Spiritual People

Hello, Matt Bennett here. Welcome to Episode 6 of the Bennett broadcast. Really, really appreciate you joining in and seeing these different episodes. It's a joy to look at with other people, participate with other people and draw close to the Lord and being pleasing to him and every way. We are all about wanting to see God do something amazing, extraordinary in our nation. We want lives to be radically, radically changed for their own benefit, but also to the glory of God, and also that so many other people will benefit in this nation. And I had a great day yesterday, periodically here in New York City. I gather with other pastors and we see God all day, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. We fast up until 7 p.m. And we'll have times of prayer together at the time on our own, then we'll read the Bible a couple hours together and talk about it some, and we'll worship part of that time, but spend the whole day drawing close to the Lord. Sometimes there's been noticeable visits to the Holy Spirit, sometimes not as much, but in all cases we want to be faithful to the Lord, get strong in him. I think this is so needed. We need to have time, especially ministers, but all Christians, if we want to be strong in the Lord, it takes that concentrated amount of time. I was talking to one pastor today about it. When he first started coming a number of months ago, he said it seems so extreme and so intense, but now it just seems normal and easy to do, and it is a blessing. I really, really benefit so much from those times, and it's all about what it means to see God bring revival in this country, but that's a larger subject. While we're looking at today in this episode is spiritual people, and what are spiritual people? We're going to look at the scriptures and first Corinthians. This is needed because I think there can be some confusion about what revival is. Mostly what we're looking at today is what revival is not, and that is helpful in defining and what revival is. We're going to talk about what revival is too, but also focus a lot on what it is not because that helps us to know where to apply ourselves and to see lives change, our lives and others, and we don't want to go be going down a wrong path, and we're not as familiar with their own history or the scriptures on this matter, so we want to become very, very familiar. Now we do have a definition that I use with different folks, and it's this, I'll read it here for you, but it says revival comes by God's grace through Christians faithful efforts of pleasing Him by seeking Him wholeheartedly, resulting in multiplicative advances of the kingdom of light, of the kingdom of darkness, and the personal territorial and cultural spheres accompanied by periodic outpourings of the Holy Spirit and group settings. So you can think about revival in some ways, two big categories, those activities and how it comes and why it comes, and then how you define and have confidence that it has come. Sometimes we can look at a situation and say, oh, it's a revival, and it's not really revival. And other times we can say, well, this will lead towards revival, and those activities will lead there. So looking at both sides of that can be very helpful so that we can know what the Lord expects of us and how to please Him as a Christian body. So what we'll be looking at is the Church of Corinth as a negative example, and this church in the city of Corinth, and now those days, there weren't separate churches by denomination. It was one church in the city of Corinth and New Testament times. And the Apostle Paul went there about 50 AD, and he's been about 18 months there, establishing leading people to faith and Christ, teaching them. And then about five years later, from the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor, he writes a letter to them. And that's first Corinthians. So they're only five years old at that time, but they're experiencing a lot of turmoil. And this is what the Apostle Paul was writing about to help clear up, give them some teaching and some guidance. And they experienced turmoil for a while. We do know for about 95 AD, first climate was a book that was written. This is after the Bible was finished, but written a bishop from Rome wrote to the church in Corinth because a bunch of the younger members have deposed the older leaders. And so he's writing them the letter saying, get your act together, bring them back in charge. So they had trouble for a while. So even though it was right here in the beginning of the establishment of the church, there are some places like in Jerusalem and maybe other places where you can see things went really well. And the people were really truly spiritual people, and have been revival as we defined it in other places, not as much. They struggle. We see that in the book of Revelation. Remember those seven letters that are written of the seven churches that are addressed, only two of them have nothing negative said. Five of them have very extremely negative things said about them threats of judgment coming to them, severe judgments. So this is the way it is with the church. And sometimes some places of the world is going good or some cities sometimes not. We want to do everything we can to be strong in the Lord, know what he expects, and see that things go well by the grace of God. So now this is, I'm going to give you kind of an overview, kind of a summary. Then I'm going to show you the passages in 1 Corinthians. It's really key that you see this yourself and see these passages and what's being communicated. So you know that this is from the scriptures. But what we see in this book of 1 Corinthians is that the Corinthians were very spiritually gifted, especially in what people call the sign gifts, the miraculous gifts, healing, and prophecy, tongues, miracles, and all these demonstrations, the Holy Spirit's power, yet at the same time they really couldn't be considered spiritual. And that might seem really odd, but they weren't. And this has happened all throughout history where there can be a confusion of whether people are really spiritual, even though there's a lot of spiritual activity happen. And this happened even in America's own revival history 300 years ago. America's famous for having the great awakening and their number key people in this movement. Jonathan Edwards is one of them, a brilliant, brilliant man. And he went to Yale undergrad. He became president of Princeton University. But in that intermeeting years, he was a pastor and he wrote the famous sermons, sinners in the hands of an angry God. But a lot of spiritual activity was happening during revival in the great awakening. That lasted maybe 20 years in the United States. George Whitfield and others were important figures. But people were seeking to discredit it because they were pointing out all these odd and weird things that would happen in the services from time to time. People would do weird things. Sometimes they would drop, drop to the ground, just fall to the ground. Sometimes they would act weird or squiggle on the ground or act like animals or something like that. So the question is what on earth is happening? And we know that one of three things is happening or maybe all three at once that either this is something demonic or two, this is something of the Holy Spirit or three, it's something of the flesh, something they're just kind of making up for some sort of history or something like that, not from the devil or from the Lord per se but from the people. So this is happening. Now these activities would happen. So people sought to discredit it but the revival. But so Jonathan Edwards wrote a treatise on it about the distinguishing marks of a move of the Spirit of God. And he called these demonstrations, these odd activities. He calls them negative science. And what he means by that is not that they're bad or good but that they don't tell you one way or the other. And I couldn't agree with him more. You see that demonstrated in the Bible that because they could be Holy Spirit doing some wonderful things but that doesn't mean that the lives are changing and that's how you ultimately tell that they're truly spiritual Holy Spirit activities are happening in the in the ways that are most important to the Lord or they could be demonic or they could be something else or the flesh. So they're negative science and so the same is today. And if you see some people will see some environment or something happening and if there's not these demonstrations like this, they'll say, well, it's not revival. Well, it doesn't tell you other places. They'll see some dramatic activities happening. Maybe people are falling down or people getting gifted tongues or people prophesying and so they'll say, look, this is revival. They'll see healing. Nope. Doesn't mean it. Edwards was right 300 years ago. We see this in the scriptures and the same is true today. And this is essential to understand and know if we're to be men and women of God who are able to help each other and to draw close to the Lord and trust Him for great things in our communities, we got to know what's going on. So we're going to start here with first Corinthians chapter one. If you have a Bible, you can open it up or I'll be reading the passages to you, but we're going to look at one, four, two, eight as the Apostle Paul begins this letter written to the church at Corinth that's having all these problems. So he says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. That in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking in any gift. As you wait for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ who will sustain you to the end, guiltless and the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So notice that phrase there so that you are not lacking in any gift. Now he's going to pick this theme up a lot later. He's got a lot to say about this and here it doesn't say he's necessarily only referring to the more supernatural or sign gifts people call them, but probably this is what it's referring to in this context because there's a lot of spiritual gifts. There's gift of evangelism and leadership and all sorts of others administration and service, but also gifts like miracles and healings and tongues and interpretation of tongues, the so-called sign gifts. And these are listed in chapter 12. So he's saying to them, all right, you guys are in the grace of God. You guys are Christians and it's obvious you got all these spiritual gifts going on. So this is how he begins this, but then you see pretty quick that he's wanting to help them have an understanding with the otherwise dead and understand not too different from what Jonathan Edwards was doing 300 years ago and the same of what we're needing today. So we got to be spiritually discerning people when we walk into context with other people. We got to know when the Holy Spirit is doing things, what is happening in these contexts. We got to discern if there's something quote unquote miraculous happening, is it the Holy Spirit or is there some demonic power at work or are people doing things in the flesh? And then if it is of the Holy Spirit, well, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's revival and it doesn't mean that the people are spiritual. So let's turn to the next passage. I'm going to pick out a few passages to the book to pull this thing together. So turn to 1 Corinthians 3 1 to 4 because you'll see here where he says quite plainly that even though they have all these spiritual gifts and their Christians, he says is they're not spiritual people and that could be shocking to hear. This is what he says here in 1 Corinthians 3 1 to 4, but I brothers could not address you as spiritual people, but as people know the flesh as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it and even now you're not ready. For you are still of the flesh, for while there's jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says I follow Paul and love their eye follow Paulus, are you not being merely human? So here this is quite striking. He addresses this broadly. I'm sure there's some exceptions, but he says he can't address them as spiritual people. That's the title of this episode of this broadcast. We want to be spiritual people and this helps us to know who are not spiritual people and he says that they are not spiritual people. It's not because they had the spiritual gifts that their spiritual people are not spiritual people. They are negative signs that as they don't tell you one way or the other and they're not spiritual people. So he defines what it is. He says that they're of the flesh, they could not have solid food, they are infants in Christ. So he explains what it means to be an infant in Christ. He's not explaining that they haven't, he's not saying we only been a Christian for five years now. He's not saying that. What he's saying is how they're acting. He says there's jealousy and strife among you among you and then you see in the previous chapter, some are saying I'm of Paul or I belong to Peter or Paulus and there's all these factions against. There's jealousy and strife among them. They're behaving in quote a human way is what he says here. So that is what makes a person an infant in Christ. It can be a Christian for many, many years, but they're behaving in this way. They're an infant in Christ and not spiritual people. It doesn't matter if they're in a position or leadership. It doesn't mean if they speak in tongues or have other spiritual gifts and I believe in these so-called sign gifts, by the way, personally, doesn't mean that. What it means is how they're acting. In this case specifically talks about jealousy and strife. Later on, he's talking about other problems and other sins. So it's not just this that he's dealing with with them. So let's jump ahead into another versus 1 Corinthians 6. We're going to continue to see this theme because what he lays out in the book is a lot of problems and a lot of ways in which they need to change. We got to take this in ourselves as we go through this because this first area just mentioned jealousy and strife. Is there jealousy and strife with us with other Christians, especially whether doctrinal differences or anything else? If that's present, we're not spiritual people. All right, look at 1 Corinthians 6 and 9 to 11 and we can't cover every passage in 1 Corinthians on this theme of how they're out of line and how they're not spiritual, but we're hitting a few. So it says here, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkers nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed nor sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. So he's saying, this is the way you used to live and you can't be living like this anymore. This is out about. So if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, you're washed, you're baptized. Can't be that way if you expect to be inheriting the kingdom of God. So all these behaviors have to be repented of and put away. And if it's not, then we're not spiritual people. Let's turn to another slide or rather another verse and 1 Corinthians 10 6. Now a lot of this whole chapter in 1 Corinthians 10 is a lot of the same sort of rhetoric from the Apostle Paul listing. Now he really wants to drive this home. So what he does is give some examples. He says, let me appoint you back to the Israelites. And even though these were the people of God and part of the covenant community, they had all sorts of problems. They experienced a judgment of God and God was displeased with them. So at 1 Corinthians 10 6, it says, now these things took place as examples for us and we might not desire evil as they did. So here they are part of the covenant community and their desiring evil. So he goes through a number of examples. They are engaged back in the hundreds of years before when they are supposed to be going into the land. They rebelled against Moses. So they were grumbling and complaining. They participated in idolatry. They participated in morality as well. And they experienced negative consequences from God, punishments from God because of this, even though they're part of the covenant community. So he's saying, hey, you guys are participating in or continuing to participate in these behaviors. Therefore you can expect similar outcomes. So he is very displeased with them. You get the Apostle Paul was saying the Lord towards these Christians in Corinth. Probably anger is appropriate to say towards them. Does it mean he didn't love them? And at this point there are Christians, but you can see that things aren't all well with them and that are behaviors in our mindset. It does matter so much how the Lord looks at us. And so this is why the Apostle Paul is writing this, wreck them so that they can be on a great, great track. So it gets really, really bad. If you turn to 1 Corinthians 11, now this is quite striking. I think this can be shocking for many Christians today because they perhaps haven't read this passage or they haven't meditated on or looked at it, but you'll see what's being said here. This is the Holy Scriptures. And this is what Paul is saying to the Christians there about what's going on spiritually with them. He's pulling back the veil and kind of helping to put two and two together, what's happening with them. We don't do that too much today to our peril, but it says in 1 Corinthians 11, 27 to 32, it says, whoever there for each the bread or drinks a cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. So now he's moved on here and now what he is addressing here, again, they had a lot of problems. One of them was they'd come together for their Lord's supper time of taking the wine and the bread, but in those days they would have a whole meal. It wouldn't be just bread and wine, but they people would come together and some people are so poor, they would have nothing. So they're just sitting there starving. Other people would have tons and would share it and others would get drunk and make a fool of themselves. So it was just complete chaos. They're acting just absolutely wildly inappropriate. And so this is what the Apostle Paul's calling out and he's showing them spiritually what is coming about because of this. So it says in verse 28, it says, let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, meaning what's going on in the broader body there and doing what's right by other people in the body of Christ, they eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. To catch that part there, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. What he's saying is that they've experienced judgment from God, some have gotten sick, some weak and some have even died because of their behavior. And that should be very sobering for us as Christians that if we act continually and wild outlandish ways, this may happen to us. He does it because he loves us. Just like a good father does this towards his children disciplines him to bring them back so that they won't go so far and do even worse and cause even more trouble. So as good parents do that towards their kids, so our heavenly father does towards us. It continues on, but if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged. So what he's saying is repent of these things, examine yourself, make sure that all this evil isn't in your heart, you're not behaving in wicked ways. Then you don't have to worry about this negativity coming from God, call it judgment, call it punishment, call it discipline, but that's what it is. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So the Lord has a good purpose in bringing this negativity into our life. We gotta always remember that. He loves us, but we have to be very, very mindful and remember and to get our lives straight with them. So I want to pause here a second because you can see really the culmination of all of this. All these examples that the Apostle Paul is putting here for the Corinthians. This is why they are not spiritual people. He's telling them they're not spiritual. They've got lots of spiritual gifts operating. They are not spiritual because of all these reasons, the way they have jealousy and strife, the way they're handling and acting into the Lord's supper because of idolatry, sexual immorality, because of rebellion and grumbling against leadership. You see this even more in 1 Corinthians 12. You'll see here at the last verse of this chapter, he tells them that spiritual gifts are good and they are good. And this is the context he's speaking a lot about tongues and prophecy. So these are good, but they aren't as important in operating them as being at about Christian, of walking and holiness and devotion and having love for other people. So he says, but earnestly desire the higher gifts and I will show you a still more excellent way. And it goes on in chapter 13 by speaking the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love. I'm a noise and gong or playing symbol. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I don't have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything that I have, and if I deliver at my body to be burned, but I have love, I gain nothing. So here he's coming at them in another way. The way they're acting with these spiritual gifts and squabbling each other, they're not demonstrating love towards each other. This is another way similar to at the Lord's supper, they're acting poorly towards each other. So any and all of this sin that the people are committing, whether more horizontal sin, meaning I'm among people, or towards the Lord himself and idolatry and everything. All of these sins can make a person unspiritual, no matter how long they have been in Christian, no matter how many spiritual gifts are operating. And this can be confusing. Sometimes people think, well, your spiritual maturity or how close your God is demonstrated by how powerful your spiritual gifts are. This is not the case, never has been the case. People can have amazingly powerful spiritual gifts that be very, very immature and infants in Christ and not spiritual people. And it really helps to remember that because I think a lot of times between people are first around, if they haven't grown up and been around, people operating spiritual gifts and they see something, they're like, wow, this was amazing. How could this person know about this about me? They really must be a man of God. Hold on, hold on, hold on. It does not mean that they're a man or woman of God. It does not. And we got to always remember that people can have amazingly powerful gifts in these supernatural ways, but it doesn't mean that they're quote, spiritual people. On top of that, we always have to be mindful. Sometimes people do things by demonic power, which craft is real. And it's a larger subject, but we got to be careful and mindful. We got to look at a person's character. We got to look at the commandments of God. That tells us. So the Church of Corinth is a negative example of revival. A spiritual person is a repentant person, an obedient person, a loving person, not just a person who exercises many spiritual gifts, even though that is important and they help build up the body, they have a great place to help us grow in Christ. So revival is when a community is saturated with spiritual people, not necessarily a place where a community is saturated with spiritual gifts. That's what we got to remember and know. And what comes to mind here is always maybe a year and a half ago or so where there was another outpouring of the spirit at Asbury campus. And you may be aware of this. And I got to go out there, which was wonderful to be there. And there's an outpouring of the spirit and a filling of the spirit. So often when there's a group of Christians pressing in hard and prayer and fasting, being repentant, obeying the Lord, and that pleases God, he pours out a spirit, it's a beautiful thing. And a lot of people want to come and see. And when I got there, they asked how many people are from out of town and like 90% of people raise their hands. Well, it was, it was things are starting to quiet down at that point and no more outpourings of the spirit or fillings of the spirit. And the reason why is you have all these people coming to town, but what's their spiritual state? If they're coming in with a lot of unforgiveness or maybe they're not prayed up very much or they're not repentant of all sorts of matters like described here. Well, there's not going to be much work of the Holy Spirit even if there were sign gifts that were demonstrated there. And Asbury doesn't focus on that as much. So that wasn't part of there. But this is what happens in these situations. That's to be a context and a culture people who are really seeking the Lord. So I want to read this definition of revival again, once that revival comes by God's grace through Christians, faithful efforts of pleasing him by seeking him wholeheartedly, resulting in a powerful, multiplicative advances, the kingdom of light or the kingdom of darkness in the three spheres, personal, territorial, cultural spheres. Probably wondering what those are? Those we explain on other broadcasts, a company that buy periodic outpourings of the Holy Spirit and group settings. That's what we want to see. True spiritual people. So in looking back at the Jonathan Edwards again, remember he wrote a whole treatise on this and called these spiritual gift activities if they're of the Holy Spirit even. These are negative signs they don't tell you one way or the other. They're not against it and not for it. It doesn't tell you. It's radically changed lives obedient and devoted to the Lord. That tells you over time. So a question arises how does a person become spiritual? Well that's beyond the scope of this Bennett broadcast, but I'll mention an overview because the scriptures do teach what it means to be spiritual and it means to be drawing close to the Lord to loving him and to seek him with their whole hearts. And the way I think about and categorize it is it means that we draw close to him. We love him and love others as we humble ourselves and fasting as part of that as we have radical, frequent and fervent prayer as we take into scriptures and saturate ourselves in the scriptures as we have deep and ongoing repentance. And of course this is what disqualified the church in Corinth because they had lots of sins they weren't repented of. It also means faithful obedience and they didn't have that either there. It also means having strong community and people helping each other. And one way they're helping each other is operating these spiritual gifts as I'll build up the body. But in a lot of other ways they're not helping each other because there's division and strife and treating each other poorly. So that was very mixed. And then it's a persevering in this lifestyle over time that the Lord gets very, very pleased and then rewards us with this presence. He says draw close to me and I'll draw close to you and this is what it means to draw close to him. And this is our privileges Christians to be able to do this. The United States, we have possibly the best revival history in the world. We have so much that has happened in our country. There's great awakening in the 1730s and 40s. There's the second great awakening awakening about 1800 to 1840. Business and survival began right here in New York City, 1856, 57. It's spread across the country. And then these other moves of God, I would call them more outpourings even though they're absolutely amazing and wonderful. You have a Pentecostal awakening of 1906. You got the Jesus movement later on in the 60s. There's all these are wonderful. And people from other countries see that and know that and learn from them. And this why there's been in part why they've seen so much happen in their own countries around the world. So we got to redig and find out what's going on here and put this back front and center. We need to live a devout and faithful life. If you go to Danielspiritrali.org, it lays out a general pattern. Or if you want to see a lot of teaching videos explaining this very methodically, go to christianune.org slash seven keys. And also if you want to become a partner with this, you want to see lives change. You want to see America, blessed and encouraged to seek the Lord so that we'll see outpouring the spirit and revival at a bunch of universities as well as across the USA. Go to christianune.org slash cornerstone and see about becoming a cornerstone partner. That would be a wonderful, wonderful blessing. Let me say a prayer here as we wrap up this time. So Lord, you are great and awesome and good and blessed and true. You are the great God. You are the holy God. You're the God who loves us and remembers us. You strengthen us. Lord, we want to see a radical change. Lord, we know it's important to be involved in politics by politics are never ultimately the answer. Neither is anything else. Lord, so give us spiritual mind to this Lord. And we have many, many millions of spiritual people as we see in the book of first print fans, read of all of these sins that are listed there and debout, faithful in our prayers, humbling ourselves, try close to you. This is what we want to see happen in this country. Lord, we want to see a return to this kind of level of devotion. So help us, Lord. Have mercy. Give us grace, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. And if I can say a few something here right at the end, it's common now to go to a lot of ministries and churches where even the Sunday services they are geared so much for new people coming that there's not as much maybe explaining the background of Christianity or something. And there's not as much call to obedience and repentance. And because of that, then people don't repent as much or they don't obey. And then there's not as much spiritual power. And people get frustrated because they wish they had more of God in their lives. A lot of people are overwhelmed with anxieties and fears and problems and drawing close to the Lord handles that quite a bit. It doesn't mean always in every way, but boy does it do so so much when we're walking closely with the Lord. It's not even taught very much these days how much time should be taken in devotion. I think what the Lord would have us do is to have 30 minutes to an hour every morning and every evening, preferably with other people, family members or others, as well as other measures to stay strong in the Lord. But that just so, so much. It could be hard to get into that pattern, but I encourage you to start maybe 10 minutes a morning, 10 minutes a night and go from there and certainly a lot of time on Sundays in church. I'm going to church in the morning church in the evening or if your church doesn't offer it, having time with family or friends longer time to draw close to the Lord. The time amount of time does matter. It really, really does matter and drawing close to the Lord. And it's also what you do during that time as well, but the amount of time as it does with everything else in our lives, when you think about exercise or anything like that. So may the Lord help us and give us grace. We want to see a radically renewed nation. We want to see this nation on fire for Christ. We want to see the biggest revival this nation has ever seen. Many talk about a billion soul harvest across the world made come about, but it will come about first and foremost only when large numbers of Christians seek the Lord with great energy. As he says, we should seek him not as just what we think is good or the best way to do it or what we think is good enough. He's the one who says what is good enough and what we should do. And sometimes it even means longer time of pressing in. The Lord's had me participate in a number of long fast, 40 day fast and others more on that other times, but it's needed if we want to draw close to the Lord. And everything that you do will make it easier for other people because they'll be inspired by you and you'll help move the needle spiritually and make a way. So may the Lord bless you. Thank you for listening to this Minute Broadcast. I really, really appreciate it. Lord bless you.