August 20, 2025 • 71 mins
Kingdom power is granted by the Holy Spirit to support Believers and the Church. Spiritual gifts, given by God for building up and unifying the body of Messiah. They are not earned or used for personal benefit but distributed according to the Holy Spirit's will to glorify God.
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Firefall Talk Radio episodes are archived, allowing you to download them for future listening or to share with others. Feel free to share them with others as the Lord leads. Please help us spread The Word.
If our teachings have been a blessing to you, please let us know by using the contact button on our website.
If you would like to support what we do, there are ways to do so on the main page for Firefall Talk Radio. We appreciate your support and encouragement.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello, Welcome to the Porch on Firefall Talk Radio. I'm
Richard Grund. This is where you find the uncompromised red
letter basics of the Word of God. We focus on
the Book of Acts Church and how they serve the Lord.
When we do that, we find the Church the Lord intended,
not the one Man created. The Porch is a non denominational,
(00:44):
full gospel approach to the Bible based on the examples
from the Book of Acts Church, which aims to restore
the priesthood of the believer while regaining the world's shaking
influence of the early Church. The Church aid over the
Upper Room experience is as much for today as it
(01:05):
was on the day of pentecopt It's yours if you
want it. We offer you the Word as the Apostles
would have to the Jewish and Gentile believers of their day,
using both the Isshua and Jesus. When speaking of the Lord,
we prefer to use the term Messiah rather than Christ,
as it more accurately reflects how he was referred to
(01:28):
by those who knew him. Additionally, we provide definitions in Hebrew, Greek,
and Aramaic when necessary. Getting back to basics, isn't just
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(01:49):
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(02:12):
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require
any further information. Just know that we appreciate your support,
your prayers, and your encouragement. Encouragement. I'm sorry I swallowed
that word. It'll come back out later, hopefully in the
right place. Thank you for being a part of the porch. Truly, truly,
(02:35):
thank you. Contact us if you need prayer or you'd
like to pray for others in the Porch community. We
care about you and we want to cover you in prayer.
Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world.
Pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem, which means
the return of the Prince of Peace. And I'm sure
by now all of us want that we start out
(02:58):
with prayer, praise, prayer and the sound of the show
far So, Father, we praise you, Oh my goodness, we
praise you. What an awesome dad Abbah Papa you are.
You love us even when we're unlovable. That's the father's heart.
We thank you for sending your only begotten son, Yeshiah
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to rescue us from sin and death, from everything that
Hascatan and the fallen did to us. Thank you for
cleansing us and making us acceptable again so that we
can spend eternity with you. Thank you Lord for doing that,
for paying our debts and during the pain, the shame
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and all that you allowed them to do to you
so that we could come home. Thank you for sending
the Holy Spirit to walk with us, to teach us,
to guide us, to encourage us, to help us and empower.
Without him, we can't do this. So thank you Holy
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Spirit for all those things. We need you. We need
you in our life. We need you here and now.
Don't understand this word. We just need you inside and
out and in every part of our lives. So right
now we take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Messiah.
(04:26):
Claiming the mind of Messiah, we cast down every vain
imagination that would exalt itself above the knowledge of Eli
and God Most High, Our Abbah, Father, we pray protection
over this technology. We thank you for our families. We
thank you for our homes, our pets, our possessions. We
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put them under the shadow of your wings. We keep
them from the enemy, Lord, so that we can be
in this fallen world and be safe and walk and
do everything you need us to do. So, Lord, through
the power of your Holy Spirit, guide us in this time.
Guide us through your word, protect us. Open our eyes,
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open our ears, open our hearts, fill us so that
we can do everything you need us to do in
this hour. And I pray all these things and your
Shoe's name, Amen.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
These lessons are proprietary information, except where not of the
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Speaker 1 (06:04):
So today we're going to start in a new direction,
same direction, but a slight variation. We'll talk about kingdom power,
because we're going to talk about the gifts of the Spirit.
Reinhard Banki in that book I mentioned last week taking action,
receiving and operating in the gifts and the power of
(06:25):
the Holy Spirit said something I wanted to use to
start today's Bible study. The gifts have a vital part
to play in world evangelism. They are weapons of war,
not toys to be played with. Mark chapter sixteen firmly
(06:45):
anchors miracles to the Great Commission. Go to March sixteen fifteen.
You'll see what he's talking about. The power of the
Holy Spirit is kingdom power, second kingdom and power. What's
that got to do with anything. We're in the battle
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between two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom
of darkness. It's not an equal fight. It shouldn't even
be happening. But they don't understand that. The fallen don't
understand that. Satan doesn't understand that. So they're going to fight.
They're going to fight until they've been completely subjected and imprisoned.
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You cannot avoid it. You cannot walk in this fallen
world and act like that is not an issue that
you should be concerned with. We need to pay attention
Luke twenty four forty nine. Lord said, behold, I send
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the promise of my Father upon you, but terry in
the city of Jerusalem, until you are endued with power
from on high. And do the Greek word and duo
means to clothe, to give qualities, properties or abilities to
So you be given the qualities and the properties or
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the ability to have power from on high. So why
do we feel so powerless? Sometimes? Why do we get
caught up in situations where the enemy overwhelms us and
our first thought is to the flesh or to the natural.
How do I figure this out? What do I need
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to do? We should just stop and pray and take
the authority that's been given us and apply it. The
promise of the Father is the Holy Spirit. The power
of the Kingdom is the Holy Spirit, which means kingdom.
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Power given to the Church on the day of Pentecost.
That promise, that gift. It's more than power and authority.
It is the pleasure of God to give us his kingdom.
This is a gift from Dad. Look twenty Luke twelve,
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verses twenty nine through thirty two. Do not seek what
you should eat or should drink, nor have an anxious mind.
For all these things the nations of the world seek after.
And your father knows you need these things. But seek
the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be
added to you. Do not fear a little flock, for
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it is your father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things
will be added unto you. He wants to give it
to you. He's giving you the kingdom. But if he's
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going to do that, because it's so precious and important
to him, he's going to empower you to take care
of his kingdom. Kingdom power arrested our messiah, Yeshua, and
it was there to work signs and wonders, to confirm
the Word and confirm who he is. It was given
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to the early Church and now us for kingdom purposes.
That's it. It's not for glorification of a person or
a place or any of these things. And the hope
that the earlier Church had in seeing Yeshua again made
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them more conscious, conscious than ever of the necessity of
carrying on his work and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I've said that one eye on the job and one
eye on the sky because they knew he was coming back.
They didn't know when they were diligent about what they
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were called to do. But because it's taken a little time,
the church has become laxed, the Church has gotten deceived,
the Church has gotten off track. But if you are here,
it's because the Lord brought you here to hear this
word so that we can get that mindset back. I'm
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going to do everything that I've been called to do
individually and corporately because I know that the King is
coming through the Holy Spirit. God assigns ministries according to
his will for the advancement of his kingdom. Always keep
in mind it's his kingdom, and the focus of that
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should remain on the baptizer of the Holy Spirit, which
is who it's the Lord. It's just sure so. Confidence
in his ability to fulfill his promises is fundamental to
receiving the baptism and the Spirit. This isn't just about
I'm going to receive this. I'm good to go. I'll
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just wait here till the train shows up. No, the
baptism in the Spirit is to prepare you for ministry,
also to help dedicate you, consecrate you and allow you
to completely surrender. I think one of the greatest hindrances
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I've seen in all these years of serving the Lord
is people's inability to surrender through inability to say God's way,
whatever it is, is my way, God's way or the highway.
And most people say, well, I'm going to take the highway.
I'll meet you the off road ramp of me. I'm
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going to mess this up big time, says it right
there on the side off way ramp of I'm going
to mess this up big time. It's right to right
next to that new BUCkies. But see, here's the deal.
We should always keep in mind that the baptism of
the Holy Spirit is not a climactic experience. It's not
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the be all and the end all. It's the beginning
of something. The day of Pentecost was the beginning of
the harvest, and it brought men into fellowship, men and
women actually into the fellowship of worship and teaching and
service to each other, into the community. So the baptism
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of the Holy Spirit was only a door, an opening
into a growing relationship with the Holy Spirit and with
other like minded believers, and for them and for us
it should lead to a life of service where the
gifts of the Spirit provide the power and the wisdom
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for the spread of the Gospel and the growth of
the church. Now again, I know I can hear it well.
I don't have a call to do that. I own
a call to evangelism. Yeah, you do. If you made
him lord of your life, you came into an unspoken
agreement that you're going to tell others about him. Why
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wouldn't you, Why wouldn't you want to tell people about him?
I have found in some of the most unique places
ways to slip it in of how I know him,
what he does for me. He's a part of my life.
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You'd be surprised at how much that moves people, how
much that plant seeds. I know I've told you this before,
and some of you already know this, but some of
the new people may not. There's a period of time
we were caught up in a very high profile story
in the news. I got interviewed a lot, spoken to
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a lot by news media and the such and the like,
and I always found a way to talk about the Lord.
I always found a way to talk about my faith.
I always found a way to do it also in
a sound bite so that they couldn't separate it from
what I was originally talking about, because they would have
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gladly cut it out. That's what the Holy Spirit in
me allowed to do, to share his name, to share
his glory, to tell the truth. So the means and
the power for service and evangelism and all these things
comes through the gifts of the Spirit. Go with me
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to First Corinthians twelve, starting verse four. I'll be reading
you the amplified version. Now there are distinctive varieties of
spiritual gifts, which are special abilities given by the greats
and extraordinary power the Holy Spirit operating in believers. But
it is the same Spirit who grants them and empowers believers.
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And there are distinctive varieties of ministries and service, but
it is the same Lord who has served. And there
are distinctive ways of working to accomplish things. But it
is the same God who produces all things and all believers, inspiring,
energizing and empowering them. But to each one is given
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the manifestation of the Spirit, the spiritual illumination and the
enabling of the Holy Spirit for the common good. To
one is given to the Holy Spirit the power to
speak the message of wisdom to another. The power to
expres the word of knowledge and understanding according to the
same Spirit to another. Wonder working faith is given by
(17:07):
the same Holy Spirit to another. The extraordinary gifts of
healings by the one Spirit to another. The working of miracles,
plural wonderful events or occurrences beyond human capability which do
manifest the supernatural power of God and fulfiller's purpose to another.
(17:29):
Prophecy for telling the future, speaking a new message from
God to the people to another. Discernment of spirits, the
ability to distinguish sound godly doctrine from the deceptive doctrine
of man made religions and cults. And I'll add demonic
influence to another. Various kinds of unknown tongues, and in another,
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the interpretation of those tongues. All of these things, these gifts,
these achievements, the abilities, the empowering I brought about by
one and the same Holy Spirit, distributing to each one
individually just as he chooses. Now, as I'm reading that
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all of these things are brought about by the one
and the same Holy Spirit, it just makes you want
to cheer, just makes you want to go ah, yeah, yeah,
you know, play the organ, get going, because come on,
let you get you excited. He's picking and choosing exactly
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what you need to do, what you're called to do.
God works in different ways. I don't even want to
say mysterious in this case, because it's right there in
the word. They're just different. And it's the same God
who does the work in all of us. And it
is the one and only Spirit, his Holy Spirit, who
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distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift you need,
which gift you should have, which gift is best for you.
And the gifts are supernatural, they're not natural. And he
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can give you more than one gift because, as it
says there at the end, as he wills, he can
give you whatever you want. What He wants in the
purpose of the gifts, as this says, is for the
common good. It's for the body. It's for the proper
functioning of the body of Messiah. It's vertification, the building
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up of the body. And it's to confirm the preached word.
Same thing the Holy Spirit did for the Book of
x Church he can and will do for us, Which
makes you wonder, why don't we see more of it?
It's there He hasn't changed. The Lord hasn't changed. He's
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the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's because we don't
allow him to, because the organizational church doesn't allow him to.
He doesn't fit into their schedule, he doesn't fit into
their plans. When in actuality, everything should start and end
with Holy Spirit, what would you like to do today?
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That was the great thing about our home church, the
home Fellowship. Holy Spirit did whatever he wanted to do
for as long as he wanted to do it. And
boy did we see signs and wonders. Boy did we
have some great praise and worship off of CDs and
an overhead projector onto a sheet hanging on our wall.
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It was that simple, and it was powerful because we
just let him do what he wanted to do. Hebrews
chapter two, starting verse two says, for if the word
spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience
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received a just reward, how shall we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began
to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to
us by those who heard him. God also bearing witness
both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts
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of the Holy Spirit according to his own will. So
each believer needs the contribution of every other believer and
member of the body, and Paul outlines this as follows.
Gifts and unity of the body, gifts and love, meaning
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applying those gifts and love, and the gifts for the
purpose of edifying building up the body. The Life Application
Bible Commentary says this this chapter, Chapter twelve of First Corinthians.
This chapter explains that all the gifts come from one
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source and are to be used for one purpose. That
one source is the Triune God, God the Father, God
the Son to the Lord, and God the Holy Spirit.
The one purpose is the building up of the Body
of Messiah, which happens as the gifts are used to
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their fullest potential, as the people serve the Lord in
one another, and as God works through his people. These
gifts are just that gift. They're not earned, they're not
given to believers asking for a specific one. They're not
chosen by people. God alone administers the gifts among his people,
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which means God, not believers, control the gifts. Each believer
then is responsible to seek God's guidance in discovering his
or her particular gift or gifts, and then discovering how
best to use them for God's purposes, which is what
the kingdom. So gifts and ministries may overlap, but each
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believer has a specialized, God designed specific role. And only
as the Church recognizes the incredible surpassing value of each
gift and all the gifts of the Spirit work together,
is the Body of Messiah built up, and the gifts
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are not used. Hear me, now, the gifts are not
used unless in relation to the body, allowing it to
function as a unit. Paul makes that really clear later
on in one Corinthians twelve, starting verse twenty. Now, indeed
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there are many members yet one body, and the eye
cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you,
nor again the head to the feet, I have no
need of you. No much. Rather, those members of the
body which seem to be weaker are necessary, and those
members of the body which we think to be less honorable.
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On these we bestow greater honor. In our unpresentable parts
have greater modesty. But our presentable parts have known need.
But God composed the body, having given greater honor to
that part which lacks it, that there should be no
schism in the body, no fractures, no separation, but that
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the members should have the same care for one another.
Right at this point, he's writing this in the church
and Coriner, there are schisms, there are fractures, there's problems
going on because of the gifts and people's attitudes about them.
Verse twenty six. And if one member suffers, all the
members suffer, suffer with it, or if one member is honored,
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all the members rejoice with it. Let me stop here
for a second. Just as the husband and wife become one,
the church is one, one body, one with the Lord,
which means if one person is suffering, we're all suffering
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at one person and is honored or blessed, we're all blessed. Well,
what we have, unfortunately, in twenty twenty five, is a
split personality church that can't get along, can't think straight,
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can't do what it's called to do. And Satan is
glad to be able to make that happen so that
we cannot interfere with what he's doing Verse twenty seven.
Now you are the body of Messiah and members individually,
and God has appointed these in the church. First apostles,
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second prophets, third teachers. After that, miracles and gifts of healings, helps, administrations,
varieties of tongues, And he lays out that list. So
he's telling the church in corinth these are the gifts
more than likely that are present there at the moment.
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But then he asks them a question in verse twenty nine.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets in today's church? Paul, Yeah,
everybody's an apostle and a prophet these days? Are all teachers?
Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings?
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly
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desire the best gifts? And then he says, and yet
I show you a more excellent way. And we know
what happens. In firse Corinthians thirteen. He takes them into love,
one of the fruit of the spirit. We'll go there
later on. So in the book what the Bible says
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about the Holy Spirit, the unity of the body of
Messiah's actually part of the first work of the Holy Spirit,
I would say, a primary work. He does not just
give us spiritual life and let us go off by ourselves.
He baptizes us into the body of Messiah. He plunges
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us in no matter who we are, right along with
Jews and gentile, slaves and free. And then he makes
us all to drink to be watered saturated with the
same spirit. But not for self exaltation or rivalry. God's
continuing purpose is that we serve and build up the Body. Now,
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like I said, I've been in an exploding church setting organization.
It had church in its name, you know what I mean,
And self exaltation and rivalry was part and parcel of
the everyday experience. We just couldn't seem to get rid
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of it, and we didn't have leaders strong enough to
put their foot down and say either you stop this
or you have to go. That was a great thing
about the home Fellowship. I could do that. Anything that
gets in the way of the Holy Spirit, anything that
gets in the way of the unity, anything that gets
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in the way of the fullness of the power and
the exaltation. And if the edification of God and his
body must stop, so how about we get back the
attitude that the gifts are given to be exercised as
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a privilege, as a privileged responsibility to inspire and grow
the church for kingdom business. Let's make that a part
of our mission statement. It's a privilege to do this.
It's a privilege to be able to lay hands on
the sick and they recover and they get healed. Privilege
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to be able to give a word of wisdom, to
have revelation knowledge. It's a privilege to be able to
speak in tongues or interpret tongues, or it's just a
privilege to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We're
one body. We're not body parts flopping around everywhere. We're
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not Frankenstein's monsters sewn together. Things don't fit, they don't
look right. Whereas we have many members in one body,
all the members do not have the same function Romans twelve,
verse four. So we being many, are one body in Messiah,
and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing
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according to the grace that is given to us, let
us use them. If prophecy let us prophesy in proportion
to our faith or ministry, let us use it in
our ministryth He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts
in exhortation, He who gives, which is a gift of
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the spirit, He who gives with liberality, He who leads
with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. So the
gifts are not to cause division among the believers. It's
to bring us together. So jealousy regarding who received what
gift when another person wanted it, or things they desired it,
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or rivalry over the similar gifts has no place in
the body of the Lord. And it's only happening because
Satan is causing it to happen. Again. If he can
keep the water of the spirit polluted or the gifts
watered down, will have us fighting with one another, or
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us having one gift but oneting another. So we're not
going to pay attention to what the Lord gave us.
We want the better thing. If he can keep that happening,
he can be doing what he's doing in the Kingdom
of darkness will get it done. We won't. So our
heavenly Father graciously gives spiritual gifts as a means of
(32:16):
helping the entire church. Spiritual gifts are not for private use.
There not to be a badge. Warned proudly, he I
do this every Sunday, about ten minutes at the praise
and worship. I get that tongue thing and that message
thing going on, So don't interrupt me, and just remember
(32:39):
that's my time. No, it's not sit down, be quiet.
We're to build up the church, but to share Him
with one another. And he can use anybody he wants
to at anytime. Because when we exercise exercise, not exercise,
exercize the gifts, it's fertile ground upon which the fruit
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of the spirit flourishes. You cannot have one without the other.
So proclaiming the Gospel, the faithful teaching of the word, exhortation, leadership,
all these gifts of the spirit will lead to a
rich abundance of spiritual fruit within the church. And we
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saw that in the home fellowship until people came in
and brought their jealousy and brought their backbiting and the
criticism behind the scenes. And unfortunately I wasn't mature enough
to see it until it was too late and it
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had already caused schisms and problems. And even though I
would ask people to leave, that did that the enemy
got it done. So when you have authentic gifts going on,
they inspire fruit that will be evident in the believer's life.
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And that's good because the Lord expects fruit in our lives.
This isn't it. Maybe, this isn't it possibly, or I
hope that you have fruit. No, he expects it. Look
at Luke thirteen, starting verse six, the Parable of the
(34:37):
barren fig Tree. A man planted a fig tree in
his garden and came again and again to see if
there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. Finally,
he said to his gardener, I've waited three years and
there hasn't been a single fig. Cut it down. It's
just taking up space in the garden. Gardner answered, sir,
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give it one more chance. Leave it another year and
I'll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. If
we get figs next year, fine, If not, then you
can cut it down. And there's other stories about him
coming to a fruit uh fruit tree, expecting fruit and
finding none. The fruit of the Spirit and the gifts
(35:24):
of the Spirit are two major aspects of Paul's description
of the ongoing practice of the Spirit, and both aspects
are the work of the One Spirit of God. Gifts
and fruit, so we need to understand them in relation
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to one another. The fruit of the Spirit is the
evidence of his presence and the common life of a believer,
and the exercise of the privileged responsibility a prayer, listening
to the word, participating in the life of the body,
and the exercise of the gifts of the spirit are
(36:08):
subject to the control of the righteous fruit of the Spirit. Again,
they cannot function without one another. And most error that
I have seen, especially in the charismatic churches, is the
use of one without the other. And the fruit of
the Spirit is caused to flourish and grow within the
(36:30):
community of believers. When the gifts of the Spirit are
being used. It's symbolic of our relationship. It's symbolic of
the symbiotic relationship between the fruit and the gifts, sanctifying
and upbuilding the church. We are called to a life
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and the spirit. We are called to a life of
walking in that spirit, producing good fruit for the Kingdom
of God. It is not an option, it's what he desires.
Some of these gifts will help us to grow closer together,
(37:16):
help us to grow closer with the Lord. The gifts
will bring outsiders into the church because they'll look at
it and go, boy, I'd like to have some of that.
I'd like to feel that that love, that peace, that joy.
I need a healing. I need prayer, I need a
word of wisdom or revelation, knowledge about what's going on.
(37:41):
It'll help people to encourage one another when they're carrying burdens,
to know the right scripture or the right word or
the right example to use. All the gifts are needed
in different needs, require different kinds of service from different people.
(38:03):
Phesians four, starting verse one. I. Therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, he was writing this wallen chains beseeched you
to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one
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body and one spirit, just as you were called in
one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
But to each one of us grace was given according
to the measure of Messiah's gift. Therefore, he says, when
he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave
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gifts to men those Ephesians four one through eight and
verse eight is actually a quote from Psalm sixty eight eight,
and it's about God as a conqueror, as the ark
of the Covenant is being bring being I'm sorry, brought
back to Zion in Triumph by David. You can read
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about that Second Samuel six or First Chronicles fifteen. It's
been taken back in battle from the Philistines, and as
David returns the Ark to Jerusalem, he also brought the
tributes of war extracted from captured foes. Now, some of
the spoils of war were given to the temple, some
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were distributed among the warriors. So Paul uses that picture
to refer to the Lord's assent into heaven. He took
captivity captive. He made captivity itself a captive. Two possible meanings.
He led the captured ones like you would a general
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would with the vanquished foes and parade them through the streets.
Could also mean he captured the captors. He reversed captivity
and enslaved the enslavers. I think both of them apply.
He made a public spectacle of them. When he was
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raised from the dead. There was a quantum signature in
the universe that told every supernatural being that a paradigm
shift had just happened, and that shift was the resurrection
of the Lord. And they knew that the prophetic time
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clock had started ticking, and we were headed towards the end.
The Lord took captivity captive. He made vanquished enemies of
death and sin and even Satan himself, and he captured them.
Satan hasn't been and he hasn't been put in chains
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or prison yet, but he's been defeated. Everything he does
is as a terrorist or a prison or awaiting sentencing.
But he's still out and about, and he's got his armies,
and the church was here left to tarry to occupy
as a conquering army. Yet we haven't done that. I've tried,
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I've done it. I've tried to inspire others to do it.
Just think if we could get everyone to see that,
to establish that authority in their personal life, then in
their families, then in the structure around them, friends and
so on, and then teach everybody else how to do that,
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and before you know it, we've taken captivity captive and
we are occupying. We are occupying army under the conquering
King Yeshuah, who has given us work jobs and the
authority and the gifts to do those jobs until he
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comes back. And just think if we could do it
in unison with one another. Let me give you an
example of that. If we had one hundred trained, talented
musicians playing together to produce music, it would be breath
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takingly beautiful. But those same one hundred musicians playing independently
of each other would produce here splitting noise. The difference
is that while the second group is just as talented,
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but they're completely self absorbed. They're doing their own thing,
They're focused only on themselves, whereas the first group is
in complete harmony, concentrating on the music and on the conductor.
Capital c you shure the king that harmony is focused power.
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One can put a thousand to flight, two can put
ten thousand in the flight, and if you extrapolate that outward,
we can put them on the run. It's kind of
what SRT does. And we show up, we're preyed up,
we have aerial support, we have prayer coming from everywhere.
We are focused, we know what our objective is, we
know what the plan is. We come in there, it's over.
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If we've shown up on assignment, the minute at our
feet touched the ground of where we've been set fent,
it's over. Sometimes they just leave, They don't even put
up a fight. We went to the one of the
most haunted homes in America, got there, and within a
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short period of time, the strong man entity in the
house fled. All the things he had been holding there
to empower him left And for two nights we slept
and praised and prayed, and I had a praising worship
service in what everybody else would have had a haunted
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experience and noises and pictures, and yeah, I didn't get
a whole lot of evidence. We got some, but it's
because the enemy took off. He fled, He actually went
next door. We have a picture of it in the
house next door. He wanted no part of us. That's
what happens when you come in power, and you come
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in authority, and you come in unity. So if we
apply that same musical analogy to the church, just think
of what we could do when we focus on following
the Lord's lead and fulfilling his purpose for us. It's beautiful,
it's awesome. And if you think of that harmony, it
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focused power like a laser. When you bring that laser
and tighter and tighter and tighter, it'll cut through anything.
That's what happens when we focus on his agenda. But
if we focus on ourselves or selfish agendas or all
this other stuff, it's pitiful, it's pathetic, it's noisy, it's unproductive.
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So as I've been working on this and thinking about
talking to you about this, hoping that you're receiving this,
I believe we're running out of time. I believe the
enemy knows that it's running out of time. Therefore it
is expediting its action. We should be expediting hours. But
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we cannot come into agreement. Everybody wants to be a general,
everybody wants to be a leader. Everyone's an apostle or
a prophet or this or that. Nobody wants to get dirty.
I have even said this to some of these supposed
generals of the church, and these apostles and the prophets.
I've looked them square in the eye and said, we
when was the last time you got dirty on a battlefield?
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When was the last time you got dirty? You know,
trying to deliver somebody. No, you're in the comfort. You're
like most generals today. You want to be in the
tent with the water and the air conditioning and the fans,
and you want to send out everybody else to get
dirty and get nasty. That's not how it is in
the Bible when you look at the wars and how
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they fought. David went out to get that arc back
from the Philistines, and then he came back. And if
you go back and read the story, he danced before
the ark. He made a complete and utter fool for
God before that ark, which then caused Michael, his wife,
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Saul's daughter to criticize him. And basically she got banished
and never had a child because she criticized him for
praising the Lord. How unseemingly, how it was unseemly. You
just looked, You looked so bad there, David, I was
praising God. I was exalting the Lord for what he
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had done for us in giving back the Ark. And
I'll do it again, and I'll do it every chance
that I get. We can't focus on ourselves, we can't
promote ourselves. We can't be looking to build a brand.
We got to be looking to build his brand. We
got to be glorifying the King. So the gifts aren't
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for our personal benefit, They're for the good of the
entire body. They're for the good of the kingdom. Now,
the Bible has several lists of the various gifts of
the spirit. We find them in Romans twelve, for Corinthians
twelve and Ephesians four. We also find them in One Peter,
and I'll read that later. However, these are not the
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exhaustive list. These are not the only ones people have.
They're the ones Paul taught about. So the gifts of
the spirit, these special abilities given to us by who,
by the Holy Spirit, begin when we become believers, and
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they build up the body, and each one of us
uses our unique gifts to do that. But you know
what today's attitude is. It's sending the clones. We want
to all be the same. You want to be like
this guy up here. You want to do this, you
want to do that. No, no, no, we don't need clones.
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We need each part of the body to function. We
have one head. That's Yasure. For as the body is
one and has many members, all the members of that
one body, being many, are one body, so also is Messiah.
For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body,
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where the Jews or Greek slaves are free and have
all been made to drink into one spirit. For in fact,
the body is not one member but many. One Corinthians twelve,
Verses twelve through fourteen university university unity. You can go
to university, but we can bypass that and go straight
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out of high school. Unity and diversity in one body
at the same time bringing people to the Lord, destroying
the work of the enemy, setting the captives free. The
issue becomes sensationalism. Always has a market, always has an audience.
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So what happens People exploit the situation and turn the
gifts of God to self advantage. We see that with Simon,
Magus wanted the Holy Spirit and acts chapter eight, but
only to bolster his prestige. Because the gift, the mix
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of each person having a different gift is so unique,
there's really no place for comparison and jealousy in the
body of Messiah, as the apostle Paul's trying to deal
with in First Corinthians, we should rejoice in one another's gifts.
We should thank the Lord for the diversity of the
tools He's given us. In the Dictionary of Paul in
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his Letters, it says the term gift of the spirit
is of associated with Paul's use of the word charisma.
Hence the frequent contemporary use of charismatic to describe people
or churches who have experienced the phenomena One Corinthians twelve,
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one Corinthians fourteen. The word charisma is a distinctively Pauline word,
and it is found elsewhere only in One Peter four
to ten. As each one has received a gift minister
to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace
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of God, as each one has received a charisma a charismata,
as each one has received a particular spiritual talent, a
gracious divine endowment employed for one another as benefits good
trustees of God's many cited grace, as faithful stewards of
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the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to believers by
unmerited favor. Because karashar s as we back up there,
a RS means grace. It's a concrete expression of grace
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from God. Karismata means it refers to the spirit as
a manifestation in the spirit. So there's little question that
the list of manifestations in One Corinthians twelve, eight through
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ten are to be understood as karaismada gracious bestowments of
the spirit in any gathered community for the sake of
what building up the body and the people of God.
So the gifts of the spirit are gifts. That's it,
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unmerited favor. By the grace of God, we count. We
don't earn them. He gives them to us. People can't
tell you, Okay, this is your gift. I'm gonna pray
for you, and this is what you're gonna get. I
was mistaken when I first saved and moving in these
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things and teaching and in that environment. Oh, I'm gonna
pray for you for an impartation. Oh you want to pray?
What do you want? You want to speak in tongues,
you want to interpret, you want to heal? Okay, we'll
pray for that. You know, we never did. We never
stopped and said, you know, let's find out what the
spirit wants for you, because first of all, I brought
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the people in. The more people you bring in, the
more tithes come in and offerings, and the more people
you have to serve. And which is why every time
they did that, the crowd came in and people started
to serve. And because the gifts wasn't theirs to have,
it didn't either work or and they all wandered off,
and it was the same two or three people doing
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everything because we were doing it wrong. The Holy Spirit
will manifest himself in a believing community, and when he
does that, he will grant them charismata gracious bestowments to
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meet the various needs and build them up as the
end time people of God. The Lord knew that we
were going to need these things to do everything he
needed done before he could come back, everything that he
needed done to stop the work of the enemy for
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us to work together. In the book What the Bible
Says about the Holy Spirit by Stanley M. Hort, he
says this, and you know, I thought about it today,
and I want to clarify why I give you all
these quotes. First of all, I want you to be
sure that I'm telling you where I heard what I heard,
and I'm sharing it with you, because if somebody has
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been given this revelation by God and has put it
down on paper, they deserve the credit. Second, I want
you to begin to build up your knowledge. I want
you to be able to go look for these books.
And I can be honest, I've only had a couple
of people say, what was that book you quoted again
the other night. I need to read that. So this
(55:37):
is what Stanley Horton says. There is, however, no special
order in which the Bible lists the gifts. Romans twelve
sixty eight begins with prophecy first, Corinthians twelve eight through
ten begins with the message of wisdom. The other three
lists begin with apostles. Some attempt to classify the gifts
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according to their nature gifts of revelation, gifts of power,
gifts of speaking. Others distinguished between traveling gifts such as
the apostle, teachers and evangelists, local gifts such as pastors
and governments and alps, or they divide them according to
functions such as proclamation, teaching, service, and administration. These are
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all legitimate, but there's no way of avoiding the overlapping
that comes in any system of classification. We need to
understand that when these were being written, they were being
written to specific churches for the purpose of those fellowships
of those organizations to come together and do what they're
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called to do in the area that they're called to
do it. If you're an Ephesis or corinth where the
paranormal is normal, then you're probably going to have more
supernatural manifestations than someone else. So these gifts fall into
three groups. The first group the establishish of the church,
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to bring it to maturity where all the members can
receive their own gifts and contribute to the building up
of the local body. That's what Ephesians four eleven through
sixteen is about. He gave some to be apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of
the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Messiah, till we all to come
(57:23):
together in the unity of the faith and the knowledge
of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Messiah,
that we should no longer be children tossed to and
fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by
the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
But speaking the truth and love may grow up in
(57:46):
all things. And to Him who is the Head Messiah,
from whom the whole body joined and knit together by
what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working
by which every part does its share, causing growth on
the body for the edifying of itself in love. So
you have apostles, prophets of angelists, pastors, teacher the same
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word really are identified as individuals appointed to serve the
church as a whole rather than in a specific local church.
And we're going to address this right now. The word
apostle means one who is sent out to build other churches,
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to raise up other leaders, to get a fellowship established,
and to move on. In the New Testament, there are
two primary usage usages of the word apostle. The first
specifically to the twelve appointed by the Lord, including Paul,
(58:56):
appointed by the Lord himself, and the second is generically
referring to other individuals who was sent out to be
messengers and ambassadors of Messiah to build up the church. Now,
today we have a movement trying to restore the position
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of the apostle to its original function, even claiming the
authority comparable to the original twelve never supported it. I
think the Apostolic Reformation is off because there's no biblical
basis for this, and actually lines up with a New
(59:41):
Testament warning against false apostles. Two Corinthians eleven twelve through thirteen.
This is the amplified See Paul was being accused of
not being a true apostles. He's because he wasn't there
in Jerusalem when the Lord walked and he got his
supernaturally from the Lord. He said, what I am doing,
(01:00:03):
I will keep doing for I am determined to keep
this independence in order to cut off the claim of
those who want an opportunity to be regarded just as
we are in the things they brag about. For such
men are counterfeit apostles, deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Messiah.
(01:00:26):
That unless somebody calling them an apostle this, or apostle that,
I've actually met people, I'm apostle selling. So how many
churches have you planted? Where did you go? What? No,
I'm in this local No, then you're not an apostle.
You've just created a name tag, a label for yourself.
(01:00:48):
That's all well and good. We need to focus on
the Lord. We need to focus on the Kingdom. We
need to stop following people that have moved into the
corner office and it's not theirs, that's not their view.
We need to be about our father's business. So each
(01:01:09):
ministry will have a more than occasional manifestation of the spirit.
We need the experience of the teacher capital t Yeshiah
and the spirit of truth. In the original days that
(01:01:30):
we're reading about, the ministry was not limited to one
local church. Sooner or later they moved on because they
were given to the church as a whole, so that
the body could be edified and we could build it up.
And Satan has been brilliant in getting us to follow
(01:01:51):
a business model instead of the Book of Acts model.
And the gifts may be exercised by any memorymber of
the congregation. As a baby believer, thankfully Pastor Shipley allowed
me to be who the Lord was training me to be.
But there were some old timers there who were really,
(01:02:14):
really upset that the newly saved, formally demon possessed guy
from Italian from New York City that had walked out
on his family was being allowed to signs and wonders, tongues, interpretations, healings,
deliverance says. They didn't want that. They wanted me to
(01:02:35):
sit down, they wanted me to listen, they wanted me
to study. They would have killed that fire in me.
That's why seminaries become cemeteries, and at the beginning of
a ministry, certain gifts may develop more than others. But eventually,
I believe personally you will become more like him. All
(01:03:00):
aspects of his ministry will be evident. So that's why
Paul says, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers?
Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings?
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? Because that's
what was going on and go on Corinth, total disunity
(01:03:22):
and lack of harmity, harmony. The Spirit will guide it
if we allow him to direct it. It'll be as
he wills. They will be ministered in context with the body.
There will be control in the sense that it won't
be out of order, it won't be crazy, but there
(01:03:43):
will be sponsanety about it. But the quickest thing to
quench the spirit will be when leaders get threatened by that.
They shut it down because they're not the ones doing it.
It isn't pointing towards them, It's only pointing towards the Lord.
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There must be courtesy, there must be loved there must
be self control whether the Lord is there is no
confusion or chaos. So we also have gifts of service
and outreach administration because somebody's got to run it. We
have mercy and exhortation, and we have giving. That's the
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spiritual gifts. Some people are better at it than others,
and then you'll have the overlap of prophecy and faith
and miracles and healings, all contributing to what they're doing.
So there's no exclusive list. Even though Tewo Corinthians twelve
four through eleven mentions nine gifts. That's what the word
(01:04:50):
is there for. But what Paul was dealing with where
we began everything was the ignorance in the church in
corinth I do not want you to be ignorant, ignorant
concerning spiritual gifts. These were genuine believers, filled with the
Holy Spirit of God, with the manifestations of the spirit,
but they were ignorant how to operate in those gifts.
(01:05:14):
That's where you need good leadership, mature leadership that have
been there, have seen it, that know how to bring
it back into order. Now Paul's writing this about fifty
three to fifty five ads, writing it from Ephesus, trying
to straighten things out because the gifts of the spirit
are flowing and it's out of control. Brother, and I
(01:05:37):
don't want you to be ignorant of these spiritual realities.
I want you to know about the things of the spirit,
how God works through his spirit and in the body.
He's imploring the church as I am, for a balanced
consideration of the realm of the spirit. It's there. We
have to deal with it, but we can't get caught
up in spiritual confusion and disception. Twenty different gifts and
(01:06:04):
offices are mentioned in the New Testament. I'm just going
to go through the list real quick because we're going
to pick them up over the next couple of weeks.
I'm assuming that's what the Lord wants to do. So
you have Romans twelve for six through eight, prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation, giving,
leading mercy. Then you have one Conthians twelve eight through ten,
(01:06:28):
a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, healings,
plural miracles, plural prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and the
interpretation of tongues. Then we have twelve one Conthiens twelve
Verses twenty eight through thirty. Paul picks it up with
apostleships prophecy, teaching, miracles, healing, helping, administrating tongues that in
(01:06:53):
the interpretations of tongues get mentioned Ephesians four eleven apostleship,
prophecy of vangelism, pastors, teachers, which are the same word.
And I gotta be honest with you. I'll just go
there what we call pastors. That the office that we
have created is not biblical. Just got to say that.
(01:07:14):
One Peter Chapter four, verses nine through eleven. We have
speaking and serving the Holy Spirit, the roy Ka Kadesh,
the promise of the Father. He seeks to utilize the
individual gifts in each one of us to benefit and
(01:07:34):
strengthen the entire body. It's intended to mature us within
the body of Messiahs, so that we are all joined together.
We are unified, we are in harmony, each part receiving
direction from the head, edifying itself in love. And that's
(01:07:54):
where I'm going to end Ephesians four, verses fifteen through sixteen.
Speaking the truth and love may grow up in all
things into Him who is the Head Messiah, from whom
the whole body joined and knit together by what every
joint supplies, according to the effect of working by which
(01:08:15):
every part does its share, causes growth of the body
for the edifying of itself in love. And where we
started this was right oard BANKI saying the gifts have
a vital part to play in world evangelism. Why would
anybody want to be a part of something where there's
(01:08:36):
fighting and there's no love, and there's arguing and there's
all this craziness confusion. They wouldn't. So the gifts serve
a vital part in world evangelism, and they are weapons
of war to destroy the kingdom of darkness. And that's
why he gave it to us. So Father Abbah, Papa,
(01:08:56):
Daddy not or I, Lord, thank you for sending back
your holy spirit to teach us and to guide us
in Holy Spirit. I hope that I presented tonight what
you wanted presented, and that you are bringing understanding to
each person individually in their specific area. I hope we
(01:09:21):
have gotten rid of confusion and false teachings. I hope
we are coming together in unity of the body to
set the captives free and destroy the work of the enemy. Lord.
We are here in this hour, at this time, with
(01:09:44):
all that's going on in the world, with the increase
of darkness, and the powers of the occult and everything
that's happening to come together as your remnant in one heart,
one mind, one spirit to do what you need done,
to set the captives free, to go find the lambs
that have wandered away for healing. And I speak right
now to anyone who has been hurt by a place
(01:10:06):
or a fellowship they've gone to that misapplied the gifts
without love. I pray for the bomb of Gileads to
touch them right now from the throne room, that your
hand itself would apply that bomb on that wound, that
the hurt and the rejection and everything set and done
would be removed, and that they would once again want
(01:10:29):
to be a part of the plan that you have
for them. I pray for you to fill my brothers
and sisters to the fullest, overflowing with whatever calling you
have for them in whatever area that we have mentioned,
so that we can function as a unit in prayer
from a distance, and when we come together, to shine
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the light to glorify you, to walk as you walked
on the earth once again, and you shoe his name.
If you agree with me, say amen, May the Lord
bless you and keep you. May the Lord. May I
don't I make his face to shine upon you and
(01:11:15):
be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance.
I don't know your shoe, a hamashiyak, lift up his
countenance upon you and give you peace. Give you shall oam.
I'm Richard Grund. This has been the Porch on Firefall
Talk Radio.
Hello, Welcome to the Porch on Firefall Talk Radio. I'm
Richard Grund. This is where you find the uncompromised red
letter basics of the Word of God. We focus on
the Book of Acts Church and how they serve the Lord.
When we do that, we find the Church the Lord intended,
not the one Man created. The Porch is a non denominational,
(00:44):
full gospel approach to the Bible based on the examples
from the Book of Acts Church, which aims to restore
the priesthood of the believer while regaining the world's shaking
influence of the early Church. The Church aid over the
Upper Room experience is as much for today as it
(01:05):
was on the day of pentecopt It's yours if you
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would have to the Jewish and Gentile believers of their day,
using both the Isshua and Jesus. When speaking of the Lord,
we prefer to use the term Messiah rather than Christ,
as it more accurately reflects how he was referred to
(01:28):
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(01:49):
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that word. It'll come back out later, hopefully in the
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(02:35):
thank you. Contact us if you need prayer or you'd
like to pray for others in the Porch community. We
care about you and we want to cover you in prayer.
Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world.
Pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem, which means
the return of the Prince of Peace. And I'm sure
by now all of us want that we start out
(02:58):
with prayer, praise, prayer and the sound of the show
far So, Father, we praise you, Oh my goodness, we
praise you. What an awesome dad Abbah Papa you are.
You love us even when we're unlovable. That's the father's heart.
We thank you for sending your only begotten son, Yeshiah
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to rescue us from sin and death, from everything that
Hascatan and the fallen did to us. Thank you for
cleansing us and making us acceptable again so that we
can spend eternity with you. Thank you Lord for doing that,
for paying our debts and during the pain, the shame
(03:44):
and all that you allowed them to do to you
so that we could come home. Thank you for sending
the Holy Spirit to walk with us, to teach us,
to guide us, to encourage us, to help us and empower.
Without him, we can't do this. So thank you Holy
(04:05):
Spirit for all those things. We need you. We need
you in our life. We need you here and now.
Don't understand this word. We just need you inside and
out and in every part of our lives. So right
now we take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Messiah.
(04:26):
Claiming the mind of Messiah, we cast down every vain
imagination that would exalt itself above the knowledge of Eli
and God Most High, Our Abbah, Father, we pray protection
over this technology. We thank you for our families. We
thank you for our homes, our pets, our possessions. We
(04:47):
put them under the shadow of your wings. We keep
them from the enemy, Lord, so that we can be
in this fallen world and be safe and walk and
do everything you need us to do. So, Lord, through
the power of your Holy Spirit, guide us in this time.
Guide us through your word, protect us. Open our eyes,
(05:11):
open our ears, open our hearts, fill us so that
we can do everything you need us to do in
this hour. And I pray all these things and your
Shoe's name, Amen.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
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Speaker 1 (06:04):
So today we're going to start in a new direction,
same direction, but a slight variation. We'll talk about kingdom power,
because we're going to talk about the gifts of the Spirit.
Reinhard Banki in that book I mentioned last week taking action,
receiving and operating in the gifts and the power of
(06:25):
the Holy Spirit said something I wanted to use to
start today's Bible study. The gifts have a vital part
to play in world evangelism. They are weapons of war,
not toys to be played with. Mark chapter sixteen firmly
(06:45):
anchors miracles to the Great Commission. Go to March sixteen fifteen.
You'll see what he's talking about. The power of the
Holy Spirit is kingdom power, second kingdom and power. What's
that got to do with anything. We're in the battle
(07:06):
between two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom
of darkness. It's not an equal fight. It shouldn't even
be happening. But they don't understand that. The fallen don't
understand that. Satan doesn't understand that. So they're going to fight.
They're going to fight until they've been completely subjected and imprisoned.
(07:30):
You cannot avoid it. You cannot walk in this fallen
world and act like that is not an issue that
you should be concerned with. We need to pay attention
Luke twenty four forty nine. Lord said, behold, I send
(07:51):
the promise of my Father upon you, but terry in
the city of Jerusalem, until you are endued with power
from on high. And do the Greek word and duo
means to clothe, to give qualities, properties or abilities to
So you be given the qualities and the properties or
(08:11):
the ability to have power from on high. So why
do we feel so powerless? Sometimes? Why do we get
caught up in situations where the enemy overwhelms us and
our first thought is to the flesh or to the natural.
How do I figure this out? What do I need
(08:32):
to do? We should just stop and pray and take
the authority that's been given us and apply it. The
promise of the Father is the Holy Spirit. The power
of the Kingdom is the Holy Spirit, which means kingdom.
(08:53):
Power given to the Church on the day of Pentecost.
That promise, that gift. It's more than power and authority.
It is the pleasure of God to give us his kingdom.
This is a gift from Dad. Look twenty Luke twelve,
(09:17):
verses twenty nine through thirty two. Do not seek what
you should eat or should drink, nor have an anxious mind.
For all these things the nations of the world seek after.
And your father knows you need these things. But seek
the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be
added to you. Do not fear a little flock, for
(09:40):
it is your father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things
will be added unto you. He wants to give it
to you. He's giving you the kingdom. But if he's
(10:01):
going to do that, because it's so precious and important
to him, he's going to empower you to take care
of his kingdom. Kingdom power arrested our messiah, Yeshua, and
it was there to work signs and wonders, to confirm
the Word and confirm who he is. It was given
(10:25):
to the early Church and now us for kingdom purposes.
That's it. It's not for glorification of a person or
a place or any of these things. And the hope
that the earlier Church had in seeing Yeshua again made
(10:48):
them more conscious, conscious than ever of the necessity of
carrying on his work and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I've said that one eye on the job and one
eye on the sky because they knew he was coming back.
They didn't know when they were diligent about what they
(11:10):
were called to do. But because it's taken a little time,
the church has become laxed, the Church has gotten deceived,
the Church has gotten off track. But if you are here,
it's because the Lord brought you here to hear this
word so that we can get that mindset back. I'm
(11:31):
going to do everything that I've been called to do
individually and corporately because I know that the King is
coming through the Holy Spirit. God assigns ministries according to
his will for the advancement of his kingdom. Always keep
in mind it's his kingdom, and the focus of that
(11:56):
should remain on the baptizer of the Holy Spirit, which
is who it's the Lord. It's just sure so. Confidence
in his ability to fulfill his promises is fundamental to
receiving the baptism and the Spirit. This isn't just about
I'm going to receive this. I'm good to go. I'll
(12:17):
just wait here till the train shows up. No, the
baptism in the Spirit is to prepare you for ministry,
also to help dedicate you, consecrate you and allow you
to completely surrender. I think one of the greatest hindrances
(12:39):
I've seen in all these years of serving the Lord
is people's inability to surrender through inability to say God's way,
whatever it is, is my way, God's way or the highway.
And most people say, well, I'm going to take the highway.
I'll meet you the off road ramp of me. I'm
(13:02):
going to mess this up big time, says it right
there on the side off way ramp of I'm going
to mess this up big time. It's right to right
next to that new BUCkies. But see, here's the deal.
We should always keep in mind that the baptism of
the Holy Spirit is not a climactic experience. It's not
(13:24):
the be all and the end all. It's the beginning
of something. The day of Pentecost was the beginning of
the harvest, and it brought men into fellowship, men and
women actually into the fellowship of worship and teaching and
service to each other, into the community. So the baptism
(13:47):
of the Holy Spirit was only a door, an opening
into a growing relationship with the Holy Spirit and with
other like minded believers, and for them and for us
it should lead to a life of service where the
gifts of the Spirit provide the power and the wisdom
(14:07):
for the spread of the Gospel and the growth of
the church. Now again, I know I can hear it well.
I don't have a call to do that. I own
a call to evangelism. Yeah, you do. If you made
him lord of your life, you came into an unspoken
agreement that you're going to tell others about him. Why
(14:31):
wouldn't you, Why wouldn't you want to tell people about him?
I have found in some of the most unique places
ways to slip it in of how I know him,
what he does for me. He's a part of my life.
(14:52):
You'd be surprised at how much that moves people, how
much that plant seeds. I know I've told you this before,
and some of you already know this, but some of
the new people may not. There's a period of time
we were caught up in a very high profile story
in the news. I got interviewed a lot, spoken to
(15:14):
a lot by news media and the such and the like,
and I always found a way to talk about the Lord.
I always found a way to talk about my faith.
I always found a way to do it also in
a sound bite so that they couldn't separate it from
what I was originally talking about, because they would have
(15:36):
gladly cut it out. That's what the Holy Spirit in
me allowed to do, to share his name, to share
his glory, to tell the truth. So the means and
the power for service and evangelism and all these things
comes through the gifts of the Spirit. Go with me
(15:58):
to First Corinthians twelve, starting verse four. I'll be reading
you the amplified version. Now there are distinctive varieties of
spiritual gifts, which are special abilities given by the greats
and extraordinary power the Holy Spirit operating in believers. But
it is the same Spirit who grants them and empowers believers.
(16:21):
And there are distinctive varieties of ministries and service, but
it is the same Lord who has served. And there
are distinctive ways of working to accomplish things. But it
is the same God who produces all things and all believers, inspiring,
energizing and empowering them. But to each one is given
(16:45):
the manifestation of the Spirit, the spiritual illumination and the
enabling of the Holy Spirit for the common good. To
one is given to the Holy Spirit the power to
speak the message of wisdom to another. The power to
expres the word of knowledge and understanding according to the
same Spirit to another. Wonder working faith is given by
(17:07):
the same Holy Spirit to another. The extraordinary gifts of
healings by the one Spirit to another. The working of miracles,
plural wonderful events or occurrences beyond human capability which do
manifest the supernatural power of God and fulfiller's purpose to another.
(17:29):
Prophecy for telling the future, speaking a new message from
God to the people to another. Discernment of spirits, the
ability to distinguish sound godly doctrine from the deceptive doctrine
of man made religions and cults. And I'll add demonic
influence to another. Various kinds of unknown tongues, and in another,
(17:51):
the interpretation of those tongues. All of these things, these gifts,
these achievements, the abilities, the empowering I brought about by
one and the same Holy Spirit, distributing to each one
individually just as he chooses. Now, as I'm reading that
(18:16):
all of these things are brought about by the one
and the same Holy Spirit, it just makes you want
to cheer, just makes you want to go ah, yeah, yeah,
you know, play the organ, get going, because come on,
let you get you excited. He's picking and choosing exactly
(18:38):
what you need to do, what you're called to do.
God works in different ways. I don't even want to
say mysterious in this case, because it's right there in
the word. They're just different. And it's the same God
who does the work in all of us. And it
is the one and only Spirit, his Holy Spirit, who
(19:05):
distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift you need,
which gift you should have, which gift is best for you.
And the gifts are supernatural, they're not natural. And he
(19:26):
can give you more than one gift because, as it
says there at the end, as he wills, he can
give you whatever you want. What He wants in the
purpose of the gifts, as this says, is for the
common good. It's for the body. It's for the proper
functioning of the body of Messiah. It's vertification, the building
(19:49):
up of the body. And it's to confirm the preached word.
Same thing the Holy Spirit did for the Book of
x Church he can and will do for us, Which
makes you wonder, why don't we see more of it?
It's there He hasn't changed. The Lord hasn't changed. He's
(20:13):
the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's because we don't
allow him to, because the organizational church doesn't allow him to.
He doesn't fit into their schedule, he doesn't fit into
their plans. When in actuality, everything should start and end
with Holy Spirit, what would you like to do today?
(20:36):
That was the great thing about our home church, the
home Fellowship. Holy Spirit did whatever he wanted to do
for as long as he wanted to do it. And
boy did we see signs and wonders. Boy did we
have some great praise and worship off of CDs and
an overhead projector onto a sheet hanging on our wall.
(21:01):
It was that simple, and it was powerful because we
just let him do what he wanted to do. Hebrews
chapter two, starting verse two says, for if the word
spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience
(21:21):
received a just reward, how shall we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began
to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to
us by those who heard him. God also bearing witness
both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts
(21:42):
of the Holy Spirit according to his own will. So
each believer needs the contribution of every other believer and
member of the body, and Paul outlines this as follows.
Gifts and unity of the body, gifts and love, meaning
(22:06):
applying those gifts and love, and the gifts for the
purpose of edifying building up the body. The Life Application
Bible Commentary says this this chapter, Chapter twelve of First Corinthians.
This chapter explains that all the gifts come from one
(22:27):
source and are to be used for one purpose. That
one source is the Triune God, God the Father, God
the Son to the Lord, and God the Holy Spirit.
The one purpose is the building up of the Body
of Messiah, which happens as the gifts are used to
(22:48):
their fullest potential, as the people serve the Lord in
one another, and as God works through his people. These
gifts are just that gift. They're not earned, they're not
given to believers asking for a specific one. They're not
chosen by people. God alone administers the gifts among his people,
(23:14):
which means God, not believers, control the gifts. Each believer
then is responsible to seek God's guidance in discovering his
or her particular gift or gifts, and then discovering how
best to use them for God's purposes, which is what
the kingdom. So gifts and ministries may overlap, but each
(23:41):
believer has a specialized, God designed specific role. And only
as the Church recognizes the incredible surpassing value of each
gift and all the gifts of the Spirit work together,
is the Body of Messiah built up, and the gifts
(24:05):
are not used. Hear me, now, the gifts are not
used unless in relation to the body, allowing it to
function as a unit. Paul makes that really clear later
on in one Corinthians twelve, starting verse twenty. Now, indeed
(24:28):
there are many members yet one body, and the eye
cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you,
nor again the head to the feet, I have no
need of you. No much. Rather, those members of the
body which seem to be weaker are necessary, and those
members of the body which we think to be less honorable.
(24:50):
On these we bestow greater honor. In our unpresentable parts
have greater modesty. But our presentable parts have known need.
But God composed the body, having given greater honor to
that part which lacks it, that there should be no
schism in the body, no fractures, no separation, but that
(25:14):
the members should have the same care for one another.
Right at this point, he's writing this in the church
and Coriner, there are schisms, there are fractures, there's problems
going on because of the gifts and people's attitudes about them.
Verse twenty six. And if one member suffers, all the
members suffer, suffer with it, or if one member is honored,
(25:38):
all the members rejoice with it. Let me stop here
for a second. Just as the husband and wife become one,
the church is one, one body, one with the Lord,
which means if one person is suffering, we're all suffering
(25:59):
at one person and is honored or blessed, we're all blessed. Well,
what we have, unfortunately, in twenty twenty five, is a
split personality church that can't get along, can't think straight,
(26:19):
can't do what it's called to do. And Satan is
glad to be able to make that happen so that
we cannot interfere with what he's doing Verse twenty seven.
Now you are the body of Messiah and members individually,
and God has appointed these in the church. First apostles,
(26:40):
second prophets, third teachers. After that, miracles and gifts of healings, helps, administrations,
varieties of tongues, And he lays out that list. So
he's telling the church in corinth these are the gifts
more than likely that are present there at the moment.
(27:01):
But then he asks them a question in verse twenty nine.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets in today's church? Paul, Yeah,
everybody's an apostle and a prophet these days? Are all teachers?
Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings?
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly
(27:26):
desire the best gifts? And then he says, and yet
I show you a more excellent way. And we know
what happens. In firse Corinthians thirteen. He takes them into love,
one of the fruit of the spirit. We'll go there
later on. So in the book what the Bible says
(27:46):
about the Holy Spirit, the unity of the body of
Messiah's actually part of the first work of the Holy Spirit,
I would say, a primary work. He does not just
give us spiritual life and let us go off by ourselves.
He baptizes us into the body of Messiah. He plunges
(28:07):
us in no matter who we are, right along with
Jews and gentile, slaves and free. And then he makes
us all to drink to be watered saturated with the
same spirit. But not for self exaltation or rivalry. God's
continuing purpose is that we serve and build up the Body. Now,
(28:33):
like I said, I've been in an exploding church setting organization.
It had church in its name, you know what I mean,
And self exaltation and rivalry was part and parcel of
the everyday experience. We just couldn't seem to get rid
(28:56):
of it, and we didn't have leaders strong enough to
put their foot down and say either you stop this
or you have to go. That was a great thing
about the home Fellowship. I could do that. Anything that
gets in the way of the Holy Spirit, anything that
gets in the way of the unity, anything that gets
(29:17):
in the way of the fullness of the power and
the exaltation. And if the edification of God and his
body must stop, so how about we get back the
attitude that the gifts are given to be exercised as
(29:38):
a privilege, as a privileged responsibility to inspire and grow
the church for kingdom business. Let's make that a part
of our mission statement. It's a privilege to do this.
It's a privilege to be able to lay hands on
the sick and they recover and they get healed. Privilege
(30:01):
to be able to give a word of wisdom, to
have revelation knowledge. It's a privilege to be able to
speak in tongues or interpret tongues, or it's just a
privilege to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We're
one body. We're not body parts flopping around everywhere. We're
(30:23):
not Frankenstein's monsters sewn together. Things don't fit, they don't
look right. Whereas we have many members in one body,
all the members do not have the same function Romans twelve,
verse four. So we being many, are one body in Messiah,
and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing
(30:47):
according to the grace that is given to us, let
us use them. If prophecy let us prophesy in proportion
to our faith or ministry, let us use it in
our ministryth He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts
in exhortation, He who gives, which is a gift of
(31:09):
the spirit, He who gives with liberality, He who leads
with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. So the
gifts are not to cause division among the believers. It's
to bring us together. So jealousy regarding who received what
gift when another person wanted it, or things they desired it,
(31:32):
or rivalry over the similar gifts has no place in
the body of the Lord. And it's only happening because
Satan is causing it to happen. Again. If he can
keep the water of the spirit polluted or the gifts
watered down, will have us fighting with one another, or
(31:53):
us having one gift but oneting another. So we're not
going to pay attention to what the Lord gave us.
We want the better thing. If he can keep that happening,
he can be doing what he's doing in the Kingdom
of darkness will get it done. We won't. So our
heavenly Father graciously gives spiritual gifts as a means of
(32:16):
helping the entire church. Spiritual gifts are not for private use.
There not to be a badge. Warned proudly, he I
do this every Sunday, about ten minutes at the praise
and worship. I get that tongue thing and that message
thing going on, So don't interrupt me, and just remember
(32:39):
that's my time. No, it's not sit down, be quiet.
We're to build up the church, but to share Him
with one another. And he can use anybody he wants
to at anytime. Because when we exercise exercise, not exercise,
exercize the gifts, it's fertile ground upon which the fruit
(33:08):
of the spirit flourishes. You cannot have one without the other.
So proclaiming the Gospel, the faithful teaching of the word, exhortation, leadership,
all these gifts of the spirit will lead to a
rich abundance of spiritual fruit within the church. And we
(33:31):
saw that in the home fellowship until people came in
and brought their jealousy and brought their backbiting and the
criticism behind the scenes. And unfortunately I wasn't mature enough
to see it until it was too late and it
(33:51):
had already caused schisms and problems. And even though I
would ask people to leave, that did that the enemy
got it done. So when you have authentic gifts going on,
they inspire fruit that will be evident in the believer's life.
(34:16):
And that's good because the Lord expects fruit in our lives.
This isn't it. Maybe, this isn't it possibly, or I
hope that you have fruit. No, he expects it. Look
at Luke thirteen, starting verse six, the Parable of the
(34:37):
barren fig Tree. A man planted a fig tree in
his garden and came again and again to see if
there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. Finally,
he said to his gardener, I've waited three years and
there hasn't been a single fig. Cut it down. It's
just taking up space in the garden. Gardner answered, sir,
(35:01):
give it one more chance. Leave it another year and
I'll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. If
we get figs next year, fine, If not, then you
can cut it down. And there's other stories about him
coming to a fruit uh fruit tree, expecting fruit and
finding none. The fruit of the Spirit and the gifts
(35:24):
of the Spirit are two major aspects of Paul's description
of the ongoing practice of the Spirit, and both aspects
are the work of the One Spirit of God. Gifts
and fruit, so we need to understand them in relation
(35:46):
to one another. The fruit of the Spirit is the
evidence of his presence and the common life of a believer,
and the exercise of the privileged responsibility a prayer, listening
to the word, participating in the life of the body,
and the exercise of the gifts of the spirit are
(36:08):
subject to the control of the righteous fruit of the Spirit. Again,
they cannot function without one another. And most error that
I have seen, especially in the charismatic churches, is the
use of one without the other. And the fruit of
the Spirit is caused to flourish and grow within the
(36:30):
community of believers. When the gifts of the Spirit are
being used. It's symbolic of our relationship. It's symbolic of
the symbiotic relationship between the fruit and the gifts, sanctifying
and upbuilding the church. We are called to a life
(36:55):
and the spirit. We are called to a life of
walking in that spirit, producing good fruit for the Kingdom
of God. It is not an option, it's what he desires.
Some of these gifts will help us to grow closer together,
(37:16):
help us to grow closer with the Lord. The gifts
will bring outsiders into the church because they'll look at
it and go, boy, I'd like to have some of that.
I'd like to feel that that love, that peace, that joy.
I need a healing. I need prayer, I need a
word of wisdom or revelation, knowledge about what's going on.
(37:41):
It'll help people to encourage one another when they're carrying burdens,
to know the right scripture or the right word or
the right example to use. All the gifts are needed
in different needs, require different kinds of service from different people.
(38:03):
Phesians four, starting verse one. I. Therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, he was writing this wallen chains beseeched you
to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one
(38:26):
body and one spirit, just as you were called in
one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
But to each one of us grace was given according
to the measure of Messiah's gift. Therefore, he says, when
he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave
(38:50):
gifts to men those Ephesians four one through eight and
verse eight is actually a quote from Psalm sixty eight eight,
and it's about God as a conqueror, as the ark
of the Covenant is being bring being I'm sorry, brought
back to Zion in Triumph by David. You can read
(39:13):
about that Second Samuel six or First Chronicles fifteen. It's
been taken back in battle from the Philistines, and as
David returns the Ark to Jerusalem, he also brought the
tributes of war extracted from captured foes. Now, some of
the spoils of war were given to the temple, some
(39:35):
were distributed among the warriors. So Paul uses that picture
to refer to the Lord's assent into heaven. He took
captivity captive. He made captivity itself a captive. Two possible meanings.
He led the captured ones like you would a general
(39:55):
would with the vanquished foes and parade them through the streets.
Could also mean he captured the captors. He reversed captivity
and enslaved the enslavers. I think both of them apply.
He made a public spectacle of them. When he was
(40:16):
raised from the dead. There was a quantum signature in
the universe that told every supernatural being that a paradigm
shift had just happened, and that shift was the resurrection
of the Lord. And they knew that the prophetic time
(40:39):
clock had started ticking, and we were headed towards the end.
The Lord took captivity captive. He made vanquished enemies of
death and sin and even Satan himself, and he captured them.
Satan hasn't been and he hasn't been put in chains
(41:02):
or prison yet, but he's been defeated. Everything he does
is as a terrorist or a prison or awaiting sentencing.
But he's still out and about, and he's got his armies,
and the church was here left to tarry to occupy
as a conquering army. Yet we haven't done that. I've tried,
(41:32):
I've done it. I've tried to inspire others to do it.
Just think if we could get everyone to see that,
to establish that authority in their personal life, then in
their families, then in the structure around them, friends and
so on, and then teach everybody else how to do that,
(41:53):
and before you know it, we've taken captivity captive and
we are occupying. We are occupying army under the conquering
King Yeshuah, who has given us work jobs and the
authority and the gifts to do those jobs until he
(42:16):
comes back. And just think if we could do it
in unison with one another. Let me give you an
example of that. If we had one hundred trained, talented
musicians playing together to produce music, it would be breath
(42:37):
takingly beautiful. But those same one hundred musicians playing independently
of each other would produce here splitting noise. The difference
is that while the second group is just as talented,
(42:59):
but they're completely self absorbed. They're doing their own thing,
They're focused only on themselves, whereas the first group is
in complete harmony, concentrating on the music and on the conductor.
Capital c you shure the king that harmony is focused power.
(43:20):
One can put a thousand to flight, two can put
ten thousand in the flight, and if you extrapolate that outward,
we can put them on the run. It's kind of
what SRT does. And we show up, we're preyed up,
we have aerial support, we have prayer coming from everywhere.
We are focused, we know what our objective is, we
know what the plan is. We come in there, it's over.
(43:41):
If we've shown up on assignment, the minute at our
feet touched the ground of where we've been set fent,
it's over. Sometimes they just leave, They don't even put
up a fight. We went to the one of the
most haunted homes in America, got there, and within a
(44:08):
short period of time, the strong man entity in the
house fled. All the things he had been holding there
to empower him left And for two nights we slept
and praised and prayed, and I had a praising worship
service in what everybody else would have had a haunted
(44:30):
experience and noises and pictures, and yeah, I didn't get
a whole lot of evidence. We got some, but it's
because the enemy took off. He fled, He actually went
next door. We have a picture of it in the
house next door. He wanted no part of us. That's
what happens when you come in power, and you come
(44:51):
in authority, and you come in unity. So if we
apply that same musical analogy to the church, just think
of what we could do when we focus on following
the Lord's lead and fulfilling his purpose for us. It's beautiful,
it's awesome. And if you think of that harmony, it
(45:12):
focused power like a laser. When you bring that laser
and tighter and tighter and tighter, it'll cut through anything.
That's what happens when we focus on his agenda. But
if we focus on ourselves or selfish agendas or all
this other stuff, it's pitiful, it's pathetic, it's noisy, it's unproductive.
(45:40):
So as I've been working on this and thinking about
talking to you about this, hoping that you're receiving this,
I believe we're running out of time. I believe the
enemy knows that it's running out of time. Therefore it
is expediting its action. We should be expediting hours. But
(46:03):
we cannot come into agreement. Everybody wants to be a general,
everybody wants to be a leader. Everyone's an apostle or
a prophet or this or that. Nobody wants to get dirty.
I have even said this to some of these supposed
generals of the church, and these apostles and the prophets.
I've looked them square in the eye and said, we
when was the last time you got dirty on a battlefield?
(46:26):
When was the last time you got dirty? You know,
trying to deliver somebody. No, you're in the comfort. You're
like most generals today. You want to be in the
tent with the water and the air conditioning and the fans,
and you want to send out everybody else to get
dirty and get nasty. That's not how it is in
the Bible when you look at the wars and how
(46:47):
they fought. David went out to get that arc back
from the Philistines, and then he came back. And if
you go back and read the story, he danced before
the ark. He made a complete and utter fool for
God before that ark, which then caused Michael, his wife,
(47:07):
Saul's daughter to criticize him. And basically she got banished
and never had a child because she criticized him for
praising the Lord. How unseemingly, how it was unseemly. You
just looked, You looked so bad there, David, I was
praising God. I was exalting the Lord for what he
(47:30):
had done for us in giving back the Ark. And
I'll do it again, and I'll do it every chance
that I get. We can't focus on ourselves, we can't
promote ourselves. We can't be looking to build a brand.
We got to be looking to build his brand. We
got to be glorifying the King. So the gifts aren't
(47:54):
for our personal benefit, They're for the good of the
entire body. They're for the good of the kingdom. Now,
the Bible has several lists of the various gifts of
the spirit. We find them in Romans twelve, for Corinthians
twelve and Ephesians four. We also find them in One Peter,
and I'll read that later. However, these are not the
(48:17):
exhaustive list. These are not the only ones people have.
They're the ones Paul taught about. So the gifts of
the spirit, these special abilities given to us by who,
by the Holy Spirit, begin when we become believers, and
(48:38):
they build up the body, and each one of us
uses our unique gifts to do that. But you know
what today's attitude is. It's sending the clones. We want
to all be the same. You want to be like
this guy up here. You want to do this, you
want to do that. No, no, no, we don't need clones.
(49:01):
We need each part of the body to function. We
have one head. That's Yasure. For as the body is
one and has many members, all the members of that
one body, being many, are one body, so also is Messiah.
For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body,
(49:25):
where the Jews or Greek slaves are free and have
all been made to drink into one spirit. For in fact,
the body is not one member but many. One Corinthians twelve,
Verses twelve through fourteen university university unity. You can go
to university, but we can bypass that and go straight
(49:45):
out of high school. Unity and diversity in one body
at the same time bringing people to the Lord, destroying
the work of the enemy, setting the captives free. The
issue becomes sensationalism. Always has a market, always has an audience.
(50:11):
So what happens People exploit the situation and turn the
gifts of God to self advantage. We see that with Simon,
Magus wanted the Holy Spirit and acts chapter eight, but
only to bolster his prestige. Because the gift, the mix
(50:32):
of each person having a different gift is so unique,
there's really no place for comparison and jealousy in the
body of Messiah, as the apostle Paul's trying to deal
with in First Corinthians, we should rejoice in one another's gifts.
We should thank the Lord for the diversity of the
tools He's given us. In the Dictionary of Paul in
(50:57):
his Letters, it says the term gift of the spirit
is of associated with Paul's use of the word charisma.
Hence the frequent contemporary use of charismatic to describe people
or churches who have experienced the phenomena One Corinthians twelve,
(51:19):
one Corinthians fourteen. The word charisma is a distinctively Pauline word,
and it is found elsewhere only in One Peter four
to ten. As each one has received a gift minister
to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace
(51:40):
of God, as each one has received a charisma a charismata,
as each one has received a particular spiritual talent, a
gracious divine endowment employed for one another as benefits good
trustees of God's many cited grace, as faithful stewards of
(52:02):
the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to believers by
unmerited favor. Because karashar s as we back up there,
a RS means grace. It's a concrete expression of grace
(52:25):
from God. Karismata means it refers to the spirit as
a manifestation in the spirit. So there's little question that
the list of manifestations in One Corinthians twelve, eight through
(52:45):
ten are to be understood as karaismada gracious bestowments of
the spirit in any gathered community for the sake of
what building up the body and the people of God.
So the gifts of the spirit are gifts. That's it,
(53:06):
unmerited favor. By the grace of God, we count. We
don't earn them. He gives them to us. People can't
tell you, Okay, this is your gift. I'm gonna pray
for you, and this is what you're gonna get. I
was mistaken when I first saved and moving in these
(53:26):
things and teaching and in that environment. Oh, I'm gonna
pray for you for an impartation. Oh you want to pray?
What do you want? You want to speak in tongues,
you want to interpret, you want to heal? Okay, we'll
pray for that. You know, we never did. We never
stopped and said, you know, let's find out what the
spirit wants for you, because first of all, I brought
(53:50):
the people in. The more people you bring in, the
more tithes come in and offerings, and the more people
you have to serve. And which is why every time
they did that, the crowd came in and people started
to serve. And because the gifts wasn't theirs to have,
it didn't either work or and they all wandered off,
and it was the same two or three people doing
(54:10):
everything because we were doing it wrong. The Holy Spirit
will manifest himself in a believing community, and when he
does that, he will grant them charismata gracious bestowments to
(54:31):
meet the various needs and build them up as the
end time people of God. The Lord knew that we
were going to need these things to do everything he
needed done before he could come back, everything that he
needed done to stop the work of the enemy for
(54:51):
us to work together. In the book What the Bible
Says about the Holy Spirit by Stanley M. Hort, he
says this, and you know, I thought about it today,
and I want to clarify why I give you all
these quotes. First of all, I want you to be
sure that I'm telling you where I heard what I heard,
and I'm sharing it with you, because if somebody has
(55:14):
been given this revelation by God and has put it
down on paper, they deserve the credit. Second, I want
you to begin to build up your knowledge. I want
you to be able to go look for these books.
And I can be honest, I've only had a couple
of people say, what was that book you quoted again
the other night. I need to read that. So this
(55:37):
is what Stanley Horton says. There is, however, no special
order in which the Bible lists the gifts. Romans twelve
sixty eight begins with prophecy first, Corinthians twelve eight through
ten begins with the message of wisdom. The other three
lists begin with apostles. Some attempt to classify the gifts
(55:58):
according to their nature gifts of revelation, gifts of power,
gifts of speaking. Others distinguished between traveling gifts such as
the apostle, teachers and evangelists, local gifts such as pastors
and governments and alps, or they divide them according to
functions such as proclamation, teaching, service, and administration. These are
(56:20):
all legitimate, but there's no way of avoiding the overlapping
that comes in any system of classification. We need to
understand that when these were being written, they were being
written to specific churches for the purpose of those fellowships
of those organizations to come together and do what they're
(56:41):
called to do in the area that they're called to
do it. If you're an Ephesis or corinth where the
paranormal is normal, then you're probably going to have more
supernatural manifestations than someone else. So these gifts fall into
three groups. The first group the establishish of the church,
(57:01):
to bring it to maturity where all the members can
receive their own gifts and contribute to the building up
of the local body. That's what Ephesians four eleven through
sixteen is about. He gave some to be apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of
the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Messiah, till we all to come
(57:23):
together in the unity of the faith and the knowledge
of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Messiah,
that we should no longer be children tossed to and
fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by
the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
But speaking the truth and love may grow up in
(57:46):
all things. And to Him who is the Head Messiah,
from whom the whole body joined and knit together by
what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working
by which every part does its share, causing growth on
the body for the edifying of itself in love. So
you have apostles, prophets of angelists, pastors, teacher the same
(58:09):
word really are identified as individuals appointed to serve the
church as a whole rather than in a specific local church.
And we're going to address this right now. The word
apostle means one who is sent out to build other churches,
(58:32):
to raise up other leaders, to get a fellowship established,
and to move on. In the New Testament, there are
two primary usage usages of the word apostle. The first
specifically to the twelve appointed by the Lord, including Paul,
(58:56):
appointed by the Lord himself, and the second is generically
referring to other individuals who was sent out to be
messengers and ambassadors of Messiah to build up the church. Now,
today we have a movement trying to restore the position
(59:19):
of the apostle to its original function, even claiming the
authority comparable to the original twelve never supported it. I
think the Apostolic Reformation is off because there's no biblical
basis for this, and actually lines up with a New
(59:41):
Testament warning against false apostles. Two Corinthians eleven twelve through thirteen.
This is the amplified See Paul was being accused of
not being a true apostles. He's because he wasn't there
in Jerusalem when the Lord walked and he got his
supernaturally from the Lord. He said, what I am doing,
(01:00:03):
I will keep doing for I am determined to keep
this independence in order to cut off the claim of
those who want an opportunity to be regarded just as
we are in the things they brag about. For such
men are counterfeit apostles, deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Messiah.
(01:00:26):
That unless somebody calling them an apostle this, or apostle that,
I've actually met people, I'm apostle selling. So how many
churches have you planted? Where did you go? What? No,
I'm in this local No, then you're not an apostle.
You've just created a name tag, a label for yourself.
(01:00:48):
That's all well and good. We need to focus on
the Lord. We need to focus on the Kingdom. We
need to stop following people that have moved into the
corner office and it's not theirs, that's not their view.
We need to be about our father's business. So each
(01:01:09):
ministry will have a more than occasional manifestation of the spirit.
We need the experience of the teacher capital t Yeshiah
and the spirit of truth. In the original days that
(01:01:30):
we're reading about, the ministry was not limited to one
local church. Sooner or later they moved on because they
were given to the church as a whole, so that
the body could be edified and we could build it up.
And Satan has been brilliant in getting us to follow
(01:01:51):
a business model instead of the Book of Acts model.
And the gifts may be exercised by any memorymber of
the congregation. As a baby believer, thankfully Pastor Shipley allowed
me to be who the Lord was training me to be.
But there were some old timers there who were really,
(01:02:14):
really upset that the newly saved, formally demon possessed guy
from Italian from New York City that had walked out
on his family was being allowed to signs and wonders, tongues, interpretations, healings,
deliverance says. They didn't want that. They wanted me to
(01:02:35):
sit down, they wanted me to listen, they wanted me
to study. They would have killed that fire in me.
That's why seminaries become cemeteries, and at the beginning of
a ministry, certain gifts may develop more than others. But eventually,
I believe personally you will become more like him. All
(01:03:00):
aspects of his ministry will be evident. So that's why
Paul says, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers?
Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings?
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? Because that's
what was going on and go on Corinth, total disunity
(01:03:22):
and lack of harmity, harmony. The Spirit will guide it
if we allow him to direct it. It'll be as
he wills. They will be ministered in context with the body.
There will be control in the sense that it won't
be out of order, it won't be crazy, but there
(01:03:43):
will be sponsanety about it. But the quickest thing to
quench the spirit will be when leaders get threatened by that.
They shut it down because they're not the ones doing it.
It isn't pointing towards them, It's only pointing towards the Lord.
(01:04:04):
There must be courtesy, there must be loved there must
be self control whether the Lord is there is no
confusion or chaos. So we also have gifts of service
and outreach administration because somebody's got to run it. We
have mercy and exhortation, and we have giving. That's the
(01:04:26):
spiritual gifts. Some people are better at it than others,
and then you'll have the overlap of prophecy and faith
and miracles and healings, all contributing to what they're doing.
So there's no exclusive list. Even though Tewo Corinthians twelve
four through eleven mentions nine gifts. That's what the word
(01:04:50):
is there for. But what Paul was dealing with where
we began everything was the ignorance in the church in
corinth I do not want you to be ignorant, ignorant
concerning spiritual gifts. These were genuine believers, filled with the
Holy Spirit of God, with the manifestations of the spirit,
but they were ignorant how to operate in those gifts.
(01:05:14):
That's where you need good leadership, mature leadership that have
been there, have seen it, that know how to bring
it back into order. Now Paul's writing this about fifty
three to fifty five ads, writing it from Ephesus, trying
to straighten things out because the gifts of the spirit
are flowing and it's out of control. Brother, and I
(01:05:37):
don't want you to be ignorant of these spiritual realities.
I want you to know about the things of the spirit,
how God works through his spirit and in the body.
He's imploring the church as I am, for a balanced
consideration of the realm of the spirit. It's there. We
have to deal with it, but we can't get caught
up in spiritual confusion and disception. Twenty different gifts and
(01:06:04):
offices are mentioned in the New Testament. I'm just going
to go through the list real quick because we're going
to pick them up over the next couple of weeks.
I'm assuming that's what the Lord wants to do. So
you have Romans twelve for six through eight, prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation, giving,
leading mercy. Then you have one Conthians twelve eight through ten,
(01:06:28):
a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, healings,
plural miracles, plural prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and the
interpretation of tongues. Then we have twelve one Conthiens twelve
Verses twenty eight through thirty. Paul picks it up with
apostleships prophecy, teaching, miracles, healing, helping, administrating tongues that in
(01:06:53):
the interpretations of tongues get mentioned Ephesians four eleven apostleship,
prophecy of vangelism, pastors, teachers, which are the same word.
And I gotta be honest with you. I'll just go
there what we call pastors. That the office that we
have created is not biblical. Just got to say that.
(01:07:14):
One Peter Chapter four, verses nine through eleven. We have
speaking and serving the Holy Spirit, the roy Ka Kadesh,
the promise of the Father. He seeks to utilize the
individual gifts in each one of us to benefit and
(01:07:34):
strengthen the entire body. It's intended to mature us within
the body of Messiahs, so that we are all joined together.
We are unified, we are in harmony, each part receiving
direction from the head, edifying itself in love. And that's
(01:07:54):
where I'm going to end Ephesians four, verses fifteen through sixteen.
Speaking the truth and love may grow up in all
things into Him who is the Head Messiah, from whom
the whole body joined and knit together by what every
joint supplies, according to the effect of working by which
(01:08:15):
every part does its share, causes growth of the body
for the edifying of itself in love. And where we
started this was right oard BANKI saying the gifts have
a vital part to play in world evangelism. Why would
anybody want to be a part of something where there's
(01:08:36):
fighting and there's no love, and there's arguing and there's
all this craziness confusion. They wouldn't. So the gifts serve
a vital part in world evangelism, and they are weapons
of war to destroy the kingdom of darkness. And that's
why he gave it to us. So Father Abbah, Papa,
(01:08:56):
Daddy not or I, Lord, thank you for sending back
your holy spirit to teach us and to guide us
in Holy Spirit. I hope that I presented tonight what
you wanted presented, and that you are bringing understanding to
each person individually in their specific area. I hope we
(01:09:21):
have gotten rid of confusion and false teachings. I hope
we are coming together in unity of the body to
set the captives free and destroy the work of the enemy. Lord.
We are here in this hour, at this time, with
(01:09:44):
all that's going on in the world, with the increase
of darkness, and the powers of the occult and everything
that's happening to come together as your remnant in one heart,
one mind, one spirit to do what you need done,
to set the captives free, to go find the lambs
that have wandered away for healing. And I speak right
now to anyone who has been hurt by a place
(01:10:06):
or a fellowship they've gone to that misapplied the gifts
without love. I pray for the bomb of Gileads to
touch them right now from the throne room, that your
hand itself would apply that bomb on that wound, that
the hurt and the rejection and everything set and done
would be removed, and that they would once again want
(01:10:29):
to be a part of the plan that you have
for them. I pray for you to fill my brothers
and sisters to the fullest, overflowing with whatever calling you
have for them in whatever area that we have mentioned,
so that we can function as a unit in prayer
from a distance, and when we come together, to shine
(01:10:53):
the light to glorify you, to walk as you walked
on the earth once again, and you shoe his name.
If you agree with me, say amen, May the Lord
bless you and keep you. May the Lord. May I
don't I make his face to shine upon you and
(01:11:15):
be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance.
I don't know your shoe, a hamashiyak, lift up his
countenance upon you and give you peace. Give you shall oam.
I'm Richard Grund. This has been the Porch on Firefall
Talk Radio.
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