Classic Christianity – Gifts For The Church – Part 2 – 7-15-26
~ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in various tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who apportions them to each one as He determines. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
— We who are in Christ Jesus are all part of the body of Christ. And as such we each are placed here for the common good of the body itself. God has assignments for each of us. He wants us to use our spiritual gifts as He sees fit. And many take that to mean some form of funny talk with speaking in a babbling language that no one has a clue about. But this is not edifying to the body of Christ. In fact, it’s a perversion of God’s word for what tounges was even for. Tounges was for those who needed to hear Truth in their own language, and not some form of babbling. Otherwise, you might be doing something for yourself, but you sure aren’t edifying the church.
And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, having done what, will I inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good, except God alone. Luke 18:18,19
Jesus is God in flesh: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”
~ Bob George discusses the concept of repentance, emphasizing that it’s impossible to repent of all sins before accepting Christ. He explains that spiritual birth occurs when one accepts Jesus, leading to a new life and membership in the body of Christ. Bob refutes the idea of a second blessing, stating that all spiritual gifts and blessings are received at spiritual birth. He clarifies that roles like apostles, prophets, and evangelists are gifts to the body, not spiritual gifts. Bob also criticizes the overemphasis on speaking in tongues, arguing that it should be interpreted for the edification of the church.
“I remember this one guy said, “You know, Bob, I kind of like to have a little cocktail at night. I said, “Jim, God doesn’t want your cocktail. He wants your hands. Forget about the cocktail. Come to Jesus. He’ll take care of the cocktail. He wants your hands, not what’s in it, and we get all of that confusion. You don’t come to Christ in order to shape up. You come to Christ to become a new creature. If any man be in Christ, he’s what? Brand new creation. I came. Why you new? Because you were dead. Now you’re alive. That’s pretty new. Raised from the dead. Now that has to happen in a person, at a point in time in history, where you can say I accepted Jesus. Now you may not remember the exact day. I remember in my case the exact day, but I was 36 years of age when I came to Christ, so it’s pretty pretty evident. But some people in their lives, they say I don’t remember when the day was, but I can tell you approximately when it happened, and so I’m not there to because I don’t remember when I was born physically. Do you? Do any of you remember when you were born physically? I don’t think so, but we do know we have a birth certificate, and the issue is that it’s not the case of God testing your memory, but it’s a case of knowing that there was a time in my life, when I decided to follow Christ, I decided to invite Jesus to come into my heart as my Lord and as my Savior, and thank Him for the taking away of my sins and inviting Him to come into my heart to be my Lord. There was a time I don’t remember the exact date of it, but remember approximately when it happened, if that hadn’t happened, you’re still lost.” ~ Bob George
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Bob George 0:29
And so you know you get down, and people say, “Well, you you gotta you gotta change your actions. And I remember a _____ _______ crusade that I went to years before I was saved, but I understood _____ ________ to say that you had to go repent of your sins. How many of you ever heard that you got to repent of all your sins before you come to Christ? Well, try that on for size. Try that one on for size. See, have any of you repented of all your sins? Have any of you repented? You’ve repented from all your going to interview your wife. No, we still have sins, don’t we? We’re going to have it until the day we die. And you want to know something? It’s a good thing. If you were perfect, you’d forget Jesus in a New York minute. So the mere fact that God left this sin flesh of ours, He did it for a purpose, because it’s what keeps you dependent upon Him. And so, guys, get it into your head. It’s not how bad you are. This is not an issue of dealing with you’re good, you’re not so good, you’re not so you’re worse and you’re worthless. It’s dealing with your dad, and when you’re dead, you need life. I’ve had people say, “Well, you don’t, Bob. I remember this one guy said, “You know, Bob, I kind of like to have a little cocktail at night. I said, “Jim, God doesn’t want your cocktail. He wants your hands. Forget about the cocktail. Come to Jesus. He’ll take care of the cocktail. He wants your hands, not what’s in it, and we get all of that confusion. You don’t come to Christ in order to shape up. You come to Christ to become a new creature. If any man be in Christ, he’s what? Brand new creation. I came. Why you new? Because you were dead. Now you’re alive. That’s pretty new. Raised from the dead. Now that has to happen in a person, at a point in time in history, where you can say I accepted Jesus. Now you may not remember the exact day. I remember in my case the exact day, but I was 36 years of age when I came to Christ, so it’s pretty pretty evident. But some people in their lives, they say I don’t remember when the day was, but I can tell you approximately when it happened, and so I’m not there to because I don’t remember when I was born physically. Do you? Do any of you remember when you were born physically? I don’t think so, but we do know we have a birth certificate, and the issue is that it’s not the case of God testing your memory, but it’s a case of knowing that there was a time in my life, when I decided to follow Christ, I decided to invite Jesus to come into my heart as my Lord and as my Savior, and thank Him for the taking away of my sins and inviting Him to come into my heart to be my Lord. There was a time I don’t remember the exact date of it, but remember approximately when it happened, if that hadn’t happened, you’re still lost. You can be a church goer. You can be sincere. H____ was sincere. Sincerity doesn’t save anybody. What saves you is when you understand what God said about yourself, and understand what He said was the solution to yourself, and you, as an act of faith, say, “Thank you, Lord, for revealing this to me, and I accept you now as my Lord and my Savior. I thank you that you died to take away my sins, so that I could come alive with eternal life. If that has never occurred, you’re not saved. If you’re not saved, you’ve never received a spiritual gift. And so, if you’re sitting here lost, forget about the gifts. Forget about what we’re going to be talking about. It’s not applicable because you have no ability to receive a spiritual gift until you become a spiritual person. Are we together? Okay.
Now, the body is made up of many parts, and those parts are many. They form one body. We were all baptized at the very moment that the Spirit of God comes to live within you. Now, what does it say? If the Spirit of God does not live in you, you don’t belong to Him. So, if you’re born again, what are you born again of? The Spirit. And so, if the Spirit of God doesn’t indwell you, you don’t belong to Christ. Now that’s Christ in you, your hope of glory. Then the Spirit of God baptizes or places you into His body. That’s how we are called the what? The body of Christ. Now that all happens simultaneous at spiritual birth. At the very moment you accept Him by faith, the Spirit of God comes to live in you, and then immediately places you into His body. That’s why we belong to Christ and we belong to who? One another, and this body that he has created. If you were to look for the body of Christ 2000 years ago, you would have had to have gone over to ______ and look up Jesus of Nazareth, and there you would have found the body of Christ. But Jesus said, “It’s good for you that I’m going away, very hard thing for the apostles to understand at that time. But he said, when I do go away, I’m going to leave here, but I’m going to send my Spirit into you, and you’re going to be my body. So right now, in or 2000 years ago, his body was confined to _____. If you’re to look for the body of Christ, you had to go find Jesus in _____. Now His body is all over the world at the same time. That’s why greater works will He do than I, because His body is now everywhere where a born-again Christian is. So. So when you became a born again believer, you became a part of the body of Christ. You’re a part of the body of Christ, whether you’re a Japanese body, or a Korean body, or a German body, or even a lawyer body. You know, he’s he’s he’s big in miracles. Anybody could become a part. I’m sorry if you’re an attorney. Forgive me, but that is where you become a part of the body of Christ. That happens at spiritual birth. So we were all, not some of us, as some theology teaches. Well, you’re not, you’re not baptized of the Spirit yet, how many have heard that? You may be saved, but you haven’t gotten a blessing yet. I want to tell you something, folks. There’s nothing like that in the Scripture. When you are born again, you’ve been given everything that you need for life and godliness. Quit seeking something else. You’re not going to get it from God. You may get it from Satan, but you’re not going to get it from God. You’ve gotten everything that you need for life and godliness. There’s no second blessing. You get 1000s of blessings for you. And so, when you are born again according to the word of God, we were all baptized by one Spirit into the body of Christ, whether HEBREW or Greek or slave, or free, and we were all given that one Spirit to drink-not two, not one.
Now, guys, again, if the spirit of God doesn’t live in you, you don’t belong to Him. You tell me how you can be born again then today and receive the spirit tomorrow. Anybody got a way of doing that? There’s no way of doing it because if the Spirit of God doesn’t live in you, you don’t belong to Him. Now that teaching is all over, guys. It’s all over, but I want to tell you it’s false. It’s not true. When you are born again, you are born again of the Spirit. The Spirit at that moment baptizes you into the body of Christ, and you are made a member of His body.
Now, because the body is made up of many parts, if the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body, it would not, for that reason, cease to be a part of the body, and if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body, what’s he saying all this for? People saying, “If you don’t have my gift, you’ve had it, and he’s trying to say, “Look, this is a body. There is no gift that’s given to everybody.
If the ears should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body. It would not, for that reason, cease to be part of the body. And if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? And if the body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. So who arranges all this, guys? Who is it that gives the gifts to you? God is because you ask for it, or because you know we’re too dumb to know what gifts you ought to have. So he gives us what he wants to give us, and so we’re all part of one body. Where would the body be as it is. There are many parts, but only one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you, and the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. There are parts of the body that you don’t like to talk about, he said, they’re indispensable. Very important. Don’t have to be a brain scientist. Figure out what he’s talking about. And the parts that we think that are less, that seem to be weaker, are indispensable. And the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty. There are parts that we’re told of our bodies that should be treated with special modesty, while our present presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body.
Now, when you don’t understand this, is there going to be division in the body? First, they’re going to say, “My gift’s bearing your gift. If you don’t have my gift, you’re not saved. Do we hear that in Christendom? Yeah, sure do. Out there trying to teach you the gift, a gift that God gives you. We’re trying to teach it. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it, and if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed, first of all, now here again, guys. You have in a scripture that says that God appointed, first of all, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor teachers. Those are not spiritual gifts. The men themselves are the gift to the body. God gives a _____ _______ to the body of Christ. He doesn’t have the gift of evangelism, you know, and that that that’s what enables us to say, “Well, I would go evangelize, but I don’t have the gift. Nobody has a gift. We’re all supposed to evangelize. You don’t need the gift to tell somebody about Jesus. Just need a tongue. So the issue is that’s not a spiritual gift. Evangelism is not a spiritual gift. The evangelist is the gift to the body. The apostles that God called out were the gifts to the body. The prophets that God called out were gifts to the body. Now there’s phony ones, ones that you make up your own apostleship and your own prophet, but the ones God gave were gifts to the body, and then the evangelist was a gift to the body of Christ, and then a pastor teacher that God calls is a gift to the body of Christ. So, if you have a pastor teacher who God sent, then you’ve got a God sent pastor. Otherwise, you’ve got a seminarian, somebody who graduated from seminary and is now pastoring doesn’t matter where God called him or not. That’s irrelevant. I got my degree, and that to me we could talk about that for a long time.
So now it says that you are the body of Christ, and each one of you are part of it. And the church in the church, God has appointed first of all, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then miracles of workers of miracles; those having the gift of healing; those able to help others; those with gifts of administration; those of speaking in different languages. Now he gets down again to say this is not a message to cause division. It’s a message to cause unity, but you’re not going to have unity until you see who gave the gift, and to quit bragging about it.
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Bob George 14:20
And so he says, are all apostles? What’s the answer to that? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all have the gift of healing? No. Do all speak in tongues? No, do all interpret? No, but eagerly desire the greater gifts. So he named many of the gifts that God has given to the body of Christ. Now, folks, for the purpose of understanding the gifts of the Spirit again-they’re there to edify the body. If I, as an example, if I felt that God had given me a gift of teaching, how stupid would I be to sit in my room and just teach myself? I’m just going to go edify my. I don’t care where everybody hears what I got to say. I’m just going to sit there and teach me, and I’m going to get my jollies getting taught by me. What would you say about something like that? That’s pretty dumb, isn’t it? Well, why would you be using any other gift to identify yourself? You see, if a gift identifies the body, what good is it? And that’s exactly what he is saying here. I’ll show you a more excellent way, and we’ll get in that for a moment. But down in 14, and we’re not going to be able to go down there on the screen. So just follow along, follow the way of love, and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. Now, again, the gift of prophecy in the Old Testament was prophesying things that had not occurred yet, but now the canon is closed. Right. We have our Bible. Is there any need for an apostle anymore? No. The Scripture says that in order to be apostle, you had to be with Jesus from his baptism, and witness his death, burial, and resurrection. So we know there are no more of those. When John died, the apostles are over. Prophets the same way. What do you need prophecy for? When all prophecy has now been wrapped up in Christ Jesus. Remember what Hebrews said in times past: God spoke to her forefathers in many and various ways through the what? The prophets. Then it says what? But there’s the contrast. In these last days, he’s spoken to us through his Son. So the job of prophecy is over in regard to bringing about new information. Jesus brought us the finality of revelation from God, passed that on to his apostles, who wrote it into this book that we call the Scripture, and when that canon is closed, it’s over. There’s no more prophets. There’s no more need. Well, why does it sometimes mention prophesying? Well, because prophecy changed in First Corinthians 14:3, and you might want to mark that if you do, if you’re interested in this subject. First Corinthians 14 three it says everyone who prophesies speaks to men, so it’s to a group. The church speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort, and edifies the church. So somebody so-called prophesying today would not be bringing in new information; it would be bringing people back to the information.
Guys, we have wandered mightily away from truth. When I wrote our book, Classic Christianity, I stole the name Classic from Coke. You remember Coca-Cola? They’ve developed a new formula. People didn’t like it. What’d they do? Went back to the old and called it Classic Coke. And I thought that is what the Christian world needs is to return to the original. We have perverted the gospel so much. We have brought in everything except death, burial, and resurrection. We’ve brought in no. You got to be baptized, really. What’s that got to do with death, burial, and resurrection? Well, you got to speak in tongues, really. What’s that got to do with death, burial, and resurrection? Well, you got to have church attendance, really. Where in the Bible does it tell you to go to church? Tells the church to go to people, but there’s not one place in the Bible that tells people to go to church. That doesn’t mean stay home. He said, “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together, but it’s not that that’s a place you have to be. It’s a place you get to be. It’s a place that you can come and find edification.
What should you learn when you come to church? You should be strengthened in your knowledge of Christ. You should be encouraged as to what He’s made you into. You should be comforted and be edified. The only thing we’re missing here today is a coat or a sweater, isn’t it? We could have probably edified you a little better if we’d have had that. But that’s the purpose of the church-not to teach something brand new, but to bring you back to the original, to bring you back to before we came up with all these hair-brain ideas as to what’s going on in the body of Christ. Again, guys, I could have saved myself 1000 amounts of trouble both on radio and ministry if I was teaching tithing. Now, some are you said you don’t teach tithing? No, of course I don’t teach tithing. Why? It’s not in the New Covenant? Why would you teach something that’s not there? I’ll tell you what is in the New Covenant. Three chapters in Corinthians that Paul tells you how to give joyfully, freely, without compulsion, give in accordance to what you do have, not what you don’t have. Why would he go to all that? Why did he waste all that paper? When he just say, “Y’all keep on a tithing, folks. Tithing wants to support the Levitical priesthood. Is Levi your priest? If he is, tithe to him, but don’t bring money. Bring foodstuffs. You ought to come in here on Sunday if you believe in tithing. Just, just dump a barrel of corn down here, and wheat. Just cover me with it, because that’s what tithing was in the Old Testament. But it is not New Testament. If you don’t believe what I’m saying, go read the New Covenant. Don’t take my word for it to be lying to you. But when you need a financial problem, when you got a building program, out comes old Melchizedek, poor thing. It would be easy to teach that, guys. It really would. I could have saved myself tons of problems. I could have been on a lot more radio stations. I got kicked off of radio stations for teaching that tithing’s not. Why scared to death people’s giving’s going to drop off. That’s control, isn’t it, guys? Going to control you with a lie. That’s just an example of what I’m talking about. We need to get back to truth. We need to get away from tradition. Tradition doesn’t save anybody. Truth, Jesus said, save you, and He said, truth does what? Set you free, and truth points you to Jesus, and Jesus says, when Jesus sets you free, you shall be what free indeed. Get away from error. If truth sets you free, guys, error is what puts you in bondage, and so when you’re in bondage to something, just recognize I got error in my head. I’m called an airhead, and I need to replace that error with truth.
So he says to follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy, for anyone who speaks in a tongue, and now he’s addressing this overemphasis on tongues. Anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. And people say, “See, they’re speaking to God. I got news for you. God doesn’t need your language. Do you suppose God sits up there with an interpreter? Folks do you think God listens to your voice, or do you think God listens to your heart? Which one is it, guys? If you’ve got to talk to God for Him to listen to you, why would you get up and say, “Let’s have a round of silent prayer” You see the hypocrisy. What is silent? Silent prayer can’t hear me. He isn’t listening to what you’re saying anyway. He’s too smart to listen to what you say. Listen to what we say. Some in the morning, how you doing? Oh, good, thanks. Your guts are hanging out, but I’m doing great. No, you’re not. He’s too smart to hear what we say. He listens to our heart. That’s why you can’t fool him. That’s why you can’t con him. You can con people with your words, but God looks on your heart. He knows what’s going on. Jesus said, “I know man. I don’t need the testimony of man concerning man. I know you, so we’re all hung up on what verbiage, what language we speak, as if God doesn’t understand anything except some babbling. Do you see how foolish this is, guys? But do you see how people could get so hung up in something that boy, if you’re not in this group, you’re really out of it. You’re not saved, probably.
He says anyone who speaks to the tongue does not speak to men, but to God. In other words, you’re talking to yourself. You may be talking to God, but no one else knows what you’re saying. How’s anyone going to say amen to what you’re saying if you don’t know what you’re saying. Amy, stand up for a moment if you will. Say something to us, little, little, little something in Russian. A little louder. I didn’t understand you. No, go ahead. Can you get the microphone? Can you get it over there? I want, I want, I want us to see something here. Now let’s say that Amy thought that she had a message from God, and so she’s going to get up and speak in Russian. That’s what I thought. Thank you. Now, did anybody here understand what she was saying? So, if she had a message from God and she got up and spoke in in Russian, now if she didn’t know how to speak English, why then you’d look for an interpreter. But why would she get up and babble in Russian when she can speak English, and we all understand English, but we don’t understand Russian. Why would you do that? You see why he’s speaking to this issue, guys. And the reason we’re speaking to it today is because it confuses the body, and the body is there to be confused. The body is there to function on truth, not error. So there’s no function. She knew what she was saying. God knew what she was saying. But I don’t have a clue. Splasiba, I understood. Thank you. That means thank you. You can see what a linguist that I had become being married to spaceba. Thank you very much. Good. You see what he’s dealing with here. What good is it going to do unless I I can understand what you’re saying?
And so he says there that everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort. But he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. In other words, you may get your jollies, but you’re not helping the body of Christ because we don’t know what you’re talking about. You may be edifying yourself. You may be whatever it’s doing to you, but you’re not helping the body. But the prophet edifies the whole church. Why? He’s bringing you back to truth-that’s the job of a prophet-is to bring you back to truth. I would like for every one of you to speak in other languages, man. If I could speak 1000 languages, think how effective we could be out presenting the gospel to people. But I’d rather you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, and unless he interprets, so that the church may be.
Announcer 27:11 Thank you so much for tuning into Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith. Be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.