No 10

(The temporary sign gifts)

There are 4 sign or miraculous gifts:

q MIRACLES In the Bible there are four periods of miracles and, in each case, it was always to confirm God’s Word and it was always directed towards unbelievers. These periods were during the lives of : a) Moses; b) Elijah/Elisha; c) Jesus; d) Paul (the early Church). Miracles still go on today – God can perform miracles, He is a God of miracles but they are not because a person has the gift of miracles; this gift ceased after the early church.

q HEALING Today, this gift has also ceased. Healing still goes on today; we hear of it everywhere but it is in response to the prayer of faith and not someone’s gift. If the gift of healing still exists today, why aren’t those who have it in hospitals, healing the sick? James, the brother of Jesus says in his epistle in chapter 5 : 14 “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord”.

q TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION OF TONGUES Again, these gifts have ceased for the same reasons as miracles. In the Bible, all instances of tongues are all known national languages and it was always to confirm the Word to unbelievers. There are four main occurrences of tongues in the book of Acts and each time, it was to open a new area or region to the Word of God. They are : 1) Acts 2 : 6 - 13 right after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles in Jerusalem. 2) Acts 8 : 15 in Samaria although tongues are not specifically mentioned here, the Samaritans needed to have the same experience as the Jews in Jerusalem. 3) Acts 10 : 46 in Caesarea to Cornelius, another new area for the Gospel and Peter, after coming from there said to his fellow Jews : “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like as He did unto us, who believed unto the Lord Jesus Christ…then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11 : 17, 18). 4) Acts 19 : 6 The last occurrence of tongues is in Ephesus when Paul spoke to Old Testament believers who had been baptized by John but hadn’t realised that Christ had come. Paul laid his hands on them and “the Holy Spirit came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied”. Tongues were never ever intended for believers, and Paul had to straighten out the Corinthians because they had perverted that gift. In 1 Corinthians 14 : 22, the Bible says : “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not”. Today we see and hear of people with the gift of tongues; they are in error and have misapplied Scripture sometimes because of ignorance but also because of a craving for emotional arousing. All through Church history, tongues are never mentioned and what we hear about in certain churches today began in Van Nuys, Cal on April 3 1960 at St Mark’s Episcopalian Church. One day, someone published a pamphlet entitled “Ten Easy Steps to Speaking in Tongues”. In it, the author says that a good way to begin speaking in tongues is to simulate baby talk and repeating the words “ba, ba, ba”. That’s very interesting, because Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 13 : 11 the following : “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things”