead to trouble.
Great blog and great topic. I think one of the keys to discerning \”signs and wonders\” is who is getting the glory and what is the message. If the glory is all God\’s and the message is the gospel then amen. If the glory is on the person with the gifts and the message is about the \”signs and wonders\” and not about the cross then \”buyer beware\”.
Grace and peace.
Tony