Those who have ears to hear what the
Spirit has been saying to the Church in
these days will become very clear in their
understanding of the emphasis that God has borne
in upon our hearts.
Above everything else, I believe that he has
clarified to our understanding in a new and
tremendous way the essential and vital necessity to
be deeply and gloriously regenerated by the Holy
Ghost, that all that has come via the
natural and the human and the satanic in
our experience be severed and swallowed up and
utterly destroyed.
Men and women might be brought into a
new and blessed heritage from God.
Also, we have been again reminded of the
glorious wonder of that inward revelation and sufficiency
of the Lord Jesus in all his mighty
power.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit revealed inside of
us to impart unto us and give to
us everything that we need to enable us
to live according to the glorious standards and
precepts that are outlined to us in this
book.
And then last night, two other great facets
of the truth crystallised with a new wonder,
tremendous truth concerning the need for purity of
heart and holiness of life, to be the
very testimony of the Son of God and
the explanation of all the glorious resurrection life
that he lived, all the days that he
was upon the face of the earth.
And out of that, that wonder and demonstration
of his love found liberation in our midst
last night and flowed like liquid glory, swallowing
up and carrying before it bondages and inhibitions
and fears and darknesses and things that have
held men and women for years.
Sister came up to Mr North right beside
me this morning and she said, I've never
been able to love, I've never known what
it was to be loved like this.
Praise the Lord, this is what God is
doing and this is what God is wanting.
Wonderful.
Kay danced and sang, I didn't know.
She said, it's all so wonderful.
She laughed, she cried, she danced, she sang.
And our brother Robin Sinker, also the son
of an Anglican bishop, a vicar's wife and
the son of a bishop, their testimony was
they'd never known the tremendous joy and exhilaration
and release within their being.
And I'm sure that that's a testimony of
not a few.
And it all flows and it all comes
from that blessed regeneration of the Holy Ghost.
That tremendous knowledge that all that was impure
and all that contaminated and spoiled and made
it unsafe for us to enter into relationships
with one another, banished.
The only reason why people have difficulty in
human relationships, because their relationship with God isn't
right.
Once the relationship there is right and there's
no barrier or anything to hold us back,
then the relationship begins to work itself out
in relationship to one another.
These two things aren't separated.
God needs a relationship with us.
If He needs it with us, how much
more do we need it?
Not only with Him, but with each other.
He's not a disembodied spirit that floats around.
He's come and made His abode in the
hearts and lives of men and women.
And inasmuch as we do it unto the
least of these His brethren, He says, we
do it unto Him.
And if we learn to love each other,
then we're loving Him.
And we've got to be practical and realistic
about it.
Bless the Lord.
And out of that glorious purity of love,
God leads us on to another wonderful truth.
And if you will turn with me into
the first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter
12, we
have the teaching of the Holy Spirit concerning
those tools or gifts given to the
Church in the wisdom of God to assist
us and enable us in the expressing and
the outworking of His love.
This is why this central teaching concerning the
gifts of the Spirit has been so beautifully
placed in the writing of Scripture.
It's no accident that the chapter between chapter
12 and chapter 14 is chapter 13.
That's no accident.
It's the meat inside of the glorious sandwich.
And it's the context out of which and
in which we must always consider and move
in the precious gifts of the Spirit beloved.
Gifts of the Spirit used outside of the
context of love can be lethal.
It's not only what we say in the
oral gifts, it's how we say it.
We were reminded that last night concerning the
voice.
It's not what a person says, it's how
they say it.
It's the inflection, the tone, the spirit and
attitude behind the word that is spoken.
Remember concerning John the Baptist who said, whose
testimony was, I am the voice of one
crying in the wilderness.
It took God 30 years to prepare that
voice.
30 years to prepare that voice.
Ever so important.
It's not what we say, it's not what
we do.
It's the context in which it is done.
And therefore way above everything else beloved as
we come to an understanding and we open
our hearts up to God's precious gifts.
It must be seen in this glorious context
of the love of God.
Beginning of the 13th chapter it says, Yes,
the 13th chapter it says, Though I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels
and have not charity, I am become a
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
Though I have the gift of prophecy and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though
I have all faith so that I can
remove mountains and have not love, I am
nothing.
That doesn't mean to say that we don't
need the gifts of the spirit.
Some people say, oh the gifts of the
spirit aren't necessary because they've been superseded by
the greatest of the gifts.
Well love is a gift but it's more
clearly described in the scripture as fruit.
The fruit of the outworking of that precious
life.
The fruit of the spirit is love.
It is not love without the gifts or
the gifts without love.
But one complementing the other.
One being the instrument and vehicle whereby the
other finds fullness of expression.
In verse 1 of chapter 12 we read
this, Now concerning spiritual gifts I would not
have you ignorant.
Verse 31 of the same chapter says this,
Covet earnestly the best gifts yet shall I
unto you a more excellent way.
There's another description for love, it's a way.
Chapter 14, verse 1.
Follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts.
Verse 12 of chapter 14.
Ye are zealous of spiritual gifts.
I would not have you ignorant.
Covet earnestly, desire spiritual gifts.
You are zealous.
That's not a half-hearted collection of counsel,
is it beloved?
There's nothing weak about that.
There's nothing as if it were an optional
extra, you can have it if you like.
There's a sense of urgency.
There's a sense of necessity.
I would not have you ignorant.
Many people, beloved, are totally and abysmally ignorant
concerning the precious gifts of the Holy Ghost.
Even within circles, beloved, where these things are
talked about, where in a measure they are
exercised and used, there is an abysmal ignorance.
There's also a lack of use.
Let us ask ourselves in the context of
this conference during this week, how many of
the ninefold gifts which are spoken of in
the twelfth chapter of the first epistle to
the Corinthians alone have functioned.
Or let us be more personal than that.
Let us ask ourselves, how informed are we
as individuals concerning these precious things?
How many of us function in one or
more or all of these precious gifts of
the Spirit?
For how many of us is this familiar
ground in experience more than theory?
I would not have you ignorant.
Beloved, the people to whom he wrote in
the first chapter, he said they came behind
in no gift.
And yet there was obviously an ignorance concerning
the use, concerning the exercise, the abuse in
these precious things.
Desire.
Do you desire the gifts of the Spirit?
Let me ask you, do you desire to
speak in tongues?
Do you desire to prophesy?
Desire is a very, very strong word.
It's one of those words which expresses the
uprising of the deep, deep longings of a
man's being.
Do you desire them?
Covet.
It says in the scripture you're not to
covet.
Here's one thing the scripture says, you're to
covet.
Covet.
Be zealous.
You are zealous, it says.
Is that the truth concerning you, beloved?
Do you agree with God on this point?
We've been reminded a number of times that
the important thing is to agree with God
rather than the lie.
Do you agree with God?
Does your experience agree with God this morning
that you are zealous of spiritual gifts?
They're vital, they're important, they're necessary.
Beloved, I don't know how one is to
manage without them.
How one can fulfil the function and role
in any form of ministry unless God imparts
and we receive and learn how to use
these precious things.
In the context of counselling alone, I don't
know how a person manages any more unless
they have the ability from God to discern
spirits.
When I was a student I was taken
through a course of psychology.
It was called pastoral psychology.
The only good thing that I got out
of that was that it enabled me to
honestly face up to the impossibility and the
incurableness of my own situation.
Because you can't study psychology or psychiatry without
psychoanalysing yourself.
Before you've gone very long you find that
you discover that you seem to be suffering
from every disease that the book talks about.
The only thing you end up not having
is in a housemaid's knee or something like
that.
You follow the charts and you say well
that happens in me and you follow another
route and that happens in me and well
if you weren't schizophrenic before you are by
the time you've finished.
But beloved, having done all that, and psychiatry
and psychology is the science of the soul
and doesn't penetrate further in that area of
human experience, one comes to a realisation by
the blessed illumination of the Holy Spirit that
man's problems don't essentially lie within the realm
of his soul, they lie in the realm
of his spirit.
And it's Jesus, the great sword of the
Spirit, who divides between soul and spirit and
discovers the depths of human need.
And as we become recipient of that blessed,
resurrected Lord Jesus, he imparts to us the
ability by the Holy Ghost, beloved, to go
beyond the mere physical and psychological problems that
really are only the manifestations and symptoms of
a deeper need.
The other thing that I came to a
realisation was that it was no use being
able to diagnose without having a positive, precious
remedy to provide.
Many of my friends who study and move
in the spheres of psychiatry and psychology, they
confess that they can often, invariably, by psychoanalysis
and other methods, diagnose the problem.
I don't know how accurately, but having diagnosed
the problem, they don't know how to resolve
it.
They have no answer.
They can only minister various human methods of
alleviation that perhaps make it more bearable for
men and women to live.
But essentially, their need goes unmet.
The very roots of the matter still lie
deeply embedded in the Spirit and in their
original inheritance by means of first birth.
Those of us who have listened to the
afternoon sessions, and there's going to be the
final one.
Our brother says he's going to tie it
all up.
He's going to tie everything up this afternoon.
It's the end of the great birth process,
I think, going to take place this afternoon.
The midwife is going to be here to
make a finished job.
I don't know how he's going to do
it, but still.
Someone said to me, what is he going
to tie up?
I said, we'll wait and see.
Bless the Lord.
I don't believe it says in the last
days that many people will be deceived.
And if it were possible, even the very
elect.
I believe that there's only one way in
which men and women will be preserved from
deception, beloved, which becomes more and more subtle
as the days go on.
It is that as they have that blessed
inward unction and witness of the Holy Ghost
that supersedes their reason and external evidence and
tells them what is of the Spirit of
God and that which is of the Spirit
of the Antichrist.
And as that precious unction is outward, beloved,
via the gifts of the Spirit, so men
will have the ability and women the ability
to see beyond what is apparent and meet
the need.
The gifts of the Spirit, to me, are
no longer optional extras.
I see them to be absolutely fundamental and
necessary, both in the upbuilding and edifying of
the Church of Jesus Christ.
And to the enabling of us to relate
and express and outwork the blessed love of
God in all its glorious purity.
Not just superficially, not just in glory times,
but in basic fundamental reality where you find
men and women sunk in all their degradation
and sin, with all their bite and the
implications and repercussions that have followed their essential
need.
I find that often it isn't the essential
need that takes the time and the energy,
but all the problems that have accrued as
a result of wrong living, wrong environment.
For instance, I was once asked a minute
or two to a certain person who had
become involved in drug addiction and the by
-products of that, beloved, was five illegitimate children,
all of which were maladjusted, mentally and physically
affected.
The breakdown of the whole home situation, financial
problems, domestic problems and a multitude of other
problems, all which had grown out of and
were the result of deep, deep spiritual problems.
Let us read the first part of chapter
twelve.
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not
have you ignorant.
You know that you were Gentiles, carried away
unto these dumb idols, even as ye were
led.
But ye were Gentiles, past tense, glory.
I believe that many people have moved out
of what was present tense to them this
week, and I now speak of it as
in the past.
Bless the Lord.
Even as ye were led.
What leads you this morning?
What leads you?
Who's leading you?
You're being led by something, someone.
Wherefore I give you to understand that no
man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth
Jesus accursed.
And that no man can say that Jesus
is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the
same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it
is the same God which worketh all in
all.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given
to every man to profit withal.
For to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom.
To another the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit.
To another faith by the same Spirit.
To another the gifts appealing by the same
Spirit.
To another the working of miracles.
To another prophecy.
To another the discerning of spirits.
To another divers kinds of tongues.
To another the interpretation of tongues.
But all these worketh that one and the
self, same Spirit, dividing to every man severally
as he will.
For as the body is one and hath
many members, and all the members of that
one body, being many, are one body, so
also is Christ.
For by one Spirit are we all baptised
into one body.
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we
be bond or free, and have all been
made to drink into one Spirit.
We've seen first of all that the context
in which these precious gifts of the Holy
Ghost are to function are the context of
purity in life.
For therein they are safe.
And from that context they will minister life.
Second great context in which we see these
precious things are set is found in verse
three.
Wherefore I give you to understand that no
man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth
Jesus accursed.
And that no man can say that Jesus
is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
The gifts are the gifts of the Spirit.
And they function under the Lordship and sovereignty
of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost enthroned
in the heart.
Jesus is Lord.
And the government of your life and my
life is upon His shoulders.
And the gifts of the Spirit are given
by Him beloved.
And they must function under His Lordship, under
His direction, under His authority, motivated by Him.
This will eliminate fleshly use of these precious
things.
This will eliminate the ground so often afforded
to the wicked one.
Even within this lovely context.
This is what has brought much disrepute and
dishonour to the whole realm of the things
of the Spirit.
This is why some people won't touch it
with a barge pole.
Now it's folly to cast out the baby
with the bathwater.
Because there are such things as counterfeit £5
notes, I don't believe that you've stopped spending
£5 notes.
The very fact that there are counterfeits, beloved,
is the clear indication.
There is that which is genuine, there is
that which is true, there is that which
is pure, there is that which is of
God.
Where Jesus is not, Lord beloved, there is
bound to be deception.
The flesh is bound to creep in, seeking
to elevate the man.
But where Jesus Christ is Lord, and the
whole personality of man has been subjected under
His glorious Lordship.
And has lived there in that place of
dependence upon Him as Jesus depended upon the
Father.
God can move in sovereign power and do
what He likes, when He likes.
Because He finds that He has a vehicle,
an instrument that is available unto Him to
move at His bidding.
And that's what God is looking for.
Men and women who are free unto Him.
They've no reservations, they've no inhibitions, they've no
arguments and reasons as to why they should
or they shouldn't.
They're like, as it were, clay in the
potter's hand.
Who've responded to the love of God within
their hearts and trust Him to move in
power in their lives.
No man can say that Jesus Christ is
Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
And it's no use preaching a gospel, beloved,
of salvation, separate from a gospel of sanctification
or Lordship.
Some people say, Jesus Christ became my Saviour,
and twenty years later He became my Lord.
Jesus isn't a person's Lord, beloved, it's very
doubtful what they've really been saved from.
But where Jesus is Lord, then He can
entrust and work out these precious gifts of
the Spirit.
The other context which is very important that
we should notice, in which these glorious things
are spoken of in the Scripture, is that
they are spoken of in the context of
the teaching concerning the Church, the Body of
Christ.
For in verse 13 it says, For by
one Spirit are we all baptised into one
Body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and are all
made to drink into one Spirit.
The gifts of the Spirit are safe in
the context of love.
They are safe in the context and under
the Lordship of Jesus Christ by the Spirit.
The third great area and venue in which
these things are safe, beloved, is in the
context of the living Body of Christ.
And many people, beloved, have been led astray
because they fail to see this.
How many people have gathered together in two
groups, seeking prophetic utterance and revelation as to
what they should do, and where they should
go, and who they should marry, and who
they should live with.
I know a situation, beloved, where this happened,
where a group of people who were ignorant
of these things, it wasn't primarily their fault,
they hadn't been told, they hadn't realised the
dangerous position in which they were putting themselves
in.
They gathered together because they wanted to know
who they were going to marry.
They got all sorts of revelation.
And they got into all sorts of bondage.
And they were the victims of much hurt.
And one ached for them.
Context.
Someone told me the other day that they
had begun to move in these precious things.
God had given them certain gifts.
And they were moving in, I can't remember
who it is or what the church they
belonged to was.
But when God had baptised them in the
Spirit, and they'd begun to speak in tongues,
and God had given them prophetic utterance, they
went to the pastor of their church.
And asked if they might have permission to
move within the meeting.
And if God gave them a word of
prophecy, or if God moved upon them to
speak in tongues, that they might be free
to do so.
They were forbidden.
They were told that they would go home
and they were to exercise these things in
private.
All I can say, beloved, that was asking
for trouble.
First of all, it's a violation and a
diametrical contradiction of what the scripture says.
Because the next chapter talks about the operation
and the function and the meeting together in
the church.
And the exhortation is that we should come
with a tongue, we should come with a
prophecy, we should come with a psalm, we
should come with a reading, and so on
and so on.
So that the meeting isn't just a one
-man show, but it's a moving and a
sharing, a contributing and a flowing.
And God wants us to move and share
and flow, beloved.
No one has got the monopoly of the
Holy Ghost.
There's no one superior in the body of
Christ.
In fact, the scripture says quite plainly, beloved,
that the least member is the one whom
God will lift up.
We so often think about the people who've
got the natural gifts, the natural abilities, the
natural endowments, but these don't count in this
realm.
God can take up a person who's nigh
on illiterate and speak through them as an
oracle and bring revelation and insight into things
that intellectual understanding excludes because of reason.
The venue in which God would have these
things primarily function is within the context of
the church when it gathers together and worships
the Lord.
And the love of God flows and the
Lordship of Jesus Christ is acknowledged and recognised.
And God can move and speak and exhort
and teach and reveal and meet the needs
of men and women, praise the Lord.
May he liberate us all.
May he give us hearts that are so
zealous, so desirous of these things, beloved, that
there's an absolute throbbing, almost a clamouring to
move.
Verse four.
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit.
And there are differences of administration, but the
same Lord.
And there are diversities of operation, but the
same God which worketh all in all.
Diversities of gifts, differences of administration, diversities of
operation.
Beloved, there's something always very precious, original and
unique.
In the operation of the gifts of the
Holy Ghost, it's God's nature.
There's always something very natural.
There's no particular way in which you do
these things.
In fact, when I hear people and when
I become aware of people, as it were,
following a method, I have brave reservations in
my heart as to how genuine these things
are.
When you speak in tongues, beloved, God has
given you a natural voice.
And every person in this room has a
different voice.
And there's nothing spiritual in adopting a so
-called super-spiritual voice that takes on an
octave higher than your natural voice and puffs
and blows and squeaks and makes a noise
that is completely and utterly abnormal.
It speaks to me of unreality.
I don't believe that we have to puff
and blow like a donkey getting up wind.
I once prayed.
I think one of my first experiences of
praying for anyone in this realm, it was
in the very early days when we met
in the Friends Meeting House in Liverpool and
a certain person asked us if we would
pray.
So our brother was there, fortunately.
It's my salvation in those days.
I can't tell you the things that used
to happen when he wasn't there.
But bless the Lord, he knew our hearts.
He carried us on and took us through,
knew where we wanted to go.
I remember we went over to this certain
person and he wanted prayer for something or
other and we stood behind him and we
put our hands above him and suddenly he
went, puff, puff, puff.
Then Mr Northree's hand on his head and
he went, whoo!
I said to him afterwards, what was that
all about?
Oh, he said, brother, didn't you know?
He got the glory.
No, I said, I didn't know.
He said, bless the Lord that you didn't.
I was preserved from all these sort of
things.
I don't know anything about these sort of
experiences.
I've only come across them as I've gone
around.
Got the glory in quotes, please.
As soon as the person had
asked us to pray, we went, whoo!
Perhaps you've been the victim.
Perhaps you've been bred in those sort of
backgrounds, beloved.
You've been told how to do it.
That's how many people have come into a
false experience of tongues.
They've been told to copy what someone else
has said.
People have puffed and blowed over them and
shaken them and danced around them, beloved.
And they've ended up with some fleshy counterfeit
experience which they have been told was the
baptism of the Holy Ghost and have dragged
on through years of bondage and darkness.
That's how dreadfully serious it all is, beloved.
God moves in sovereign power.
And there's diversity.
There are differences.
And He will take up, beloved, what He
has made you and recreated you to be
and function through you and in you.
And when you speak in tongues and when
you prophesy, beloved, prophesy, it will be with
the voice that you were given.
And it will be expressed through the personality
that God has sanctified unto Himself in you.
Every one of us is different.
You couldn't get anyone more different than chalk
and cheese than us two.
We're different temperamentally, we're different in the way
of expression.
I can't be like him.
God help him if he tried to be
like me.
We're different, beloved.
It's hideous when we start copying each other
and aping someone else.
Of course we will influence each other.
Of course we will beget after our own
likeness.
May that be the likeness of Jesus Christ.
There will be things that rub off.
But, beloved, when those things come out of
a genuine inward relationship with the Lord, they're
lovely.
But when they are just copies, they're nauseating.
There's an awful unreality and it gives ground
to the wicked one.
Be yourself, sanctified.
Be yourself.
And let God be what He wants to
be through you.
This is why when a person speaks in
tongues and there is an interpretation, another person
may have the interpretation as well.
And if you ask both of those people
to give the interpretation and they could both
have the genuine, real interpretation from God.
If you ask them both to give the
interpretation, they use different words, they use different
phrases.
But they would interpret and convey the same
truth.
The same thing that God was wanting to
say.
Some people wonder why some interpretations are longer
than the tongue.
Because the person has the sort of nature
and disposition that they express themselves more fully.
Other people express themselves more precisely.
There are differences, there are diversities.
Praise the Lord.
But it's the same spirit.
It's the same Lord.
It's the same God.
All coming from the same source.
And it's working itself out through your life
and my life and your life.
And it will be fresh and lovely and
genuine and precious.
And it will have that crystal ring about
it.
Verse seven.
The manifestations of the Spirit are given to
every man to profit withal.
And down in verse eleven.
All these worketh that one and the self,
same spirit, dividing to every man severally as
he will.
For every man.
Every man.
Everyone who is born again of the Spirit
of God and filled with the love of
God shed abroad in their heart for love.
It qualifies.
It's for every man.
Of course that means the ladies as well.
You're allowed to prophesy.
Daughters of Philip, wasn't it?
They were prophetesses.
They were allowed to prophesy.
A woman wishes to pray or prophesy, she's
to cover her head.
That's what the scripture says.
So you're authorised.
You're expected to prophesy.
The apostle expected the women to prophesy.
Expected them to minister in these precious things.
Manifestations of the Spirit are given to every
man to profit withal.
How greatly are you profited, beloved, of God
in your spirit by the operation of the
gifts of the Holy Ghost.
It's one of the ways in which we
will grow and develop.
It's one of the ways in which God
will edify and bless and build us up.
It's one of the ways in which God
will minister and communicate himself to our spirit
by way of revelation.
I once heard Mr North say to someone
who asked him the question as to how
he or where he got all that he
had to say.
He said, there are times when I just
lie before the Lord.
He said, Lord ministers to me and I
talk and I speak in tongues and he
comes to me in prophetic art.
You know, most of you have read that
book, The Generation of Jesus Christ.
Well I heard him say that the Lord
gave that to him prophetically.
And that's why lots of people who read
the original manuscript told him he'd have to
do something if people would understand fully what
he was saying.
Those of us who knew him and had
flowed in the vein and sat under the
ministry knew exactly what he was talking about.
It was meat and it was strong meat.
So he came home from India two years
ago and got out his mincing machine and
minced it up.
He said, it's still meat.
My baby David, who's only got 16, he's
got his seventh coming.
All his stuff goes either through a mincing
machine or one of these pulverizers.
I don't know, what do they call them?
Liquidizers, that's right.
And it comes out looking like pulp.
But it's exactly the same dinner which is
on my plate.
He gets exactly the same.
There's a brother and sister here.
They've got a big mincing machine.
There it is.
It's got a blue stand.
It's screwed to the table up there.
And they go and get a dinner for
their baby, exactly the same as theirs.
And they wind it all through that machine
and then they shovel it down.
It's growing.
Fast.
Bless the Lord.
It's alright, I've got three boys I know.
Sometimes it takes some shoveling too.
It's profitable.
It's one of the secrets of growth in
a person's individual experience with God.
You will find that when you begin to
move in the gifts of the Holy Ghost,
beloved, it's one of the ways in which
your spirit and the Spirit of God, and
you will find access to flow.
And that river will begin to flow out
and move out.
God will impart to you.
God will give you understanding.
Sometimes before a meeting, God will begin talking
to you.
Like our sister, she was up on the
hill, she said.
And God began to talk to her up
there long before she came in the meeting
last night.
It just paved the way for what God
was wanting to give to her in abundance.
There'll be times before you come into the
meeting, beloved, when God will talk to you.
God will speak to you and cause you
to hide things in your heart.
Until it's His time and under His direction,
those things will come forth.
And there will be a flowing and a
moving.
There will be times when the wicked one
says to you, Oh, you better keep that.
You better hold on to it.
You might need it.
But I find, beloved, that the quicker you
give away what you've received, the more quickly
you will receive something more.
That's the secret of speedy growth in the
spiritual life.
Give it away.
Let it flow.
You'll be profited.
You'll be encouraged.
There'll be times, beloved, when God moves upon
your spirit and you don't quite know what
you're going to say or what it is
that He's wanting to say.
But the Spirit of God is moving in
your heart and you literally have to open
your mouth believing God to fill it.
And once you speak that first word, it
will flow.
You'll have to move in faith.
If ever there's a realm in which a
person has to move in faith, it's this,
beloved.
And it will spell death to you time
and time again because the devil will say,
What about if you get stuck?
Especially if you only know the first bit
of what he's wanting to say.
What about if you get stuck?
What about if you can't go on?
What will they think of you?
Well, what does it matter what they think
of you?
If you're dead, it doesn't matter what they
think.
Bless the Lord.
Another thing which is very important, beloved, is
that we are sensitive to the Holy Ghost
in these things and we say what God
wants us to say, no more and no
less.
And sometimes the very cut and thrust of
the thing that God is wanting to say
to us, beloved, is lost in a collection
of a verbosity that takes off the edge
of that precious word that will go down
into the depths and come with all its
cleanness and purity.
God wants to speak and it says in
the Scripture, the Spirit speaks expressly.
He doesn't waffle.
He doesn't go all around the bush.
He doesn't coat it over with sugar, beloved.
He says what He wants to say.
And if we, as the vehicles of His
Word, operating in the gifts of the Holy
Ghost, are going to speak as God speaks,
we will speak just as expressly, just as
positively and directly, without compromise, leaving the repercussions
and the outworkings of it to Him.
God says, you are to say one word,
say one word.
And don't give it a prelude and a
conclusion afterwards.
Say what He wants you to say.
Hallelujah.
And that will be profitable.
That will be profitable.
Some of you have heard the illustration.
I'll repeat it because I know no better.
A friend of mine who was a young
Chinese man, in fact he was my best
man at my wedding, he was once in
a meeting where there were many people who
moved in these things easily.
In the middle of the meeting he stood
up and he said, do it.
And sat down.
In fact the person who was his spiritual
father led him to the Lord and brought
him back to the Spirit was utterly embarrassed
by his behaviour.
But do you know, there was a man
in that meeting, beloved, who'd sat on the
fence concerning an issue for years.
And he was a leading light.
The circles where things of the Spirit are
talked about, he was a leading light and
he'd sat on the fence.
And after that meeting he went to that
brother and he said, God has met me.
The brother thought that it had been by
the preaching or the praying or the great
prophecy.
None of these things had registered.
He was almost oblivious because God had so
worked in his heart.
He said, well, what was it?
He said it was that young Chinese fellow
who stood up and he said, do it.
And he said, it's done.
Glory.
It's done.
The babes amongst us could say, do it.
Two two-letter words, couldn't we?
Do it.
That was profitable.
It accomplished its end.
Profitable to him, profitable to the person to
whom it was spoken.
Manifestations of the Spirit are given to every
man to profit with all.
Are you profited, beloved, because you're moving in
the gifts of the Spirit?
Have you been profited this week because you've
moved?
I believe that many people have been profited
this morning because they've prayed.
Whereas we've been reminded at least twice during
the week that virtually six people have done
the praying.
Profited because of the release, of the liberation.
There's an outworking, there's an outflowing, there's a
giving.
Much more so, beloved, if you will move
in these precious things by the instigation of
the Holy Ghost, you will be profited.
Much more so than if you just sit
and listen and listen and listen, you'll become
waterlogged spiritually.
God doesn't want us to be like a
lot of sponges who sit around soaking up
that which everyone else has to give.
He wants us to give and receive and
receive and give.
Thus we will be profited in our own
experience.
For to one, verse 8, is given the
Spirit by the Spirit the word of wisdom.
To another, the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit.
To another, faith by the same Spirit.
To another, the gifts of healing by the
same Spirit.
To another, the working of miracles.
To another, prophecy.
To another, discerning of spirits.
To another, diverse kind of tongues.
To another, the interpretation of tongues.
But all these work at that one and
the self-same Spirit dividing to every man
severally as he wills.
There are the ninefold gifts of the Spirit
mentioned here, beloved.
There are others.
If you read your New Testament properly, you
discover that there are others referred to in
the Scriptures.
They are again, I will say, the tools
of love.
No one would have any doubt that the
working of miracles was a tool of love,
a means of expression.
Wasn't this the life of Jesus, beloved, all
the time he was upon the face of
the earth?
He moved naturally, supernaturally in these precious things.
He moved in the realm of miracles.
He moved in the realm of deliverance.
He moved in the realm of healing.
It was the outworking of his nature.
It was the expression of all that he
was.
He was gift.
If you want another name to describe the
Lord Jesus other than love, beloved, he is
gift.
Gift is the outworking of a loving disposition.
If you love someone, beloved, the thing that
delights you most of all is to give
to them.
And here will be the thing that gives
you incentive to move in these things.
There will be that in you that wants
to give to your brothers and sisters, to
meet their needs, to share with them all
that God is giving to you by way
of wisdom, of knowledge, by prophetic utterance.
You'll want to minister to them and see
them healed, see them delivered.
Miracles transacted in their lives, their complications and
confusions discerned and unraveled and their needs met.
Praise the Lord.
I want just now for a few moments
to just look very briefly, time's almost gone,
very briefly to the gift of the Spirit
that causes most discussion and argument and is
the biggest stumbling block to many.
And that is the gift of tongues and
interpretation.
And for the sake of time, I want
to just point you to the Scriptures.
First of all, you will know that Paul
said that he wished that we all spoke
in tongues.
Word to God that ye all spake with
tongues.
In verse 18 of chapter 14, sorry, we're
in chapter 14.
In verse 18 he said, I thank my
God I speak with tongues more than you
all.
Lots of people say tongues, the baby language
of the Church.
I say Paul must have been a great
big baby then when he wrote this very
wise and mature epistle.
He said, I speak with tongues more than
you all.
And at the end of the same chapter
he says, verse 39, Wherefore brethren, covet to
prophesy and forbid not to speak in tongues.
Word to God that ye all spake in
tongues.
I speak in tongues more than you all.
Forbid not.
That's verse 5, verse 18 and verse 39.
Then there are three reasons for which tongues
have been given.
Verse 2, He that speaketh in an unknown
tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God.
For no man understandeth him, how be it
in the spirit he speaketh mistress.
This is the first reason why God has
given the gift of tongues.
All that we can worship him, love him.
Beyond the limitations of our native and mother
tongue.
Second reason why he has given the gift
of tongues, verse 4, He that speaketh in
an unknown tongue edifyeth himself.
It's for the edification of your own spirit.
All those of us who move and function
in the gifts of tongues, both in our
private devotions and in public worship, will testify
to the fact that it is edifying.
It is releasing.
It is life giving.
And the third reason beloved, verse 5, I
would that ye all spake with tongues, but
rather that ye prophesy.
For greater is he that prophesyeth than he
that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret that
the church may receive edifying.
It's for the glory of God, it's for
the edification of self, and it is for
the edification of the church.
Third thing about tongues, and here I will
finish, is the question of interpretation.
Verse 12, Even
so ye, for as much as ye are
zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may
excel to the edifying of the church.
Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown
tongue pray that he interpret.
Beloved, if someone speaks in a meeting in
a tongue, if the church is going to
be edified by that tongue, of necessity it
must be interpreted.
If there is no one else forthcoming with
the interpretation, that person should pray that God
give them the interpretation.
I give you an example of this.
Some time ago in the Lomkopf where we
fellowship, there was a person in tremendous need.
And in our Friday night prayer meeting, this
person had come seeking the Lord, expecting Him
to speak to her.
In the course of a meeting someone spoke
in tongues.
And immediately this person knew that God was
speaking to her, but she hadn't understanding concerning
the tongue.
Therefore she waited almost with bated breath, for
she was in terrible darkness and bondage, but
it registered in her that God was speaking.
But there was no interpretation apparently.
This was brought to my notice.
And on the Sunday morning in our meeting,
I took this whole matter and question up.
And I also pointed out to the person
who had given the tongue, and this person
was totally ignorant.
I would not have you ignorant brethren.
This dear sweet soul knew nothing wrong with
her spirit.
She was totally ignorant, that it was incumbent
upon her that if no one else interpreted,
she should ask the Lord to give her
the interpretation.
She hadn't functioned in interpretation.
She often spoke in tongues, but she'd never
interpreted.
But she didn't know that she had to
pray, and seek the Lord to enable her.
Therefore she failed in that sense.
She was grateful for the experience in the
council.
So we waited on the Lord.
And the amazing thing was, beloved, a brother
came in on that Sunday morning from Nottingham
to formally finish it with us.
He came in on that Sunday morning.
He was totally ignorant of what transpired on
the Friday.
He came late to the meeting, and therefore
he was ignorant of the counsel that had
been given.
But he came in at the moment when
he heard that we were waiting on the
Lord to give an interpretation to a tongue
which is spoken.
And beloved, he'd only been in the meeting
about two minutes.
And God spoke to him, and he gave
forth.
And the very word that he spoke was
the interpretation to the tongue that had been
given, and it ministered life, and that woman
was liberated.
She was set free.
Bless the Lord.
So if you speak in a tongue, beloved,
and there's no interpreter, you look to the
Lord, and perhaps you'll move into another gift
of the Spirit.
But the norm is found in verse 27.
It says, if any man speak in an
unknown tongue, let it be by two, or
at the most, three.
People will immediately say, then does that mean
that there must only be three messages in
tongues in a meeting?
No, I don't believe that it does say
that.
It says, if any man, singular, speak in
an unknown tongue, let it be by two,
or at the most, by three, and that
by course.
It doesn't say that there should be only
three tongues in a meeting.
It says that one person, if any man,
one man isn't to monopolise the whole meeting.
I once heard of a meeting where there
was a young man who I think gave
ten tongues in the meeting.
Ten tongues and ten interpretations.
The whole meeting went around him.
There was something fundamentally and radically wrong with
the situation.
It doesn't need saying.
But it says, let it be by two,
or at the most, by three, and that
by course, and let one interpret.
Praise the Lord.
Beloved, when someone speaks in tongues in our
midst, your heart should be open to the
Lord, expecting that He should give you the
interpretation.
Sometimes you'll find if you move in these
things that no sooner has the person begun
to speak in tongues and the interpretation clarifies
within your heart, and as soon as they're
finished, there's not the wrong pause waiting for
everyone else.
It flows out.
Thus time is redeemed, and we can move
on.
The last discipline concerning tongues, beloved, it says
in verse twenty-eight, if there be no
interpreter, let him keep silence in the church,
and let him speak to himself and to
God.
There's no interpreter, and if he having sought
the Lord receives no interpretation, he is to
be silent.
It's very simple, isn't it?
It's all there in black and white for
us to see.
Tongues, Paul says, would to God that ye
all speak in tongues.
I speak in tongues more than you all.
Forbid not.
It's given for three reasons.
The glory of God, the edification of self,
the edification of the church, the discipline of
the spirit concerning the interpretation, is that if
a person speaks in tongues, there's no one
else interprets, they pray that God give them
the interpretation.
The norm is that as soon as someone
is spoken in tongues, a person with the
gift of interpretation within the meeting interprets.
And if there be no interpretation, the person
who spoke in tongues is to remain silent
in that meeting.
God doesn't wish us to be ignorant of
these precious things, beloved.
The church of Jesus Christ has been impoverished.
The expression and demonstration of the love of
God has been impaired because of abysmal ignorance
and fear.
But where perfect love abounds, fear no longer
exists.
And under the glorious lordship of Jesus Christ,
beloved, your life and my life can be
open to be the instrument of God's grace
and goodness to minister to his body.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Hallelujah, Lord.
That even in a conference like this, we
need to know greater liberation in these precious
things.
Thou hast brought us into an abundance of
love, Lord.
We've seen thee move and flow in our
midst, for which we're profoundly grateful.
But we come to thee again this morning,
Lord, with our hearts open, telling thee afresh,
Lord, that we acknowledge thy lordship in our
lives.
And all that we are, Lord, spirit, soul,
and body, one unified whole in thee, Lord
Jesus, is available unto thee to be the
instrument of the outworking Lord Jesus, of thy
love in the earth, Lord.
Open us all up, Lord Jesus, and grant
us faith to believe thee to receive of
these precious gifts, Lord, with a desire and
covetousness within our hearts, Lord, that we might
excel in loving.