Minor No.12 Prophecy

Jim Packer. The idea that the direct speech of God, verbal form, in which the canonical prophecies, that's the prophecies of the Bible, were given, ought to be reproduced in the derivative, non-infallible, non-canonical prophecies that continue in the church, appears to be a confusion and a mistake. Now, you see, these men, in effect, are arguing, as I was trying to show you some while ago, that the completion of the canon of Scripture is very significant.

The gift of inerrancy is removed, infallibility. That doesn't mean to say, therefore, that all gifts, in terms of revelation, in terms of confirmation, are therefore utterly of no value at all. But there must be a secondary aspect to this today, from the completion of the canon of Scripture.

Nobody says, thus saith the Lord, in the way that Amos said, thus saith the Lord. Nobody says, verily I say unto you, in the way that the Lord Jesus says, verily I say unto you. That doesn't mean to say that God is not speaking today, then.

He is speaking. How? Well, through His Word, as the Word is explained, as the Word is expounded. And very often, a prophecy that is a little different, shall we say, from the actual, ordinary, day-by-day, Sunday-by-Sunday, expository ministry, will have a great deal of biblical content in it.

And it becomes an application of the Word of God. Now, you remember, 40 minutes ago, how I was saying that prophecy and preaching have a measure of overlap. It's not always easy to distinguish between the two.

They're in the same family. They may not be identical twins, but there's a great deal of similarity. So, where do we go from all this? Well, let me try and sum up, or else you'll all be being apostolic and going to sleep.

Do believe me when I say I've not been doing a bit of shifty footwork, trying to play with words. There is hardly any subject outside the death and the resurrection of our Lord that I've given more time to in the years of my life, than trying to come to grips with an understanding of these gifts of the Spirit. I speak with no bias in this matter.

I was born, as many of you know, within a Pentecostal church, and I have no reason to regret my background. I thank God for men and women who taught me a great deal. And I believe that the essence of their testimony has a value today.

And in regard to the charismatic movement, anything that is a corrective, anything that helps us to come back to a better biblical position and understanding in terms of the Word of God and relationships and so on and so forth, to me is helpful. But, and here some of my friends on the South Coast find me very puzzling, very difficult to understand, and I don't necessarily believe that one must always accept the total package that another group of people may stand for. Would you allow me a secular illustration? I do like fish and chips.

Not too often, particularly when I'm feeling hungry and maybe walking on the seafront. I don't think I've ever eaten all the fish and chips. I select what I want, and with the generosity that you know is part and parcel of my disposition, I share the rest with the seagulls.

Now, I thank God for correctives. I thank God for men that make me think. And what I'm sharing with you now is the results of my continuing thinking in this area of prophecy.

I do believe that the gifts of the Spirit are within the church, always within the sovereignty of God. And to that extent, I look for God, in His grace, to give us more grasp and exercise of them here in the tab. But the content of what is offered, which I didn't cover when I dealt with structure, I forgot to speak about substance, the content must always be alongside scripture, and it must have some positive, some helpful, some valuable message for the likes of you and me today, for it to be accepted as a prophetical gift.

In Ephesians 2 and the 19th we read, Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as a chief cornerstone. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.

And then chapter 4, referring to the ascended Christ and the gifts that He rains upon His church. Verse 11, it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service. And then you recall right at the end of Revelation, or virtually the end, a very interesting statement in the 19th chapter.

I think one of the most pivotal statements in the whole of this area of God revealing Himself to His people and the use of the prophetic gift. Verse 10, Revelation 19, At this I fell at His feet to worship Him, but He said to me, Do not do it. I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Let me just say something for the benefit of those who will take this message in later on in various parts by way of our tape ministry. This evening here at the Tabernacle we have given to friends who are present an outline of some conclusions from the tape on the reverse side of this cassette.

And if you don't have those conclusions, if you don't have a written form with the statements made, supplied with this tape, then if you'd like to write into our office, we'll be glad to send you a copy. Well, we come back to this whole subject of prophets and prophecy, and I feel that I ought to apologize for giving you so much information last week. And what I've done this evening as I hold my head in shame is to come back to the topic and just to summarize, analyze, and present it to you in some form of conclusion so that that will help you in your own consideration later on.

And we will be having a little time of sharing together just immediately on my bringing this talk to you after concluding this talk to you. We're in an area where there's a great deal of controversy today, and I am by nature a man of peace. What I'm bringing to your attention is not anything that is trying to put someone else down, but to share my own understanding of the prophetic gift down the centuries, and as is available, I believe, in the Church to this day.

I was given a book some while ago which seemed to suggest that unless you took a certain line in understanding prophecy, well, then you were risking offending God, and He would bypass you with a great deal of blessing. Well, that sort of threat is one that one takes seriously, and you examine what people are saying, and that's what I've been endeavoring to do. I don't like being threatened.

I like being persuaded in a nice and gentle fashion, and indeed I will try and do that with you this evening. From time to time I get missives sent through my letterbox here in the Church and also at home, sometimes prophetic words that are directly addressed to me, and I'm supposed to act immediately on them, and so forth. Well, I mention these things not to make you sorry for me, nor indeed to in any sense put down the folks who send me this sort of communication.

I'm always glad to receive from Christian friends anything that they think the Lord is saying and wants to say to me. But I mention these illustrations because, well, we are in a day when a great deal is being said about God revealing Himself in special ways to His people here towards the tail end of the 20th century. And I have made my position, I think, with regard to the gifts of the Spirit reasonably clear.

I hope so, as clear as my ability to do so will allow, while I've been at the Tabernacle over these years. I've never changed my position. I've always argued, ever since the infancy of my time here, that the gifts of the Spirit within the sovereignty of God are available within the Church throughout the whole of the age.

And last week, as we came together, I expounded, at least in brief fashion, 1 Corinthians 1.7, which I think is a text that has never really been explained away by those who take a different viewpoint from my own. I also went on last week to show you that not only do I feel that the gifts of the Spirit are within the Body of Christ, under the control of the Holy Ghost today in the Church, but there are certain aspects of the ministries of our Lord Jesus, which, again, would cause us to expect that we might be used in some area, certainly in a prophetic ministry. I reminded you, you recall, that our Lord Jesus is prophet, priest, and king.

We all recognize that we are priests, the priesthood of all believers. It was a doctrine discovered, rediscovered at the Reformation, not completely lost before that, but lost to a great deal of the Church and made very, very clear by Luther and Calvin. And in one sense it's very true, I believe, to say that we are not only priests, we are also kings, and we are also prophets, both potentially and also actually today within the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One other thing that I tried to make clear is my understanding of Scripture. You see, this to me seems to be axiomatic. It seems to be fundamental when dealing with anything that possibly suggests there is an additional revelation.

Scripture, to me, is the prophetic book par excellence. God has got nothing more to say by way of revealing His character and the means of salvation than what He has had written in the Scriptures. God has spoken, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 3, in these last days, having spoken before by the patriarchs and the prophets, He has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.

And here in the Old Testament and the New Testament we have compressed together God's prophetical Word, and there is no further additional revelation. What there is, and always has been, of course, is the taking up of this teaching, as it's generally seen in Scripture, and the application of it to local circumstances. To local circumstances.

I believe that that is within the ministry of those who communicate, whether one thinks in terms of expository ministry or even prophetical ministry. I went on to say, and I'm just about on number five, though I'm not following these through rigidly this evening in the note outline that I've given you, I went on to try to make a distinction between two terms which I think are very, very important. The first one being infallibility, and the second one being inspiration.

Now, I've tried to show you how words do change their meaning over the passing of time. For instance, if you read the book of Common Prayer, the original book of Common Prayer as used by our Anglican friends, a great deal of use is given to the word prevent. Prevent.

Now, prevent, a couple of hundred years ago, meant very differently to what it actually means today. And I'm arguing, and I've only used the word prevent as an illustration, I'm arguing that that also applies for inspiration. We use this word inspiration in so many, many ways.

Here is this conductor at the Royal Albert Hall, and the orchestra is playing Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. Just pick my favorite piece of music there. And you feel that the conductor at that very moment is being inspired as he coaxes the best out of the orchestra, out of the various instrumentalists.

Now, that's a reasonable way to use the word inspiration, but when we're talking about inspiration in terms of Scripture and its inerrancy, it seems to me that we must employ a stronger word today because the word inspiration is weakened and is applied to many other areas of life than those that would be required theologically to suggest that God's Word is without error. So I argue the word infallibility is the one that I would select in defining the Scriptures. They are infallible.

Now, I went on to say that in the context of preaching, or if you like, in the context of prophecy, it is quite obvious that one can be inspired without being infallible. I believe that if I may say so, without sounding too immodest, I think there are times when one is preaching here and you feel the Holy Spirit with you and a measure of inspiration. Every preacher is looking for that.

He prays that he might get it at every time in good quality and it doesn't always happen like that, but there are occasions, thank God, when you feel borne along inspiration. But, of course, you educated people here in the tabernacle and those who hear this tape will appreciate that that is not a claim to and neither would you give the preacher the quality of infallibility. He is not the Pope in flight, in expository ministry.

He doesn't claim, as the Pope would claim when he's speaking ex cathedra, to be absolutely free from error. There is a distinction, I say, between inspiration and infallibility. The Word of God is utterly infallible.

The preacher is not. And I would go so far as to say neither is the prophet. Understood in the sense of New Testament prophecy as outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.

Now, it seems to me that you cannot conceivably argue against this. I say that because you're thinking people and here in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, let's turn to it, and verse 29 you find, as the apostle sets down, his very clear teaching on the use of the gift of prophecy, he implies that prophecy can be judged. Two or three prophets should speak and the others should weigh carefully what is said.

Now, in no way could you line that up with Old Testament prophecy. In fact, it's not too easy to line it up with verse 37 of this chapter, 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul says that if anybody thinks he's a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what Paul is writing as an apostle is indeed from the Lord ex cathedra utterly infallible. But a prophet is not always accepting this term prophecy now in terms of one of the charismatic gifts.

A prophet, a person who is using the charismatic gift of prophecy, cannot claim utter infallibility. If that was so, then Paul would not have to say to the people, judge the prophets, weigh up what they are saying, work out which seems within the prophecy to be applicable to you, to be right, and take that. Judge the prophets, something that you never discover in terms of these great men of God in the Old Testament and indeed in terms of the apostles when they are speaking directly and dynamically for God.

Now again, just in case that point hasn't convinced you, let me show you that Scripture does certainly indicate that there is a level of inspiration that is lower than that of infallibility. Take Paul's comment in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He's speaking of the charismatic gifts.

And he tells us, towards the end of the rather beautiful poem that he has composed under the influence of the Holy Ghost, that ultimately prophecy will be dispensed with. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. That's verse 9. Actually the verse I really want is verse 8. Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease.

That's a very strong word. We would perhaps suggest the word they will terminate or they will become obsolete. There will be a time when the perfect revelation comes, I believe Paul is there referring to the second coming of the Lord Jesus, when the charismatic gift of prophecy, understood in terms of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 and other references in the New Testament, will be utterly obsolete.

There will be no need for it at all. Now you can never say that of Scripture. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my word will never pass away.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. You see, even within that reasoning there must be a sort of two stage, if you like. Infallibility over against inspiration.

And I trust that that's becoming reasonably clear. I think you'll find it very helpful in understanding some of the things that are happening in evangelicalism today. Let's go to number 9 in your outline when I speak about the judgment of prophecies.

Obviously if prophecies are to go through our sieve, the sieve of our minds and our spirits, then this is a very serious business indeed. Now there's nothing new about us being asked to check prophecies. When you come into a church, do you always think, well, whatever that man says, whoever that man might be, or in some circles, whoever that lady might be, whatever is said from the pulpit, I will accept.

No, you don't do that. If you did that, it would almost bankrupt the idea that you're a priest of God, that you have equal rights before Holy Scripture as any other follower of the Lord. You listen to a man, you've probably been attracted because you've heard that his ministry is biblical because you're evangelical people.

You listen to what he has to say, and then you put it alongside the word, don't you, and you judge it. This is something that becomes almost habit for the ordinary Bible-believing evangelical. Well, so it is in this whole area of the prophetic ministry.

We are to judge. This is what Paul has been saying in the verse that we looked at in 1 Corinthians 14. And it's good that we should judge.

Why is that? Well, you see, you might get into a great deal of difficulty unless you pass somber biblical judgment on what you hear. I wonder if you've ever come across a book, or at least ever come across the title of the book, you've probably never read it yourself, by the name of the Didache. The Didache was a book in circulation in the 2nd century.

The word Didache is a Greek word and it means teaching. The book actually was called in its full title The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. And part of the reason for the writing of that early book in the 2nd century was to help Christian people cope with the phenomenon of prophecy.

Now, there have always been charlatans around, haven't they? You know what I mean by charlatan? Somebody who's in for the main chance and he uses the naivety of other people for his own advantage. I would suggest to you that Jim Jones was a charlatan. Do you remember the Jonestown business in Latin America when, what was it, 900 Americans committed suicide all in one go within the last two or three years? Here was this man, Jones, and he claimed to be able to speak for God and unfortunately these people did not have the ability to distinguish between true preaching and what Jones was turning out.

Now, that's a very, very horrendous example of what you expose yourself to if you don't use your critical faculties in judging anything that purports to be prophecy or preaching. Now, back in the 2nd century you've got men who were engaged in an itinerant ministry and sometimes under prophecy they would declare that it was God's will that that group of Christians parted with so many shekels or whatever they were, shekels, if they were in Palestine, drachma, if they were in Greece, that they should part with money. This was what the Lord said.

And so this didache, this little book, started to circulate amongst the Christians saying if anyone prophesies asking for money then be fully aware the Spirit of God is not upon him. And what's more, if a man comes under the Spirit of God into your home and demands food and lodging for more than three days and isn't prepared to work for it then that man's not speaking under the constraints of the Spirit. You see, they had problems in the 2nd century.

They recognized that they were not to be naïve. Now I'm suggesting that the same obtains today. And this is nothing new, it's an outworking of what Paul has said in 1 Corinthians in chapter 14.

So we must not be naïve. Not naïve in accepting the most banal and plural offering in a particular meeting as though it was of necessity inspired by the Holy Spirit. Neither must we be overcritical.

You know, that's a temptation. God cannot speak to me through him. God cannot speak to me through her.

Well, let me suggest to you one or two or maybe three tests that you can always apply in a meeting when anyone is preaching or whenever anyone gets up and offers something in terms of worship, exposition, the application of God's Word, prophecy, call it what you will. First of all, ask, is it biblical? Is it biblical? Does it really have its root in Scripture? If it doesn't, reject it. Then ask, is it rational? Does it make sense? Can I follow what he's saying? Somebody sent me a prophecy about eight years ago telling me to buy in potatoes.

I'm not joking. I've got it on file because there was going to come a potato famine in the land. And actually the people who sent me this prophecy were very, very professional people indeed.

It was amazing the source from which it came. But I digress. One of the things that was the matter with this prophecy is that you had to read it and read it and re-read it to try and get any sense from it at all.

And it wasn't too easy to recognize that within all the verbiage, within all the massive words, was this great declaration that bad times were coming upon England and we would be doing well if we stocked up in our larder and particularly in the area of potatoes. Is it rational? Is it biblical? And then, is it valuable? Does it really have value for me? Now, you've got to watch the third test because there are occasions when if something bites, we don't like it. Now, there are a number of folk who no longer will come along to the tabernacle here and listen to the gospel address because it gets too personal.

Now, when the Lord is speaking to us through the exposition of scripture, maybe through a prophetical word, it might indeed have a bite. So don't reject it because it's personal. In fact, if it gets personal, it's probably carrying with it its own authenticity.

Try those three tests and add to them a fourth. But I say this somewhat tremblingly because I don't want to get over-subjective. Do you get a feel that this is coming from the Lord? Is there a feel about the person who is speaking? Is there an atmosphere that seems to indicate that yes, this is the Lord who the content of whose word is coming through in this particular ministry? The witness of the Spirit, Paul refers to in Romans 8, and I'm suggesting that that witness we can look to in determining the authenticity or otherwise of a prophetical word.

There is one more thing that I want to suggest to you in number 10. As I say, I've not gone through these specifically in order. I've skipped one or two.

But can I perhaps suggest that we in the 20th century could do with a little dose of modesty in what we're claiming for ourselves over against what happened in previous centuries? Let me move on to number 11 because I think that becomes more clear as I expound it, as I explain it in number 11. I'm glad to say that I not only live in the 20th century, I do live in company with men who lived in the 19th century and the 18th and the 17th and the 16th. And I love to get hold of Augustine, and I read from time to time a man by the name of Tertullian, who was a great Christian preacher of yesteryear.

All I'm saying is that these men who lived centuries ago, they have left for us a legacy of what God revealed to them as they were proclaiming Scripture. And not only am I privileged to relate to brothers and sisters in the 20th century, but there is the opportunity of reading the addresses of men who lived many centuries ago and sometimes just in the last century. And when you read what some of these men say, if you're prepared to give them time, you'll learn a tremendous amount.

Some of these men had great insight into the Word of God. Sometimes I'm utterly spellbound when I read a man, shall we say, by the name of Thomas Watson, a great preacher here in the UK, or a man by the name of Richard Sibbes, who used to be the occupant of a pulpit by the law courts by Chancery Lane in London. Great man of God.

I read some of what he has to say and it seems to have distilled wisdom within what he shares. And I'm glad that I know something about his ministry because it helps me to learn from him and it helps me perhaps to judge some of the claims that are made today that maybe in the 1980s we have had restored to us what has never been present in the Church since apostolic times. Now this whole idea of restorationism, for that is the term that it's given, is not novel.

There have always been those who've claimed that they alone have discovered since centuries gone by the truths of the early Church. There were some people, for instance, 400 years or so ago called the Anabaptists. They were claiming this.

You might have heard of a man by the name of Irving who came from Scotland. He was preaching in Scotland about the same time as Spurgeon was preaching in London. And Irving founded the Apostolic Faith Church, not to be confused with the Apostolic Church in Wales which still exists today.

And he was a claim of restorationism with all the prophetic ministries and all the vocal gifts of the Spirit discovered afresh and in harness within his Church in Scotland and also the Scottish Church in London. Now I have some misgivings about restorationism for this reason. Our Lord Jesus Christ said to the Church, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

He said that to his disciples, you remember? I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. And it seems to me that if one is saying that centuries have gone by and many, many things have been absolutely, completely lost by whole generations of people, then it's questionable whether Jesus kept his word. And however dark the ages might have been, you can usually find, if you're digging deep enough into your history, that there was a group of Bible-believing people somewhere in the world who were being used by the Lord Jesus during those times.

Let me rush on. I find it very difficult, verse 12, to acknowledge that God speaks today in the first person singular. Now again, I apply logic and Scripture, the other way around, Scripture and logic, to come to this conclusion.

God has spoken his infallible, inerrant word, and we have that in Scripture itself. Preaching ministry and prophetic ministry, where it exists today, localizes that word. It takes it and it applies it to a local situation.

Now if God was to speak today in the first person singular, then isn't it reasonable to suggest that all you have to do is to write down what God is saying, and then have a little portfolio of prophecies growing and growing and growing. You've got a prophetic word, the prophetic word, first person singular, to place alongside the Bible. And I think that that runs with it some very, very grave risks indeed.

Risks that are beginning to surface themselves amongst those who talk about prophecy in terms of God's word for today and the Bible as God's word yesterday. First person singular prophecy makes it very, very difficult for folks to judge what is being said. No, I'm not suggesting that areas where you've perhaps come across this today, that God isn't at work.

I'm grateful that the Lord uses one, despite sometimes our lack of understanding in Scripture. He takes ordinary folk like ourselves and He uses us in remarkable ways, does He not? We thank God that He doesn't wait for us to be perfect before He can use us. Maybe sometimes the structure is wrong when people speak in the first person singular, but some of the content that they present could indeed have God's approval, God's stamp of authority upon it.

It seems to me, number 14, a much more agreeable way of declaring what is felt to be on the heart from the Lord by indicating that this is what you believe the Lord would have you to say. Now, I can illustrate that. If you were present at the tabernacle a little while ago when I was preaching my third address on grieving the Spirit, at one stage I went into what I believe the Lord was saying to us as a congregation at that particular moment.

And there were about five or six sentences that I deliberately cast in that form. And I believe that the Lord there was speaking to the tabernacle congregation in a very particular, in a very pertinent fashion. In fact, it seems to me that often the natural place, though I'm not saying that this is the exclusive place for the prophetic gift, is within the expository ministry.

Though, obviously, from what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 and elsewhere, in Thessalonians, for instance, there are occasions when the prophetic gift is manifested outside of the context of the preaching ministry. Now, I can summarize number 15 to 17 quite easily. It's wrong for us to try to box in the contributions of brothers and sisters who believe that the Lord is speaking through them to us, and that Scripture, Revelation 19, verse 10, helps us to appreciate that prophecy should be understood, perhaps, in far greater dimensions than, largely speaking, we have grasped it thus far.

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Whenever someone declares what is on their mind as they interpret Scripture for us, I would go so far as to include, say, our typical sort of service at the tabernacle on a Monday or our open time of worship. There, there is the element of prophecy because people are speaking of Jesus.

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And therefore, verse number 17, it's necessary for all believers to inquire into the mind of Christ and, where appropriate, to inform their brothers and sisters. Now, let me take my last two minutes in just making comment on what I never brought to you last time concerning the office of apostles and prophets.

I want to suggest to you, and I'll be glad to enlarge on this some other time, I want to suggest to you that all the twelve apostles in the New Testament were prophets. But I'm not suggesting that everyone who has prophetic ability is an apostle. A prophet is someone who can declare the Word of the Lord.

And John tells us in his gospel, chapter 14 and verse 25, that Jesus said to the apostles, I'll give you the Holy Spirit and He will bring back to your mind what I've given to you. The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, refers to himself. We prophesy in part.

The apostles have the prophetic ability themselves. In one sense, I would say that the twelve apostles were apostle prophets. And Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 and Ephesians 4 and verse 11, interestingly enough, in the original language, when it speaks about that Jesus gave some apostles and some prophets, there's no break in the Greek there.

The idea is that He gave some apostles, prophets. And the suggestion is made by an increasing number of commentators that there's a hyphen between those words, apostles, prophets. And it's upon the twelve apostle prophets and the Lord Jesus Christ as the great prophet that the church is built.

And in the New Jerusalem, we discover that the names of the twelve prophets, the twelve apostles rather, Revelation 21 and verse 14, will be on the foundation stones. Now, I believe that God has given to the church today, down the centuries, those who are gifted with outstanding leadership, pastoral teaching and prophetic ministries. I believe that this is what the Lord Jesus continues to give to His church.

I believe that they are distinct from the original twelve. But if you like, there is an overflow of apostolic and prophetic abilities that have generally been in the church down the years and even on into the twentieth century. Let me quote or close by quoting from a verse I read in one of Tozer's books.

This isn't Tozer, but it's a verse that he often makes reference to. Speaking of God, Eternity with all its years stands present in Thy view. With Thee there's nothing old appears.

Great God, there's nothing new. It seems to me that God has invested in His church down the centuries, potentially if not always actually, all that she needs for the achievement of her ministries. I once remember, and I found it difficult to believe, reading that in Scotland, of all places, the Scottish Bank holds in its reserve account something like seven million pounds.

The money has accumulated as a result of unclaimed premium bonds. They've come up, but the fortunate person hasn't claimed what is rightfully theirs. Now, I may have got the amount wrong, but it was a very sizable figure, and I find it difficult to believe in Scotland, of all places, that that could have happened.

I believe that God has always invested within His church gifts that are necessary for the proclamation of the Gospel. And praise God, as these gifts have been, are being, and one trusts before the Lord returns, will increasingly be used so that men and women can come to an understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ. © BF-WATCH TV 2021