10. The Word of Knowledge The gifts of the Holy Spirit are extremely important. That's why I've been preaching on the subject for so long, and today we get to the first gift. The task we're called to do, which is to build up the body of Christ, is such an enormous task demanding such supernatural power, that God in His wisdom has provided us with the Holy Spirit in order that what we accomplish will be accomplished in His strength. The Old Testament says in the book of Jeremiah, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord" Now we have to remember, as we begin to look at specific gifts, the basic Biblical principles underlying all teaching on the gifts that the scripture gives. That is, that they are given to unify and build up the body of Christ. Secondly, they are given in great variety. And thirdly, they are given - not chosen. That is, the Holy Spirit is sovereign. They are given to unify, not divide. They are given in great variety, not unanimity. And they are given, not chosen. Now we start. I Corinthians 12:4 (we've gone over this passage before but emphasizing a little bit different aspect), "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God Who inspires them all in every one." Now, when we went through this the first time, several weeks back, we emphasized the unity and how the whole trinity is involved in the giving of spiritual gifts and their administration. "Variety of Gifts, but the same Spirit, variety of service, but the same Lord, variety of workings, but the same God" (the Father). And so the trinity is involved. But I want to emphasize the first part of those phrases. Notice the three expressions of the subject of spiritual gifts we have here. The first one is there are varieties of gifts. Now the word translated "gifts" is the word that you're familiar with - it's the root word for "charismatic". It's the word "charismaton" here, and that simply, in translation, means "gifts". So when the scripture says there are varieties of gifts, the definition of that phrase is there are a variety of gifts - that is the specific capacity or function. A variety of them. The Holy Spirit is busy doing something through the believer and using the believer to accomplish it. That's what that means. A variety of charismata. A variety of gifts. Now the second aspect: there are "varieties of service". Now here I would prefer the translation that would call it a variety of ministries. The word is "theokia". It means "service". It's a ministry. The variety of ministries is the area, or the sphere, in which the gift operate. Let me reiterate. There are a variety of gifts. There are a variety of ministries. That's the area where these gifts have been given are put into operation. An illustration: John 21, Jesus appears on the beach, after the resurrection, to His disciples. John records how Peter had denied Christ three times, in spite of his great protests that he would never deny the Lord. He then encounters Jesus on the beach, and after the breakfast meal, Jesus comes to him and says, "Simon Peter, do you love me?" Now, the word that Christ used in the first question was "do you agape", "do you have that kind of self-giving Godly love." And Peter's response, since he was no longer going to be saying more than he was able to back up, was, "Lord, you know I love You", but the actual Greek word is "phileo". Jesus says, "Do you love me with self-giving love?" And Peter says, "You know I love You with a self-interested love." And three times, Jesus asked him the same question and each time, its almost as though He is giving Peter the opportunity to erase one of those denials. But also with each one of those questions and answers, Peter is given the opportunity to hear his ministry. And so Jesus says, "feed my lambs", "feed my sheep", "feed my sheep". Peter's ministry then, is the prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says here in I Corinthians 12, "there are varieties of service" (or ministries) " but the same Lord", speaking of Jesus Christ. Now, that means to me that Peter was called to be a pastor. He was gifted with the gift necessary: the pastor/teacher gift. Feeding the flock of God. And if you read the book of Acts, you will discover that the first half of the book of Acts is a description of Peter exercising his spiritual gifts in the sphere (or in the arena) of ministry to the Jews. The last half is Paul exercising his spiritual gifts in the sphere (or arena or ministry) to the Gentiles. These are the assignments given for the use of the gifts. And they are under the sovereignty of God the Son. Now, you may not be called to work with Jews or with Gentiles, as a group of people. You may be called and gifted to work with elderly or with young or with Christians or with non-Christians. You may even have the same gifts as someone else, but your area of ministry may be very different. Peter and Paul had many of the very same gifts, but their exercise - the area of ministry for those gifts - were different: one to Jews, one to Gentiles. And so he moves on. "There are varieties of gifts, varieties of ministries," (or service), "and there are varieties of working. But the same God Who inspires them all in every one." Now the word "working" translated is "energematan", which is the same root word we get our word "energy" from. That is, the working (or the energy) that corresponds to the exercise of our gift in the area of ministry is really up to God. Let me try to define it clearer than that. It is the effect of the exercise of our gift he's talking about here. It describes the degree of power by which a gift is manifested or ministered on a specific occasion. Every exercise of a spiritual gift does not have the same result. The same sermon, given in different circumstances, has different results. Every so often when I'm really pressed for time or I get an opportunity to preach someplace else where I haven't preached before, you know, I'll be tempted to reach in the barrel and pull out an old sermon that really blessed me when I preached it and prepared it and seemed to bless the congregation that I love and serve, and I'll think, "Well, I'll give them this one." you know. And frankly its like serving yesterday's mashed potatoes most of the time. I preach it with the same enthusiasm. I use the same notes. But, you know, its a variety of energizing. In other words, God the Father does not take the exercise of my gifts in that particular sphere of ministry and use it the same way. Time magazine came out not too long ago with the "Ten Greatest Preachers in the United States". Now, I happen to have heard several of those, but one of them I have heard six times, and I have heard him preach the very same sermon all six times. So complete is his rehearsal of that sermon, that he times his gestures to correspond and, to draw exactly the response he desires from the congregation. He is a master preacher. But I've heard him preach that same sermon in all kinds of settings. The last time I heard him preach it, was at the covenant annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado. There must have been close to a thousand people there - probably the majority of them, lay people. And they just went crazy over the man's sermon. This was the sixth time that I'd heard it, so I was kind of *yawning* reacting that way a little bit to it. The man's name is Hill, he's the pastor of a big church down in Watts - he's a masterful preacher - I just love to hear him preach, oh boy! And when I heard him that very same sermon - the same man exercising the same gifts in the same arenas - have discovered that there are a variety of effects. It isn't always the same. Now, what's the difference? The difference is: it's God's choice. There are varieties of energies (or of working). It is the same God that inspires them all. The Bible records, for instance, that Jesus thought of John the Baptist rather highly. In Matthew 11, Jesus said, "Among men born of women, there is nobody greater than John the Baptist." And yet nowhere in scripture can you find that John the Baptist performed one single solitary puny little old miracle. Not one. Why? That was not his gift. That was not his ministry. And that was not the energy which God used to move him. Let me illustrate these three aspects in another way, because I really think its important you understand them. Let's take one of the gifts. You may have the gift of evangelism. I think you have a pretty good idea what that means, even though I haven't preached a sermon and defined it for you. I think you know what I mean. Say that you have three people with the gift of evangelism. One of them's name is Billy Graham. One of them is a pastor friend of mine by the name of John Wimber. And another one are some of you in this congregation. Not many of you, but I know of two or three people, for sure, that have the gift of evangelism. Now, that's the same gift, but the scripture says there is a variety of service. In other words, areas or places where these gifts are exercised. Billy Graham exercises it in a stadium with 80,000 or 100,000 people. John Wimber exercises it in a congregation of 300 or 400 at a time. And some of you exercise your gift in a one-on-one confrontation. There are varieties of ministries. You understand? The same gift, but a variety of ministries. And, also, a variety of workings - or of the energamatan - the energizing of the Father. That is, not all the same result. Billy Graham may have 3,000 converts in one week. John Wimber may have 30 converts in one week. And you may have one convert in a month. Does that mean that your gift is different than theirs? No, it's the same gift. It's just that God in His wisdom - Who by His Spirit has gifted you - has, by Jesus Christ, assigned you your area of ministry, and by the power of the Father has energized the ministry in the way that meets His planned program. Not yours. Now, with all this variety - with the variety of gifts, the variety of ministries, the variety of workings - we have to remind ourselves that there is one Holy Spirit. There's not a Baptist Holy Spirit, and an Episcopalian Holy Spirit, and a Lutheran Holy Spirit, and a Covenant Holy Spirit (although you may find some variation in doctrine). There is not an Oral Roberts Holy Spirit, and a Dennis Bennett Holy Spirit, and Demos Shakarian Holy Spirit, and a Bug Palmberg Holy Spirit, or a John Wesley, or a Ray Stedman, or a Chuck Smith, or a Charles Swindol (and did you notice I slipped my name in that list of heavyweights?) I did that for the purpose that you might understand that the gifts are different. The ministries are different. The results are different. But it is one body. And that's the whole point of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I couldn't handle the assignments that these brothers that I mentioned, have. Some of them have international areas of ministry. It would scare me to death. Or it would temp me to such a pride and ego trip, nobody could come around me. But God, in His mercy, has assigned us not only the gifts, but the ministry - and has energized. Alright, that's what Paul is saying when he says "there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit, a variety of ministries but the same Lord, there are a variety of effects but the same God Who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." Now some of you, who have been doing some study on your own are expecting that I am going to now present, as we look at the specific gifts of the Holy Spirit, a classification of the gifts. Many popular and effective teachers and writers do so, and there's beneficial insight to be gained from them. Bill Gothard, of course, is probably one that most of you know. And Bill Gothard speaks of the spiritual gifts in this way: there are, o Motivational gifts o Ministry gifts o Manifestational gifts Dave Hocking speaks of: o Speaking gifts o Serving gifts o Supernatural gifts Ken Kinghorn says: o Enabling gifts o Serving gifts o Tongues and interpretation Larry Flynn says: o Speaking o Serving o Signifying MacGorman says: o Intelligible utterance o Power o Spiritual discernment o Ecstatic utterances" (he has four categories!) Now I remind you of that to say this: the approach that I'm going to use is open-ended. I don't reject these classifications, or these approaches. Nor do I find that them more or less Biblical than the one I'm going to use. It's just that I find that the open-ended approach is a lot simpler and, therefore, more generally helpful. You start breaking things up in categories and you know the Devil uses it to allow us to use that tendency that we have to fill a whole bunch of little tiny pigeon holes, label everyone and stick somebody or something in every one of them. And I want to resist that idea. I don't want you to say, "Well, what's your gift?" and then your response is, "well in category 3 I have 2B". I don't want that stuff. Okay. But check these out in your study. Study these categories, especially Gothard's, because I think there's some real insights to be gained by this, although I don't agree with some of his conclusions. Alright. One other thing: I do not accept the opinion of other people that there are a specific number of gifts, and only those. Because then you run into problems. Such as: some say there are only nine gifts. Bill Gothard says, for instance, there are the motivational gifts and everything else is an expression of that. Well, that's interesting, but I'm not sure that's the conclusion that I draw from scripture. I have one book that says in its title, "The 19 Gifts of the Spirit". What happens if the poor brother finds another one? He has to come out with another book! I have one book that says that there are at least 23 gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I happen to believe that it is altogether possible, with certain hyphenation of gifts and combinations of gifts, that the mathematical possibilities are extravagant, there you can wait for my book, "The 376 Gifts of the Spirit". I'm being facetious, but I want you to realize the Bible doesn't make it nice and tight and neat. You see, God by His infinite wisdom, has always resisted running His railroad on the tracks we put down. And Jesus said to Nicodemus, "The Holy Spirit's like the wind." Don't try to put it in a bottle. And that's what we try to do, you know, with our neat little old categories. It satisfies the orderly mind, but it does not describe God's wonderful Holy Spirit. Okay. The Bible lists vary in length, they vary in detail, they vary in order. And I interpret this to be adequate, and hermenutically correct, to say that the lists, therefore, are not exhaustive - they are indicative. Its almost as though God is saying as He empowered, by the Holy Spirit, holy men of old to write the scriptures, He is almost saying, "Now I'm not telling you all the gifts, but I'm saying the gifts of the Spirit are sort of like this" and then He give a bunch of them. Otherwise, the Romans have one set of gifts, and the Corinthians have an entirely different set of gifts, and the poor guys who received the letter from I Peter got a little tiny share, because it's a short little list. I believe, instead, that they are really indicative rather than exhaustive. Now there is, as I mentioned just a moment ago, a gift mix or a hyphenation of gifts, and an explosion of mathematical possibilities. I just illustrate with referencing you to Ephesians 4, which speaks of the Pastor-Teacher. It also speaks in other scriptures concerning separate gifts here, but there's a hyphenated gift as an illustration. "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, the another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues, all these are inspired by one in the same Spirit, Who apportions to each one individually as He wills." Now the first one that I think I have to make here is that Paul is making a very basic point. No matter if your gift is sort of ordinary or spectacular, they are all for the common good. Wisdom and Knowledge and Faith is not very glamorous or as spectacular as the sort of "wow" kind of gifts, but they are desperately needed if the body of Christ is to be healthy. We need a lot more knowledge and wisdom and faith than we need some of the other gifts. At least it would seem that way to me - that's up to the Holy Spirit. Now the first gift that is listed there is the Word of Wisdom. I want to hop over that and go to the second one, which is the word of Knowledge, because Knowledge has to do with the discovery of truth, and Wisdom has to do with the proper application of that knowledge. So I think that, sequentially, from our understanding of knowledge and wisdom, it's best if we start with knowledge. With your permission. Well, without your permission - with God's permission. Now, while the Word of Knowledge (and I'm using it specifically as it's translated: "the word of knowledge") is the second gift named, we need to deal with it first. Knowledge is information; wisdom is the right use of that information to achieve the proper ends. And in my study of the gift of the word of Knowledge, I have discovered there are kind of two aspects to it. I want to refer to these two aspects as first of all, interpretive, and secondly, revelational. Now don't get turned off by these words. I know they kind of stick in my mouth sometimes. But I want you to understand. I am not describing separate gifts - I am talking about two sides of one coin. But in my study of the word of Knowledge, there seems to be two different aspects in which this is exercised. On the one hand (interpretive), the word of knowledge seems to be applied, scripturally, to the ability to perceive and to systematize great facts concerning the word of God. The ability to recognize key and important facts of scripture as a result of deep study and investigation. And this gift of the Holy Spirit is an "interpretive" gift. The Word of Knowledge. I can illustrate it this way: How many times have you heard somebody, or been led in the Bible study, or heard a radio preacher in some way, and you say, "Well, I have read that passage of scripture at least forty times! I have never seen that! Where did he get that knowledge, that insight, that understanding?" That comes from the Holy Spirit. It does not come because he didn't do anything. It came because He applied all of his energies to seek, to search out the truth. And then God, by His Holy Spirit, gave him the word of knowledge - that opening. When I was in Alabama, I was in the hospital and I lay there in Mobile, Alabama, thinking I was going to die. And when you think that, you think of all kinds of auxiliary thoughts as well. And I remember laying there on the bed and telling the Lord at lot of things: I was too young to die, and things of this nature. And it was just anxiety. And I remember having my wife, who was my bride of about a year or so, bring me a briefcase full of books. And I laid there and when you're in a hospital room, there's not a lot of people coming around you, and they'll keep the door shut and nobody really knows you that well in the area (in fact, nobody in Mobile knew I even existed, except my doctor, and I was questionable about that sometimes - it took so long). And I remember laying there in the hospital just reading and reading and reading, and then my roommate spoke up and he said, "whatcha reading?" And I told him what I was reading. I was reading a whole bunch of books of theology and Bible studies and all kinds of things. And he said, "What do you do for a living?" And I said, "I'm a minister." He said, "You're a preacher?" And I said, "Yes, I'm a preacher." And he said, "You preach God's word?" I said, "That's exactly what I want to preach, is God's word". He said, "Then y'all are sinning!" I said, "What do you mean I'm sinning?" And he says, "Y'all are messing up your mind with that learnin' - that book stuff. If you want to preach the word of God, you take nothing but the word of God!" He said, "I bet you even went to college." I said, "Yes, I had a couple of years of graduate school. In fact, I'm not done yet." He said, "Boy, you're just gonna mess up your head. God can never use ya." I found out he was a minister. He debated one night - discussed with me one night - what the scripture meant about a particular verse. And I had never heard the verse. He said, "He that gathereth not with Me, scratcheth a board." The guy couldn't even read. It says, "scattereth abroad". And he wondered why God would have people scratching boards. Now, what I'm saying is, the word of knowledge is not somehow a Godly shortcut to wisdom so you don't have to study. That is not what it is. It is the word of knowledge that comes to a person when they have applied themselves to the word of God, when they have searched deeply into His word, and then in some charismatic way, God by His Holy Spirit, opens their eyes, and they see that which cannot be gained through the natural convolutions of the mind, the intellectual processes. Here's an illustration from I Corinthians 2, Paul says, "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak - not in words taught by human wisdom but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, because they're foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." Now, with this interpretive aspect of the gift to the word of Knowledge, I believe there's a close connection with the gift of teaching (maybe one of those hyphenated gifts). I've got to move on. Oh, my goodness, but I have to finish this. You go to the second aspect of the word of Knowledge, and that is revelational aspect of that gift. Let me define it this way: the gift of the word of knowledge is the ability to understand truth that is unknown by natural means. Scripture writers experience and exercise this gift. II Peter 1 says, "But know this first of all: that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. But men, moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." But if scripture writing were the only time that the word of Knowledge were used, then that gift would have ceased, because the canon is closed. But the Holy Spirit is still giving His gifts. And the word of Knowledge is given to those and it has little, or nothing, to do with a person's IQ. It is supernatural in its origin - it's not how smart you are. It is given when the Holy Spirit reveals facts and information and data that cannot be known apart from the Holy Spirit. Now hear me carefully, one of the great problems of the whole (what is popularly called) "charismatic" movement has been that they emphasize so strongly the gift of the word of Knowledge in its revelatory aspect that they are in serious danger of the same kind of heresies that the Mormon church does in adding to the scriptures. Therefore, any time a word of Knowledge is given, it is in absolute clear alignment with the revealed and written word of God. Never at variance to God's revealed word! Ever! If it is, it's from the Devil. Now, let me give you a couple Biblical illustrations. You remember in the Old Testament: David's on his rooftop, he's a king, and he looks down on a neighbor's roof (of course, the king had a higher house - he's in a penthouse) and he sees a neighbor lady by the name of Bathsheba showering outside on the roof, and because a king can have anything he wanted in those days, he wanted her and he sent for her and she came and she got pregnant. Now he thinks, "I've got to do something about this" and so he sends to the front to get her husband, Uriah, who comes back from the front, gives a report of the battle to David and then David gives him a weekend pass, thinking that he'll go home, that he and Bathsheba will have sexual relations and that will explain (for the public consumption) how she got pregnant. Maybe even explain to Uriah. The only thing is, Uriah was too honest a man to do that. He said, "How can I go home and enjoy my family and my home when I have brothers that are dying on the battlefield?" And he refused to go along with the program. And David had to come up with a plan B. Plan B was to call in Joab the general, and said, "You put Uriah at the hot spot - you put him at the point of the battle - so that when the mortality count comes out, he's at the head of the list. And that's what Joab did. And so Uriah is killed in battle. Word comes back to David and David, in the eyes of the public, did a very magnanimous thing: he married the poor destitute widow of that war hero. And everyone said, "What a great guy!" And he had rationalized the whole sordid affair so carefully in his mind that he was able to walk around with his head up. He'd gotten away with it. Not only with his society, but he'd gotten away with it with himself it would seem. And then one day, a guys comes into his court - a prophet by the name of Nathan - and Nathan says, "I've got a word to tell you." He said, "A real rich man has a whole flock of sheep. And he lives right next door to a guy who just only has one little sheep. Just one. Oh, he loves that sheep - its part of the family. And some unexpected visitors dropped in on the rich guy one day, and you know what he did, King? He stole the one sheep that the poor neighbor had, killed that and fed it to the..." And David came out of the throne and said, "You give me that guy's name - he's had it!" And Nathan said, "It's you, buddy! You are the man!" And this carefully constructed facade of perfection, and paragon of virtue, and all the rest, that David had so carefully constructed just cracked and crumbled and you read Psalm 51, which is David's prayer of confession, and then you read Psalm 32, which is how he felt when he finally did confess. Psalm 51 he says, "Oh let the bones which you've broken rejoice. Restore to me the joy of my salvation." He didn't even pretend he was suffering at all. Now, how did Nathan know about this whole thing? Palace grapevine? Maybe. But II Samuel 12:1 suggests that God told him, and he was exercising the word of knowledge. Here's a funny one. Did you know the king of Syria planned an attack on Israel one time. This is told in II Kings. He'd plan an attack on Israel, and he had said, "We're going to ambush the Israelites at this particular spot." The word of knowledge came to Elisha and Elisha goes trotting off to the king of Israel and said, "Now, King, the Assyrians are going to attack you at a certain spot, so you'd better be ready." So, when the Syrian army comes roaring up there to set up their ambush, guess who got ambushed? And they came back and it says they tried many more times. Every place they went, no matter where they went to set it up, there was the Israeli army waiting for them. And finally the king of Syria said, "We've got a problem here". He calls his chiefs of staff together and he said, "There's a leak in this organization someplace! I want to know which one of you guys is giving the word out." Nobody answered with anything. And finally a servant spoke up and he said this: "No, my lord, oh king, but Elisha - the prophet who is in Israel - tells the king of Israel the words you speak in your bedroom." How about that? Every time the Syrian king spoke in a top-secret strategy planning meeting, Elisha was tuned in on the conversation by the Spirit of God. He had the gift of knowledge. In the new testament in Matthew 16, when Jesus said, "Who do men say that I am?", Peter responded, "Thou are the Christ!" And what did Jesus say? "Blessed are you because flesh and blood has not revealed this, but my Father revealed it." The word of knowledge. Remember how Jesus and Nathanial meet each other? Jesus says of Nathaniel, "Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile." And Nathanial says, "How in the world do you know me?" Or in John 4, Jesus meets the woman at the well in Sychar, the Samaritan woman. And He says, "Go get your husband." And she says, "I don't have a husband." He says, "You're right, you've have five. The one you're living with isn't your husband." She's, "how did He know that?" Annanias and Sapphira were part of the early church in Acts 5. The practice then was (you didn't have to do this, but if you started to do it, you had to go the whole way) that is, you gave everything to the church. They held all things in common. And Annanias and Sapphira sold a piece of property, kept back some of what they had sold it for, and then with his wife's full knowledge, is says in Acts 5, "he brought a portion of it and laid it at the apostle's feet." Which was exactly what you were supposed to do, if you were giving the whole amount. And it says, "But Peter said, 'Annanias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the price of the land?'" Now how did Peter know that, without reading the Wall Street Journal for the latest report? He knew it because he had the gift of knowledge. And when this gift is exercised, it's supernatural. There are some occasions - they are rare, dear God I wish that You would give me, by Your Spirit, this gift of knowledge - because there are times when what I am told by people who come to me for help is not the whole story. I recall one time, about seven or eight years ago, a person told me a story that was complete. It was complete in such minutia that there was not reason to doubt its veracity from beginning to end. And just as I was ready to make some kind of response, it was like a little light went on in my head, and the Lord said, "Wait a minute". And a question formed in my mind - I had no idea where that question came from. It was so far from left field, as far as it applied to this person in front of me, that I was embarrassed to even think it, let alone ask it. And so I decided not to ask it. I just simply stated it as a statement. And this person just came unglued. Just unglued. "How did you...? Nobody..." And there's no way I can explain it. Now that, as I understand it, is the word of knowledge. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are supernatural. So's this one. They are not eerie or weird. And the person who is gifted with the word of Knowledge is not operating on his feelings - his eyes don't bulge, and he doesn't stare, and his voice doesn't get spooky. He simply knows a truth that is not knowable by normal means. Now, here's a warning. If God has given you this gift, or you think He may have, I want you to know that there are some built-in problems with this gift. One is: you will wrestle with a superior attitude. Knowledge brings power, and when you have that sense of power, you will begin to think that you really have "got it." Secondly, you will be tempted to attribute every stupid thought that enters into your mind as being a word of Knowledge. And you will make some dumb statements. And you will lay some heavy trips on people that are not from God at all. Do you hear what I'm saying? If I believe I have the word of Knowledge and something crosses my mind with one of you, and I say, "I have a word from the Lord." And I tell you the word. It may not be from the Lord at all. You've got to be careful. Well, I've got to quit. Apart from the Holy Spirit, there is no way to explain the source of the knowledge that a word of Knowledge implies. But the person with that gift, simply knows. And he knows that he knows. Not in some sort of superior sense, but there is a deep absolute unshakable assurance that this is a word of Knowledge that comes from God. And, by the way, I believe that the use of the term "word of Knowledge", rather that simply "gift of Knowledge" emphasizes the practicality of this gift. Its not knowledge for you to just hang around in your head. It is the word of Knowledge that is to be put into action. It is to be put into use. But remember that the knowledge is to be used to build the body of Christ and to bring glory to the Head of the body, who is Christ the Lord. Go into a world that likes to be attracted to centers of power and wisdom and knowledge and draw attention to men. And recognize that His giftings, by His Holy Spirit, are not for the attention of men, but for the glorification of Jesus Christ. So go forth characterized by that which you've just sung: known you are Christan by the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, will be with you in your ministry and with me in mine until, by His good grace, we're together again.