John 4:16-19 “Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." (17) The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,’ (18) for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly." (19) The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.”
The question is asked, once an individual has received a spiritual gift, and knows what that gift is, and they have discerned their level of faith to operate in their gift, can they operate that gift whenever they desire? In order to answer that question we will look at one of the gifts of the Spirit as an example, and the example we will look at is the gift of the word of knowledge. God is omniscient. This simply means that God knows everything, i.e. He has all knowledge. One, who receives the gift of the word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit, does not have all knowledge. In other words they do not also become omniscient, for the gift is called the “word of knowledge”. In other words when this gift is in operation the Holy Spirit gives the individual just a very small fraction of His knowledge i.e. a word. And so a more accurate way of describing the gift, is that one who has received this gift has been enabled by the Holy Spirit to receive words of knowledge from Him when He chooses to impart that knowledge to them. The words of knowledge that are revealed to the individual by the Holy Spirit are always supernatural. In other words it is not possible for the individual to know in the natural, that which the Holy Spirit reveals to them. The above quoted passage of scripture is a clear example of the gift of the word of knowledge in operation through our Lord’s ministry. The Lord Jesus walked this earth as the Son of Man and not as the Son of God. And so as a man He was filled with the Holy Spirit and operated in the gifts of the Spirit just as we do (obviously with a greater degree of anointing, and He also operated in all of the gifts whereas we are limited to only certain gifts). And so we see that in this account the Holy Spirit revealed to Jesus that this woman had been married five times before, and that she was now living with another man who was not her husband. Jesus did not know this information in the natural because He had never met this woman before. The Holy Spirit on the other hand, who was residing in Jesus, knew everything about this woman and chose to reveal this particular piece of information to the Lord. The reason the Holy Spirit did this was so that Jesus could then minister the gospel to her. I want you to notice that this woman now knew that she was having an encounter with God and not a man (you will recall earlier that I stated that the gifts of the Spirit were in fact an encounter with God), because she now called Jesus a prophet. And so she was now far more receptive to hearing what Jesus had to say, after she recognized that He was indeed speaking to her as God’s minister.
2 Kings 4:27 “Now when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, "Let her alone; for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me, and has not told me.”
We have established that one, who has received the gift of the word of knowledge, has received the ability to receive supernatural words of knowledge from the Holy Spirit. The question is then asked, can that individual ask the Holy Spirit at any time to reveal to them words of knowledge about people or events as they desire, and the Holy Spirit is then obliged to grant them their request? In other words does the one who has the gift operate the gift or does the Holy Spirit operate the gift? In order to answer that question we can again look at accounts in scripture of the gift of the word of knowledge in operation. Our first example that we will look at is in the above quoted passage of scripture. The context of this account is that this woman, that Elisha the prophet knew quite well, had come to him for help because her son had died. As a prophet Elisha operated in the gift of the word of knowledge. Prophets under the old covenant were used by the Lord to give words of knowledge and words of wisdom to the children of Israel when they came to inquire of God through the prophet, for that was their mandate (1 Samuel 9:9). And so if Elisha operated the gift, then he would have known what the woman wanted before she spoke, because obviously he was looking to the Lord for the gift to be made manifest. But the Lord revealed nothing to Elisha. And so we see that the Holy Spirit was not obliged to give Elisha any word of knowledge, because the Holy Spirit is the one who operates the gift and not the prophet.
Mark 2:8 “But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, "Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?”
We have looked at an example in the Old Testament to demonstrate the truth that we don’t operate the gifts, but that rather the Holy Spirit does. The next example we want to look at in the above quoted passage of scripture, is the ministry of Jesus. The context of this passage is that Jesus had just mentioned to someone that their sins were forgiven. The moment Jesus said that, the Pharisees began to say in their hearts that He was blaspheming. And so the Holy Spirit knew what they were thinking and He then revealed information that to Jesus. Jesus did not know that in the natural. And so when Jesus perceived in His spirit what the Holy Spirit had shared with Him, He was able to respond to them as He did. But I want you to notice that Jesus didn’t ask the Holy Spirit to tell Him what they were thinking. The Holy Spirit is the one who initiated the gift of the word of knowledge in this instance, and Jesus then acted on that information.
Luke 8:4548 “And Jesus said, "Who touched Me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?' “(46) But Jesus said, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me." (47) Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. (48) And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
The next example that we will look at is also from Jesus’ ministry. In His earthly ministry, if the Holy Spirit did not give Jesus supernatural words of knowledge, then Jesus was limited to the natural just as you and I are. That truth is clearly revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture. Obviously Jesus did not lie in this passage and He genuinely did not know who touched Him. He only knew that power had gone out of Him, but because the Holy Spirit did not in this instance reveal to Jesus who it was that touched Him, even though clearly Jesus wanted that information, He had to ask who touched Him. Again this example illustrates to us that the gifts of the Spirit are controlled by the Holy Spirit and not by man, for if the Lord Jesus was not able to exercise the gifts of the Spirit at will, then we certainly can’t either.
1 Corinthians 12:11 “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”
From the examples that we have looked at in this section, we can clearly see that the Holy Spirit manifests Himself through His gifts as He wills and not as we will. In other words it is not the one who has the gift that decides when the Holy Spirit must manifest His gift, for as we have already seen, if Jesus couldn’t operate the gifts Himself then neither can we. And so we see a principle revealed, i.e. God the Holy Spirit does not work for us; we work for Him. The above quoted passage of scripture confirms that truth for us, for in this passage the apostle Paul clearly teaches us that it is the Holy Spirit that works the gifts as He wills. As an aside, this is the one area that Satan loves to try deceive the saints, i.e. in the use of counterfeit spiritual gifts. For various reasons, it is mainly in “words of knowledge” that familiar spirits operate through the false ministers of the gospel. And so whenever the saint’s encounter a “minister” that is able to give words of knowledge at will, they can be assured that the “minister” is operating with familiar spirits. The reason why the false minister is able to give words of knowledge at will, is because the agenda of the demons he or she is working with, is to deceive the church, and so the demons are only too keen to share their knowledge with whomever will work with them. Nevertheless, even though the words given may be accurate, they can only reveal events, locations and facts for example, but they cannot reveal the secrets of one’s heart, for demons cannot look into the heart of man, only God can (1 Corinthians 14:25).
Michael E.B. Maher
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