Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Hello, this is Mark Rutland. I'm so glad that you've been enjoying the Leader's Notebook.
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[00:01:47] This is the final service or teaching in this series called Dimension that we've been doing on the gifts of the Spirit. Well, on the Holy Spirit, the person and ministries of the Holy Spirit. And tonight we'll conclude the last two or three have been particularly on the gifts.
[00:02:04] Let me just say a word to you about all of this that we're going through.
[00:02:09] The Church has endured every kind of persecution, opposition, difficulty, hardship, deprivation for 2,000 years.
[00:02:19] Whether it was the onslaught of the persecution of Nero and the other emperors, or whether it was the nightmare of persecution, whether it is the Christians that have suffered so horribly under Islamic rule in those countries, whether it was the Blitz In World War II, the churches in London were bombed out, had to meet in shelters underground and the underground church in places like China. Given all of that 2000 years of hardship and difficulty and sacrifice, then this little moment of having to deal with the reality of this virus from China and all that we're dealing with here, this is as nothing.
[00:03:12] God will get us through this. We're going to endure. Everything's going to be okay. Hold fast, believe God. Stay calm.
[00:03:19] Of course, you don't want to be extravagant in your carelessness.
[00:03:25] You want to be prudent. Do the wise thing, act with some level of caution, but don't let it turn into fear. I urge you from the bottom of my heart, my life verse that has helped me so many times through my life. Isaiah 12:2. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord, even Jehovah is my strength and, and my song, and he has become my salvation. It's a wonderful, wonderful verse of scripture. I've been held at gunpoint in Africa.
[00:04:00] I thought I was going to be shot. I've paddled a dugout canoe up the tributaries of the Amazon when we were surrounded by cindero luminosos or drugistas or whatever it was. I've been in highly dangerous situations.
[00:04:17] I remember we were going on the andean highway about 12 or 13,000ft in the mountains and the little bus we were on stopped and there were boulders that had tumbled down into the road and they asked all the men on the. On the bus to get off and push the boulders off.
[00:04:34] But the boulders, when we pushed them off, we pushed them off over a cliff. It was hundreds of feet straight down and there was no guardrail, there was no anything. And I had the terrible feeling that if I pushed on the rock that the momentum would carry me over the cliff.
[00:04:51] So I can remember pushing on that rock with all my might and saying Isaiah 12:2 behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.
[00:05:03] Samuel o', Donnell my African director or the African director for Global Servants our ministry, our son is the president of Global Servants now. And the African director is Sammy's son, Daniel o'. Donnell. But in the old days when it was Sammy and me, the old guys, we were stopped with some by some drunken soldiers one night and it was a very scary situation. A drunk soldier with an AK47 is a very scary operation because if he shoots you by accident, you're just as dead as if he meant to.
[00:05:38] And I can remember just saying the Lord's Prayer over and over and over again and interspersing it with Isaiah 12:2.
[00:05:46] Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord, even Jehovah is my strength and my song, and he is become my salvation. Amen.
[00:05:59] So wherever you are now, take your Bible, open it up. We're going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 as we conclude this series on the person and ministries of the Holy Spirit. And then remember, dimension will continue next Wednesday night here in the auditorium at the church Buford Church of God and online now on Last week we began our study of the gifts of the Spirit.
[00:06:31] In fact, the week before that, we talked about the broader range of the gifts of the Spirit. We talked about the gifts as gifted persons. And he gave some apostles, some pastors, some preachers, teachers, all of those gifts that gifted persons are gifts of the Spirit to the body of Christ.
[00:06:52] We talked about the fact that there are other lists of the gifts of the Spirit, the gift of administration, the gift of hospitality, the gift of giving. That's one. You know, just once I'd like to be a member of a denomination where the evidence of the Holy Spirit is giving.
[00:07:08] But I believe that when you talk about, when one talks about the gifts of the Spirit, immediately people go to this list in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12.
[00:07:21] I don't want to recapitulate the whole teaching, but let me just give you a wee bit of summary. The first thing we said is Paul makes the point. He's dealing with the Corinthians who were converted pagans.
[00:07:36] So they were not Jews who became believers in Christ as a savior. These were Greco Roman pagans who have become Christians.
[00:07:48] And therefore their concepts of worship were informed by paganism.
[00:07:55] And that pagan concept of worship order to receive supernatural giftedness, insight, prophecy, for example, is uniformly the same across paganism.
[00:08:11] And that is that I have to rev myself into some kind of a fever pitch. I have to move myself like in the Native American peyote cult. I have to smoke dope until I transcend my body. I go into another dimension.
[00:08:29] There I receive some kind of a vision. And then when the high comes down, I come back into the human realm, back into the natural realm and I deliver that prophecy or whatever it is, quote unquote prophecy that I have received or believe I've received in the supernatural realm. Talked about the whirling dervishes that were a para Islamic cult that would spin, literally, they were whirling dervishes and they would whirl in a circle until they had that kind of out of body experience. And they will hope to receive some kind of message from the other side, if you will. And then when they're, when they came back to themselves, they would deliver that message. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, he says that is not how Christian worship and how Christian giftedness the supernatural, the access to the supernatural. That's not how it works.
[00:09:25] He says, remember in times past you were swept away to these dumb idols, that you tried to get yourself caught up in some kind of a wave, a feverish wave, so that you could go somewhere and receive a word from God or minister in the gifts or whatever it is.
[00:09:43] He says that's not the way it works here. The gifts of the spirit never operate mutually exclusive of the fruit of the spirit.
[00:09:52] So in other words, if one of the spirit is self control, and it is, then how can we expect that the gifts of the spirit operate in a way when we are out of control?
[00:10:06] So when you hear sometimes people say, oh, I just couldn't stop myself, I couldn't stop myself. That's not the way the gifts of the spirit work.
[00:10:16] So I want to continue now with talking about the gifts.
[00:10:20] But tonight we want to talk about these gifts as they operate in the day to day experience of the believer.
[00:10:30] So we so often think about tongues. For example, take tongues we talked on last week. If you remember that there are multiple ways that it says diverse, different kinds of tongues.
[00:10:42] So there's tongues as an initial experience in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If that is your experience, tongues devotionally.
[00:10:51] Paul calls it praying in the spirit.
[00:10:54] Then there is the gift of an unknown tongue which someone else understands as their language. That is apparently what happened in the upper room, that everyone on the outside how here we all of them in our own language wherein we were born.
[00:11:15] Then there is the impartation of a language.
[00:11:19] The use of an unknown tongue is called glossolalia.
[00:11:24] The impartation of a known language is called xenolia. And that is a rare gift, but it's a real gift. It's a documented gift.
[00:11:35] And I know a personal example of someone who received a language that even endured in their life.
[00:11:45] Now then we talk about someone speaking in tongues in a worship service and the interpretation of that tongue, which is another of the gifts or a word of prophecy in a public worship service. Those are fine. Are the gifts of healing. Usually we think of those confined. Someone comes forward in church or goes to a crusade or whatever and they want healing. The supernatural gift of healing.
[00:12:09] But what does that have to do with a carpenter with a crew working on a house?
[00:12:18] What do the gifts of the spirit have to do with that life?
[00:12:22] So let's just look at some of these gifts and how they relate to and how they function in the everyday life of the believer.
[00:12:32] For to one is given beginning with verse eight. If you're reading in your Bible right there. Keep your Bible open. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 and verse 8. For to one is given by the spirit, Spirit, the word of wisdom.
[00:12:44] Now, that means that sometimes the word of wisdom flows through you. It is unfeigned.
[00:12:54] It may not sound flamboyant. It doesn't have to sound like a word of wisdom. It just is in a meeting, in a board meeting or in a teaching or something, that suddenly there is some application of the knowledge of the Scripture that transcends your own natural knowledge and ability and wisdom.
[00:13:15] I remember years ago, I went to hear the late, great Dr. Tommy Tyson, one of the mentors in my life and one of the great, great influences on my life.
[00:13:25] He was preaching in a healing service at the Old Grove United Methodist Church in Decatur, Georgia. I'll never forget it. I was in the congregation, and he was preaching, and all of a sudden he just stepped out of the pulpit and looked at where he had been standing, and he said, oh, that's great. And he stepped back in the pulpit and went on preaching.
[00:13:48] Afterward, I asked him about it, and he had no memory of it. He could not remember particularly what he had said, and he couldn't remember stepping out of the pulpit and remarking on it. And I realized that what had happened was he heard what he said at the same time the rest of us did.
[00:14:07] And he stepped out of the role of preacher into the role of hearer, commented on what he had heard, and then stepped back into the role of the preacher.
[00:14:17] So the word of wisdom doesn't have to be in a formal setting.
[00:14:22] It may be just a group of friends talking. It may be in a Sunday school class where you're teaching or a small group and people are struggling with things. It can very well be a counseling session.
[00:14:34] Now, I had a fascinating experience the other day.
[00:14:38] A man came up to me, and I included this story, by the way, in my latest book, Courage to Be Healed. This story is in that book. This man came up to me and he said, I know you don't recognize me. My wife and I came for marriage counseling when you were at Mount Perron Church of God, and we tried to be with you for a while, it got difficult. It didn't work. And finally we said we were leaving.
[00:15:01] You said, I'm going to write down a prescription for you. I'm going to write a prescription for you, and if you'll fill this prescription, it will heal you and heal your marriage and heal other broken relationships that you have. And he said, you took a piece of paper and you wrote on it and folded it up and handed it to me and said, do not open this till you get to your car. But this is a prescription for you to be healed.
[00:15:27] I had no memory of it.
[00:15:29] He said, I have kept that paper. I look at it almost every day, and it's changed my life. It healed my marriage.
[00:15:37] And he said, do you remember writing it? I said, friend, I do not. And he opened it up, and on there, all it said was in my handwriting. I couldn't deny it. It said, grow up.
[00:15:51] I don't know if that's a gift of healing, but I think it may be a word of wisdom.
[00:15:57] But the word of wisdom flows in our natural communication to another is the word of knowledge. That's where you have some impartation of knowledge, a thing that you know.
[00:16:10] And again, remember, this doesn't have to be some flamboyant thing in a church service.
[00:16:16] Let me share with you a story about a woman in the church where I. After I received Allison and I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I was the associate pastor at a large Methodist church in Atlanta. When Allison and I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit six months later, I was not the associate pastor at a large Methodist church in Atlanta. The bishop banished us to the Briar Patch, and we were sent to a small church, probably to get rid of us, but it was the best thing that ever happened to us.
[00:16:52] We were sent to a little country church out in the hills in North Georgia. The people were not resistant to the full gospel message in the least.
[00:17:02] My first Sunday there, I just announced that the United Methodist Church was a Pentecostal denomination.
[00:17:08] And they all said, you know, we thought so.
[00:17:12] And there was no resistance. It went great. We had outpouring of the Holy Spirit. People began to be saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:20] In that church. There was a lady named Margie, and she was raising two bad, wild teenage boys. My goodness, they were just bad boys. What were their names? Oh, yeah, I remember Jesse and Frank.
[00:17:34] And she would always come into church just looking weathered, you know, just her hair everywhere and stuff falling out of her purse. And she'd just come in late and look up at the pulpit with this look like, you know, try to say something helpful.
[00:17:52] And one night, she received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:56] And if I've ever seen anybody just turn on, she clicked on like a clig light.
[00:18:03] And the power of God began to work in Margie for healing and for grace, but particularly for the gifts of the spirit in a beautiful way. She worked at a post office and she began to pray with people in the post office. So people would come to the window and they'd be doing like this. She'd say, what's the matter with you? They said, well, I got a terrible headache. And she'd just lean over the counter and pray for them. Well, people began to get healed.
[00:18:32] So people would queue up at the post office. They'd queue up at the post office. The postmaster was a Christian and he didn't want to quench the spirit or anything. He said, look, Margie, we just can't have this healing ministry at the post office.
[00:18:46] But he said, on your coffee break at 10:15 in the morning and 2:15 in the afternoon, I'll go out of my office.
[00:18:54] And anybody that wants prayer for healing, tell them to come to the Postmaster's office at 10:15 in the morning or 2:15 in the afternoon.
[00:19:02] Beyond that, she began to be used in words of knowledge.
[00:19:08] Now here's what I want to say about this. In words of knowledge.
[00:19:13] It must be tested over and over and over again. Just because somebody says they have a word of knowledge doesn't mean they do. It may not mean they're lying. It may just mean that they're deceived. It may mean they've this God, all kinds of things. But when it's proven over and over and over again, you begin to say that gift seems to be working.
[00:19:33] So I was preaching in an out of town revival in another Methodist church, and I was in the pastor's study when the phone call rang.
[00:19:42] When I came in, the phone rang and the pastor answered and he said, oh, it's for you. So I took it and it was Margie. And she said, I was just washing the dishes in my house and praying for your service tonight, Pastor. And she said, I felt like the Lord said, there's a lady named Ruth who will be there tonight and she needs prayer for her daughter.
[00:20:03] I said, okay, thank you. And I told the pastor about it. And he said, well, that's fine. He said, the only thing is I know everybody in this church. It's a little tiny church. We don't have anybody in this church named Ruth. I said, great, no problem. Anybody can miss God. Margie certainly isn't infallible, but she's just been proven so many times. And he said, well, let's pray. So we prayed. We stepped to the door to go out into the auditorium. And the pastor's study was to the right of the front section of Pews. And it had a little diamond of glass right in the front door. So when he stepped up to put his hand to the doorknob, he looked out that diamond into the front section of pews, and he stepped back like the doorknob was electric. And he said, oh.
[00:20:48] And I said, what's the matter, Pastor? He said, look, when I told you there was no woman in this church named Ruth, I wasn't lying to you.
[00:20:55] He said, ten years ago, a woman in this church named Ruth got so angry at me, she spit in my face. She cursed me and left this church. She's never been in this church one time since then. He said, she's sitting in the front row now. I was filled with faith. I said, bring her to the man of God.
[00:21:17] So we brought her into the study there in the little pastor's office. And I said, now, ma', am, I don't know you. You don't know me. I just want to share with you what happened. She was very tense. She was upset. Could tell she had tears in her eyes.
[00:21:31] I told her about Margie and about the phone call.
[00:21:34] And I said. And she said that you would be here tonight, a woman named Ruth, and that you needed prayer for your daughter. And when I said the word daughter, she fell out of her chair, prostrate at her pastor's feet and grabbed his ankles and began to weep. And she said, can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?
[00:21:57] And it turned out that she had gotten so angry at her pastor, she spit on him, cursed him, left.
[00:22:04] She said, pastor, I need you to forgive me. My daughter, who lives in San Francisco, just called me this afternoon and said she is marrying the woman she's been living with, a lesbian marriage. And she said, I know that I have brought this curse on my house.
[00:22:24] That kind of is. Think about this. This is just a housewife, a lady that worked in the post office, washing dishes in her house and praying for her pastor.
[00:22:34] It doesn't have to be something flamboyant or something in church or somebody that speaks in a strange voice in church. It's just that sense of it. Now, how does that work?
[00:22:45] When I first began to try to learn to flow in the gifts of the spirit, I remember going to Dr. Tyson, Tommy Tyson, the late Tommy Tyson, who I just mentioned, who flowed in the gift of word, of knowledge so powerfully it was like nothing I've ever seen. I would sometimes be in the altar with him. He was praying with someone. He prayed for healing a lot.
[00:23:09] One night, I was beside him And a lady came forward for healing. Dr. Tyson was a very unusual man, very eccentric. He was hugely overweight, and he had a very kind of funny voice like that. And this lady came and knelt down and said she needed prayer for healing.
[00:23:27] Dr. Tyson just nodded his head a few times like that. And he said, well, we'll pray. We'll pray for you about healing. We'll pray, we'll pray. But he said, now, we need to clear this up about Earl first.
[00:23:39] And she said, what did you say? He said, we got to get this thing about Earl cleared up.
[00:23:45] And he said, who is Earl?
[00:23:47] And she said, that's my brother. We've been disaffected for years and years. And she said, I think he hates me, and I certainly hate him. Well, we prayed, and when we got in the car after the service, I said, Dr. Tyson, here's my question. What did that sound like?
[00:24:04] What did that feel like when you heard Earl? I mean, what did that look like in your mind, in your brain? What was the sensation of that? Oh, he said, oh. He said, let me help you that. Let me help you that.
[00:24:16] He said, bow your head and close your eyes. I was sitting in the car. I bowed my head and closed my eyes. He said, now think the word Earl.
[00:24:25] And I thought it. He said, okay, that's it.
[00:24:30] So in other words, if you're waiting for word of knowledge to come in the voice of Charlton Heston from the other side of the clouds, you're waiting for the wrong thing at another point in Corinthians, Paul says, in the King James Version, I think it goes like this.
[00:24:50] We have the mind of Christ.
[00:24:53] Those of us that are spiritually minded have the mind of Christ. Listen to how JB Phillips translates it. Those of us that are spiritually minded will think the thoughts of Jesus.
[00:25:06] Now, just let that work down in your spirit for a moment, that God may actually access your computer and bring a thought into your mind. And it may not be a full, clear understanding, just a thought in your mind.
[00:25:23] And if you'll be sensitive to it and not blow it off as a. As a hunch or a guess.
[00:25:31] I bet if I were sitting there in the living room with you right now, and I ask you, have you ever had the sensation that you should call someone, that you should give them a call? You just had that urge to call somebody, and when you called them, they said, oh, I'm so glad you've called. I'm facing a situation, a circumstance, I believe, that you might tell me. I've had exactly that Sensation. Why can't we say. Why can't we say to ourselves, that may very well be what scripture means by a word of knowledge, Simply a sense that I should do something to another faith by the same spirit.
[00:26:09] Now, faith is not the faith for salvation. That's the saving faith that's given to every man.
[00:26:15] This is that moment where everybody in that room may be praying for something. Everybody's believing for something. Maybe they're confessing it with faith. But this is beyond even that. Even the work of faith, we're confessing by faith or believing that faith comes and it happens.
[00:26:34] That's the gift of faith. And those who have that kind of faith have such a tremendous place in the body of Christ that there can be those moments where people are praying and you say, no, no, listen to me. It's done. It's all settled in the heavenlies now. Only thing is, you got to have the goods. You got to have the goods. You can't fake the gift of faith, can't fake any of these gifts. But on the gift of faith, you have to know that you know that you know that you know, and then you know. Don't be arrogant about it. You just state it and state it plainly and simply. This is all done.
[00:27:12] And that. That can happen in everyday life. That doesn't have to happen in church.
[00:27:18] That can. That can happen in a. In your living room, in your office, wherever it is.
[00:27:23] The gifts of healing next.
[00:27:28] The gifts of healing. It can mean counseling. It can mean anointing someone with oil. It can be. And these gifts can work in concert.
[00:27:38] For example, let's take the late, great Kathryn Kuhlmann.
[00:27:44] It's never been completely clear, frankly, whether Kathryn Kuhlmann had the gift of healing. She almost never laid hands on anybody.
[00:27:53] Whether Kathryn Kuhlman had the gift of healing or whether she had the gift of word of knowledge, or she had the gift of discernment of spirits. Kathryn Kuhlman, she was a very unusual lady, to say the least.
[00:28:06] But she would walk out into an auditorium with 10,000 people and look up in the balcony, and she'd say, the man with the red shirt. The man with the red shirt, stand up. You have diabetes and God's healing you right now. Now, I don't know how that ranks where that lies in the list of the gift of healing. The person is healed, but is it healing? Or is it a word of knowledge or is it a discernment of spirits? And the answer is probably yes.
[00:28:32] Then there are those people, other people that seem to have an unusual gift of healing. Let me tell you something about the gift of healing.
[00:28:40] Francis McNutt, a great, great spear filled brother, he told me one time that he believed God almost specializes in the gifts of healing. Like a doctor, you may have a doctor who just operates on somebody's left hand, but if you go to the doctor with something in your right hand, you say, oh no, you have to see Dr. Wilson for that. I don't do right hands, I only do left hands. And they're getting more and more and more specialized. He said, sometimes certainly people pray with anybody. He said, I'll pray with anybody about anything.
[00:29:13] But he said, I believe that sometimes you have more effect in a certain area of prayer because God has given you an unusual specialty or liberty in praying in that area of prayer.
[00:29:28] And I've seen that in many, many lives.
[00:29:32] Then there is to another the working of miracles.
[00:29:39] Now, the working of miracles and the gift of faith are basically inseparable.
[00:29:46] But the working of miracles is where.
[00:29:49] That's where you actually act in a. Where one acts in a way, a thing has to happen. The gift of faith. I know that something is going to happen. I know that it is coming. I'm satisfied in my spirit that it's coming.
[00:30:04] But the working of miracles, that's where a miracle is performed. Now obviously Paul doesn't mean. And we are not to think that that person has any power to work a miracle. But the supernatural power of God is flowing through you.
[00:30:21] The focus of power is flowing through you to an event, a circumstance, and something miraculous happens.
[00:30:30] Now that may be a physical healing, in which case the working of miracle, physical healing. There are many of those in the New Testament and I've seen those my own self. I've seen God use people for those kinds of things. But there are other kinds of miracles.
[00:30:47] Soon after I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit back in the 70s, I was traveling from Dan to Beersheba preaching revivals in churches and that sort of thing. I took a college boy with me to lead the singing.
[00:31:02] And we had come on a cold January night. We had come out toward the other side of Gainesville on the other side of Lake Lanier. And as we came across a dam coming over Beaufort Dam Road, we had a flat tire.
[00:31:24] January, we were both so poor that that wind coming across that lake was hitting our tropical weight suits. And the lug nuts on the tire, on the wheel were frozen. We jacked the car, put the car on the jack. We could not loosen. I had a star lug nut wrench And I would pull up on one side and Ronnie would stand on the other side and we could not budge him. Not one of them would budge. Then I'd stand on it and he'd pull. We did everything in the world we could.
[00:31:53] And finally this college boy said, he said, you know, Brother Rutland, we haven't prayed yet.
[00:31:58] And I don't know, that just hit me sideways. It made me so angry for that college boy to remind the great evangelist.
[00:32:09] And so I don't know why it irritated just hit me bad. And I said, well, if we haven't prayed, then pray.
[00:32:16] And he just dropped down to one knee in that cold road and he said, lord, we cannot open these lug nuts. Would you please open these lug nuts in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:32:27] And I thought, that's the most half baked prayer for a miracle I have ever heard in my life.
[00:32:34] God is my witness.
[00:32:37] We opened the rest of the lug nuts with our hands. We never put the wrench back on. We just opened them. And it made me so angry that I just went in the car. I said, you finish changing it.
[00:32:48] And I knew that God had given us a miracle, though it was a powerful, powerful little moment. All these years later, I've never forgotten that beautiful miracle. God can work financial miracles. God can work all kinds of work. But there is often a person, a specific person through whom that miracle comes, that reach their hand out, pray that prayer, whatever that miracle is. And that can happen anywhere. That doesn't have to happen in church.
[00:33:21] So you're on the job and somebody is hurt, and you move toward them in the gift of healing. One of the gifts of healing in faith, believing, and reach your hand out toward them. You may be used of God in that moment, in the working of a miracle.
[00:33:40] I spent more time last week on the issue of tongues and interpretation. I'm not going to do that now. I don't want to go through that again.
[00:33:50] But I want to deal instead with the gift of prophecy and discerning of spirits. I dealt with discerning of spirits a little bit last week.
[00:34:02] The person that I've known in my life through whom and in whom the discernment of spirits has flown, has worked the most beautifully and consistently has been my wife, Allison.
[00:34:15] And I've often asked her, what does it feel like? Is there some sensation to it?
[00:34:21] We were driving one time, just out for a drive. We stopped at a little convenience store and we went into the store together.
[00:34:29] And then my wife came to me. We were in different aisles and she came over to me. And she said, I've got to go to the car.
[00:34:35] She said, get whatever you need. I've got to get out of here. And I thought she was sick, so I just got something real quick and went out to the car. I said, here you are. She said, I'm fine. I had to get out of that store. I could not stay in that store another minute.
[00:34:47] And I said, why? What was wrong? She said, oh, Mark, that man behind that counter. There is an evilness about that man. I said, was he leering at you? Was there some way that he. She said, no, no.
[00:35:02] When I walked in the door, I sensed evil.
[00:35:06] I said, yeah, but what did it feel like?
[00:35:10] And she said, I'm just telling you.
[00:35:12] My spirit felt troubled.
[00:35:16] And the closer I got to him, I knew I had to get away. I could not be in the presence of that person.
[00:35:23] Discernment of spirits can be very valuable. And it can be very valuable, particularly listening to teaching, just as you're listening to mine now. You should be praying for discernment. You should be praying that God would give you wisdom.
[00:35:37] You should be praying that God would allow the gifts of the spirit to operate through you without affectation of any kind. I'm not talking about acting all spiritual.
[00:35:47] I'm talking about the natural flow of your life.
[00:35:51] You're an insurance salesman.
[00:35:53] You sit down with a couple to sell them an insurance policy.
[00:35:56] And in the midst of all that, you sense something is wrong in this marriage.
[00:36:02] You don't have to raise your hand up like the prophet Jeremiah, oh, there's something evil in this marriage. You just say to them, look, while we're doing this, while we're doing this, I don't know why, maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, you just tell me I'm wrong. I'll drop it immediately.
[00:36:20] But could it be that you all need prayer? I'm a believer. I'm a Christian. And if you let me, I'd like to pray for your marriage. If they let you.
[00:36:30] And there's some work of that. Maybe healing begins. Maybe that's a word of wisdom. Maybe that's a word of knowledge. Don't try to analyze all the gifts. Be authentic and sensitive and yielded and let the Holy Spirit work through you in everyday life.
[00:36:46] This doesn't have to just happen in church. Indeed, I do not believe that the church service is the primary theater of operation for the gifts of the Spirit.
[00:36:56] I think that primary theater of operation for the gifts of the spirit is in the day to day life of believers. Just like you, my friend, that you, where you walk, live, shop, coming through the checkout counter at the Walmart. And the lady across from you seems so downcast or hurt or wounded or something, why not just say to her, hey, when I get out to my car, would you let me pray for you? What would you like me to pray? I'm not going to pray here in the store, but I'm going to my car now and I'm a person of prayer. What can I pray?
[00:37:31] The odds are she'll pour her heart out to you.
[00:37:34] And why not be sensitive to what's going on? Be open.
[00:37:38] Well, let me.
[00:37:40] Let me bring this to a conclusion. My dear friend, Dr. Terry Takel, one of God's more unusual servants.
[00:37:48] I've never known anybody that was hugely devoted to prayer that was not just slightly different from Everybody else. And Dr. Takel is one of those unusual servants of God.
[00:37:59] He and I had gone to speak at a conference out of town, and we stayed in the same hotel and we came down for breakfast. We were going to meet in the lobby and then walk to a restaurant that we'd seen just down the street. When we met in the lobby, he said, the Lord spoke to me. And I said, what'd he say, Terry? He said, today you will teach Muhammad to pray.
[00:38:22] And I said, terry, what can that even mean? That doesn't even mean anything. He said, I'm just telling you, it came in my spirit when I was putting my shoes on this morning, Terry, today you will teach Muhammad to pray.
[00:38:37] I said, well, fine.
[00:38:40] Mohammed died in the seventh century.
[00:38:43] But we went to breakfast down at this restaurant and the waiter was waiting on us. And Terry said to the waiter, he said, listen, if I. If I gave you a prayer on a. Written on a card, and I said, if you would pray this prayer three times a day, morning, noon and night, that God would bless and prosper your life, would you pray it? Oh, the man said, I would pray it. I would pray it. Terry reached in his pocket and handed him a card with the Lord's Prayer on it. And he said, pray this prayer morning, noon and night, and God's going to prosper and bless your life. Oh, the man said, thank you. Terry said, by the way, what's your name? He said, it's Muhammad.
[00:39:22] So when he left the table, O ye of little faith.
[00:39:26] I said, terry, were you in this restaurant yesterday? He said, I came on the plane with you.
[00:39:32] I said, did you know the waiter was named Mohammed? He said, mark, how would I know that? And indeed there wasn't Anyway, what I'm trying to say to you is we need to demystify the gifts of the Spirit.
[00:39:46] The gifts of the Spirit are not to make us crazy. The gifts of the Spirit are to make us useful in a calm, orderly, gentle and loving way.
[00:39:56] When that opportunity comes, offer the gift.
[00:40:00] Offer it. If they take you up on it, then the moment of ministry opens. If for some reason they reject it, they're not ready. That's nothing against you.
[00:40:10] They're just not ready for that. At that moment, sometimes the word may come to you. That's not for outward ministry. It's just for prayer.
[00:40:19] You may get a word of knowledge, and that word may be to you about praying for a certain person.
[00:40:25] You may be used in one of these gifts or more of these gifts one way and never be used again in that way. What is that to you? God is God. These are the gifts of the Spirit.
[00:40:40] And the Spirit moves, dividing severally as he will.
[00:40:44] Now let me just close with this the chapter itself. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 is situated in a very specific place. In the letter of 1 Corinthians.
[00:40:56] In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is talking about confusion and disorder in the church, in the sacerdotal responsibilities of the church communion, talking about being decent and in order and operating in a way that things ought to be done in the church. And then he brings forward the gifts of the Spirit. And then he says, however, no matter how wonderful the gifts are, there'll be. There will be no faith in heaven.
[00:41:23] There'll be no faith in heaven. You won't have to have faith in heaven. What would you believe God for?
[00:41:28] This may be a great relief to many of you. There'll be no preaching in heaven.
[00:41:33] None of the gifts of the Spirit will be in heaven. He says there's only. There's only one thing that will take with us into heaven. He says, faith is great. Hope is great. But what will we hope for in heaven? All our hopes are realized. When you're looking at the face of Jesus, what would you hope for?
[00:41:51] Faith and hope will be swallowed up in heaven.
[00:41:54] There'll be one thing, and that's love.
[00:41:57] If you want to be used of God in the gifts of the Spirit in a sensitive and caring way in the day to day life that you live as a believer, it has to be because you are saturated in love. You have to get your love level higher than the level of your giftedness.
[00:42:18] And then, and only then, God can use you in the life of those around you.
[00:42:28] You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr.markrutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
