 But I think it goes beyond that, this whole thing of all souls day. If it is going to be something like prayer for the dead, then I think we are getting into error. It's totally unnecessary, but if it's something to just remember and give thanks to God for the ones, you know, the loved ones who have gone on to be with him, then it's absolutely fine. So that's my understanding and how I would react to it. Yes, Shehni? So I had a question about what you were saying about the against of the spirit because you talked and saying that you have to use your faith. So I know I was told that like faith can't work in an unforgiving heart, insecure heart, guilt combination, embarrassment, shame. So my thing is that if somebody has that, and you say you have to use your faith to give to the spirit, that means that they won't be able to obtain no gifts. And if somebody does have the gifts and they have unforgiveness or shame or insecurity, all those things, do they lose their gift of the spirit? I hope that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So the understanding is this, you know, when we look at the gifts of the spirit, it's not that, you know, when we look at all these nine gifts, it's that the Spirit of God manifests or expresses himself through these gifts. So depending on the situation, like depending on whatever is there, now, whatever the need is, or, you know, depending on our function in the body of Christ. Right, so that's the thing, right? Now, what if a person is walking in bitterness, is not walking in love? We know that faith works through love, right, which means that the effective working of faith is when we are walking in love, which is again the character of the nature of God, right? But if there is unforgiveness, if there is bitterness, hardness of heart, does that remove the gifts? No, right? Because it is actually an expression of the Holy Spirit, which means that, well, there's no question of these gifts being removed. And again, in the book of Romans, we see that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable or without, you know, which means that he doesn't take them back, right? And also our understanding is that the Holy Spirit is with us. So he, which means he is not removed, he's not taken out of the picture. But the expression of the gifts is limited in what way? Because we are not walking in faith, right? The expression of the gift, that is why, you know, Paul even writes to Timothy and says, you know, stir up that gift. So in Timothy's case, we understand that he was not really, you know, what was limiting him? Paul says, you know, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound night. He's saying he's encouraging him, no, you stir up the gifts, you walk in it. In another place also he says, you know, these gifts, you walk in it. So he's exhorting Timothy. In Timothy's case, it was, he was withholding because of maybe fear. He was a young man, people who are older than him in the church where he was pastoring. So maybe it was that. So it could be that, it could be certain other things, it could be neglect, right? And so the expression of the gift is not effective or is not to the fullest measure because of something that is hindering, something that is lacking, something that is acting as a barrier, right? And so that is, that is possible. Yes, because of hardness of heart, because of unforgiveness, because we need to be, you know, without bias, without prejudice in receiving from God and hearing from him in releasing what we are hearing. So all this prejudice and bias is going to taint, right? The gift of God is perfect, but hearing from him and releasing those words, it's going to get tainted because of my own prejudice, my own fear, my own bias, my own lack of, or maybe hatred for a certain kind of people, right? It's going to get tainted. So, yeah, so that is a definite possibility. But the removal of gifts, well, we can't say that because the Holy Spirit is with us, right? The expression of it, yes, yeah. Thank you. You said it says it in Romans, Bobby, you're a vocable. Do you remember what verse? Yeah, yeah, it's Romans 11, and just one second, just give me a minute. Okay, Romans 11 and verse 29. Okay, thank you. Yeah, no sweat. Okay, so, Lucy, what about going to the cemetery and decorating it? Oh, it's okay, in follow up to these all souls day. Yeah, by all means, you can go, you can go, you know, put flowers and etc. As long as you're understanding, you know, and you know that you are actually thanking God for the ones who have gone on. You know, you're not in any way communicating with the dead. You're not in any way, you know, praying to the Lord for the dead, right? So, your understanding is this, that we are going thanking God for their life. Now you can't do anything about it. They are gone and in memory, you know, you place flowers and whatever. That's, that's perfectly all right. Okay, okay. Okay, let's get back, you know, to walking in faith, right? We need to walk in love. We need to desire these gifts. We're talking about the release of these gifts, right? And we need to step out in faith. Now, if you look at, you know, the scripture Galatians 3 verse 2, it says, Paul is actually rebuking the Galatian believers, right? Because they were going back to the law. They were saying, you know, they were talking about circumcision, keeping Moses law. Some people had calm and then kind of brought in that teaching. Yes, you're born again, that's fine, but you need to keep the law. Yes, you're born again, that's fine, but you need to be circumcised. And so in connection with that, Paul is rebuking the Galatian believers. And he says, you know, this is what he says. This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? How did you receive the gift? How did you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, right? Was it by faith? Verse 5, Therefore he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Again, it's a rhetoric question. He's, you know, rhetoric is just asking, stating, obviously it's by faith, because that has been the experience of the Galatian church. Again, verse 14, he says that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, right? So he's telling the believers, you know, the gifts of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit, how did that happen in your midst? Is it by law? Or some kind of formula? Some kind of do's and don'ts? Or was it by faith? Obvious answer? By faith. Okay, so we need to step out in faith, in order to experience the, for the gifts of the Spirit to be expressed through us, right? Okay, so point six and seven, we've already looked at it, that every believer can manifest all the nine gifts. The best gifts, that is point seven is about the best gifts, being the ones that suit the occasion, or take care of the need, or which take care of the, or enable you to do that function, for which you are there in the body of Christ, right? Okay, the other thing that we need to understand is that because spiritual things can be taught, believers can be taught and trained to learn about these gifts and to walk fully in the expression of these gifts. Okay, which is what we are learning, which is what we are doing now, right? Learning about these gifts. And in fact, this is what Paul did as he trained the believers in Corinth. He's saying, regarding spiritual gifts, I don't want you to be without knowledge or without understanding. I don't want you to be ignorant, right? So, spiritual gifts, spiritual things can be taught. So people, you know, the wrong understanding is that, okay, I cannot be taught about these gifts. Definitely, you know, if you look at, you know, let's say for example, gifts of tongues, gift of tongues. We can't talk, we can't teach the believer and say, okay, this is how you speak in it. These are the words you speak. Like this should be the utterance. We can't teach them in that way. But we can teach the believer about what scripture says, okay, this is a gift for you. It is for all believers. We can teach and how does one receive who baptizes, how does one receive? We can look at scriptures, look at these examples and therefore the believer can learn about these gifts, right? That is how, that is what we did, right? We looked at the scriptures, we saw the examples and yes, with faith we receive, we pray and ask the baptizer, Jesus, to baptize us, right? So the spiritual things can be taught. And the Lord Himself, right? When He commissioned the disciples, this is what He says. He says, you know, you teach them, you teach them all the things that I, as I taught you, you continue to teach them, make disciples and teach them all the things that I showed you, that I taught you, teaching them to observe, right? All the things. So yes, spiritual things can be taught, believers can be taught and trained and how to yield to the Holy Spirit in the accurate release of these gifts. Whereas, yeah, the other thing that we see is that gifts are not compartmentalized, they flow together, okay? For example, the word of knowledge can flow with the gifts of healings. How? God releases a word of knowledge, information that somebody, someone here is being oppressed or is having this condition, is having these symptoms in their body or in their mind. Word of knowledge, right? You have no clue, no idea about the audience or about the person with whom you are maybe on a phone call, right? You have no idea that this person is going through, but the Spirit of God reveals that that's the word of knowledge. You have the word of knowledge, right? Either you see something or you sense something, some prompting in your spirit and you realize that, yes, this person is going through this. So, the word of knowledge. Now, why did that word of knowledge come? Because the Lord wants to do something, right? He's revealed so you can share and that person also understands that, hey, I have a God or there is this God who knows all about me and he is compassionate about me. He cares for me, right? And the gifts of healings take care of the solution, right? Bringing about whatever change that needs to be brought in the body either to stop those symptoms or, you know, maybe the weight of oppression is taken out, right? And there's a release of Shalom, the peace of God, right? So that is the gifts of healing. So, gift of healings we are specifically talking about, physical symptoms and so on, right? Okay, so these flow to gather, meaning that, you know, all the nine gifts can just flow together. It need not be. See, we are learning it one by one to understand the functioning of it but the gifts can just flow together and it can be a mix of these gifts like flowing together, okay? Right. And these gifts empower membership gifts and ministry gifts, okay? Like we saw ministry functioning in and also the membership function, right? So this is a very interesting, you know, interesting thing that we note. Many times we make, we come to the wrong conclusion or we mix these two things. Okay, one is spiritual maturity, okay? And spirituality, two different things or spiritual sensitivity. Spiritual maturity is Christlikeness, right? Becoming like Him in character, in all aspects, spiritual maturity. But spirituality or moving in the gifts of the Spirit or spiritual power, receiving it and walking in it, these are two different things which means that just because a person or a church is spiritually gifted does not mean that they are spiritually mature, okay? Now, there's a lot of confusion because of that, right? In the body of Christ, you see that, okay, this person is so spiritually gifted, a word of knowledge is prophesying and yet in their life when it comes to character, certain flaws, right? Certain immaturity, certain things that they need to, you know, you see it and say, hey, this person has to grow up, but then how come the gifting is so strong? And then we sometimes say, maybe it's not of God, maybe this is the enemy, these are lying wonders, lying gifts, okay? Well, the thing is this, that a person need not be spiritually mature. At the same time, can be so spiritually sensitive and, you know, in faith and wanting the gifts of the Spirit and so on and walking in it by faith, right? So now, the thing is this, a classic example of a group of people like this, is the Corinthian church itself, right? Paul writes to the Corinthian church and he's saying, hey, I cannot speak to you as to mature people. I had to talk to you as to carnal, as to spiritual babes, he says. Why? Because there is envy, there is strife, there is division, right? You people are fighting amongst one another. You're saying I'm of Paul, okay, if you look at one Corinthian's one, you will understand that people are one Corinthian's one and then also one Corinthian's three, sorry. You know, I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with food, solid food. But until now, you're not able to receive it and you still you're not able and you are still carnal for there are, where there are envy, strife and divisions. Are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? Okay, so he's saying you are carnal. You're fleshly, right? At the same time, you know, one Corinthian's chapter one, if you look at verse, verse five. Okay, one Corinthian's chapter one and verse five. Same people. What is he saying? You were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift. Which means that, hey, you are there. You know, you're walking in all these gifts. It's a spiritually buzzing place, right? You come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord, etc. So this is who you are, right? You are walking the gifts. You come short in no gifts. In fact, they were really zealous for the spiritual gifts and walking in it. So he had to write to them and say, I know you are zealous, but understand the gifts of the Spirit are to edify the person and to glorify Christ. I know you are zealous, but understand that this is how you use these gifts in church, right? They are an expression of the Holy Spirit. They are gifts of grace. So he had to really instruct them, right? So it is possible for people to be immature, for people to be not Christ-like, to be carnal and be gifted, right? Or walking in these gifts, right? So that's a possibility. So just because somebody is gifted, somebody uses them and powerfully doesn't mean that they are spiritually mature or Christ-like. Two different things. And that is why Paul writes 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 1. What is he, right? Can anyone read the verse? 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1? Yeah, go ahead. Purse you love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. Okay, the first part of it. What does he say? Purse you? Love and desire spiritual gifts. Okay, first let's just look at those two words. Purse you love, okay? The word used there is agape. So he is saying go after. Let that be yours. Why are you going after it? Because you want it to be yours. The love of God, you want it to be in you, expressed in you, right? So what is love? The very nature, character of God. And if you look at chapter 13, okay, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 is all about the love of God, right? He's talking about the gifts and he's saying, hey, if you have all these gifts but you don't have love, which is really agape, God kind of love, then it's a waste, right? If you don't have these gifts, you might talk in tongues, you might pray in tongues, but it's just a clanging noise. It's absolutely noisy, right? Now you might have all these utterances and all that, but it's just a clanging symbol, he says, and you might have faith to remove mountains but if you don't have love, you are nothing. So what is he saying? He's talking about the love of God. He's talking about the character of God. He's talking about the nature of God. In other words, Christlikeness. Pursue that, go after that. But that's one part of the whole thing, part of the whole, right? Part of the story. Second part is desire, spiritual gifts, right? Go after the character, go after the power, the presence of God, right? In other words, just go after him, fully. Don't just say, okay, I want only character, I want only integrity, I want only thing. That's only part of it. That's a good part, yes. But that's still a part of who God is. He's saying, go after the whole, go after the fullness, which is character and power. So that you might express, you might express, you know, why? Because you might be witnesses with power, right? You might witness, you might witness fully as God himself wants you to witness, witnesses with power, right? So saying pursue that, desire that, and go after the gifts as well. So that also needs to be a mindset that we would pursue love and desire spiritual gifts. Yes, Shani. So if somebody has spiritual gifts, but they don't have spiritual maturity for what I want to make sure I'm understanding in terms of, you're saying that they may, sorry, they don't have spiritual maturity, they may have, like I guess you said, like I'm forgetting the same carnal. So does that mean that these people are having a gift? But does that mean that they're just limiting their gifts also? Yeah, absolutely. So they will be, you know, they might be sharp in the gifting, but over a period of time, if they are not growing into Christ-likeness, you know, it's going to be, the expression of these gifts is going to be painted, right? And then we see that other things creep in, right? They, rather than glorifying God, they end up bringing dishonor to the body of Christ. There's a lot of things happen because of manipulation. There's a lot of things happen because of misrepresentation. And, you know, if you look at it, why is there an apprehension about the power of God? Why is there an apprehension about these gifts in the body of Christ in the first place? It's because of misrepresentation. It's because, you know, people see their lives, people see their, you know, their gifting, and then they decide that, hey, their lives is not in sync with whatever they are sharing, with whatever they are, their lives are not in sync. And I don't want any part of it. Or you say, okay, you know, how can you be, call yourself a Christian? How can you do these things in ministry and yet in your own personal life, you know, not have the, you know, not have these things foundation. So, in the long run, it brings dishonour. In the long run, it, you know, it opens doors for errors to creep in and so on. Like, you know, during the orientation time here, we learned about these God's generals, these generals of faith, and looking at some of the things that they did well, some of the things that they did not do well, right? And the thing is this, they did not really, they lacked the fear of the Lord. They, in some cases, and in some cases, they didn't really take care of of pursuing Christlikeness in their lives, my personal lives, and therefore it ended up bringing dishonour. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Right. Okay. The other thing that we see is that the gifts of the spirit are not within, are not to be restricted within the walls of the church, right? Or, you know, when I'm gathering together for prayer, when I'm gathering together to go for worship, or when I'm having a, you know, church service, the gifts of the spirit are not to be, you know, restricted only in such an environment. The gifts of the spirit can be manifest anywhere. In fact, that is how it should be, right? In your marketplace, in the place of study, in the place, in the workplace, right? The gifts of the spirit to be manifest, you know, practically, you know, how do we practically do that? Well, we don't have to, you know, kind of lay hands and, you know, close, ask everybody to close their eyes and do that, but it can be a simple conversation, right? Maybe the Lord gives a word of knowledge, a word about the other person, maybe some difficulty that they're having in their lives, maybe some kind of symptom that they're experiencing in their body, right? And we can just ask, gently ask, as part of our conversation, hey, are you, you know, are you going through this, right? And that genuinely sparks curiosity in that person and the person says, how did you know, right? I didn't share it with anyone, how did you know? Then we share Jesus and we say, okay, we can pray, right? And we can pray, you know, I can pray for you and maybe there's a private space, we'll pray for you and so on. So the gifts of the Spirit are to be manifest right there in the marketplace, right? And even for us personally, you know, it's just not in the public gathering that we pray, you know, or in our quiet times that we pray in the Spirit, but we pray or pray in tongues, you know, we pray everywhere so that we can be edified, right? And of course, we don't have to scream and shout. The Spirit of the Prophet is subject to the Prophet, right? So you don't have to scream and shout. If you want to, you can scream and shout, but we can, you know, do so just between us and the Lord, pray in the Spirit, be edified in the inner man, right? So it's not just limited for the church service or a, you know, church environment or a Bible study environment. No, it's, it really is to be manifest in the marketplace out there, right, in our everyday routine because God wants to be expressed or God wants to express himself to the people who are lost, to the people who are hurting. He wants to show himself strong to everyone around, right? Okay, the gifts of the Spirit can be used to minister to all kinds of people. Okay, the question is, okay, should it be only for believers or should it be also for unbelievers, right? Obviously for all kinds of people, right? And then people ask, you know, but that person is not a believer, not, doesn't believe in Jesus, more so, right? Maybe it's the prophetic word, you know, word of encouragement, more so, right? The word that points them to Jesus, right? So all kinds of people, maybe people who do not know, people who know all kinds of people, right? Okay, right. So how do we do that? You know, how do we kind of build up or raise the expectation, desire and faith of people in the gathering for the gifts of the Spirit, to be expressed, okay? So we can share stories, we can share testimonies, preach and teach the word, demonstrate, right? We share about how, you know, God has worked in your own life. Maybe you can share how God worked in other people's life. Preach and teach, meaning this is how the gifts operate, teach the people. So people come from, you know, different church backgrounds, right? Maybe un-churched backgrounds without any kind of expectation. And then when they receive a revelation, okay, this is for us, right? Or, you know, I can be ministered to in this manner or I can minister in this manner. Then they, you know, they get an understanding of it, then they receive it and walk in it, right? So preaching and teaching is very important. As important as teaching and preaching is, it's also important to demonstrate, right? What is demonstration? That you yourself walk in it, right? When you're praying for them, when you're ministering with them, you expect the Lord to give you a word, you expect the Lord to, you know, maybe show you things and you expect the Lord to heal and so demonstrate, right, in your own life. So when you just testify and you demonstrate is a powerful example, okay? Okay, here's another thing. The gifts of the Spirit have to be tested in the New Testament testing or in the New Testament setting. This is what we see as an instruction, okay? If you turn to 1 Thessalonians 519 to 21, this is point 16 of what we are studying, right? 1 Thessalonians 519, okay? So Paul writes, do not quench the Spirit and the Holy Spirit is doing something, don't stop, you know, don't quench. Do not despise prophecies, okay? Despising meaning, don't hate, don't put it aside, right? Welcome it. So do not despise prophecies. And the third instruction in line with that is test all things, okay? So he's specifically talking about prophecy. He's saying test all things, right? And about the gifts of the Spirit also test all things, okay? What does it mean to test? It means to examine, to discern. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it from the Lord? Is it not from the Lord? Right? Is it based on the word or not? Test all things and then hold fast, which means hold on tightly to what is good, okay? Something that is valuable, something that is sincere, honest, sorry, not just sincere, but truthful, honest and something that is worthy. So when it comes to prophecy, when it comes to, you know, word of knowledge or word of wisdom and all these things, test it, examine it and hold on to it, right? That's the instruction. Hold on to what is good, which means we are not supposed to hold on to what is, what is? If he says hold on to what is good, it also means don't hold on to what is, what is bad or what is not good, okay? Which also talks about the possibility of something that is not so good, something that is good, something that is not so good. So when it comes to these spiritual gifts, right? When it comes to the expression of these gifts, so he's saying, when it comes to prophecies, hold on to what is good, what is honest, what is, you know, worthy, hold on to it and but why should we test? That's the thing, okay? He's saying test these gifts, hold on to what, why is it that there is a possibility of something that is not so good, right? See, these gifts are from God, yes or no? They're saying, you know, that's why they are called the gifts of the Spirit, they're not called gifts of man, right? They're called gifts of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a source. He has it, has these gifts and he's releasing. Then why test it? What do you think? Why should we test? Examine, investigate, discern. Why should we do it? Because there's hindrance from Satan. Because there is hindrance from Satan to... to stop these gifts. To stop these gifts, okay? Or to manifest these gifts. Yeah, so to maybe to influence, to infiltrate, it's a possibility, right? See, the first and foremost thing is that the gift of God is good. You need to understand, God is good. What comes from him is good. It's good. But you see, these gifts are expressed. These are expression of the Holy Spirit. But these are expressed through us, people, right? Who are growing, who are works in progress, right? Who are growing to be accurate, more and more accurate, right? So there could be... so that's the reason, you know, there could be things that out of our own flesh, we add certain things, we delete certain things maybe, out of our own flesh, right? Out of our own, I don't know, maybe zeal, right? We could add certain things, or out of our fear, we could delete certain things, right? To whatever God is saying. So, Paul is saying, you need to test. You need to test these things, right? And the test is okay. Does it agree with the Word of God? Right? Whatever the Spirit, whatever you think the Spirit is saying, is it in agreement with the Word of God? Or is it totally contradicting the Word of God? Right? Is it totally opposite of the Word of God? Then we know that, oh, God would never say it because His Word will not contradict. But the Spirit is leading, right? The will of God, the leading of God will not be in contradiction with the Word because the Word is the will of God. The Word is the nature of God, right? So, it is based on the Word. Okay. So, is it in accordance to Scripture? Does it glorify God? Yeah, yeah, a second. So, these are some things, right? Is it in accordance with the Word of God? Is it in accordance with the nature of God, the character of God, right? Something that is being brought. So, we are called to test, discern, hold on to what is good. So, the New Testament instruction to the body is this. Did someone want to ask a question? Okay. Right. I'm sorry, just one second. Okay. Just plugged in the charger, sorry. Okay. So, that's the understanding, right? So, therefore, the instruction, the exhortation is to test. Okay. So, which means that, okay, I'm so confident that God has spoken. You know, I almost want to say, Thus says the Lord, dear brother. Thus says the Lord, dear sister. You know, go do it. This is God saying, you know, you're so sure, you're so sure. But I need to humble myself. One has to humble oneself and say, you, you know, this is the word, but you test, right? You need to be humble enough to say, I sense this is what God is saying, but you receive it, you test it, right? And you receive confirmation on it and then you act according to it. We should be humble enough to just submit that word to whomever it is directed to. Right? So, I pray with you and I receive a word and I, yeah, of course I would say that this is what I sense God is saying. On your part, you need to say, okay, it could be anyone, right? It could be, you know, the person whom you look up to, the man of God, the woman of God, whoever, but your responsibility as a believer is to test. Okay, it's not, just because you test the word that has been given to you, it does not mean that you are in any way disrespecting the person, dishonoring the person, right? You know, this prophet came and this person, you know, prophet came and delivered this word and gave this and said, all these things is going to happen in your life, right? You're not disrespecting the person just by saying, no, I'm going to test it with the word, right? You receive it and you're saying, okay, does the word of God say this? You're not dishonoring that person. You're, in fact, doing the right thing by discerning according to the word of God. You're doing the right thing. This is what the scriptural example is or what its construction is, right? So, and as a person who's delivering the word, who's giving the word again, right? You should not feel, you know, what is this? I've given a word, this person is not acting on it and this person is not doing it. No, just submit it. We need to be humble enough to submit it and say, this is what I sense God saying, God is speaking, God is, you know, God is directing, but then you test and you, so you, you know, you submit, do the instruction of God's word and, you know, so in both cases, there is that safety, right? Okay, I think there's a question. Yeah, so you're saying that you should tell somebody that, I guess this is, this is what I'm sitting, God is saying, but tell them to test it out. You're saying we should tell that to the person. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, to say, okay, you know, this is what I sense God is saying, but you pray, you test, right? You check, now, if the other person is a Christian, is a believer, well, they would go back to the word, they would check, they would test. You know, there could be, you know, a simple direction like maybe to an unbeliever about the heart of God, about the nature of God, a word of knowledge, maybe we can ask it in the form of a question, right? Saying, okay, you know, this is what I sense God saying, is it true in your life? Now, do you have this thing in your life? Rather than saying, God saying this, God is doing this, and you know, without giving the person an option, right? To consider and to test, right? We should give the person the option and the opportunity to test, because that is what scripture asks us to do, right? And that is the reason for the testing. It's not that God's word is doubtful or wishy-washy, right? It is that, it is coming from God, it's coming, it is perfect, but we as believers, we as people who are learning, you know, and growing and changing from glory to glory, we are still works in progress. There will be certain things that will be accurate, there may be certain things that are, for example, I just shared this, right? You know, about prophecy, there was this, you know, like God is using this person as a prophet, okay? So that is his ministry. Now, he was praying for a couple, right? And the need of the couple was that, you know, that they didn't have any children and, you know, they wanted to be prayed for, and so he prayed and God showed him a word, right? That, you know, by this time next year, you will have a baby, okay? So, wow, wonderful. So he shared, right? But he was also, you know, he also knew them personally. He knew their need. But in his excitement, he said, by this time next year you will have a baby boy, okay? In his excitement, wow, all good. They all went back, same time next year. They wrote back to the prophet saying, thank you, brother so-and-so. You know, you remember, we just want to testify that God gave us a baby. There's just one correction. It's a girl baby, not a boy baby, right? And then the prophet had the humility to write back to them and say, and say, you know, I made a mistake, right? Well, God did show that he was giving you a baby. So I was so happy, and I shared that. But in my excitement, I just added that, you know, the gender part of it and said, boy baby, whereas, you know, that was my own excitement, my own, you know, happiness for you both in which I said this. Well, so in his humility, he corrected himself and said this, right? So, well, God's gift is perfect and so accurate and all that. But we, in our striving for growth and understanding, we make mistakes, right? Okay, let's move on. I want to come back to chapter five a little later, okay, after we have done with going through the gifts. So let's go to chapter seven. Chapter six is about our spirit senses and we looked at it in detail, the spirit sense of feeling, you know, and so on, like just like how, how we have our five physical senses, we look, we saw that there is a parallel in our spirit, like we can see in our spirit, we can hear in our spirit, right? We can sense in our spirit and we must be open as we are praying, as we're waiting on God, we must be open to sense things in our spirit man. So we looked at that in detail, right? So let's go to chapter seven in, you know, in your books. Okay, yeah, so gifts of tongues. So we see that in 1.12, we see this list, okay? And we see verse 10, it says different kinds of tongues. Okay, it's listed there. Different kinds of tongues as one of the gifts as well. So let's look at that. Okay, different kinds of tongues. What is it? It is a supernatural ability, like we saw to speak in the languages, right? Languages of men or language of angels. In other words, earthly language or a heavenly language. Okay, so 1.13 verse one says, you know, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, tongues of men, earthly language, tongues of angels, heavenly language. You know, different kinds of tongues. We see that, you know, when we look at the gifts of tongues, we see that there are different kinds of tongues. You know, one is the tongues which is given as a personal prayer language for our personal edification, right? For our personal edification. So we are edified even as we pray and it's just between you and God, you are praying in tongues, you pray more often and you are being personally edified. You receive revelation from the Holy Spirit, the mysteries of God are made known to you. Well, there are sometimes certain things that we don't know what we should pray for. You know, Romans chapter 8 verses 25-26 talks about that. We don't know what we should pray for. The Holy Spirit gives us those utterance and we speak. Sometimes we have weaknesses, right? We have shortcomings and we want to overcome those while the Holy Spirit enables us how again through praying in tongues. So these are ways by which we are personally edified. So the tongues, different kinds of tongues, the gift of tongues is for personal edification. So the use of tongues is for personal edification. Second thing that we see is that it could be for intercession for others, right? One is for you. The other thing is it's used as an intercession for others. Why? Because Holy Spirit knows the needs of others, right? So it's used as deep intercession for others in groanings and words which cannot be uttered because the Holy Spirit knows the needs and so it could be for interpretations. Thirdly, sorry, intercession. Thirdly, it is used as a message to the church. For example, Paul writes and he says, if somebody speaks in tongues to a gathering in a church, let it be with interpretation. Otherwise, how will they know? How will they understand, right? And that is what we see in 1 Corinthians 14, right? It says in verse 5, I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied. For he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets that the church may receive edification. He uses that word greater, meaning there is benefit to the church only if they understand, right? If they are receiving edification. You might be personally edified, but how will the church be edified unless there is understanding or interpretation, right? So he says, unless indeed he interprets that the church may receive edification. Verse 6, But now brethren, if I come to you speaking with new tongues, with tongues, sorry, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation, by knowledge, by prophesying or by teaching, okay? And so he's talking in this whole passage about interpretation of tongues. If there's a message in church, if there is a public address of the gathering in tongues, there needs to be interpretation. So there are, again talks about how tongues can be interpreted, right, to the church congregation. And tongues also, now it talks about the fourth one, we'll stop with this. It talks about how tongues is a sign to the unbeliever, okay? The example that we see is in Acts chapter 2, how the disciples who were there, the 120 who were there were filled with the Holy Spirit. They started speaking in tongues, praising God in other tongues, and it was a sign to the unbelievers, right? There were people who had gathered there, Jewish people, from the neighboring areas, and they heard their own languages being spoken, and therefore it was a sign. This is something amazing, right? They heard God's word being spoken, God being praised in their own language through people who did not know the language for sure, right? So it was a sign that pointed about something supernatural happening. It was a sign that pointed to the fact that God was something, God was releasing something, right? And so it gave an opportunity for Peter to share the word, and after the word, people asked them the question, what must we do, right? It gave them an opportunity to ask the question, and then Peter shares and says, so this is what you must do. And then we see that thousands were saved that day. They came to the saving knowledge of Christ. So it's a sign to the unbeliever. A sign board always points, right? A sign always points. It could be an arrow pointing, saying, okay, this is it. This is the way you should go. This is the answer. This is the destination. So tongues is also a sign to the unbeliever, okay? Okay, we'll continue next class onwards. Probably we'll move a little quicker, right, with the gifts. Okay, thank you. God bless.