The Charismatic Gifts of the Holy Spirit Explained.

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[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] from Father Jack. And when I first did it, it struck me. Yes, because as you've heard me say over the weeks when we've looked at the gifts, that there has been some, uh, I wouldn't say erroneous teaching, but I would say probably not fully understood from the point of view of the apostolic teaching in the Corinthian passages, okay? Which I'll read a little bit from because we're going to look at that area. But, um, the reason I say that is working on the premise that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, okay? So we're not filled with a part of the Holy Spirit, we're not filled with an empty Holy Spirit, meaning there's nothing there except the spirit, okay? And then later he, in part, gives some ministries, okay? Um, but if we are on the premise that I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, that I'm filled with everything the Holy Spirit has, which includes the Godhead, it includes every expression of the gifts of God, okay? It means that residents within me by being immersed, baptized, in, released, in whichever way you want to put that, every charism, every form of charism, every form of ministry, every form of gifts, they are all resident.

And so when Saint Paul talks about distributing these as the spirit wills, he is not really saying that the Holy Spirit comes around with a little goodie basket and then he wills that you might get the gift of healing, and you might get the gift of prophecy, you might get the gift of working the miracles, you may get the gift of knowledge, and does it like a smorgasbord, okay? Um, at the same time, we on the other side of the fence are saying, "Yes, I want all of this, except." And this "except" word is usually related to the gift of tongues. "I want everything else, Lord, but I really don't want this tongue-sling." Okay? Um, because I don't think people are too worried about working a miracle. They're not mind that. They're not mind laying hands on the sick and the sick get healed because they're going to feel good and important about that. But if they're going to say something that, in their mind, makes them look silly because someone else is not going to understand it, they don't want to do that. And so we do suffer from a little bit of pride, okay? Well, quite a huge piece, actually. Um, and so we do tend to pick and choose. We pick and choose and say, "Oh, I really would like to be in a healing ministry. That's what I would like." Well, great, like it, love it, desire it. But are you ready to let God use it the way he wants, as he wills? Does that make sense? Because he may, if he's going to choose you, he will choose you for his purpose. Now, his purpose may not be what suits you. But if you are willing, he'll make you able, okay?

Um, in my own case, when I first came to the church and I first had this experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I didn't know what it was. Then everything in me stirred up to be able to tell every single thing on this planet that Jesus is Lord, okay? And I could see myself in my mind, I preached into thousands and thousands of people. And in those kind of fantasy times, I preached some fantastic messages. They were awesome. I can tell you, I can't remember any of them now, okay? But they were absolutely fantastic. Even I was getting blessed by them, you know? And my late father-in-law one day said something, this is many, many years ago, this would be working on 30 years ago, uh, I guess. He had a prophetic insight, you know? He said, "Well, you know, the Lord has told me that you will be preaching to nations and for many thousands." Uh, at that time, that was, you know, really not going to happen. But all of those years, yes, I was in leadership and I was doing good stuff, and it was great. But I would never preach it, okay? If the burn was in there in me. So I guess the charism to be a preacher, the account isn't to be an evangelist, was there because the purp, the way God works is the grace builds on nature. It's first the natural, then the supernatural. So God is not going to make you something you are not. If he makes you a preacher, it'll be you preaching. Your personality will be intact, but he will use it, okay? So he won't make you a clone of me or a clone of someone else. There's over 14 years, just like Saint Paul. I didn't get a chance. I did a little bit because I had a prayer group, so I could do stuff. But, and then the renewal asked me to teach life in the spirit seminars. That was good. And then things changed in my life, and I lost absolutely everything that I'd worked for for 37 years, okay? You don't need to know how, but I lost businesses, I lost family, I lost everything. I had absolutely nothing left. Actually homeless for four years. But because of political wranglings and things and manipulations going on in a group I was involved in, they, they manufactured, if you like, or used that word, a plan to get rid of me. You don't need to know how. But unfortunately, that was in the 80s where all this other stuff was going on. But, um, but after that, what I'm getting at is, after that, I decided, no, I'm laying everything down. The only thing I'm now going to concentrate on is my family, uh, my work, and my other service in the church as sub-deacon or acolyte, whatever you want to call it, or whatever else that was. But I'm out of this leadership business and whatever, okay? And I pulled out. I actually really did not want to do it. Not because I'm resentful, but didn't want to.

Then God called. True friends of mine came to my studio, being Subiaco, with this program God had given them called "Set My People on Fire." Okay? And they wanted me to look at it and put my, you know, be part of it and put my material into into the sessions. I looked at it and said, "Do not do this." Goes to the Archbishop, which they did. So the long, what I'm saying here through this is, I did not plan, nor want, nor desire to be doing what I'm doing there. It was only when all of that other stuff had gone, God actually called. So you couldn't say that because I had a burn to do it, God says, "Good, do it." He may do that. But something in the mystery of it was, "Yes, thank you, Eddie. I'm glad you're fired up and burning up for this, but if I release you now, you're going to be in my way." This is my interpretation. So once that has been crucified in you, now I can use you because you're not going to get in the way. That's the way I've interpreted it, okay? So it was only when I lost all of that, God called. For five years, I struggled with it. Absolutely struggled with it. "I'm not called for this." And I said, "God, if you're going to call me, you're taking a risk." Okay? And I don't mean that in some Citadel way, because I can't guarantee you I'm going to be able to live up to what you're calling me to do. I can't do that, okay? So you're really going to have to help me do this. So about five years I struggled with the whole idea that I'm called to be an evangelist, which had already been conferred by that time. And so I was talking to Archbishop Hickey about it and about my struggles at that time, because I wanted to run away and do something safe. And, but after a long chat, he, he looks at me and he says, "Um, do you think you're called to do this now?" It seemed like a strange question because I thought, well, yeah, no, then. But it made me think. And then I said, "Yeah, I think I am." And he just leaned forward and says, "Well, get on with it then." Okay? Then I settled down. Okay, let's get on with it.

Point is, it may be what I wanted, it may not be what God wanted. But the whole, um, experience or knowledge or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was resident within. That residency was all of these charisms that I now do. But at the same time, all of the charismatic gifts were equally resident. So when Paul talks about distributing these according as he wills, okay, he is not saying, "Well, you'll be an empty basket just with a, with the Holy Spirit, and then I will give you something." It's all resident in you. The core is when he wants it used. Does that make sense? When he wants it used, he distributes according as he wills. I pondered this. Why then, if everybody has this fullness of the spirit, therefore the fullness of all the indwelling charisms, the fullness of all of the gifts, exactly the same as Jesus had, and yet you don't use them all? Okay? Or seemingly. The answer is, when you get to the body, to the body, there's a merit in the ear, and so on. It all works together for the good. So therefore, it's not one eyeball, as he says. So if you have a group and you've got one person has all of this and does all of that, no one else will do anything. It doesn't unite a body because it doesn't depend on each other. So what the Lord does in his wisdom is he gives it all, it's full, but in order to bring us into unity and to learn to love one another, to serve one another, he gives, he calls parts out of the body so that the body can work together. So if one speaks in a tongue, they may or may not get the interpretation, because then someone else will get that, and then the body works, and the whole body is built up. So that's how I began to understand it.

And so what I also notice, because of the smorgasbord mentality, it, I think it diminished the, if you like, the power of the charismatic renewal. This way, if you have a concept that one has this gift, one has that gift, one has the other gift, fine. That's, I think that's a wrong expression. Because you have the gift, what you're talking about is a manifestation of it to one or the other. There's a different concept. But what began to happen, I think, at least what I observed, it did happen in my own environment, was, um, certain people would seem to be used by God more in a certain area. It could be discernment, it could be prophecy, it could be healing. And there is a tendency that the Holy Spirit attracts. And if someone, if God is, sort of, if you like, raised up a certain area charism in someone, some people are attracted to them. And so you start to see that there are results, okay? So obviously, as a good leader, you're going to access that for the benefit of the body. But what began to happen is you ended up making the healing team, you see? So you had the healing gift people, and they were in a team. Then you had the discernment people, and you had them in a team. Then you had the prophet people, and you put them in the prophet team. Now, what began to happen was that those gifts were then contained within that team. Now, guess what happened to the rest of the people? Nothing. Because it was all done by the leader or the team. So it doesn't matter what God was doing in anybody else in the body, it was, could only be done by the designated healing team or with a designated discerning team, which became the board of censorship, okay? Because they didn't understand or didn't want to understand that you do not discern the prophet. And what they did was, "We don't trust you, so we won't call on you." Okay? So what they were doing a lot, but not all of them, were really becoming the board of censorship, you know? So if you were recognized, you might be called forward to give your word. If not, you might be kept aside. This sort of thing has happened because they misunderstood. One, there's no such gift as the gift of discernment. Discernment is something you acquire and are born with, and you develop by knowledge of the word of God to rightly divide the charismatic gift of the discerning of spirits, okay? So when this happened, and of course, you can't have 20 people prophesying, so you've got to choose three. That's fair enough. But the difference between prophets and prophesy, I don't think has been that clear. Only the church can determine that somebody is a prophet. And a prophet does not necessarily prophesy. A prophecy is spoken in the first person, and it's generally a message that people gathered, okay? So God wants to speak to us. You give someone the gift of prophecy to that people know that he wants to speak generally, not to the church. It's generally only to the people gathered. One who speaks to the church, you could consider a prophet, but only the church can discern that that person is a prophet. So the role of prophet is different from the one that prophesies. Unfortunately, for a lack of knowledge, my people perish. And people who prophesy a lot consider themselves prophets. It's an erroneous view.

Now, if you have someone who prophesies a lot, and all our prophesying is imperfect, all of the things that the gift is perfect, we're not, okay? Um, and they think that a prophet, they are going to act in an entirely different way in the community. And unfortunately, it can have the effect of pride. People become, feel important because God's using them. And look, it's fantastic. If, if you are called to do something and you get a result, it boosts us. It's meant to build us, true. But what we have to watch there is pride. And so we have to look at fruit, and that's another area we've got to come to, okay? And so within the body, all of the gifts are resident. If we're open and say, "Okay, use me, Lord, if you wish. I'm ready." If he doesn't use you, does it matter? Does it diminish you? No. But if you're proud, it will, okay? If he does use you and you're proud, you will eventually own the gift. You'll eventually own the ministry. You'll use words like "my ministry." And the question has to come in, is who said it was, who determined that you have a ministry? Who? Because the only ones that can do that is the church, because it's a ministry in the church. It's a specific act of the church. It's not something I decide I have because I have a burn for it. If I'd have gone off in my early days, I'd have said, "I have a preaching ministry." But who would have said so? Only me. It might have been good now if I could have been good at getting the right friends in that they would have let me do it. But it inevitably, who determined this? So you have to have something that's discerning the ministries and releasing them. And that is the church. That belongs to the bishop. He's the pastor. It's his church. You belong to him. You don't belong to me, okay? And so if we can get a grasp at this, I think we become more available to God, you see? Because just because you haven't used a gift does not mean you do not have it. It just means either you're not ready, or heard the call, or you simply have not been called to do it yet, okay?

That's why I say the most prominent charismatic gift is tongues, primarily because it's related to prayer. And in God's mind, he wants everyone to pray perfectly well. And so he gives an ability to do that, which is called praying in tongues, okay? Speaking in a tongue is a different thing altogether. Speaking in a tongue is to give a message from God spoken in a tongue. There's a bit of a mystery here. Why would God want to give you a message in a language you do not understand? What's the point? You know what I mean? Why is this the way God thinks? Why would he want to do that? One, I think, because if you are going to say, "Yes, I will give the message," you have just sacrificed your pride publicly. You have just learned humility. You have learned obedience. You have learned the character of Christ to be submissive even unto death, meaning the death of your reputation. If you make a mistake now, God, because you have humbled yourself, highly exalt you. So even if it's not perfect, which it doesn't have to be, someone else will have the interpretation. That includes someone else. Now, in building the body, you have been faithful giving this word in a language you don't understand, or probably you might have an inclination of what it means, but you don't have the words. Someone else will have that. What then? You have a witness of. That's a bad sentence, okay? You have a witness then of God using more than one person, building people and edifying them. It builds the whole body. When we begin to see, there's nothing you can do that can make you a fool if you're going to serve Christ, okay? But through it, we learn humility, which is the great power, the great exceeding power, okay?

And so what the Lord is doing is he puts the gifts into the church, and you are the members of the church. You're the, the bricks and all of the stuff you've heard. But every single one of them needs all of these things. Me as a preacher, what is the point in me preaching on healing if God is not going to use me in the charism of healing? It becomes all talk, because the gospel is not a matter of talk, says Saint Paul. It's a matter of demonstration, okay? It's demonstration. So I can talk and talk and talk, but there has to be a demonstration in my way of saying it, okay? Now, but in my case, this is not a boast. Every single one of the charismatic gifts have been operative in my ministry, in my life. Every single one. Every one of them, including miracles, okay? Every single one. That's not a boast. It's because at some point they've been used because there's a need in the body, okay? And because I'm available, God has given me the grace to be used. They're not used all the time, every time, otherwise it would be Eddie Russell's church and I'd be Jesus, okay? But I have used them because of that. I know God can use you miraculously. The only thing that's going to stop him is you. But if we're proud and we want to be used, we will run ahead. We can even then fall into what Saint Paul calls party spirit, which means you gather a little group to yourself within the group that are going to support your view to get you to do what you want to do. Does that make sense? It's called politics. The death of the church, okay? Put that in the world and get wars, you know? Keep it out of the church. But that's what can happen. And Paul sees that in the early church, okay?

And so when we come to the Corinthian passages, we get instruction on the proper use of these things. Why? Because the Corinthians suffered the same problem. They were abusing these gifts, not willfully, but through lack of knowledge, and consequently poor comes to instruct them on proper use. Unfortunately, that has been used over the centuries as a reason not to use them. "Well, you know, prophecy will die, this will die. The only thing that thus is love." And so we have a love ministry, but absolutely nothing else. Because they're not important anymore, are they? If that's what it's all about. He's not saying that. He's saying, "But if I do this without love, it means nothing." It's not saying we don't do it, just add love, okay? You know what I mean? If I, if I'm going to serve you, just because God uses me in a charismatic gift, which is supernatural, doesn't mean I'm holy, okay? It's no sign of your holiness. It's a sign of your availability, okay? And that's a mystery in that. How can God use this person, by no means perfect, and yet is use them for some amazing things? It's the way God works, okay? Holiness comes from the fruit, which takes time to grow. In the meanwhile, we can't wait to be holy to do something, otherwise we'll probably never be done. When I say holy, I mean the state of perfection, okay? Because we're all holy by nature, right? It probably never get done. And that was a dilemma I had to go through. If I waited to get my life perfectly right, I'd still be waiting, okay? Because I can tell you, it's not perfectly right, okay? And that becomes a dilemma because I have a divine message in a very kind of undivine state sometimes, okay? If it doesn't change the message, God builds on the nature, he will still use it. But in the using it, he will change it. In other words, because in my case, I'm called to such, if you like, a holy task, I may not be personally up to living that message. But the fact that I have to preach it means I have to become convicted of it, because I cannot preach what I do not personally believe. But I may not necessarily have the means to live entirely up to it in a perfect way. But the very fact that you're operating it challenges my imperfection. Does that make, am I making sense there? And so in the mystery of God, he takes what he's got and builds on it. For you and me, be available.

The Corinthian church, they were abusing these gifts, and so Paul has to come in and correct them. And he said, "Well, you know, what's happening?" Because they're probably going to meet in a few hundred people, and you know, 300 of them are prophesying. Well, you're not going to get 300 prophecies, all separate. They're all, what? There's going to be one really, the others are going to confirm it. He's saying that, "Just only let two or three prophesy in the gathering." Well, that then brings up how you then have to organize your meeting. Because if you've got a meeting like this, and you maybe you've got five or six people have a word from the Lord, well, mostly they're going to be somebody picking up the same spirit, which really confirms the word. So the discerning process is, which one has the word and which one confirms? So let's say you have four people, one's got the word, three really have a picture up, but it really is confirming that this is the word. What you're doing then is discerning which one to call forth to do it. So the others then can say, "Yes, we, we can confirm this." But if you get people who are working, if you like, the confirmation side, believe that they're the prophet, you're going to have short circuit. You're going to have disobedience in the body. And that's when Paul comes in and says, "This is the way it works." So he's not in his Corinthian passages putting any of this down. He's giving instruction. If the Corinthian church had not been such naughty people, we would never have this instruction. Why? Because there's no need to give instruction on things you already know. It. There's no teaching up to it. It only comes up when there's a problem, and then Paul teaches on it. Why? Because it's normal. It's so normal, it's breathing. That's what we do as Christians. It's not extraordinary. It's ordinary. You know, abnormal Christianity is not doing this. Unfortunately, over the centuries, abnormal Christianity has been people who do do it. If you look at the lives of the saints, they have charismatics, okay? But what happened was, you had a charismatic renewal with, say, Saint Francis of Assisi. If you look at his life, he operated all of these gifts, okay? And then it became a religious order. Well, thank God in this century, we don't have to do that, okay? It's not going to get contained and then die out. It's always been in the church. It remained in the church because the Holy Spirit remains in the church. But there's a history of why we have not seen it. And it's practical in the sense of human and the way that is what we read in scripture is what the apostles did. It's the Acts of the Apostles and the teaching of the Apostles. So the order teaching on the Corinthian gifts is because they were abusing them, and then they did correction, and that's all Paul is doing. We have interpreted it as meaning that they're not important anymore. And as a consequence, it's been a problem. Well, I'd say a problem, my term, for 2000 years. Historically, the early church, prolific, prolific in all of this, ordinary, normal Christianity, okay? They are Christians, meaning they are anointed like Christ, who is the Messiah, doing the works of the Messiah. Jesus was a charismatic, okay? Now, in the early church, it was prolific. If someone was sick, they'd call in the presbyter, do all the things, and you would see the results. It was normal.

But at the same time, the Christian church was being persecuted. They've been thrown to lions. It was illegal to be Christian. If you acknowledged Christ, you were denying the emperor. And so they've been slaughtered, blamed for everything, just like today, getting back to it, right? Blame for everything, blame for all the wars, everything else, all our fault, okay? Um, but then roughly about 400 years, you have a history of martyrdom, okay? A history of martyrdom. What's that? That means that if I'm going to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, I could end up being ripped or shredded by lions in the Coliseum. I'm not going to get a job. I'm going to be treated like a criminal if I accept him, okay? Which means that I could die. Now, if I die for the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ, I know that I will go straight to heaven, okay? And that is where we, you know, we these days, we'll see we're the saints because of the martyrdoms and things like that, okay? Normal Christianity. So you have a church that's had 400 years of martyrdom as a normal way of life. One day, an emperor named Constantine realizes that Jesus is Lord, and he becomes a Christian. Now, he's the emperor of the whole Roman Empire, which touches every country, all the way up to Northern Europe and Africa, all around it's the world. And so the emperor is now a Christian. He now declares Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, okay? So the pagan Roman Empire, prophetically, has now ended, as prophesied in the Book of Revelations, now ended. And so now it becomes the Holy Roman Empire. But not everybody in it was converted. It just became the official religion, okay? Now, when that happened, there was no persecution. So what are you going to do now? Suddenly, to get to heaven and get saved, all your ancestors have done it because they've been slaughtered. You're not going to get slaughtered anymore. How are you going to become holy? It became a dilemma because they have a martyrdom spirituality. Big hole. What began to happen was, if someone was sick, instead of calling in the prayer team or the presbyter, they decided to accept their sickness as a way of suffering, and then they called it a cross. Though the true cross was outside persecution for living for Christ. Never in the teachings of Jesus is there a cross where you take on your sickness. Because as we understood from the Angelic yesterday, there is no sickness in heaven. As the Roman Catholic Church catechism says, 1503, I think it is, sickness and disease came through sin in the first place. But the sin has been dealt with. So they began to take on their illnesses as a way of suffering, and any misfortune that happened to them, it's their cross they carried. So it became a form of martyrdom. It got, I think it got morphed into a term called redemptive suffering, and misinterpreted. Paul, when he says, "His suffering makes up for the suffering of Christ," which you cannot do. That's like saying the sacrifice on Calvary was inadequate, and I've got to make up for it. That's not what Paul meant, but that's what we get to think it means. And we, that's what we think we've got to help Jesus. So I'm going to take on this suffering to help Jesus suffer because he didn't suffer enough. So I'm going to take it on. You know, this mentality starts to come in, not what was meant, okay?

And when we go to look at Paul's suffering, what was it basically? It refers to it as a thorn. Been debated for centuries as to what that thorn is, okay? Well, I've explained it, and it's got imprimatur and nihil obstat. It's doctrinally correct, and it's not what's been taught, even the faces in the church, because no one has ever stated what this thorn is. Something it's been sex, you know, he's lusting up and he can't control his sex life. That's been the common one because we all do that, so it must be my thought too, okay? But actually, if you read the passage, it says that the Lord sent him an angel of Satan to beat him. Go back and read prayerfully. The Lord sent him an angel of Satan to beat him. That's the thorn, the demon. Why? To keep him humble. God wasn't being cruel. It was a bit of a mystery in that. But then Paul pleads, "Take this away." Three times, and God doesn't do that. All God says is, "Poor, my strength is made known and manifest in your weakness." So what we have done is taken that and taken everything the devil's thrown at us as a cross to bear because we're going to show our strength and our weakness. And so what we have had over the centuries is heroic faith of people who have suffered horrendously and have still not lost their faith. In fact, it's increased in some way. And we've looked at that and said, "This is the road to holiness." But it was an evolution of a lack of persecution. If you then look at it carefully, you realize Saint Paul never met Jesus, did he? No. Paul only knew Jesus the way you do, by revelation, not by meeting him physically. So what would have Jesus been saying to Paul? "Paul, take this away from me." Jesus is Jesus because Jesus says, "No, my grace is sufficient for you." In that grace sufficient mentality, we have accepted lack and poverty in the spirit as a cross to bear because the grace alone is sufficient. So I don't ask God to heal me, I ask him to give me the grace to suffer it. I don't ask God to free me of my problem, I ask God to give me the grace to suffer it. And so we become some poor, suffering saints. No wonder no one wants to join the church, because if you're going to come in, you've got no hope, you're going to suffer, okay? So it's an erroneous way of thinking, because that is not what Jesus meant when he says, "Take up your cross." He means to take up the gospel, not this stuff. Take up the gospel and follow me. That's what got him crucified, not sickness and disease and everything else. It was persecution from outside, not destruction from the inside. And so the early church is persecuted from the outside, caused its growth. But once that had gone, they've got it from the inside. And so they stopped calling in the presbyter, they stopped doing this, and then they started to ask for this grace to bear it. Now, whether God wanted to give it or not is not as relevant as the fact that that's you. They're not asking for anything else other than, okay?

And so, uh, with Paul, who had not met Jesus, you could say, "Let's, you know, look at the conversation." Jesus, "Paul, you did not meet me. I met you on the road to Damascus. You did not know me in the flesh. So you were not there when I told my disciples that I've given them power to tread on the full force of the enemy. You weren't there. I've given them the power to tread on the full force of the enemy. And then at the Great Commission, I told him that they would cast out demons in my name. You weren't there. I've already given you the grace, and what I've given you is sufficient for you to remove this demon yourself. You do not need to ask me." So in some way, maybe Jesus is teaching him a lesson. The demon is sent to beat him, so Paul can take his authority over it and get rid of it because he has the grace to do so. But we have not understood that and taken all of this as our cross to bear. So through centuries, you know, then you get Saint Augustine comes along and says, "We don't need these charismatic gifts because that was for the infant baby church to get up and go in and running. But now we're up in our glory, we don't need that." What audacity does that say? What does that say? Well, Jesus did this. Peter did this. Paul did this. Babies? You mean to tell me the apostles were baby Christians then? Why are we listening to their teaching? So sorry, Saint Augustine, a little bit of parochial pride there and erroneous understanding. But that teaching of Augustine stayed. We don't need them. This is just for the religion. Now today, we have people saying, "Oh, I'm not into this charismatic baby stuff. I'm into higher things like meditation." So now they're doing Buddhism and Hinduism because it's higher things. Okay, Christian meditation, really? Okay. So Augustine says we don't need this. But interestingly, it was shortly after he said that that he witnessed over 70, 75 miraculous healings in his own cathedral in Hippo. After that, he wrote a redaction stating, "I was wrong. The church doesn't need this." So you see, that's what makes him a saint. He can admit that he was wrong, okay? Even though he's a bishop, he was wrong. I was wrong. The church does need these things. And it is Augustine that's quoted in the rite of confirmation. As I read this out, that he says, "You will expect that the candidate will speak in other tongues." It says that in the rite of confirmation to the bishop that you can expect the candidate to speak in other tongues. It's in there. So it's never left the church.

But then you've got this problem of this mentality is embedded deeply. We've built a whole saint sanctity on the idea of suffering. And so we had redemptive suffering. John Paul II was redemptive suffering with Parkinson's disease. If you understand it, taking on all this garbage on yourself isn't, it's not what God wants. It flies in the face of what he taught. How do we get out of this? Well, God has given us the means in one another to assist one another, to love one another, to build one another, to heal one another. None of us are perfect. A slip of the tongue, a wrong misunderstood action can cause devastation. We need something more than that. We still need something that brings us together. Yes, we have the Eucharist. Yes, we have the sacraments. Yes, we, and by the way, I forgot the Eucharist on the overhead yesterday, okay, on the tree. Um, but we have all of that. Yes, sustenance, growth, nurture. But then what do you mean? Because this is, in a way, what happens is we go to Mass, we get all of this, and then we go out, and there's not much then other than good works. Well, that's good in itself, but there's no power in the good works. Because if I went to visit someone who's sick, what do I do? Sure, I'm better help to clean the house up and do things for them. But do I think perhaps I could pray for them and expect that they might get well? That's very much diminished on the scale. So we, I think we built up a church of good works and very little faith level. Our faith is in our good works, but faith that works is dead. Faith plus works equals results. They go together. So I need faith to operate the works of Christ, not the works of man, not my works. My work's good if I've got good intentions. But we are Christians, and we are called to the works of Christ. Jesus said, "You will do the works that I've done, yay, the greater works." So when we talk about salvation by works, I'd say it's coming through having enough faith to act like Jesus. The works. That's why the gospel is a matter of demonstration and not talk. It's the work of the gospel. It doesn't diminish good intention or charitable acts. But the real works is raising the dead, kunisic, prophesying, working the miracles, uh, giving the works that build the body. And then out of that body, called ministries, which are charisms. That is what's distributed accordingly. Rules, because you're not called to be a priest, you're married, you know what I mean? So those are charisms. I am an evangelist. Not everybody's called to that. It doesn't invalidate them. It's just a different charism. But the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the Pope, the priest, the lay person, need the gifts, you understand? They all need that part in their particular work within the body. And that's what's significant about this renewal. Because then we had a history where the church was in enormous authority. Every king on Earth, bad, couldn't be crowned unless the church claimed you. So prophetically, kings were bearing to the fishermen. But I think we've got complacent. In the meanwhile, what's going on is a rise in evil, the occult. And that began, began, as we saw yesterday, to start to take its noticeable route round about the end of the 18th century, the 19th century. And so we saw then the rise of the, the Theosophical Society, providing the stuff we looked at yesterday. But at the same time, there was a new move of the Holy Spirit, which then, when we watch historically, came in its full force into the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II. At the beginning of Vatican II, Pope John XXIII prayed this prayer, "Lord, renewing our days, your miracles as of a second Pentecost." Within a short period of time, that year, a group of students in Pittsburgh, I went to the university where it actually happened with Ralph Martin, all those we're there on the anniversary, renewal in Pittsburgh, the university, what's the name of the university? Student, no, that's Ohio. Um, anyway, Pittsburgh students seeking, they wanted more of God. They received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the rest is history. I don't know what the count is, but there's at least 10% of the Roman Catholic Church here in the charismatic law, which makes it about one half million, 100 million or something like that, because we have about a billion people. But it's interesting, it's about 10%, a tithe. And the object of a tithe is to bless the ninety percent. Does that make sense? So in God's wisdom, 10% are moving in this renewal or revival of building up the body, which is the spirit against Antichrist. The Antichrist spirit that Richard Dawkins, sons and people like that, okay? We have God empowering us, little people who are nothing in the world, with the miraculous authority of Jesus Christ to do the works in an age of Antichrist. And so you can see there's a rise of the spirit against the rise of anti. Does that make sense? And so that's what's so important about us to realize the value of these charismatic gifts. They're not just the little prayer group. When we got internalized, we forgot it was meant to build the church, not ourselves. And I think we've got to get out of our box and get back into the church. Now, not everybody's going to come to a charismatic prayer meeting because it's impossible. But the church, like living in the dull, will be raised up because people will be operating in these cases as a normal church. At the moment, we have movements, if you like, or groups or communities that are hot spots in some way, but this manifestation of the spirit to bless the rest. But when this is done, the whole church will be like that. It's just normal, back like it was in that sense, but now after 2000 years of experience. And so we've seen this rise. And so it's a great hope for the church. Each of the Popes saw this move of the spirit as a jump on the second quarter, a springtime of hope for the church. They see the value in this. That we are thinking, "Oh, this is really wacky stuff." It really is the answer to the Antichrist spirit. Otherwise, we're powerless. Do you understand? We have to demonstrate this gospel, not just talk about it, okay? So it's, to me, it's so important.

So in bad, uh, in when Vatican II, it began and then it grew all over the world, okay? But it kind of pear-shaped. And that's where we come in then. Probably we need a renewal of the renewal. Because whilst it brought a love of the word of God, it's one of the fruits of it, it hasn't always necessarily got to depth of the word of God. People still use the word of God as a way of prophesying or a way of giving encouragement, a way of devotion, and things like that, and they know it, but they don't get the depth of it. Hence the reason God raised up this ministry was to put depth into that area, because it was the big poverty, and still is. There's no poverty in devotions to the Divine Mercy. There's no poverty in devotions to Our Lady. There's no poverty in devotions to the Eucharist. There's no poverty in that area of the church. There is poverty in knowing the word of God. So Verbum encourages us. There was a synod on the word of God just over a year ago. The Popes have been saying, "I, they want you to know the word." And so what we're really in is a revival of the word. So the spirit has given us the ability to access the word, but now the word must come to life. Does that make sense? That's what I am prophesying to you, okay? That's the age we're in. Otherwise, we're just going through the motions of having a bless me club and not actually having much guns out there. But we need a wisdom out there in your daily life with the word can inspire to of knowledge of the word, and then empowered by the spirit, the wisdom to know how to apply it, and the ability to demonstrate it. And so you can't have one without the other. The spirit and the word agree, okay? The spirit and the word agree. It's no one having to speak without the word. It's not going to the word of that spirit and word agree. And when they come together, we see church, and we see the millennium church in my mind. We see the church that is going to be manifesting the breath of God against these blasphemers, okay, in whichever way that is. And so God is equipping us with spiritual weapons, spiritual armor, and ominous with the word of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is not an idol force for devotion. It's making you a manifestation of Jesus Christ, and wherever he's got you placed. So it doesn't matter where your chasm is called, go do your work, go bring up your family, go play your music, go do what you do, and go do it, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and you will see things change around you. People attack you, but people will be healed. Because I can tell you, if the power of the spirit is so much that even the shadow of Peter or Paul could drive out demons and cure the sick, every time you walk into an environment, the demons will have to flee, and people will feel better. They might not know why, but they will like your company because the Holy Spirit attracts.

So I think this is a very important, exceedingly important move of God in this age, and it's been planned. And the only way we know that is to trace history and watch what's happened. So in that regard, I have a burn to encourage you, no matter what it costs me, to abandon yourself, to let God use you, really, because he can and he will. But let us not put any conditions on how he wants to do that. Let us not say, "Ah, I want to do this, but not that." Let us get over ourselves and get on to Jesus, that he will raise us up, and you'll know who you are. You'll really never know who you are by designing yourself. You'll only know who you are in relationship to Jesus Christ, because it's in the divine image that you need to access to know who you are. When I met the Lord, I then got to know me. Before then, I thought I knew me.

It was only when I met the Lord, when I took my conversion, that I began to realize who I was. But I've been a work in progress. The old man is still not entirely dead yet, okay? And he keeps getting raised up from the dead every now and again, okay? And they have to get smacking him down again, okay? Just want to lie down, get down there, you know. He's like a little zombie.

So, um, but we're all in that boat, aren't we? So, and on that basis is where we have to have an enormous love for one another, realizing that we aspire to great ideals. We aspire, but we're not always capable, or we haven't learned it yet. The ability is there. The knowledge to apply and succeed is what we're learning. And so, by the use of these gifts, by the use of prayer meetings, by the use of all the things we have, it causes growth in the body.

So I refer to the charismatic gifts as the "love your neighbor" gifts. The sanctifying gifts are the vertical: love God, love yourself, love your neighbor as yourself, love God with all your strength. Vertical. But if I want to, you know, K my class, I need to take the horizontal, which is the charismatic gifts and the charismatic ministries, because they reach out to others. That's what I love you with. If I say I love you and I half mean that or mean it, then I should desire to become exceedingly wealthy, to a point of overflowing abundance with every grace of God, every ability of Jesus Christ. Because anything less than that, I'm robbing you.

So I need to be humble enough to let God make me great. I need to be humble enough to let God use me for you. If you're sick, it gives me an ability to assist. If you're struggling in pain, it gives me a compassion to reach through it. In other words, it's reaching out. It's building the body. And it becomes a witness that says, "Now you can see how they love one another." And it becomes a demonstration of what I believe in.

I am not perfect. We know that. I can prove it, okay? But there is where the love comes. You aspire to enormous dreams in the Lord, but not capable. If I said to you, "Ah, yeah, well, you're responsible, you can't do it," I'm actually pulling you down. What I need to honor is your aspiration and encourage that aspiration to become a reality, even though you're broken, even though you fail, even though you're not perfect. Because God did not wait for you to be perfect to use you. God did not wait for you to be perfect to save you.

And when I learned the heart of God, then I love you really in your weakest moment, not in your best. That's easy. I love you at your weakest moment because that is where the fellowship, the power of the Spirit, comes to lift you up. Am I making any sense?

So I don't see this charismatic thing as just the wacky Catholics shoved out in some hall at the corner of the parish. That's the wacko bin over there, okay? Hey, I don't care as long as it's living in the dough and it raises the 90 percent. Because the object of the tithe is to bless the 90 percent. So if you're faithful to tithe, the 90 will be taken care of. So if you're faithful to your calling, in your charismatic calling, you are blessing the 90. But they don't know that. The login, thank you. It just rises. I don't know.

In your past, you would have seen things change since you did this seminar. And you know, there was a handful of people who finally went through, but it touched the whole parish. If you've got the whole parish here, you probably wouldn't. It's not going to happen. Same as here, same as whatever. Jesus only got 12. 11, finally. He had thousands and thousands of disciples prior to that, thousands. They were left. And even the others left when the crunch came. So he failed with the tread, but he succeeded in making 12 disciples, and they've been duplicating ever since. And here we are.

So Jake, coverage from the fact that you may be small groups, you may be looking like you're not doing much. You are the leaven in the dough, and you keep loving that 90 percent with everything in your being, and it will make a difference to them, even though they do not know it. They may deride you, they may reject you, they may not understand you. That's fine. Love them anyway. Because if you say you prophesy with that love, it means nothing. It's what Paul is saying. It's like a "trashing symbol in a sanding gong," okay?

So let us stop acting as charismatics and get on with being disciples. Because the disciple's heart wants to be exactly like the Master, not to follow him, but to become like him. So you can't tell the difference. "I live." "Yay." "No, not I live, but Christ who lives in me," says Paul. And that's what our destiny is.

And so today, what we are going to do is we're going to discern now your gifts, okay? Uh, because you didn't know you had some. You know, you got some. Someone's been around a long time. You know, I mean, I've gone to meetings, you know, people, you know, I've been in renewal, you know, 20, 30 years and still not using some of the gifts. And you're going to wonder why. And maybe I've given part of that answer is the way in which we're viewing what we have.

I am saying theologically sound that if I have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, I have the Trinity indwelling. It's not an empty Trinity or an ineffectual Spirit. It's all there. I become available to God to use me as he wills. And if he doesn't want to use me, that's fine. He's still using me. Why? Because his dad can use you. Does that make sense? Even if he doesn't use me, he's still using me because it gives you a chance.

So let me tell you a little parable to wind this up on that I made up. It's in that parable, okay? I learned from my boss, okay? There's a great, powerful King. To serve him means you've made it in the Kingdom. So if you ever get called to serve at one of his banquets, you are set for life. And so he's throwing a banquet for all the most important kingdoms, and you are a servant at the table. And so to be called to serve is going to be a great honor.

So you've got two servants going to serve at this banqueting table. And the King says to one, "Uh, okay, what I want you to do, I want you to bring out the wine, I want you to bring out the food, and I want you to do that. I want you to serve my guests." To the other servant, he says, "I want you to wait over there until I call you."

So the banquet starts. And there are many scenarios to think about in this. The servant serves the people and is overworked. If he whinges and complains, do you think he's going to be rewarded? If he's eternal and says, "Hey, this isn't fair. He's standing over there doing nothing. Well, I am sweating here doing everything." Do you think that King is going to be impressed? Absolutely not.

But let's say at the end of the banquet, he's done that, and the King says, "Hey, and you have been standing over there. I'm rewarding you highly." And then you go, "Hang on a bit here. This other guy here, he did everything at that banquet. This fellow's just been standing there doing nothing, and yet the King has rewarded him as though he'd done everything." And the King says, "Just like God says, 'Well, that's true. I'm not fair. I'm just. I'm merciful.'"

So, but why would that be? The one who did all the work complained and didn't do the complete job. Was he obedient? No. The one who stood there doing nothing was obedient. Yes. Who got the reward? The one who's obedient. He wasn't doing anything. Yes, he was. He was doing exactly what he was required to do.

So let us suppose the other one's there going around working his butt off, and the other guy is standing there going, "This isn't right. Poor guy is struggling. I think I'll go and help him." And so then he leaves there and he comes over and starts to help this person serve the guests. At the end of the meal, the King says to the one he'd appointed to serve the guests, "Well done. Now I'm going to exalt you." But the one who helped, he says, "You are cast out." Do you just say, "That's fair"? No, because it isn't. It's just.

Why? Because too many people have that problem. "Oh, well, I was only trying to help." Well, who asked you? How many times have you had a situation where somebody interferes with what you're doing or something you're doing just because they want to help, and they're not being asked to? And then when you rebuke them, they say, "But I'm only trying to help. You're cruel." Okay? The only time you're going to help someone is when they ask you, and you do what they ask. Anything else is not a help. You want to help? Stay out of my way, you know?

So with this person now interfering, he's interrupting everything else. He's making the King look bad because there's a disobedient servant in front of his guests. Do you think he's going to be rewarded? Absolutely not. So God may have you standing in the corner. He may have you serving the table. Be faithful to what he has done. Because if he sees you struggling serving the table, he will call this person and say, "Look, go and give them a hand." Then the person is amen, and then everything's rewarded. But if you step in front of it and interfere, you're going to lose what God plans for you. And that's what's difficult in our humanity is to be obedient when we're not being used.

So just because God hasn't called you to raise the dead, cure the sick, prophesy, speak in other tongues, use words of knowledge, doesn't mean that you are not valuable to the banquet. Be available, ready when he calls, and do what he says. And if you need something else to help you do that, I will call on Our Lady, who instructs you. Do what he says, not what you think he wants. Do what he tells you. And if he hasn't told you, don't do it. Wait until he calls, and then do what he says. And he calls and says, "I want you to raise this dead body." Yes, it's okay. I don't know how to do it. Whatever it is, our availability allows God to give us ability.

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