The Revelation Gifts ENCODED

In this transcription, the speaker begins by emphasizing that the Holy Spirit wants to speak to everyone, even those who are not physically present. They read Acts chapter 1 verse 8, which connects receiving power from the Holy Spirit with being witnesses for Jesus. The speaker emphasizes that Jesus intended for the body of Christ to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, not just preach the gospel. They mention the importance of the signs that accompany the powerful word of God. They then discuss how Joel prophesied that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all flesh, regardless of age, gender, or socioeconomic status. The speaker emphasizes that this outpouring includes the ability to prophesy. They then transition to discussing 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul writes about spiritual gifts. The speaker explains that these gifts are not human abilities, but manifestations of the Holy Spirit. They highlight that there are different gifts, ministries, and activities, but it is all the same Spir 1 Corinthians 12 and hold that and grab if you would Acts chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 12 and Acts chapter 1. Let me just say to our online audience we're so glad you're joining us today and just because you're not in this holy atmosphere in this room that doesn't mean the Holy Spirit doesn't want to speak to you as well. If you are local we invite you to come and be with us this next Sunday. Get in on this study that we're in. There's something about being in the house and hearing from the Holy Spirit in that atmosphere but those of you that can't make it because of distance or whatever the circumstance is we are glad that you're with us today and joining us and there is a connection in the spirit but open your heart to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to you today. Acts chapter 1 and I just want to read verse 8 out loud together from the New King James version. You may have a different version that's all right there are a lot of good ones but let's just kick this off this new series called the gifts of the Spirit reading what Jesus said in Acts chapter 1 verse 8 to his disciples. Everybody reading loudly and together let's read but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. I want you to notice that Jesus connects power and witnessing but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses but you shall receive power. In other words Jesus never intended that the body of Christ go out without the power of the Spirit. Jesus never intended for there to be churches and whole denominations that would preach the gospel thank God for the power of the gospel but we also need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. I love the last verse in the book of Mark where it says after the great commission and they went out everywhere and preached the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. So Jesus did not want us just to go out with only the gospel he wanted us to go out being filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit so that as we minister the powerful word of God that the signs are behind it confirming the word the power of the Spirit is showing that we have the real God. Anybody can talk about their God anybody can preach their gospel we can prove it amen we can prove it by the power of the Holy Spirit and so this is what Jesus intended and of course this is what we saw play out in the book of Acts the next chapter says in verse four and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance and then a little later in the 16th verse Peter was saying to this crowd but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel and it shall come to pass in the last day says God that I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughter shall prophesy your young men shall see visions your old men shall dream dreams and on my men servants and on my maid servants I will pour out my spirit in those days and they shall prophesy I just love how comprehensive God was Joel spoke and he said listen it's not just going to be the old your sons and daughters will prophesy your young men will see vision your old men will dream dreams and he said so it's not going to be just the young or the old it's going to be both it's not just going to be the male it's going to be the female two sons and daughters is that right but then he even gets into socioeconomic status he says and on my men servants and on my maid servants what does that mean that means that even your servants even though the people that are considered lower in society because of their economic status or because of the freedoms that they enjoy their servants they may even be slaves in certain cultures he said I don't care I'm going to pour out my spirit on all flesh young old male female rich poor and everything in the middle of those he says I'm going to pour it out on all flesh whoever is willing to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and I'm going to minister to them and notice what he said and they shall prophesy they shall prophesy see so it's not just I just have something about me that you know just makes me special no they shall prophesy what does that mean prophecy is one of the nine gifts of the spirit so God was specifically saying from the day the Holy Spirit was poured out yes they spoke with tongues and they had this ability to pray and praise God in spiritual language but notice Peter says oh no this is not just for that this is also to begin to move in the manifestation of the spirit they shall prophesy they'll begin to speak words for God by the power of the Holy Spirit so this brings us now to first Corinthians chapter 12 and this is where we want to spend our time talking about the gifts of the spirit let's pick it up in the first verse Paul says or let's be more accurate the Holy Spirit said through the apostle Paul in first Corinthians 12 now concerning spiritual gifts brethren I do not want you to be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts I do not want you to be ignorant let me flip that around I do not want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts there are so many people in the body of Christ unfortunately that are ignorant about this either because their church doesn't teach about it or because they teach about it inaccurately they they dumb these gifts of the spirit uh gifts of spirit or manifestations of the spirit down to a human level and they'll take something like the word of wisdom and they'll say well that's when that's people that have the ability to give good wisdom to people like good counseling and we need good counselors we need people that can give wise counsel we all should try to give wise counsel to people so it's not that we don't need that but this is not talking about the manifestation of a wise counselor this is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit so this is when the Holy Spirit does something he shows up when he wants to and does what only he could do and the Bible says this is very very beneficial and we should seek to have these things happen in our own life so he says now concerning spiritual gifts brethren I do not want you to be ignorant unaware untaught untrained in these things is what he's saying verse two you know that you were Gentiles now he's not writing to the church in Jerusalem where they were mostly Jews he's writing to the church in Corinth where they were mostly Gentiles which applies to us you know that you were Gentiles you used to not be part of the family of God you used to not be safe you know God made a covenant with Abraham and chose Abraham's descendants to be that people that we know as the Jewish people God chose to reveal himself to the world through that family through that nation God chose that so when Jesus showed up he was a Jewish Messiah his mama was Jewish his daddy was Jewish isn't that right he was from Jewish lineage he was in of Jewish culture no doubt he did not look like the pictures that we all have whatever your picture looks like he probably doesn't look like that because he was Middle Eastern so he probably looked Middle Eastern the Bible says when he came to the earth there was nothing about him that would draw people to him he didn't have one of those halos over his head those yellow frisbees you see in the stained glass window he didn't have that nobody saw anything supernatural about him he just looked like an ordinary Middle Eastern person and yet when he came he ministered under the power of the Holy Spirit isn't that right and so here Paul is saying now you Corinthians you used to be Gentiles that served other gods because you didn't know the true God so you were serving idols made of gold or silver carved out of wood or stone and he goes on to say you were Gentiles and he says and you were carried away to these dumb idols now he's not being derogatory dumb means mute that you were serving gods made with hands that could not speak to you as opposed to our God the God of Israel who speaks who communicates who is eloquent who is timely who is relevant who is very near to our lives and he says that's not the way you were you were serving idols who could not speak to you however you were led verse three therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a curse and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit now don't take that out of its context because Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 7 that at the end of the age many will say Lord Lord didn't we prophesy in your name cast out demons in your name and he said depart from me I never knew you remember this so it's not that no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Spirit of God nobody's talking in this context like of gifts of the Spirit and how do we know when somebody's operating by the Holy Spirit or if they're operating by demonic spirits and he said well you know this demonic spirits are not going to speak well of Jesus demonic spirits are not going to speak well of Jesus but I want to instead of getting into that that'll be another study let's get on to the gifts of the Spirit look at verse four there are diversities of gifts but the same who Spirit there are differences of ministries but the same who Lord that's Jesus and there are diversities of activities but the same God who works all in all so notice he said even though there are different gifts of the Spirit we're going to go over nine gifts of the Spirit in this study he said it's all the same Spirit manifesting himself in these nine ways he said there are different ministries but it's the same Lord Jesus the same Lord Jesus whether it be the five-fold ministers apostle prophet evangelist pastor and teacher to equip the saints for the work of ministry that's what's happening right now by the way those five office gifts or the seven ministry gifts of Romans chapter 12 he said all of that organizational structure and how those ministries are divided and aligned is all under the head of the church Jesus so there are different gifts but the same Spirit there are different ministries but the same Lord and there are diversities of activities of how all this works but it's the same God who works all in all who works all the gifts in all the ministries in other words this is not confusion this is not the Holy Spirit doing his thing over here and Jesus doing his thing over here and Father God doing his thing over there no God is one God is in unity God is aligned and so the way that you were designed with your own personality with your own gifts makeup grace and and you were assigned a ministry according to how you were designed and the Holy Spirit comes and empowers you with gifts and abilities to accomplish your assignment everything has been organized everything has been designed it is all precise it is all perfect to help you be the person you're called to be and fulfill the assignment on your life can you say amen to that and that's what Paul is telling us here this is not random this is all aligned perfectly perfectly between Father Son and Holy Spirit now let's get down to the seventh verse and let's begin to talk about these gifts it says in verse 7 but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one or each person for the profit of all in other words these manifestations are not given to the person for the person they're given to the person to benefit other people verse 8 for to one is given here's the first one the word of wisdom through the Spirit that's number one to another the word of knowledge there's number two through the same Spirit to another faith there's number three by the same Spirit to another gifts of healings there's number four by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles there's number five to another prophecy there's number six to another discerning of spirits there's number seven to another different kinds of tongues there's number eight and to another the interpretation of tongues there's number nine and so he says all these nine work by the same Holy Spirit and verse 11 says but one and the same Spirit work all these things distributing to each one individually as he will now just before we start going into these various gifts let me give you three keys to accelerate these gifts how how to allow them to work more often and more proficiently number one pray in the Spirit pray in the Spirit I've noticed in my own life and I've heard many teachers that teach on these things and operating these things share the same thing that as they allow the fountain of the Holy Spirit to pray through them in the Spirit several things happen that end up accelerating the ministry of the Holy Spirit in their own lives one is you edify yourself you build yourself up but another is while you're praying in the Spirit you're yielding your mouth you're yielding your time to the Holy Spirit and thereby you're aligning yourself to him you're giving him time in your life so while you're being built up you're also aligning yourself with him and you become flooded inside with his thoughts with his thoughts even as the Bible says let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret well when those interpretations come up on the inside of you now you're thinking the thoughts of what the Holy Spirit is saying so now his thoughts are becoming your thoughts let me let me just let me illustrate this with something that's a little crude but if you just forgive me for a minute this is the best way I know to explain it to you if somebody's talking about something and somebody says he's full of it how many of you know he's not you're not saying that I think he needs to use the restroom is that right no what are you saying you're saying his thinking his perception his words are so off that he's full of it okay now in the same way but on the right side of this thing on the positive side when you get filled with the Holy Spirit it affects your thoughts the way you think the way you see the world your worldview it affects the way you see a situation it affects the way you see other people that are going through something because you're becoming filled with the Holy Spirit and you begin to think like the Holy Spirit you begin to see with Holy Spirit eyes you begin to perceive with Holy Spirit perception see and so this is this is why when you pray in the Spirit and you begin to be filled with the Holy Spirit you begin to think and see and understand like the Holy Spirit and not only that but you begin to be sensitized to the Holy Spirit you begin to be attuned to him so you're you're able to hear him and discern what he's doing seeing all those things together just by spending time praying in the in the Holy Spirit in spiritual language prepares you now this this river of living waters coming out of you prepares you to hear to be led by the Holy Spirit and to move in the power of the Spirit you're built up so this is a big key a big key to allowing the gifts of the Spirit to flow is spend time praying in the Holy Spirit spend time praying in the Holy Spirit but here's the second one walk in love walk in love the Bible says in first Corinthians 14 pursue love and desire spiritual gifts pursue love and desire spiritual gifts chapter 12 is where the Holy Spirit lists through the Apostle Paul the nine gifts of Spirit chapter 13 he describes love the love of God chapter 14 he describes how to move in the gifts of the Spirit with love the moment you become self-centered regarding moving in the gifts the gifts are contaminated they become compromised because you're not thinking about how to minister to the person in love you're thinking about what you get out of it you're thinking about the esteem how people perceive you and the moment you become self-centered now you're not flowing with God God is love God is not prideful he's not self-centered God is about pure ministry to people pure ministry to people so we always have to check our pride we always have to confront our own pride and say you you're thinking the wrong thoughts you're you're thinking about how people see you rather than that person that needs to be ministered to and as soon as you begin to move in self-seeking you're going to be tempted to add to the word to do something that brings attention to yourself and thereby you compromise the power of God because flesh is getting in there and we have to watch ourselves and we have to watch one another on this we need to walk in love and then third we must desire the move of the Spirit we must desire the move of the Spirit the Bible says pursue love and desire spiritual gifts as I said I've never seen anybody proficiently walking in manifestation of the Spirit without wanting it without asking for it we need to ask the Holy Spirit to move he he doesn't force himself upon us we yield ourselves and invite him to come and he comes and when he does he comes with power he comes with power now I'm going to share about the gifts for several weeks in three categories there are nine gifts I'm going to share three per category the first category is the revelational gifts revelational you can see what that means I'll explain it in just a moment but the second is the power gifts the revelational gifts are the word of wisdom the word of knowledge and discerning of spirits then the power gifts the power gifts are the working of miracles gifts of healings and the gift of faith and then last the utterance gifts which are prophecy tongues and interpretation of tongues so I'm going to take it in those three categories and I'm going to talk today about the revelational gifts the revelational gifts the word of wisdom the word of knowledge and the discerning of spirits now revelational as you can tell by the word is these are gifts that reveal something unveil something something was not brought to light something was not known and now something is known to help us in a certain way so each one of these three reveals something bring something to light bring something to the surface that helps us and I want to show you each one of these even though the bible lists the word of wisdom as the first I want to start with the word of knowledge because once you understand the word of knowledge it's easier to understand the word of wisdom so let's start with the word of knowledge and I'll put a simple definition you could describe this in a any number of ways certainly this could be several paragraphs of explanation but let me just give you a very simple explanation of the word of knowledge this is supernatural revelation of information about the past or present concerning a situation event or person supernatural revelation of information about the past or present concerning the situation event or a person notice also that it's the word of knowledge this is not the gift of knowledge this is not just giving somebody a lot of knowledge no this is a word of knowledge this is a specific point of knowledge given by a word so this would be distinguished from the witness of the spirit you know how we studied in level four of operation solid lives discipleship we studied being led by the spirit and one of the primary ways if not the primary way to be led is the witness of the holy spirit described by many phrases somebody will say I just have a peace about that that that's the direction we need to go or somebody said I don't have peace about doing that or somebody might say I have a check about doing that see they're trying to describe that witness of the spirit or lack of a witness of the spirit and that's important it's an important way to be led by the spirit but here we're talking about a word a word of wisdom a word of wisdom let me give you some examples of this in the bible and by the way all of these gifts of the spirit are not only found in the new testament but in the old testament with the exception of two there are two that are not found in the old testament that's tongues interpretation of tongues all the rest of them they're just the old testament's flooded with these because the power of the spirit was operating in the old testament as well and so let me give you one you remember uh the king that the not good king jeroboam and jeroboam he needed a word from god and so what he did was he didn't want to go to the prophet because well that could be bad for him so what he did he told his wife honey disguise yourself so the prophet won't know who you are now really he didn't even need to do that because by this time by age the prophet had been had gone blind and the prophet could not see but he told her disguise yourself and go to the prophet to get get a word from god so she disguises herself she puts on this disguise and she goes but while she's on her way to see the prophet the lord speaks to the prophet and said uh jeroboam told his wife to disguise herself and so she's on her way uh to meet you deceptively to get some from you so anyway she finally gets to the door and he said come in jeroboam's wife you know can you imagine a blind prophet you disguise yourself you know you take all that time to do it then you show up come in jeroboam's wife come on in right and it didn't go so well but nonetheless how did he know that did somebody else come and say hey jeroboam's servant told me that he told his wife no no it was not by any knowledge of human beings jeroboam and his wife had conspired this privately but the lord knew and the lord spoke to the prophet and gave a word of knowledge something that happened see and it happened in the past the recent past and so now he knows and this gave him the ability to speak proficiently and relevantly the word of the lord in that situation and it wasn't good for them well you also know that the king of syria the king of syria which was often in the old testament uh an enemy not all the time but most of the time an enemy of israel well the king of syria was trying to overcome israel and so he would get with his generals his inner circle of military leaders and they would plot where they're going to send their armies to breach the front lines of israel and so he would do this but every time he did it now israel happened to put their troops in the right place to defend it and they would cut the syrians off every time finally the king of syria came back to his inner circle and he said well this is my paraphrase all right he said who's the rat who's the mole somebody here is sharing with the army of israel because there's no way that they could be guessing and get it right because we keep adjusting and then they keep adjusting and countering us and so he want to know which of you is for the the king of israel and one of his men said no no it's not us it's elisha their prophet elisha their prophet knows what you're saying in your bedroom well what is that that's a word of the lord god was speaking to elisha the prophet and telling him what the king of syria was saying privately nobody knows it it's top secret classified and yet the prophet's telling the king here's what they're going to do now they're going to send some troops so and it's unfair but see the holy spirit's power gives you an unfair advantage amen the holy spirit's power gives you an unfair advantage well we've been talking about jesus with the woman at the well in john chapter four and he tried to get her to ask for a drink and she finally says give me a drink and he said go call your husband and she said i don't have a husband he said that's right but you have had five and the one you're with right now is not your husband you remember this now notice this is a word of knowledge but you have had five past tense and the one you have right now is not your husband present tense knowledge that has of something that did happen or something that is happening that's a word of knowledge he gave her this word of knowledge and man it opened her right up and many from the city got saved that day through a word of knowledge you see how powerful these are see that was not just him saying well let me share some knowledge with you about the kingdom of god well that's helpful too but this is bam a manifestation of the spirit and man some hundreds from this city get saved that day because of one word of knowledge that's why we need the power of the holy spirit we can't just go on without him and expect to have the results that we're called to have we're called to have supernatural and extraordinary results and we must have it through the power of the spirit i've told you the story many times i won't go into it but you remember the first time that i can remember ever having one of the gifts of the spirit operating in my life it was a word of knowledge and i was at camp i was a volunteer junior high leader i took the junior hires to camp and after one of the service i was looking across the room i saw a young junior high girl was not from our church i did not know her name i did not know her background but when i looked at her inside i heard one word father and through that one word i was able to go talk to her minister she'd had a breakdown with a relationship with her dad and it was all cleared up by a word of knowledge see the holy spirit wants to move this is not human level this is not me just saying she looks like she's got a problem with her father no no it's a word of supernatural knowledge by the holy spirit you know pastor leslie keagle dr keagle will come up here and minister a powerful word from the bible and such and and i haven't talked to him about this but just from my perspective and what i've experienced under his ministry i think he may operate in the word of knowledge more than any of the other gifts of the spirit because after he teaches then he'll come and stand up here there's a person here and you have a problem with your left knee and it's been hurting you for three years there's a person here and you have cancer of the thyroid there's a person here there's a person here there's a person here there's a person here and he'll just start calling these out isn't that right and then he'll say if i called out something that you have would you stand up and all these people stand up and people say ben he's a good guesser but he's not a good guesser but this is just one word of knowledge after another word of knowledge after another word of knowledge after another and he just calls them out and people get healed and delivered by the power of the holy spirit it's it's it's the holy spirit dropping a word of knowledge but healing follows can you see this so so powerful i remember back in the early 2000s we were before we had this sanctuary in the west auditorium as we call it now but that was our only auditorium at the time but i remember right in the middle of a service i just got one word hepatitis hepatitis so i just stopped and said somebody here has hepatitis the holy spirit just spoke to me somebody has hepatitis the lord lord wants to heal you well i knew the lord wanted to heal you know the lord's not given a word of knowledge so that he can just say somebody here has hepatitis and god wanted you to know it i mean we send the whole congregation to the doctor to get checked out right no i knew somebody already knows they have hepatitis but the holy spirit's calling that out because he wants to heal that so a lady came to me and she said i think that's me i've been suffering from with hepatitis for years and i've been praying and such and she said so when you said that i just received it and uh and i'm going to go back to the doctor and have them test again so she came back a few weeks later and guess what she said clean clean no trace of hepatitis no trace no trace now look look it was just a word of knowledge in fact one word hepatitis that's it that's it after the second service last night i got done teaching this twice this is my fourth time hearing it yeah and it's been good every time but after the second service last night one of our dear brothers in this congregation came to me and he said i don't know if you remember back in 2010 in this worship center here he said and you called out there's a woman here and the doctors have told you you're physiologically incapable of bearing children and you haven't born any children and the lord wants you to know that he's healing you and you're going to bear children okay so anyway he said i don't know if you know that and so he put he connected some dots that i didn't realize we have a young man in our congregation and this this young man oh he's got to be that's 2000 2010 well he's got to be about eight or nine years old now but this guy can rattle off scriptures and tell you the references like nobody's business in fact his dad told me last night that he memorizes eight verses a week every week memorized eight verses a week but but he's got all these verses memorized and he could just rattle them off and tell you where the verses and everything right now he's memorizing psalm 119. i think that's got something like i don't know 170 verses something like that like you know what if you're going to memorize that one but he's not intimidated there's a little nine or ten year old boy but his dad said yeah they could not have children the doctors confirmed yes she's physically physiologically incapable but a word of knowledge there's somebody here and this is what's happening to you and so we're praying today and declaring that this is gone well sure enough within a few months she's pregnant she has this baby but then the doctor said now because of your condition you should not conceive again and if you did the child's life would be at great risk well guess what they said not to the doctor so they said we don't receive that because the doctors told us before that we're not even going to be able to have children and and here's what he said to me last night he said and i told my wife no no pastor jerry said that we will bear children not a child we'll bear children he said so we hung on that way see i didn't even know that they did that i didn't even know they did that otherwise i'd be a little nervous oh don't hold me responsible for that i'm glad they waited to tell me about that but he said no we held on to that word we held on to that word see just the word of knowledge and here this family that could not have children now they have two beautiful children the second one the beautiful healthy girl praise god so they got a boy and a girl healthy family but just by word of knowledge you see how powerful this is this is why the holy spirit wants to move through us it's not about us looking good no he is solving problems he is overcoming barriers by his power the word of knowledge thank god thank god thank god well let's now contrast this to the word of wisdom that's the word of knowledge the word of wisdom let me give you a simple definition like i said you could write paragraphs on each of these but the word of wisdom is a supernatural utterance that reveals god's purpose or perspective to a specific circumstance and i put in parentheses future because the word of wisdom is telling you something that you should now do going forward this is something you should do let me give you some illustrations of this one how many of you remember the story of naman the syrian commander uh of the armies of syria now this is the top general of the armies of syria and naman contracts leprosy somehow and so he's suffering with this leprosy no doubt he's calling on his gods for healing and no healing is coming but somehow in war they had taken captive a young jewish girl that was a servant in their house and in conversation this girl blurted out well i wish you were down in israel because then you could go to the prophet and receive healing see what is she doing she's preaching the gospel about the power of the living god well it caught this commander's attention even though she's a little slave girl it caught his attention because nothing he's doing is working so he went to the king of syria and he asked for a leave of absence to go down to israel to the prophet to receive healing and the king gave him a leave of absence so he gathers up a lot of wealthy gifts for the prophet of god given that he does get healed he wants to he knows i'm going to have to pay for this now so he brings all these gifts down and uh you could tell he doesn't know the difference between a prophet and a king because he comes to the king of israel and he says i've come that you might heal me i've heard about healing that you might heal me the king said you came to the wrong guy i can't heal you you need to go to the prophet so then he goes to the prophet he comes and the the prophet is in the tent and uh so he announces himself of course this commander has his entourage and all the men that are with him but he announces who he is and why he's come and uh so the servant goes and tells the prophet and instead of the prophet coming out to greet the commander he said go tell him to dip seven times in the jordan river well the commander is offended like you do not treat dignitaries like that like i have come a long distance i am the commander of the syrian army and i have come to see you look at all these gifts i have look at the entourage i have and you're not even going to come out to greet me you're going to send your servant to talk to me and you're going to tell me to go dip in a muddy river and he was offended he walked away and he said that's ridiculous i'm not going to dip in some muddy river we got better rivers than that in syria and highly offended and still sick with his leprosy he got back on his animal and he began to ride away and one of his servants said to him master if the prophet had told you to do something great maybe like climb the highest mountain to be healed wouldn't you have done it how much more if he just asked you to do something simple like dip in the river and so the commander decided well i'll do it so he went down to the jordan river and he got down into the water and he came up there was no change and he went down again he came up there was no change he did it six times no change but the seventh time he went under the water and when he came up his skin was completely healed and restored i mean just instantaneously miraculously healed miraculously healed and what is that it was a word of wisdom go dip seven times and not six not three seven but what happened was i'm giving you wisdom and the power of god is going to meet you there this is a word of wisdom okay so notice it's not just wisdom see it wasn't that oh yeah what the syrians don't know is the water in the jordan has healing properties that heal leprosy no it didn't no it didn't otherwise the first few times would have worked no it was that seven the word was seven and seven is where the power of god went into operation can you say that say the word of wisdom is something that only god knows because god's the one that's going to make it work it's counterintuitive it's illogical it's irrational it's by the power of the spirit this is why we can't dumb these things down to natural skills these are words of wisdom that are given where the power of the spirit brings it about and you know the story it comes back to the prophet now healed with all these gifts to give to the prophet and the prophet said no i won't accept any of those gifts you can take them back to syria and you know why because the prophet knows when he gets back to syria with this testimony of healing that there are other sick people in syria that are going to ask him oh the god of israel healed you how much did it cost and if he says anything other than nothing the gospel would have been compromised the prophet said no don't you don't you give me anything take it all back to syria and he gets back there and when they asked how much did it cost he said absolutely nothing by the grace of the god of israel how many know this is important this is important okay word of wisdom word of wisdom the holy spirit at his will will give you a word to give to somebody of what they should do and if it's an accurate word the power of god will meet them as they do it how many remember when jesus was invited to the wedding this is before he performed any miracles right at the onset of his ministry he and his disciples come to the wedding and his mama came to him and said jesus they ran out of wine let me give you my interpretation what jesus said so he said woman what does that have to do with me my hour has not yet come in other words i'm going to get on with these signs and wonders and everything but right now i'm just a i'm just a guest at a wedding okay i'm not here to minister i'm just a guest and she didn't pay attention she told the worker she said do whatever he tells you to do and so what did he do he gave him a word of wisdom he said see all those water pots go fill them up with water each one held 20 to 30 gallons of water they were huge pots go fill them up with water and that's all they did they went fill them up water he said now take some of that and give it to the master well the bible says the water had become wine now do you think those were magic pots jesus had some magic tricks up his sleeve right what i got some magic pots were they magic pots no no they were just water pots but the word of wisdom was spoken that's counterintuitive illogical irrational does not make sense but by acting on the word of wisdom the power of god meets them and causes it to come about how many of you can see what a word of wisdom is okay this is something of the holy spirit only the holy spirit would be able to give wisdom like this this is not just natural wisdom this is not well here's what to do go down to the store and buy some wine no this is something of the holy spirit how many remember when jesus was it was prophesied in the old testament that jesus would ride into jerusalem on a donkey and he got to the time where he was supposed to ride well he didn't have a donkey and he told his disciples he said go on over here and you'll find a colt of a donkey tied loose the donkey and bring it to me and then jesus added and if anybody says anything to you about why you're taking their donkey just say the lord has need of it oh how many of you know that's just not the way it normally works isn't that right and so you can imagine maybe peter and john we don't really know who it was but maybe peter and john would say all right we'll go get that donkey and they're kind of looking around and they see a donkey you know and they're looking around they get right up to it and peter says okay get it john i'll i'll take a look at you john said you get it you get it say gee you chicken i'm looking out for you right now you know you can imagine you know they're walking up they don't this is strange right and so they untie the donkey right and then they start to walk away and somebody may lean his head out the window hey where are you going my donkey uh the lord has need of it okay let's get out of here right why does that work he didn't ask who the lord is what's his name what does he need it for no just okay but see it's a word of wisdom the word of wisdom this is why it works it works because it's by the power of the holy spirit you remember the 10 lepers jesus calling from a distance jesus have mercy on us what are they saying you're healing other people lord have mercy on us we can't get to you it's against the law for us to come into the society into the town lord have mercy on us lord have mercy on us lord and you remember jesus didn't say be healed what did he say go show yourselves to the priest now why did he say that well see if you read the old testament you got to the book of leviticus you'll find out that the the bible has very specific laws about leprosy and and the only reason you would go to the priest is if you thought you were healed and if you thought you were healed the priest had very precise tests that they would perform according to the bible to show whether you were healed or whether you still had an active leprosy and so when jesus said go show yourselves to the priest he's telling them to do something that is illogical because they know they're not healed but he's saying act like you are and go show yourselves to the priest and he said and offer the gift that you're supposed to give the priest when you come to be declared clean bring the gift in faith and the bible says as they went they were cleansed as they went see this is not just normal wisdom like well go talk to the priest to see what he recommends you understand see this is not just normal wisdom this is supernatural wisdom by the holy spirit and the power of god meets you and brings things to pass only the holy spirit could explain these things you remember in luke chapter 5 jesus said to simon launch out into the deep and let down your nest for a catch and he said master we just fished all night long and we didn't catch dink you remember the story that's a loose translation but that's what that means all right and now they have this huge catch illogical irrational but because they did it the power of god met them go cast a hook into the sea peter and the fish that comes up first there'll be a coin in his mouth it'll be enough to pay the temple tax for me and you i'll pay your taxes come on just go fish see wait you can't go catch one fish and pay all your taxes but you can if it's a word of wisdom how many of you see what i'm talking about okay so this is different than just the word of knowledge this is now something that you need to do carry this out walk this out walk this wisdom out that they're irrational naturally speaking see it's not irrational we shouldn't even say it's irrational the holy spirit is the most rational the most logical is that right but to our human mind is what i'm talking about it's irrational it does not make logical human sense i've told you the story in 1996 november where the lord says start meditating the healing scriptures because you're going to need them in six months that's a word of wisdom how did i know what was going to happen in six months i didn't but the holy spirit did and the power of god met me six months later because i walked out this word of wisdom here's another one that relates to all of you and to me in january of 1999 kimberly was with me we're at a minister's conference and in this minister conference the lord said i want you to plant a church this year what is that it's a word of wisdom and told me this church is going to grow it's going to expand i'm going to bless it you're going to see the power of the lord on this see how did i know how did i know i've been in the ministry for years i knew that most churches ended up closing or merging in with something else they didn't exist church planting was just not happening like it was supposed to happen and yet i had no doubt i mean none because i knew the holy spirit spoke that and here we just added up not long ago i mean just uh in the last couple of weeks we just added up how many different campuses congregations churches that we've launched we're up into the 30s now up into the 30s listen all started by a word of wisdom just a word of wisdom not i i let me just admit forgive me i didn't read one church planning book not one the only seminar i went to on church planning is what our denomination required me to go to and it wasn't because i was resistant of knowledge or anything it was just i was just doing what the holy spirit told me to do amen just doing what the holy spirit told me to do he always knows what to do but see this is by his wisdom by his power how many of you can see the difference between a word of knowledge and a word of wisdom word of knowledge is here something has happened or is going on right now word of wisdom is here do this do this carry this out and the holy spirit will meet you let me give you let me give you two quick ones that come from steve shell steve shell was a professor of mine in bible college man of the word man of the spirit great scholar maybe the best scholar i know personally but he also is now an apostolic elder of our church but steve show said years ago he was driving in the car with his family and he was in the left lane of this highway going to a town i'm not familiar with the town going to a town missoula missoula and i think missoula is in montana if i'm not mistaken but he was driving to missoula on the in the left lane going fast and he said he felt like he heard inside get out of the left lane well he he was thinking you know he teaches on the gifts of the spirit very proficiently so he's thinking is that just me you know sometimes you can just have a thought right so he's just thinking is that just me but a few minutes later he heard it again down inside get out of the left lane and so his family's having conversation and and when the conversation broke he just interjected and said you know a few minutes ago i i felt like the holy spirit might have said to me get out of the left lane well his family said get out of the left lane dad get out of the left lane you know he was delaying but his his kids and wife said well get out of the left lane so anyway so he put on his blinker and he moved out of the left lane then they drove a little while longer and uh it was getting uh late and toward night time it was dusk so it was getting dark and they were commenting on the lights off to the right coming into missoula and right about that time in the left lane flying past them with the lights off a black car going the wrong direction and you could feel the whole car shake because of how fast it was going and how many of you know that was a word of wisdom would you agree with that see that's not no driving expert could have told him at this time you need to not be driving in the left lane coming into missoula at this time in the evening see only the holy spirit these words of wisdom save lives these words of wisdom bring financial breakthrough like in luke 5 with all that catch a fish see this is for let me tell you one last one that pastor steve also told where there's a family in their church that had this baby that was born and this baby had severe seizures this baby would have sometimes over a hundred seizures a day the doctors could not figure out what's going on with this child even surprised this child had not died and most of them petty mal seizures but some grand mal seizures and they were trying to do everything to medicate and to use nutrition everything and could not figure it out and this went on for 12 years now about the time this child was 12 years old there was a couple in the church that began to pray for this child and began to ask the parents would you mind if we began to spend time with this child and so they would take this child to the park and such and pray and such and they they told the parents one day they said we feel like we feel like the holy spirit is saying that your child needs to drink more water and then some weeks later we feel like the holy spirit saying you need to add more fish to your child's diet now this before we learned about all these omega oils and all this stuff this is this is decades ago your child needs to add more fish and everything and a few words of wisdom over a period of a few weeks and guess what all the seizures completely stopped all the seizures completely stopped amen and when he was telling this story it had been years and never had one seizure never had one how many of you know the holy spirit knows everything the holy spirit knows everything and here we are here we are with the power of the spirit and people with needs and because we don't yield ourselves and pray and let him work through us people are not afforded what god's love wants to bring to them let me just share quickly the discerning of spirits the discerning of spirits supernaturally seen or distinguishing the presence or activities of spirits demonic or heavenly in other words spirits are not only demonic spirits but angels or spirits in the old testament abraham was sitting outside of his tent and the bible said he lifted up his eyes and he saw three men coming toward him one was god two were angels so angels look like men the book of hebrews tells us you should be hospitable to strangers because you don't know whether or not you're entertaining angels because you won't be able to tell the difference angels angels so we're talking about the discerning of spirits the discerning of spirits in second kings chapter six you remember the story where elisha and his servant were in a tent in a valley they just woke up in the morning the servant came out maybe rubbing his eyes and he looked and on the mountains all around the valley the syrian army had snuck up on them and were surrounding them and the syrian army was not there to attack israel the syrian army was there to attack the prophet one man one man and the servant went back in and we're surrounded by the syrian army and the prophet said they're more with us than with them remember the story they're more with us than with them and the prophet said lord open his eyes that he may see now the bible doesn't specifically say that the prophets saw them but prophets were called seers because they did discern spirit the spirit realm and he said lord open his eyes and the lord opened the eyes of the servant and the servant looked and all around the mountainside where the syrian army was was the army of the lord and they were much more than the syrian army and how many of you know god didn't need much more i mean there's one verse in the bible where one angel killed 185 000 of the enemy army one angel the only reason he didn't kill more there weren't any more he killed them all killed 185 001 so god didn't need all those arms but god just wants us to know hey if i'm backing you you have nothing to be afraid of is that right but see the discerning of spirits if you could see it will change your perspective now that's that's not the way we should try to live all the time because we ought to live by faith in the words amen but at some point the holy spirit opens people's eyes to see into the spirit realm and when they do it changes their perspective immediately it changes your perspective it changes your point of view immediately how many of you know balaam's donkey not only talked that was supernatural but balaam's donkey saw that angel god opened his eyes to see into the spirit realm and balaam was beating his donkey go go go and his donkey said don't you see that angel right in front of us well balaam didn't see it but his donkey did isn't that right the donkey was operating in the discerning of spirits yeah that donkey said you can beat me all you want to but that angel's got a sword drawn i'm not going isn't that right that means you're laid down i'm not going to do it but see this is opening your eyes to something in the spirit realm something is written now jesus would regularly say things like this and when i say regularly periodically we would see this but you get the idea that happened more often than is written in the gospels but he would say like for example you deaf and dumb spirit he would not just say you evil spirit if somebody had deafness or a problem with speaking sometimes jesus would say you deaf and dumb spirit now now not every time if somebody had like if they had i got a problem on my wrist you wrist demon see so not not every ailment is a demon spirit by that name you understand but jesus would call out on occasion you deaf and dumb spirits see and so jesus would discern that whether he saw with his eyes or whether he just discerned in his spirit what those spirits were it doesn't really script and tell us but nonetheless we need to know sometimes what we're dealing with is that right we need to know and jesus called it out you deaf and dumb spirit let me just give you one more on the discerning spirits and then we're we're going to wrap this up and invite the holy spirit to come and move through us i remember the first time that i encountered somebody with me on the spot have the discerning of spirits operate was when we were traveling around in montana we're traveling around doing camps all over the nation but we ended up in montana and this was a camp that was not a large camp was probably about 200 teenagers in this camp and it was during one of the free times in the afternoon and this young lady this young teenage girl came to talk to me and you could tell she was rattled like something had her freaked out and she said i saw something and i knew you know she she didn't see a squirrel i mean she saw something in the spirit i said what did you see she said i saw a creature on that girl right over there so well what do you mean she said a little creature and she's talking about a live creature i saw a creature that's alive on that girl's back and of course we're all looking over there we don't see anything on that girl's back she said i saw it on her back i said okay well let's go over and talk to her so we went over to talk to this young girl and said and you know you try to keep these things natural i don't mean that they're not supernatural but you don't want to freak them out by your approach right you don't want to walk out are you demonized so we walked up we talked to the young lady and i said hey hey um let her share with you what she saw and so the girl said i saw something on your back like a little creature on your back and so i asked the young lady i said have you felt some kind of an oppression oh yeah i have and i've asked so many people to pray for me but it never leaves so she knew it she may not have known what it looked like she may not have known where it was sitting but she felt this oppression she said it never leaves well when she said it never leaves well i know something right now something's off because james says resist the devil and he will flee from you jesus said in my name cast out the demons is that right jesus said behold i give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy so you know something's wrong but so often people will slam the door on the devil but open the window to him isn't that right i mean when they pray you'll think they slammed the door but they they got something else open so i began to talk to her and ask her what's going on in your life come to find out she's got a good christian family all church going love the lord but at night in recent times after her parents go to sleep she sneaks out and goes to party and live her promiscuous life and so i explained to her you know this is breaking the commandments of the lord honor your father and your mother you're not doing it you're living a dual life you're being deceptive to them breaking their commandments not only that you're going out and breaking the laws of god living this promiscuous life like that and i said even though you may not want this oppression there and you can have everybody in the world pray you've got the door wide open to the devil you've got to repent and i asked her have you repented of this have you do you confess this as sin and ask the lord to help you not to do this no i said well you know you're not going to get rid of the devil with the door wide open the bible says give no place to the devil don't give him place you're giving him a place and she saw it see sometimes just take somebody to explain the bible and so i said do you want to be free from that yes i said well then you need to repent you need to confess that as soon you need to repent and so she did she repented and i prayed over i rebuked that demon and i could tell that thing left because she was laughing and crying at the same time anybody ever seen somebody i said did you feel that thing yes see that's what i'm talking about i said did you feel that thing yes see now let me tell you how that happened that deliverance of that young lady would not have happened at least then except for the lord opened the eyes of another teenage girl and she saw something she didn't know what to do about it but she saw something and that opened the door to ministry to get somebody over there that could explain here's why that doesn't leave and we got that thing gone see this is the power of the holy spirit this is as the holy spirit wills this girl wasn't praying to see something but the lord showed her and man it ended up in the deliverance do you see how good god is now these are the revelational gifts now i know there's probably somebody here that's saying pastor jerry i don't want to see nothing you know well okay i i understand and we're not we're not asking to see something okay and there are others of you in here saying i want to see everything okay all right but but what we're doing is we're not saying holy spirit i want you to do exactly this what we're saying is holy spirit you know every situation and you want to help people what i want to do is yield myself and welcome you to say lord come come i want to align myself with you build myself up praying in the spirit and say lord use me as you will in your way because i don't know what to do but you always know what to do so lord use me we yield ourselves to him this week there are people that will run by that the holy spirit wants to minister to and it will be sensitive to him he will use us he will use us we don't know who it is we don't know when but if we're prepared he will use us even this week even this week i want us before we leave to invite the holy spirit can we can we invite the holy spirit to use us can we yield ourselves once again to him in fact would you stand can we sing our song again holy spirit come holy spirit make my ears to hear make my eyes to see make my mouth to speak lord help me to hear help me to see what you see to speak what you want me to speak would you put your hands out in front of you as to receive something from the lord god is real the holy spirit is here in this place right now would you welcome him into your life go ahead in your own words holy spirit i welcome you i welcome your ministry i welcome your ministry through my life in the name of jesus