<TITLE>04. Par 12-15</TITLE>L-12 See, we have to be what we are. "Gifts and callings are without repentance." When you were born in this world, before the world ever begin, God knew you, positionally placed you. If that isn't so, then the Bible isn't so. That's exactly. God put our names on the Lamb's Book of Life, not when you come to the altar, but before the foundation of the world. That's right. That's what the Bible said.
That's... When was the Lamb slain? Before the foundation of the world. And when the Lamb was slain, your name was put on His Book. God by His foreknowledge saw all things. He's infinite. He knowed the end from the beginning. He isn't willing that any should perish. That's not His desire. But being God, He had to know who would, and who would not. See? Like Esau and Jacob, He hated one and loved the other one before they was even born and had a chance to do anything, because He was God; He knowed all things.

L-13 Now, see, and gifts and calling are without repentance. Jesus couldn't help being the Son of God. He was--He was the Son of God, foreordained, predestinated before the foundation of the world, and even slain before the foundation of the world. See? That's right.
Isaiah saw John the Baptist seven hundred and twelve years before he was born, and said, "He's the voice of one crying in the wilderness." Is that right? He couldn't help being John the Baptist; he was John the Baptist because God had ordained him John the Baptist.
I believe it was Ezekiel the prophet, or Jeremiah, Jeremiah, I believe it was, the prophet. I believe Jeremiah 1:4, he said, I... "Before you was even conceived or formed in the womb I knew you, sanctified you, and called you, and ordained you a prophet to the nations," before he was even formed in his mother's womb. Sure. See? God has set in the church, first apostles, prophets, and so forth.

L-14 Now, then, gifts, where Paul said, "I pray earnestly for the best gift." That's church gifts; that's not offices. There's a gift and then an office. It's an office, that's a prophet. There's a lot difference between a prophet and a gift of prophecy. Before a gift of prophecy really should be given in the church, it has to come before two or three judges that's got the--the gift of discernment, to say whether it can even be said. But never did you see anybody stand before Isaiah to judge it. See? He was borned a prophet. Them prophets, they were... They had THUS SAITH THE LORD right up through life. See? See, it's a lot of difference.
What the... Oh, I think what the church needs is a real good Scriptural lesson on things. And then there's no slip ups. If somebody gets up and speaks in tongues, one gives the interpretation... Now, I'm not a judge, no, but by discernment you can tell it. Some of it is purely flesh. They say, "Behold He cometh. Behold He cometh." and something like... Why, sure, we all know that. God said, "Don't use vain repetition," told us not to, and He wouldn't do it.

L-15 When in our church, when they give one of them, when I had my church, rather, when I first become Pentecostal, if a prophecy was given... All the gifted people met first. And they used... they're part of the church. They brought out, say, somebody spoke in tongues, and somebody gave the interpretation, it had to be something directly to the church, had to be a message: "Tell Brother So-and-so get away from this, and don't do this, or don't be at this corner at time, 'cause certain thing's going to happen." And then before that could be given then, it had to be discerned by two or three different discerners. And they put their name on a paper and laid it on my desk, and I give it out to the church. If it happens, thank God. If it didn't, I wouldn't let them do it no more till they got that evil spirit away from them. That's right; that's right.


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