438 - 2 THE SPIRITUALLY HANDICAPPEDAugust 27, 1978
Henry F. Kulp
Ephesians 4: 11 - 15 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Here we read that God has given the leadership gifts for the perfecting of the saints, for the mending of the saints, for the repair of the saints and for the work of the ministry. If the saints are going to be effective in their ministry they need to be repaired constantly. This is one of the major projects of the local assembly—the repairing, the restoring of the saints of God. All of us have an old nature, and it is constantly necessary for us to come and hear the Word of God, and it is the Word of God that does the work that enables us to carry out our ministry.
1/ Remember all of us are in full-time ministry and God expects production from us— productivity.
2/ II Corinthians 5: 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
Here we are told we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are in Christ’s stead, pleading with men and women, be ye reconciled to God. No pastor can begin to do this alone—no evangelist. It must be the saints of God—those who sit in the pew—it is their job.
3/ II Corinthians 8: 5 And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
Here is the church that I marveled on down through the years. Why was it that God so mightily used the Macedonian churches? I can tell you why. It is given to us very clearly in this passage. It was because they first gave their own selves to the Lord.
Then notice verse 4 Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.
The ministering to the saints, and why were they able to minister unto the saints, and then give to the Lord? Because they first gave themselves to the Lord. You will notice this has to do with money. No one can be a strong Christian, no one can ever be effective in the ministry of the Lord who does not give of his money to the Lord. Those who do a lot of witnessing but never give, I am sure their seed is never very effective. I have always felt I had to be careful what I said about money because so many churches have abused the thought of giving. But on the other hand, it is necessary that you realize that God expects you to give, and through the leadership gifts you should be instructed that giving is very important to the local assembly. Unless you give in a systematic fashion you are robbing God. You cannot give yourself without giving your money.
5/ II Corinthians 9: 6, 7 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
Here again He is talking about money. He that soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly, and then in the 7th verse. Let us give as he purposeth in his heart, not grudgingly, not of necessity, but because he loves to give.
6/ Then there is something else to see—not only are we to give of ourselves and then give of our money, but then we are to have a certain attitude toward one another for the sake of ministry.
One of the beautiful Scriptures that I love is Deuteronomy 20: 19, 20 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.
Here is a picture of something that everyone ought to see. It is a rather forgotten portion of the Word of God, but here God tells us that when Israel besieged a city for a long time, they would cut down only certain trees. They would throw up bulwarks against that city, but they were not to cut down any fruit bearing trees, they were to be spared. This is the way we should act toward those who are saints, who are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, who are the members of the Body of Christ. We should all be fruit trees for the Lord Jesus Christ, be productive, and we are not to lay the ax to them, but we are to work together. That means we do not do anything to hurt another believer in the ministry, that the ministry be not blamed, that the ministry be not ridiculed. We are not to hinder one another, we are to work together and be productive.
7/ Acts 18: 24 - 26 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
And here we have a beautiful example of what I am trying to tell you about how we are to deal with God’s fruit trees those who are in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ—and that is every saint—he is in full-time ministry. Here we have Apollos—you remember Apollos—he was earnest and had a love for the Scriptures, and this fact appealed to the heart of Priscilla and Aquila. But he was not up to the knowledge of the truth of his day. He had not gone beyond the baptism of John, and this Godly couple saw this was what he lacked, but they also loved him, they knew he was seeking the truth, they knew he wanted the truth, so this Godly couple instead of exposing his ignorance to others or roundly denouncing him as a legalist without the truth of the Gospel of God, they took him into their home, and there in Christian love expounded to him the way of God more perfectly. We should use our axes against the deadly trees of sin and error, and not one another. We should work together as Aquila and Priscilla did and help those who are saved and want to know the truth and do not know the truth as it is in its fullness. We should work together in harmony.
8/ Let us drop down to verse 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
I want to make a contrast here. In verse 13 we are mature believers, in verse 14, he talks about children.That we henceforth be no more children. What does he mean when he says, we are like children? Actually, the word is, not children, but childish. Paul is saying that these believers at Ephesus, some of them, were childish. Let us look at that word and see what it means.
9/ The word, children, is NAY-PEE-OSIS. And we must distinguish this from the word that is used when we are saved, and that is the Greek word, BREATH-OSIS, this means a babe at its mother breast, and if you have a normal growth we will become WEE-OSIS or mature believers.
10/ What is the Greek word NAP-PEE-OSIS? It is someone who gets out of fellowship with God and stays out of fellowship with Him. It means he is a SPIRITUAL IDIOT – going back—not making any progress.
11/ There are three things to see about the spiritual idiot. This verse starts out by calling them spiritual idiots, and ends up by calling them suckers, patsies or dupes.
12/ Now we have a three-fold description of the childish believer.
(1) It is first a nautical analogy TOSSED TO AND FRO. It is one word in the Greek, CLUE-DOUGH-NEEDS-O-MY and just what does that mean? USED FOR A SHIP OUT OF CONTROL, AT THE MERCY OF THE WAVES. We have to remember in those days they didn’t have engines as we have today. Everything depended upon the proper use of a sail, the sea anchor and a good rudder, but here he is describing a ship whose rudder is broken, whose mast has been snapped, and therefore is at the mercy of the waves. The bow of the ship is now moving in every possible direction, and the ship is in great danger, IT IS UNSTABLE.
(2) Here is a believer and never forget we were talking about believers. Believers who are unstable. You say can a child of God be unstable? He most certainly can, and his inner life is filled with misery, constantly seeking something that he has never found, never experienced.
(3) Here we have the second nautical term. CARRIED ABOUT BY EVERY WIND OF DOCTRINE. Carried about in the Greek is PERRY-FUR-O…THIS DOES NOT MEAN TO BE AT THE MERCY OF THE WAVES, BUT RATHER TO BE AT THE MERCY OF THE WIND.
In a storm out at sea, there are the things we have to combat—waves and wind, and now it is the wind that is causing the trouble for believers, and what is it? It is the wind of doctrine. Certainly not true doctrine, but evil doctrine. So you see the believers who are spiritual idiots, who never grow on Bible doctrine are suckers for evil doctrine. That can be socialism, that can be speaking in tongues, it can be healings.
I Timothy 4: 1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
As we have been telling you on Sunday nights, the devil cannot indwell a believer, but he can attack the believers mind from the outside, and with these winds of doctrine, can lead him into all sorts of harmful teaching. And what are these harmful teachings mainly? EMOTIONALISM. Did you ever notice how the devil appeals to emotionalism? Look at the sects that are about today. What is the basis of all of them? Emotionalism.
(4) Now we come to the third metaphor, and this is a gambling analogy. There is no greater sucker in all the world than one who is a habitual gambler, and he is in a dice game, and the other person holds the dice and the dice are loaded, and on the very first throw it will be seven or eleven, and this man can never win. He will loose his shirt, it is impossible to win when the other person has loaded dice.
(5) A believer who is a spiritual idiot can never win. He is following the program of the devil in his emotionalism, and he will be the most miserable person in all the world. The unsaved person is not the most miserable, but the believer out of the will of God.
13/ You will say, where in the world do you get all this? The word, sleight, is the Greek word, KOO—B—AH and it means dice-playing, so it means by the dice playing of men. We have to ask the question, what kind of game do these men run? The devil is a liar, and he is a cheat. His religion is a cheat, and the kind of game he runs, comes out of the word, CUNNING CRAFTINESS. The Greek word is PAN-OORG-EE’-AH. It means TO CHEAT IN GAMBLING. So these spiritual idiots who never grow up in the Lord, do not get any doctrine, fall prey to the doctrine of demons, and here it says, all religion is a loaded dice game. You can never win, you are bound to lose.
14/ Then we come to, by which, and that is our old friend, PROSS, PLUS THE ACCUSATIVE and it means face to face.
15/ Face to face with what? The King James version says, they lie in wait, and that is a professional phrase, METH-O-DOS. We get our word, method, from it.
16/ Then to deceive, that is the Greek word, for fraud. So what happens to the believer who is out of the will of God? And does not learn doctrine and apply it to his life? He is brought face to face with deceptive methods of fraud. In other words, he becomes religious.
AMEN
Ref: 08/27/1978 / 438-2 THE SPIRITUALLY HANDICAPPED / 03/16/2021
No comments:
Post a Comment