Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
The new things that have come; The Royal Ambassadorship and the Royal Priesthood. Part 6.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The responsibility and accountability of the Royal Priesthood.
HEB 13:9-10, Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were thus occupied were not benefited. We have an altar, from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.
1. A-Millennialism - the false belief that there will be no one thousand year reign of Christ and His saints on earth.
2. Annihilation - the strange doctrinal belief that Hell does not exist.
3. The false teaching of the Apostolic Signs and Wonders, movement, MAR 16:17-18.
MAR 16:17-18, And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly {poison,} it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.
This movement is made up of those who operate under the false assumption that these signs (in MAR 16:17-18), are still in effect today and that it is THEIR duty to fulfill them.
HEB 2:3-4, the Bible teaches that signs were used to confirm that the word being preached.
EPH 4:11 calls the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers,
EPH 4:12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
These signs were used by God to confirm the mystery doctrine of the Church-age.
HEB 2:3, signs are spoken of in the PAST TENSE.
HEB 2:3, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord,
it was confirmed not
is confirmed
or will be confirmed, but was confirmed [aor-pass-ind of bebaioo, past tense,] = has been confirmed.
HEB 2:4, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.
2CO 12:12, The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.
were performed
aor-pass-ind of katergazomai
meaning to accomplish, perform, work.
The aorist tense speaks of that point in the past when the verb was accomplished.
The passive voice, the subject, the apostles, received (not produced, but received) the action of the verb.
The indicative mood is the dogmatic statement of fact.
ACT 5:16, And also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits; and they were all being healed.
Twenty-five years later Paul, the greatest of all the apostles, could not be delivered from his own pesky thorn in the flesh, (2CO 12:7-10).
At one time, Paul had the ability to heal others at will (Acts 28:8), but as Paul neared the end of his life he showed no evidence of such a gift.
In 1TI 5:23, the apostle Paul gave Timothy medical advice instead of healing him.
1TI 5:23, No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
2TI 4:20, Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.
Why all this sickness if the Apostolic Signs were still in effect?
They were not still in effect because they were only needed in the early ministry of the Apostles for the purpose of confirming the truth to Israel.
Let’s not confuse answered prayers with Apostolic Signs, because there’s a vast difference.
We believe in healing; we just don’t believe in
healers.
The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was the first instance, but this was certainly no outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Too many people have the idea that if something is highly abnormal or miraculous that it MUST be of God.
The coming Antichrist will have a field day with such feeble minded people, because HE will work such
signs and lying wonders
that the entire world will follow after him,
2TH 2:8-12; REV 13:13-14.
REV 13:13-14, speaking of the second beast, Satan and he performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast,
telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.
new tongues, MAR 16:17, other tongues ACT 2:4, different kinds of tongues, 1CO 12:10, but these are all FOREIGN
LANGUAGES, not senseless gibberish!
There are no unknown tongues in Act 2, and
there is no baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1Co 14.
2PE 3:14-16, Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
The Apostolic Signs are not for today, because they were only for confirming the word of God to the unbelieving Jews in the first century.
The Bible warns us to beware of anyone who professes to practice these signs today
(2CO 11:13-15; MAT 7:15; 24:11; 1TI 4:1-2),
2CO 11:13, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
2CO 11:14-15, And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their deeds.
MAT 24:11, “And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many.”
The Lord commends the church at Ephesus for trying out some professing apostles and finding them to be LIARS, (REV 2:2).