Saturday, October 19, 2013

The Ministering Gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Church # 4


Eph 4:8 Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He let captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.”
Eph 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
:13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
:14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
:15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ-

1 Cor 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant:
:2 you know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.
:3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God call Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
:4 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
:5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.
:6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.
:7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:

A perfect spiritual man is one who is full grown, come to fulness of Christ. Won't happen till we are with Jesus. But each day we should be getting a little closer.

Prophets in Greek is one who speaks forth or openly, a proclaimer of a divine message, one to who a message is secretly given.


Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.
:8 A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken who can but prophesy?

1 Sam 9:9 (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he spoke thus: “ Come, let us go to the seer”; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.)

Prophets are spokesmen of God.

Num 12:6 Then He said, “Hear now My words: if there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.
:7 Not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house.
:8 I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?”

Amos 7:14 Then Amos answered, and said to Amaziah: “ I was no prophet, now was I a son of a prophet, but I was a sheepbreeder and a tender of sycamore fruit.

Elisha was plowing when he was called.

Moses was slow of tongue.

Major Prophets:
  1. Isaiah
  2. Jeremiah
  3. Ezekiel
  4. Daniel

Minor Prophets:
  1. Obadiah
  2. Joel
  3. Jonah
  4. Hosea
  5. Amos
  6. Micah
  7. Nahum
  8. Zephaniah
  9. Haggai
  10. Zechariah
  11. Malachi
  12. Zebadiah

Former Prophets:
  1. Joshua
  2. Judges
  3. Samuel
  4. Kings

Two thirds of the old testament books are by or about prophets.

In the old testament when someone had a question for God they searched for a prophet.

Some (like Jonah) ran the other way when God told them to do something.

Elijah ran from Jezebel.

Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet.

Jer 12:1 Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
:2 You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bear fruit. You are near in their mouth but far from their mind.
:3 But You, O Lord, know me; You have seen me, and You have tested my heart toward You. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter. And prepare them for the day of slaughter.
:4 How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither? The beasts and birds are consumed, for the wickedness of those who dwell there, because they said,” He will not see our final end.”

Here he is crying to God. In verse 5 God answers.

Jer 12:5 If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?

Most of the prophets were severely persecuted or killed.

Heb 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Legend says Isaiah was sawn in two.

Ez 4:4 “Lie also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.
:5 For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
:6 And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.

How to tell a true prophet.

Deut 13:1 “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,
:2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying,”Let us go after other gods' – which you have not known - ' and let us serve them,'
:3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
:4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.
:5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.

Deut 18:20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.'
:21 And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?'-
:22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

Deut 18:9 “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.
:10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omen, or a sorcerer,
:11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
:12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
:13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God.
:14 For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.
:15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,

Duet 18:18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command Him.

Micah 3:5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who make my people stray; who chant “Peace” while they chew with their teeth, but who prepare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths:

Micah 3:11 Her heads judge for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the Lord, and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No harm can come upon us.”

This was prophecy for hire.

Is 28:7 But they also have erred through wine, and through intoxicating drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink, they are swallowed up by wine, they are out of the way through intoxicating drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

Jer 23:11 For both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in My house I have found their wickedness,” says the Lord.

Jer 23:14 Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they also strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns back from his wickedness. All of them are like Sodom to Me, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah.
:15 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets: 'behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem profaneness has gone out into all the land.”

False prophets will tell you what you want to hear, not what God says.

History and time will tell if they are true prophets.

Jer 28:2 “Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: 'I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
:3 Within two full years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon.
:4 And I will bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah who went to Babylon,' says the Lord, 'for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.'”
:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people who stood in the house of the Lord,
:6 and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! The Lord do so; the Lord perform your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the Lord's house and all who were carried away captive, from Babylon to this place.
:7 Nevertheless hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people:
:8 the prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms – of war and disaster and pestilence.
:9 As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one who the Lord has truly sent.”
:10 Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah's neck and broke it.
:11 And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying,”Thus says the Lord: 'Even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years.'” And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.
:12 Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
:13”Go and tell Hananiah, saying,'Thus says the Lord: “You have broken the yokes of wood, but you have made in their place yokes of iron.”
:14 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:”I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him. I have given him the beasts of the field also.”
:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie.
:16 Therefore thus says the Lord: :'Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the Lord.'”
:17 So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

Deut 18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,
:16 according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ' Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.'
:17 “And the Lord said to me: ' What they have spoken is good.
:18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.
:19 And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.

Ez 2:3 And He said to me: “Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day.

The message will always be in agreement.

Acts 21:10 And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
:11 When he had come to us, he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ' So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'”
:12 Now when we heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem.
:13 Then Paul answered, “What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Ex 15:20 Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

Judges 4:4 Now Deborah a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

2 Kings 22:14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. (She dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter.) And they spoke with her.

Lk 2:36 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity;

Rev 2:20 Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

There were women prophetess also. And false ones.

1 Sam 19:20 Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.

2 Kings 2:3 Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?” Then Elijah said to him, “Yes, I know; keep silent!”
:4 Then Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho.
:5 Now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?” So he answered, “Yes, I know; keep silent!”




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