Spiritual Gifts, Part 3

Sermons of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 603 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The gift of prophecy is one of the most unusual spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. It has been dismissed, over-emphasized, and abused throughout church history. In a sermon on Romans 12:6 titled “Spiritual Gifts (3),” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones illustrates both the dismissal and abuse of this teaching in the church. He does not just give a history lesson on the misuse of the gift of prophecy; he expounds the biblical teaching on it. Walking carefully through each interpretation, he explains various understandings of the apostle Paul’s teaching on prophecy and faith. In the end, Dr. Lloyd-Jones sides with the teaching that says Paul is calling the church to prophesy in proportion to the faith – the objective body of doctrine. He makes a strong and compelling case for the importance of systematic theology in the Christian life. Furthermore, by outlining general principles for discerning prophetic utterances, he assists Christians in applying biblical teaching on testing the spirits. The Holy Spirit will always be consistent with what He has given in Scripture. Finally, Dr. Lloyd-Jones notes the mysterious nature of the Scripture’s teaching on the topic of miraculous gifts. The Spirit is always sovereign of the gift, yet according to Scripture, the Christian can quench the Spirit.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the following sermon, Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones is preaching from Paul's letter to the Romans,
0:04.9	chapter 12, verse 6. That's Romans, chapter 12 and verse 6.
0:11.2	Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,
0:16.8	whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.
0:23.3	Now here, as we saw last Friday night, the apostle,
0:26.5	comes to the application of certain principles
0:29.3	which he has been laying down in the previous verses
0:32.5	with regard to the exercising of spiritual gifts in the church, his point is that they must always be thought of and conceived of,
0:43.1	in terms of the great controlling doctrine that the church is the body of Christ.
0:49.9	And that we must never think of the gifts in and of themselves, we must never think of ourselves
0:54.9	possessing gifts in and of ourselves. We must always think of them in terms of the body, the good
1:02.8	of the body, the edification of the body, and the well-being of the body. But the point that
1:08.6	he makes in particular, of course, is this. At the moment we
1:12.9	understand that these gifts vary, as the members of the body vary, but that all are essential
1:23.1	and all are important. We shall then be put right on this dangerous tendency to exalt
1:31.3	overmuch in particular gifts and thereby cause not only confusion but unhappiness and even sin
1:38.3	in the life of the church. His great statement is therefore that the gifts differ according to the grace that is given to us.
1:47.0	We all have some gift, and we've considered how it is we may discover what that gift is.
1:56.0	And now we are looking at this first illustration that he takes up in order to illustrate
2:02.0	these general principles.
2:04.5	The first gift he looks at is the gift of prophecy.
2:08.7	Now all we did last Friday was to define in general what is meant by this gift of prophecy.
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