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This morning we're going to be looking in depth at one phrase in verse six to read the context. Um going to begin in verse three and
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read through verse 8. I'd like to ask Ariel if you pray for the ministry of the word this morning. Romans chapter 12 beginning in verse three. For through the grace given to me I say
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to every one among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought, but so to think is to have sound judgment as God has allotted to
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each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one
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body in Christ and individually members one of another. And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them
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accordingly. If prophecy, according to the analogy of faith, if service, in his serving, or he who teaches in his
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teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.
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one another in the body of Christ. We are doubly blessed to hear your word preached food for our spirit that we might be built up into perfect your son.
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I pray now that as we hear the word preach this road mapap of behaviors that we should have among the body among each other that we would understand
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how we are to act. We were challenged this morning separately in this world and here we see ways that we can treat
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our brothers. Pray that your servants preparation this week would be a great blessing to us. would be alive in this room and any here today do not have faith will be stirred
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prophecy. And that mention of prophecy reminds us of the ongoing controversy that the church has had both in in centuries past and in just decades past with what is
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known as the charismata. And from of course charismata we get the charismatics and the various uh responses to charismatic movements within church
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history from more conservative branches of the church. The question regarding the charismata, which in fact is a biblical word that
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Paul uses here in Romans 12, in Ephesians 4, and in 1 Corinthians 12, it basically means the grace gifts. But the controversy of course centers around
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whether these charismata have ceased. But when we dig into it, what we're really being asked or asking is, "Have
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tongues ceased or has prophecy passed away?" No, no one ever asks whether the gift of administration has passed away though it
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is rarely admin or ministered or manifested within the church. We don't worry about the gift of mercy for example. It's the what we consider the
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miraculous gifts that we question. And I would submit to you that that is a category mistake. Miracles are one thing, charismata are another.
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And I'm not going to get into the details, but to talk about the miraculous gifts is again a category mistake. We're not understanding Paul's teaching or the working of the Holy
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Spirit. Most conservatives Most conservatives deny their continuation of the charismata because they're very disturbing. We don't like the idea of listening to
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someone speak in a language we don't understand or someone claiming to have revelation from the Lord directly prophecy, word of knowledge, word of
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wisdom. Most liberals say that the gifts have ceased mainly because they think they were all superstition to begin with and God doesn't work within the lives of people. And so the opposition to the gifts are
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both from the conservative perspective and the liberal founded on shifting sand not on biblical exesus. And the reason is because of the focus
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on the gifts even among charismatics is on the gift itself rather than its function rather than its purpose. This
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was true even in Corenth where we can see that that the members of the Corinthian church were proud of the gifts they had and Paul had to chastise them. It it always seemed very ironic to
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me that the charismatic loves to camp on the letter to the Corinthians which is in fact a pmic Paul's actually telling no you're wrong I do not praise you but
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he also does not condemn the gifts he can con condemns the attitude and teaches in that letter several places what the purpose of the charismata
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was in the original intent. For example, in 1 Corinthians 12:7, we read, "But to each is given the manifestation of the
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spirit for the common good." There there's the there's the heart of the matter. And that actually shows up several times in those key chapters 12, 13, 14 of 1 Corinthians where Paul is
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dealing with and this the manifestation of the spirit. So we have to think through this because if we want to take a position called
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cessationist and we say that the gifts have passed away what we are effectively saying biblically is there's no manifestation of the spirit in our
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church. Do we want to say that? Do we want to say that the spirit that has given as it were birth to the church at Pentecost and the spirit that that
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baptizes us into one body and the spirit who distributes severally even as he wills is no longer doing that. I don't think we want to say what we're
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saying under the cessationist label. Now, you might think, "Oh, that means that we have to just embrace all of the gifts that we read in scripture and and
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say they are all still active." That's what the charismatic or the Pentecostal does. But again, that's that's an interpretation error. What that's doing
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is saying that where Paul mentions gifts, and Peter does as well, that if we add up those lists, that's it. That's exhaustive. Th those are the
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only gifts that exist, the ones that are mentioned in the Bible and they are permanent. Again, it fails to understand the purpose of the gifts which is for the
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edification of the body. So rather we should argue that any need that the body has will be met by a manifestation of the
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spirit. And if one or several of the gifts that we read in scripture continue to meet the need of building up the body of Christ, then we have no basis to say that that
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gift has ceased. Though it may be disturbing to us, yet the edification of the body is the purpose of the gifts and we are not in
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control of them. at least not until the Holy Spirit has graciously given them. We do not absorb to oursel, take to ourselves certain gifts. We don't act
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within the gift because we like that one and really don't want to deal with the other one. No, it's the Holy Spirit who commands the distribution of the gifts because through the people of God, his
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power and his ministry as glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ is manifested. If not for the gifts, what do we have in the church?
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the church? We have human worship, don't we? We have the ministry coming from nothing more than our own imaginations. Is that what we want? I don't understand
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why we would get out of bed on a Sunday morning for that. We get that at work through the week. We get that in life, don't we? When we come together as the body of Christ,
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the body whose head is Christ, where does the life come from? It comes from the head, through the spirit. And the spirit manifests itself
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through the charismata. It is a it is a horrible thing for a church to actually dogmatically say we are not charismatic. Well, you might as well say we are not a
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church because the manifestation of the Holy Spirit we won't allow in our presence. So what does it look like? Does it still look like what we see in Corenth or in
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Rome or in Ephesus which by the way did not look like each other. We we have no awareness from scripture
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that for example speaking in tongues occurred in Rome. We do see it once in Ephesus. We read about that when Paul was visiting there in Acts. A and of course it's being
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abused in Corenth. There's no mention of it in Philippi. So what do we do with the material that we have? Well, I'm going to submit to you the first thing we do is to realize
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and settle ourselves in that realization that it's all by the Holy Spirit and according to his will and then understand and again settle ourselves in
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that understanding that it is for the common good not for our own agrandisement not for our own spiritual pride not that we can say oh I speak in tongues
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therefore I'm more spiritual than you are or I prophesy therefore I am more valuable than you are. That attitude itself quenches and
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grieves the Holy Spirit because his own gifts and and I will not say they are demonic. I would say that in Corinth these people Paul even says you are more spiritual than all the other churches
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and yet you were using it for division and faction and destruction. The things of God in his church are being used for the destruction of the body. And that's why they needed to be
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condemned. Not the gifts themselves, but rather the attitude and the way in which the people were were jealously desiring the more outward, the more visible
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gifts. But we're we're not comfortable as conservatives, as as um Baptists, we're not really comfortable with the idea of some of these um uh more graphic gifts,
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more unusual gift. And so I want to kind of lay a a foundation of how we are to read and interpret the gifts. Again, first it's the Holy Spirit that decides
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who gets what. So there's no cause for pride on the one hand, no cause for jealousy or envy on the other. It is according to the will of God through the Holy Spirit what gift or gifts any
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believer has. As we've said before, no believer lacks a gift. That's just impossible. If the Holy
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Spirit dwells within you, then with his indwelling comes at least one manifestation of his presence, a charismata. If there is no charismata, there is no
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holy spirit and if there is no holy spirit, there is no salvation. Okay. So the logic of the charismata is that everyone who is in Christ has been
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empowered with some grace gift. Then we go on to say and try to establish firmly that there's no other
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reason for the charismata than the edification of the body of Christ to his glory and never to the glory of any individual believer. So again, if a
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gift, whether it's one that we read in the lists or whether it's one that that's not necessarily in the lift, but if the gift promotes the common good, we
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have no basis for saying that it has ceased. But by the same logic, a gift need not continue if its purpose
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and function has ceased. In fact, to go a little further, it must not continue. And so, what we are to ask ourselves is
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whether or not the gift again, whether we read it or whether we see it manifested in the body, is it necessary for the continuing edification of the
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body? Well, on that score, there are certain gifts within Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12
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that have a very unique nature that caused them to be front and center and even even foundational of the early
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church. And that nature is that they were revelatory. were revelatory. The gifts of prophecy of tongues, words of wisdom and words of knowledge were
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viewed as revelation. And they were treated as such, but also they were critiqued
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as such. We're going to get to that in a moment. But the point I want to make right here is that there were certain gifts, charismata, that brought with them direct revelation from God.
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So the question in the church is do we still need that? And obviously there are some branches of professing Christianity that say yes we
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still need the continued revelation of God directly to us by individual members prophesying, speaking in tongues,
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interpreting tongues. I should have put that in there. words of knowledge, words of wisdom. However, if we think about that,
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we realize that that introduces a huge amount of subjectivity and malleability, changeability within the
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church. It comes down to a view of scripture. It comes down to the view within any body of professing believers as to the
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Bible, as to the cannon of scripture. Do we believe it to be closed or do we believe it to continue open? Should our Bibles be bound or should
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they rather be published in three- ring binders so that we can add to it as revelation continues to come? While believing that God has spoken
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fully and finally in his son Jesus Christ, we also believe that the witness, the testimony of Jesus Christ has come to us through the apostles in the same manner
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analogously as the testimony of the prophets always points back to the law of Moses. So in the old covenant, you had the revelation of God through the
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Pentatuk, through the books of Moses that was then commented upon in testimony and witness by the histories, the Psalms and the prophets. But we know
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that from the from the Jewish perspective that ceased roughly 400 years before Christ and the people recognized that there were no prophets
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in the land. the cannon was closed. The same thing has happened. And I can't go into the detail to try to prove to you that the cannon is closed. It's
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simply to say it is closed. We are not in need anymore of direct revelation, but rather as Isaiah puts it when he says to the law and to the
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testimony, if they do not speak according to these, it is because they have no light in them. We need to say the same thing to the law and to the testimony and to the
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apostles. And if they do not speak according to these, it's because they have no light in them. And so it is reasonable, it is biblically logical for us to conclude
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that those gifts so necessary in the early church that were revelatory are not only no longer needed, they are now actually harmful because they
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purport to continue what has concluded. They purport to bring revelation when that revelation through the canon has closed. Now I know that the charismatic
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and the Pentecostal will respond by saying that I am gagging God. The gagging of God, I will not allow God to speak. It is not not allowing God to
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speak. It is rather shifting from thus saith the Lord to the Lord hath said. And this is exactly the manner in which
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God dealt with his people Israel. It should not surprise us that it is the way that God deals with his people now. that we are to walk by faith in the
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light that is given to us by the scripture, the lamp unto our feet, the light unto our path, rather than look for continued direct revelation, which
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frankly throughout the course of human history has not really happened all that often. We should not expect it to be a regular Sunday to Sunday thing that God is going to give some revelation through
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some gift but rather we should go to the law and the testimony and the apostles the witness to what God has done in his
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word and our steps our thoughts our ambitions our decisions as Paul is teaching us here is to be guided by that rather than looking for continued
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revelation. So he starts the list here in in Romans 12 with prophecy. And I want I think that's significant. And in fact, I would submit that his first two gifts,
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prophecy and service were for the early church the two paradigms as I mentioned before
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that Peter mentions in his letter that speaking gifts and serving gifts are essentially the the bifurcation of
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the charismata in the church that that every gift that is given by the Holy Spirit will have the character of either speaking or of serving. Now,
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just as a side note, that does not excuse anyone from operating within mercy, compassion, or even teaching and
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leading when the opportunity presents itself. We we have that ability. But God has gifted each one of us with a with a primary gift that is either going to be
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under the category of speaking which corresponds to prophecy or under the category of serving which corresponds to service.
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And Paul then as he goes down the list again not an exhaustive list he oscillates between the two. So he mentions teaching. Well, that's under
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the speaking gift. He mentions mercy. That's under the serving gift. Okay. So, these two categories and as I mentioned before, I don't think it's a it is a mistake or or even a coincidence that
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within the church, the apostles set up only two offices. the overseer the overseer who is apt to teach whom we know as the
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elder and the deacon, the diacinate which word means service. means service. And so the life of the church then continues to grow and build itself up in
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love by means of these two categories of gifts. So when Paul mentions prophecy here, I think it's paradigmatic. I think he's saying, "Okay, I want all of the
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gifts to operate under this one that everybody wants, prophecy." And prophecy was in the early church foundational. Paul speaks of the church as God's
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household in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, "Having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
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cornerstone." Now, when you've read that and you've read the apostles and prophets, you you may have thought as as I did early on, and that is the prophets of the Old Testament. That's not what Paul's talking about. In
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fact, he doesn't reference the prophets of the Old Testament as a as a body of men. He cites from them all the time. But when he talks about being built on the foundation of the apostles and
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prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, he's talking about the new covenant ministry of the apostles and the prophets, which he mentions again in
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Ephesians 4 as two of the four gifts of men that Christ gives to the church. The other two being the evangelist and the pastor teacher.
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pastor teacher. Once the foundation of a house is laid, once the foundation of a building is laid, unless the code inspector fails you, you don't lay it again.
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It's done. That's the nature of a foundation. And the cornerstone is that stone which govern both the plum and the level of the rest of the building. It
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was very carefully heuned and put in place so that across the top of it it established level. And you laid your block, your living stones according to
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that level. And the vertical sides of it were plum and you laid your stones according to it. And so when Paul speaks of the foundation of the house of God,
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he's saying the apostles and the prophets, they are that foundation. And even that alludes to what would happen historically by the middle of the second
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century. There were no prophets. There is an interesting illusion in the dedicay, the teaching of the 12 that indicates that there were still those who traveled around and claimed to be
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prophets and that the various churches were to receive them as such as long as they only stayed one day. If they tried to stay the second night, they were
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false prophets. And so there's a little practical application of this idea. But but we know that when the foundation of the building is laid,
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there is no longer any need for those blocks. Prophecy as well as tongues interpretation and whatnot. They were revelatory. And therefore,
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And therefore, if their function as charismata has ceased, so also their operation as gifts have ceased. have ceased. So looking again at this passage here
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verses 6-8 where Paul mentions these various gifts. I want to focus here briefly on this phrase that he uses in chapter
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in verse six. The New American Standard calls it the the proportion of his faith. Um that's a really bad translation.
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His is not in there. And the word proportion is a fair interpretation or translation of the
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Greek word analogia which of course is the root of our word analogy. And just like the phrase up in verse three, the measure of faith, the
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metronist, the phrase here in verse six, the analogia pisto doesn't really help us. The measure of faith and the analogy of faith, however, are probably parallel
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being so close in this text. But what I want to point out is that the New American Standard by putting in that possessive pronoun his is giving you an
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interpretation and adding a word in the English that is not there in the Greek. In other words, the New American Standard translators are saying this has to do with the prophet personally.
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Whereas, in fact, throughout church history, the phrase the analogy of faith is much more general and not personal.
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Okay? So, what we're talking about here with the analogy of faith is a phrase that has engendered some controversy. It's not one that we can find anywhere
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else in the scripture. And so it's it's uh it's unique here in Romans 12. And yet it has had an outsized import importance in the church especially
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during the reformation. Because by limiting the prophet here to the analogy of faith,
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Paul is saying several very important things. One of the things that he is saying is that no gift even not even prophecy
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himself is given free reign in the church. Now what I mean by that is there is no gift to which all other gifts and all believers must bow. This this has been a
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a a horrible uh phenomenon within the Christian church and and that is that we give someone ordination. We give them a
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degree uh we give them we call them they're they're a master of divinity whatever that means and and we do that and then everyone else bows.
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else bows. We we call someone a priest or a vicer, a bishop or a pope and everyone else yields. That's not what we read in the New
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Testament. In fact, what we read in the New Testament is that every single gift is limited first of all by the fact that it's given by the Holy Spirit. But even
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more importantly in its operation, it is limited by this analogy of faith. And that limitation is given to the
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church as a body to determine and to critique. So even a prophet was not beyond the critique of the body itself. In fact,
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the body was charged with the responsibility of proving the spirits. The the body was charged with the responsibility of determining whether or not the prophecy was true. How else
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would the body, whether it be Israel under the old covenant or the church under the new covenant, how would we recognize false prophets if we are simply knee-jerk to bow to anyone who
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claims to be a prophet? That's what goes on in many charismatic movements and Pentecostal churches today. And it is a travesty of the biblical body, an incredibly dangerous thing. It is it is
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not only prone it is inevitably going to lead to oppression and spiritual overlordship and that is not what we read in scripture. 1 Corinthians 14 for
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example Paul is talking about prophecy which he has already said earnestly desire to prophesy. He says seek the greater gifts but especially to prophesy
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because for him prophecy was the revelation of the will of God to his people. And so, yes, it was a it was a vital foundational gift in the church. But how was it to be done? Well, first
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of all, Paul said, "Let only two or three." Now, I don't know if any of you have been in a charismatic church, but it's like two or three dozen, but
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only two or three. And and then he says basically in the vernacular, if one is prophesying and another has a message, let the first one shut up. Sit down and be quiet. But when that has
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been done, then what? Well, here's what he says. He says, "Let two or three prophets speak and let the others pass judgment, for the spirit of the prophet is subject
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to the prophet." Now again, I think what he's saying here is is a paradigm that the Holy Spirit distributes the gift to each and every believer as he wills. But once given
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that gift, the responsibility for its operation now rests with the believer. In other words, the prophet was not simply overcome by some power that he
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couldn't resist and starts blabbing. No, the con the spirit of prophecy was under the control of the prophet. And so he had the ability, she had the
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ability to either prophesy or not. This is again analogous to tongues that who was gifted with tongues would also be given the knowledge whether or not there
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was interpretation. was interpretation. And if there was no interpretation, what were they to do? Remain silent. The spirit of the gift
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remains with the believer and the operation of that gift can be given or withheld at the discretion of the believer. So what we see here is though the gifts are from the Holy Spirit yet they are given
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into the hands of the believers who then must operate in those gifts according to the will of God or as we're reading in 12:6 according to the analogy of faith.
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Now that phrase simply means that we are not at liberty even as prophets which again I don't believe we have that gift in the church today but
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even the prophets were not at liberty to simply say whatever was on their mind. They were to evaluate their own thoughts
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and then once they had spoken what they spoke now comes under the evaluation of other believers. Now I think in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul is speaking about
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prophecy being evaluated by the other prophets. But the point being is that no gift, no gift supersedes all other gifts, but
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rather every gift is to be exercised according to the will of God and for the edification of the body. And so the responsibility of the charismata, it is
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not as as often is taught that the Holy Spirit just simply overpowers you, but rather you are still in control. And therefore, you can quench the
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spirit. You can grieve the spirit by refusing to exercise the gift that he has given. Or you can quench or grieve the spirit by exercising it in a non-edifying or false manner.
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And even when there are those in the church, which I believe there still are pastor teachers who are responsible and gifted to bring the word of God,
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it is still the responsibility of every believer to critique it in their own minds and by their own study. And they as well as we are guided by this analogy
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of faith. And so the phrase has a an outsized importance. outsized importance. And I want to mention two options for
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understanding that phrase. It's an analogy meaning it's a comparison between two similar things. It it's like a ratio or a proportion,
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but that still doesn't really help us what the know what the phrase means. So it can either be what the New American Standard interprets and say the measure of faith that any individual believer
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has or as has been most often determined within the church and its history, it is the faith according to the faith once
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delivered unto the saints. In other words, what Paul is saying in verse six is whatever gift you've been given, its operation can only be edifying to the
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body if it is exercised according to this this harmonious standard of faith that God has revealed to his people in
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scripture. Now, there's some danger in that. And throughout the middle ages, what happened is that the Roman Catholic Church as an institution and particularly the college
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of cardinals and the bishop as a magisterium would determine what the analogy of faith is for the church. And anyone who
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deviated from that institutional standard was deemed a heretic and treated accordingly. treated accordingly. I don't think that's what Paul's saying. I'm also not thinking that the church
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has nothing to do with it collectively. Most certainly the church has a lot to do with determining the analogy of faith collectively as we all are in the word
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as we are as Bereans studying the scriptures to see that these things are so. So we don't accept an analogy of faith that is superimposed upon us by
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the papal curia in Rome. Nor do we ac accept an analogy of faith that is superimposed upon us by creeds or confessions.
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It it is the same or systematic theologies or even systematic theological systems. theological systems. See this is what we do. We all do this by nature. We think, we process, we
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decide according to a paradigm to a framework of thinking that we have learned maybe even subconsciously or sometimes we have consciously
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studied. I just finished an excellent biography of Joseph Stalin who consciously studied Marxism and accepted
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it as an epistemological paradigm and framework for the way the whole world works. We do that. We do that even when we
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don't consciously do it. When we're raised in a church, we we grow up with that way of thinking. And it is different from other Christians that we later meet and find
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out, well, you don't think the way I think about the same passages that we're reading. And that's where the disagreements and the denominations come from. It's not that we disagree
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necessarily that this is the inspired word of God, but rather we disagree on our interpretation of it because we come to it with a different analogy of faith.
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So the Armenian has one way of thinking about God's sovereignty and about grace and the Calvinist has another way of thinking about God's sovereignty and
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God's grace and they use the same passages and we look at that and we say why this is so confusing and then unbelievers of course point to us and say you can't be a true religion you
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can't even agree among yourselves. The covenantalist looks at salvation one way. The dispensationalist looks at it a completely different way. And so what Paul says here about the analogy of
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faith is is really quite crucial to our own and our corporate understanding of scripture. And I think that this is the the the
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proper interpretation of the phrase that it's not according to the measure of my faith, so should I prophesy, but rather that whatever I prophecy should be in accordance with the faith once delivered
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unto the saints. That there is an external objective standard by which we measure the exercise of our own gifts that we do it. And this also applies to
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benevolence, to mercy, to compassion, as well as teaching and leading, and yes, even administration. even administration. It's not that we happen to be good at
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it, but rather that we have aligned ourselves with a body, a harmonious body of teaching that starts in Genesis and ends with Revelation. It is the full council of God that Paul said to the
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Ephesian elders, I have not held back any of it from you. And so the use of any believer's charisma should directly correspond to
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the overarching theme and content of God's word. God's word. Also, the scope of any believer's charisma will and should grow
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as that believer becomes more and more acquainted to the will of God. revealed in his word. In other words, no believer is supercharged with a
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gracious superpower and all of a sudden withstands all opposition. No, our gifts grow.
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It grow they grow according to our knowledge of God through his word. If we do not continue to grow in God's word, then our gifts, I would submit, will
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atrophy. They will stagnate or worse, they will become our idols. They will become our identity. And that is what has happened in many branches of the church is that people are now called
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by the title apostle or prophet. And and these people have not grown beyond one or two passages by which they have justified to themselves their own
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ministry, but they've not grown in their knowledge of the full council of God. They've not dug into the Old Testament and to the history and to the law and seen the the way all scripture
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moves towards the ultimate fulfillment of God's promise through the seed of woman, the seed of Abraham, the son of David, our Lord Jesus Christ, and then
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continues to move on through the promise of ultimate culmination and the new heaven and the new earth. See, that big picture is the analogy of faith.
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And yet every generation of the church, and this is where we really, really struggle throughout church history, every generation of the church need not
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reinvent the wheel. We do not need to have an Athanasius in every generation proving to us that God is three in one. Nonetheless, we cannot live in our
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generation according to the analogy of faith of another generation. You you cannot say, "Okay, I guide my thinking according to the 17th century Puritans."
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Or, "No, I I'm an Augustinian. He he got it right. I mean, City of God, come on. How can anything that big be wrong?" You see, that's what we do, though. We
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say, "Okay, Westminster confession, that's it. They did. They got it right. Look at that. Took 17,600 years after Christ, but someone finally got it right. And we can just camp on this." And that's our analogy of faith. In
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fact, we'll give you a larger catechism that you can actually memorize the number of the question as well as its answer and you're all set. That's what I was taught in seminary threw up in my
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mouth. Every generation must go back to scripture and be taught and taught and taught the analogy of faith so that every generation and it's within the
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living generation that the charismata function. They must function properly in our generation. They don't function in the future. They don't function in the past.
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They function in the now. And if they're to function for the edification of the believer, then every believer must know the analogy of faith. And I will submit to you that as the responsibility of the
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pastor teacher also known as the elder, the responsibility is to qui to equip the body for the work of ministry. Then our primary function is to search the
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scripture and to teach the analogy of faith. That is why we spend a great deal of time not only in the New Testament but also in the old. We spend time in
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the law. We spend time in the prophets. We spend time in the epistles because that is the whole council of God. And listen to what Paul says to the Ephesian elders. He says this. This is
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just powerful to me. Therefore, I testify you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.
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Why is that, Paul? Because you haven't killed anybody, although you were kind of responsible, you know, before you became a believer. But we'll forgive that. But what do you mean by I am I am not responsible. I am innocent of the blood of all men. Well,
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he gives us the answer. He says, "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God."
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That is why he was innocent of the blood of any man. Not because he never robbed anyone, not because he never punched anyone, not certainly because he ever killed anyone, but because he did not withhold from them the full counsel of
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God. And as an elder, for me to say that in my dying breath means the only way that I can be innocent of the blood of
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any man is I do not withhold any bit of the full council of God. The analogy of faith. And if we do camp on one or
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another theme of scripture to the exclusion of the others, oh, we don't need the Old Testament. That's for the Jews. Then at that day when that preacher when that teacher when that
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pastor stands before Christ he will say uh you are guilty of the blood of this man that man because you did not you withheld you withheld the full counsel
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of God. You limited the analogy of faith so that the innocent believer who listened to you then operated within the charismata that was given to him or her
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falsely. And they will of course be judged because they didn't search the scripture themselves. But the greater judgment will come upon the one who withheld.
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And he will be as one who built with wood, hay, and stubble. and in the judgment all of his works will be burnt up. But the one and those who will camp
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upon the analogy of faith, letting the scripture interpret the scripture and the whole of scripture be the the backdrop against which any individual passage must be understood.
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will find that the work of the ministry, no matter how outwardly grand or not it may have seemed, will prove to be gold, silver, and precious stones.
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All of which will be purified and beautified by the fire of judgment. This is what it means to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
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so that all believers might exercise their grace gift for the building up of the body according to the analogy of faith. Let us pray.
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Father, we do pray that you would continue to teach us and not allow us to to rest upon the teachings that you have given previous generations. Though we benefit from them, yet we are
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responsible to our own age. We have been raised up for just such a time as this. And we are to live within the gifts in our own day and in our own congregation.
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And therefore, we must all know the analogy of faith. We must know your teaching from beginning to end. We ask that by your Holy Spirit you
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would open your word to us and illuminate it to our understanding and also that we would continue to grow in it. Never thinking that we have arrived but rather pressing on because
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we know that the depths of your wisdom and your knowledge are past finding out. They are indeed unfathomable. All glory be to you in the church. we
